Blogger's Quilt Festival 2017

It's time once again for the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. There is an amazing variety of quilt styles on display, and I can't wait to spend more time checking out all the gorgeous creations!

My entry for this year is the Star Cluster baby quilt that I made for our great-niece Flora. 

Star Cluster baby quilt for Flora

My inspiration was the quilt Interlocking Stars, shared in 2015 by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Her starting point was a pattern called Star Cluster by Judy Martin. Judy's pattern is for a block that finishes at either 12" or 16". Sarah super-sized the pattern into a 64" single-block quilt. I went half-way in between the two--the center of my quilt finished at 32", and the border brought the finished size up to 37.5" square.

Star Cluster by Judy Martin

12 or 16" block

Interlocking Stars by Sarah Craig

I had such a good time making the first Star Cluster quilt, that I ended up making two more for other new babies. I varied the piecing for the centers of the stars and also changed up the borders for each quilt.

Star Cluster baby quilt for Charlotte

Star Cluster baby quilt for Fritz

I am linking up to the Fall 2017 Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. Check it out for tons of amazing quilting creativity!


Julie in GA

Going for the Greens

Green is the color for May at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Green is also one of my favorite colors for quilting. My shelf of green fabrics is stuffed full, and I have lots of scraps and pieces for use in my rainbow projects. I made progress on four different projects that include green this week (although they are not all scrap quilts, but they do include the right color.)

I made a little progress on both of my on-going RSC projects, the applique circles and the bowtie blocks. I have been stitching circles on the train, and the bowties have been my leader/ender blocks. I will be making more of both kinds of blocks before the end of the month.

"True Colors" by Nancy Mahoney

from the book Simple Circles and Quick Curves

Rainbow Bowties
4" blocks

The majority of my quilting time over the past week was spent on my green UFO project, the leftover Blooming 9-Patch parts. I finished making more blocks to go with the ones I already had. I had been auditioning a couple of border fabrics last weekend, but was very happy to discover that I had another piece of the darkest green (like the setting triangles at the bottom) and can use that for the border. I have started joining the parts together and hope to have a finished top to show next week.

Voting has begun for the Blogger's Quilt Festival which includes my Dancing Stars Quilt in the ROYGBIV category. This was my RSC project from 2013. You can vote by going HERE and click on the little heart on your favorite to cast a vote.

Dancing Stars 60" x 77"
pattern by Amy Ellis

Check out all of the terrific scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I will also be linking up on Sunday to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

Julie in GA

Blogger's Quilt Festival--Dancing Stars

Once again it is time for the spring Blogger's Quilt Festival, the wonderful online quilt show organized by Amy at Amy's Creative Side. There is always an overwhelming array of amazing quilts entered in the festival. I can't wait to start working my way through the entries and seeing the beautiful quilts!

My entry for this spring started as part of the Dancing Stars quilt-along designed by Amy Ellis, our hard-working hostess for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Here is the pattern design from Amy's Craftsy store. Not only is it a spectacular pattern, it's also available for free! 

I made my blocks all throughout 2013 as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The blocks are foundation pieced, and the finished block size is 6". We were assigned a monthly color, and I made about a dozen blocks each month, ending up with a total of 135 stars at the end of the year. 111 of those blocks were used in the finished quilt.

Dancing Stars 60" x 77"
pattern by Amy Ellis

The quilt back is just as much fun as the front. The wonderful batik fabric for the back came from a skirt that I bought at a rummage sale. It was made up of rectangular pieces of fabric, which I took apart and pieced back together for this quilt back. The binding is the same solid black as the background of the stars.

QUILT SPECS:

Dancing Stars

Finished size: 60" x 77"

Pattern: "Dancing Stars" by Amy Ellis, available HERE

Blogger's Quilt Festival ROYGBIV Category

Bloggers will be posting their entries in 11 different categories for the Blogger's Quilt Festival until May 21st. Check out the incredible quilting artistry on display HERE. Voting for your favorites runs from May 22nd until the 29th. The rainbow quilts, including my Dancing Stars, can be found HERE.

Julie in GA

Blue stars for May

It took me most of the month to really get going on my Dancing Stars blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This month's color is bright blue. The blocks that I have finished this month have a combination of both hand and machine stitched foundation piecing. I decided to try making them by hand to take along as a travel project on a couple of recent trips. It has worked out well, although they are VERY slow to stitch by hand. 

My favorite time each month after I finish making stars in the new color is to see how they look with all the previous colors. It gets more exciting to see the combinations every month! This photo shows just under half of the total number of blocks I have made so far.

I am linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2013, where you can see all sorts of wonderful ways that other quilters have been using their blue scraps this month. It's never too late to join the fun! The Dancing Stars pattern is available as a free download at Amy's Creative Side.

Also happening at Amy's Creative Side is the Blogger's Quilt Festival. There are tons of amazing quilts entered in a variety of categories. You can go HERE to find the main page with links to all the different categories. I entered my Blazing Hidden Nine-Patch quilt in wall hangings, #34, which can be found HERE. You can vote for your favorite quilt in each category until May 31st.

