Monthly Archives: August 2023

Hello, Holly!

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Holly Alloway’s work first came to my attention when Studio Stitch featured this quilt as the 2022-2023 Block of the Month (BOM).

Quilt (c) Holly Alloway, designed and made by her

You can see why I took notice! Holly recently agreed to talk with me and show me some of her quilts.

Holly designed this BOM several years ago using Deb Tucker’s rulers and techniques. Quilt design (c) Holly Alloway

Like many of us, Holly has been sewing all her life, though she started making quilts “only” about 40 years ago. She has lived various places around the country and has found both guilds and classes useful in her development as a quilter.

Another BOM using Deb Tucker rulers. Quilt design (c) Holly Alloway

Holly has a particular affinity for specialty rulers and a significant talent for designing with them.

This crate contains part of Holly’s collection of specialty rulers

She loves Deb Tucker’s rulers and has done several previous BOM designs using them.

More of Holly’s designs using Deb Tucker’s rulers

When I asked how she came to design the elaborate quilt shown at the top of this post, Holly said, “Well, Jaybird Quilts came out with those rulers.” She had already designed some modifications of English Paper Pieced (EPP) quilts so she could machine piece them.

Using the Jaybird Quilts rulers, Holly set about making many more EPP designs by machine.

Eventually she had re-designed enough EPP blocks for three quilts! The first is at the top of this post; here are two more.

And that’s not all! Holly is also a fan of strip piecing. I especially enjoyed seeing these two quilts.

And here’s the most unique thing: I originally asked to interview Holly because of her UFO management strategy. She allows herself only as many ongoing projects as she has years of life left! She has asked her family to give her a set of papier mache numbers each year representing how many projects she’s allowed to have!

I won’t tell you how many that is right now–I didn’t ask and she didn’t tell 😀  She does admit to being “over budget” presently due to several projects she has going. I just love this idea! We all need to get realistic with our quilting plans.

This bag is a current UFO for Holly.

Holly has made many more beautiful quilts than I could include here. I’m sorry to say she doesn’t publish her patterns, but we have enjoyed having her daughter teach some of her blocks in the BOM program at Studio Stitch.

Please note that all original blocks or quilts in this post are (c) Holly Alloway, various years.

 

Two Quilts for Flying Horse Farms

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Yes, the quilts do seem to come in pairs lately.

Flying Horse Farms is a camp “where children with serious illnesses live without limits”. A friend started making quilts to donate to them, so several of us have joined in. Here are the two I have made most recently.

Quilt for a Boy is 58″ x 72″, made from batiks using a modification of the classic Turning Twenty Again pattern. I’ve made that pattern numerous times and every one has turned out great. The camp especially needs quilts for older boys, and I thought this would fit.

Fun fact: this quilt incorporates a cotton handkerchief I found on the trail during a hike years ago!

And the back is an end-of-bolt batik I bought years ago as well.

Mod Owls, 62″ x 75″, was made because I bought these cute plaid fabrics and needed something cute to do with them. My blogging friend Elizabeth sometimes refers to being caught in the “dungeon of cute”, and I guess I was.

The pattern is “Mod Owls” from Sew Kind of Wonderful and uses both sizes of their original rulers. I still really dislike making curves without seam allowances, but I just had to do this quilt and was too lazy to design new templates, so here it is.

And look at this owl panto Linda used!

The backing was donated by a friend and I found some plaid for the binding!

I think it will be a cute quilt for some kid at camp.

Both quilts were quilted by Linda Nichols.

 

Starting Bloem

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I had seen Libs Elliott’s Bloem quilt several places online before I found the pattern at Five Little Monkeys recently, so when I saw the pattern I decided to make the quilt.

I got these two patterns at Five LIttle Monkeys and I’m starting Bloem, the pattern on the left

I like the fact that the quilt is designed for several alternative layouts, and I like the bright colors. When I bought the pattern I thought I already had templates for most of the blocks, but when I got home and looked at the templates they weren’t quite right.

So I got a big piece of template plastic and some spray adhesive and made templates.

I found that just tracing the templates onto the plastic wasn’t too great because it was hard to see the clear plastic template! However, it worked great to cut out the paper shape,  spray it with adhesive on the printed side, and then put the printed-and-sprayed side on the plastic. I used crummy scissors to cut out the plastic, of course!

And naturally I had to re-design the quilt to suit myself, both in terms of the blocks used and the colors. Here are a few of my attempts on EQ (Electric Quilt 8).

This is my modification of the Bloem pattern from Zen Chic

And here’s the quilt so far on the design wall. Some of the blocks are overlapping so they’d all fit.

 

I’ll keep you posted!

 

Two More Orphan Block Quilts

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As I probably have mentioned, I have over 100 orphan blocks. Some are from swaps, some from blocks I made to learn something, some just extras from quilts I’ve made.

Yes, that bin is full of smaller orphan blocks, with the big orphans stacked on top!

I have made numerous quilts in the past to use some of them up. Here are a few just for review.

Aha! Orphan blocks can be cut up to make new blocks, as I did with my Giant Circles quilt, here

I’ve used orphan blocks to make greeting cards, here

orphan block on bag

This is a great use for orphan blocks. Just attach to a bag, and you have a handmade gift!

Splendid Stars, 51″ x 53″, was made from orphan blocks left from numerous projects

And of course I’ve attached orphan blocks to shirts.

quilt block on a shirt

Here’s another orphan block on a shirt

Recently I was browsing patterns and noticed that the folks at Maple Island Quilts had used one of their patterns to set some orphan blocks, so of course I ordered the pattern.

I have made two quilts. Here’s the first, which I considered the less successful of the two.

Quilt made using orphan blocks and the BQ5 pattern from Maple Island Quilts.

I thought the points coming together would make the design cohesive, but the blocks were just too dissimilar. And yes, there is a “mistake” block that I decided to leave “as is” when including it in the quilt 😀

Oops. But this is not the time to re-make this block!

The second quilt was made with the other design offered in the pattern, and I believe the blocks are more homogeneous as well.

Finished quilt 54″ x 68″, made from BQ5 pattern

Perhaps Elvis helped this quilt be more successful.

But the favorite block is this one. It’s a print from many years ago. I used the fabric to make a quilt for a friend who is a child psychologist.

What do you do with orphan blocks? How many do you have?

And just in case you have a LOT, the BQ5 pattern is available here. It is well written and I do recommend Maple Island Quilt patterns because I’ve never had any trouble following their directions! Several other patterns in the line would work for orphan blocks, too.