Julie in GA

Design Wall Monday 5/20/13

The center of my Scrappy Sampler BOM is still up on the Design Wall, but a few blocks have been added since last week. Our assignment this month is to make 8 blocks that will finish at 8" each. So far I have finished 6 of them. 

I entered my Blazing Hidden Nine-Patch quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

It is entry #34 in the wall hanging category which can be found here. Voting for favorites begins on Friday, May 24th. To find links for all the categories, visit Amy's Creative Side.

As usual, I will be linking up to Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.  Check out all the great inspiration there. 

Julie

It's Blogger's Quilt Festival time!

Once again it is time for the spring Blogger's Quilt Festival, the wonderful online quilt show organized by Amy at Amy's Creative Side. 

There will be tons of fabulous, amazing quilts in all of the categories.  I can't wait to see what everyone has entered this spring. Last fall was the first time I followed the festival, and I was overwhelmed by how many incredible quilts were shown.

I haven't finished many quilts since last fall's festival, but I do have one that I am especially proud of.  This is my Blazing Hidden Nine-Patch.

The top for this quilt was made for my quilt guild's nine-patch challenge. It wasn't until last year that I was able to get it quilted. I have always thought it looks like the glow of a fire showing through a dark screen, so it was quilted with a flame pattern.

This is my favorite type of quilt to make--a very simple pattern made special by the choice of fabrics. It is one of my all-time favorite quilts, and I hope you like it too.  I have entered it in the wall quilt category.  You can see all the entries in this category here.  Voting for your favorites begins May 24th. For more info about the festival and to see all the categories/entries go here.

QUILT SPECS:

BLAZING HIDDEN NINE-PATCH

Finished size: 46" x 58"

Pattern: "Atlanta Commons" by Marti Michell in her book 101 Nine Patch Quilts

Blogger's Quilt Festival #34 in wall hangings

Julie in GA

Design Wall Monday 11/5/12

MY QUILT MADE THE FINALS!!

This afternoon I got an email with the exciting news that my Storm at Sea quilt had been nominated as one of the favorite quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I am so thrilled to be included in the final voting, especially since this is my first time taking part in the event.  

Those of you who have been reading my blog over the past several months have followed along with the progress of this quilt.  I have appreciated all the comments and support along the way.  

If you haven't already voted for your favorites, you can do so HERE.  My Storm at Sea is in the bed quilt category.  Voting ends this Thurs., Nov. 8th.

The only addition to my design wall for the week is the two most recent Grandmother's Choice blocks.  That makes a total of 10 blocks plus 2 duplicates.  As the blocks get finished, I am liking the way they look together more and more.  Only 39 more to go!

Check out what others have been working on at  Patchwork Times.  Also be sure to vote for your favorite quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Julie

Blogger's Quilt Festival--Storm at Sea

This is my first time posting to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I have been having such a great time checking out everyone else's posts.  Thanks to Amy for putting it all together.  Go to Amy's Creative Side to see all the other entries.  (I couldn't figure out how to get the button into my blog.)

It was easy to pick which quilt to show for the festival.  There haven't been many finishes this year, but I just completed the Storm at Sea quilt that I started in 2001!  I had been collecting fabrics in shades of blue, teal, green, aqua, and purple for quite a while, but couldn't settle on what I wanted to make.  Then I found the background fabric with sea anemones on it--that had to be a sign that it was time to make a Storm at Sea.   

I worked on this quilt on and off for a couple of years.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish it, which was the reason it kept being set aside.  Then in late 2003, I took a job that had me travelling full-time, which lasted until 2 years ago.  I was able to do some quilting on the road, but never got back to this project.

I was going through my extensive collection of UFOs at the beginning of 2012, with the goal of getting some of them finished before the end of the year.  For some reason, the Storm at Sea was the quilt that wanted to be worked on first.  

Instead of the usual large square at the center of the unit, I decided to complicate the pattern even more and make that part as a nine-patch instead.  To tell the truth, it was just a way to get more fabrics into the quilt, especially some of the lighter colored ones.   It was such a trip down memory lane to play with these fabrics again after letting them "age" for over 10 years.   At some point I figured out that there were around 3700 pieces in this quilt.  Below you can see the different units that I was making for the quilt.

The main decision still remaining on this project was the design of the pieced border.  I had originally planned on the following design, which gives a scalloped look around the outside.   

Instead, I decided to go with a row of spiky stars surrounding the center.  I like the additional background spaces, and this design brought the quilt to a better finished size for my bed.

Center section with quilt  blocks sewn together.

Quilt top finished--late May 2012

Quilted and bound, October 2012--it's finished!  

After seeing it on the bed, I decided I need to make matching pillowcases.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats:

Finished quilt measures : 87" x 96″

Quilted by : Jan Walsh, Cat's Meow Quilting

Best Category : Bed Quilt, Professionally Quilted, Scrap Quilt

Thanks for taking a look at my quilt. Enjoy all the other fabulous inspiration at the Bloggers Quilt Festival

Julie