Category Archives: Free Quilt Pattern

Some Scrappy Fun

Posted on by
8

When you’ve been quilting as long as I have, you own an endless supply of scraps (and sometimes not much yardage). Therefore, here are a few more recent scrap quilts, all for donation to various places.

This first one was made from blocks I used as leaders and enders. I took a bag of single-color scraps and joined them randomly, sometimes inserting a spark of another color just for fun. The background is a navy fabric with fun gold swirls that I’ve had for some time and needed to use!

Happy Scrappy, 61″ x 69″; this one will go to Flying Horse Farm

This next quilt was made from a free pattern called Wickedly Easy Quilts, available at byannie.com. However, be aware that the format on the site has changed since I got the pattern. It used to be just a free pattern; now it’s part of a free course. Whatever.

As I’ve mentioned before, I cut my scraps into standard widths and store them that way. This quilt was made by pulling blues, greens, and orange accent strips from those storage drawers.

Wickedly Easy quilt, 49″ x 49″; this is a lap quilt for the senior center

Finally, here is another Circle of Nine quilt using improvisational blocks made from a combination of orphan blocks and scraps.

Circle of 9 quilt, 54″ x 54″, a lap quilt for the senior center

Do you have a favorite scrap quilt pattern or method?

Another Batch for Ronald McDonald House

Posted on by
22

When the quilt closet gets too full, it’s time to send some to various organizations that use them as comfort quilts. Ronald McDonald House of Cincinnati has been a favorite over the years, in part because they are so appreciative when the lady from our group brings the quilts to them. Therefore, these 8 are going to them.

This first quilt was made in 2009. It hasn’t been given away yet in part because I love all those floral fabrics and in part because it was pulled a bit out of shape by an inexperienced quilter who will remain nameless. The pattern is called Crumbs, notwithstanding that the name has been used for a very different quilt since that time.

Second is this quilt made last year and entitled Bright Scraps. No pattern; I made it up as I went along.

Bright Scraps, one of many scrap quilts made last year. And no, the scrap pile has NOT diminished!

Splendid Stars, 2021, is one of several quilts I’ve made from star blocks left from other projects.

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

And here is another quilt made in 2022 from my sizeable stash of floral fabrics.

This quilt, called Summer Night, was made in 2005 and includes fabrics with stars that glow in the dark!

The quilt below is one of my favorite “rescue” quilts. The circles were cut from blocks that had failed two or three other arrangements. I cut them out and sewed them onto a background I had already quilted.

 

The following quilt was made from a free pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew. Thanks to my friend Gwen, the “Textile Ranger”, who identified the source.

And finally, this quilt is called Candy Cubes. It was made in 2020 from the book New Patchwork and Quilting Basics by Jo Avery.

And if this seems like a lot of quilts to donate, consider that I’ve now made over 500 and they need to go to folks who can use them. As some other quilters have noted, I don’t want to leave a lot of “stuff” for my daughter to have to dispose of–when I die many  years from now!

 

Swedish Sunrise

Posted on by
19

I first mentioned this quilt when I spent a lot of time cutting squares of very particular colors for the Postcard From Sweden pattern. (Here, if you want to read that post.)

Photo is from the front of the Postcard From Sweden pattern

My arrangement of colors originally cut for the Postcard From Sweden pattern

After cutting all the squares and looking at the layout in the pattern, I decided to change it up. I put more of the blue at the top, green at the bottom, yellow in the middle, with the idea of imitating a sunrise.

I made a quilt with a similar idea a couple of years ago. I chuckle about it because some people call it “perseveration” when you repeat an idea like this, but if you’re an artist it’s called “working in a series” 😀

Here is the previous quilt:

Sunrise, 75″ x 50″

And here are some close-ups of Swedish Sunrise.

Quilt Stats

Name: Swedish Sunrise

Finished size: 61″ x 76″

Designed and made by me, using the colors suggested in the Postcard From Sweden pattern

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

 

 

Floral Lattice and a Fun Addition

Posted on by
8

The fun addition first: I found these little “PS I love you” tags at Studio Stitch and bought a bunch of them to add to quilts I’ve made for our daughter’s family. After some debate about how to attach them, I decided on having them stick out a little over the binding, like this.

I love these tags! Now I’m going to attach them as I put on the binding when I make quilts for special people.

I seem unable to resist floral print fabric, so in a recent attempt to use some of it I made another floral lattice quilt. You can find my instructions here if you want the pattern.

One of the fun things about this iteration of the quilt is that the cream-background fabric shown below is scrap from a dress I made for myself years ago. That dress, along with several others, was given to a visiting psychologist from Russia whom I met at a conference. Again, many years ago. I like to think of those dresses travelling to another country and being enjoyed there.

Quilt Stats

Name: Floral Lattice

Finished size: 57″ x 73″

Designed and made by: me

Quilted by: Elisabeth Pugh

 

Tossed 9 Patch

Posted on by
4

The other day I considered what to do with my large stash of 5″ squares.

Bin of 5″ squares from a variety of sources

It occurred to me that I might be the only quilter in the world who hadn’t yet made a tossed 9 patch quilt.

Just on the off chance you haven’t made one yet, here’s the drill.

The 9-patch block was 15.5″ with raw edges. Drawing done with Electric Quilt 8.

Start by making a 9 patch (duh). I cut a bunch of light colored 5″ patches and enough red 5″ patches for 22 nine-patch blocks, then used various 5″ squares from my bin for the four corners.  (Yes, that only got rid of 88 5″ squares. Still…)

I included some old favorites from the 5″ bin:

Blueberry fabric bought in Maine, one of the Moda wildflower fabrics, the fruit ladies from Elizabeth’s Studio, and some of my favorite metallic dot fabric.

After assembling the 9 patch blocks, I cut them in quarters, resulting in 88 blocks like this:

This is one quarter of the original 9-patch block. Drawing done with Electric Quilt 8.

When all my 88 blocks were made, I played with layouts until I had one I liked. There are a lot of different ways to cut the 9 patch block, and even more ways to lay out the resulting blocks, so it took a while.

After it was quilted, I decided on a blue and white striped border, which I cut on the bias.

And here’s the finish:

Quilt Stats:

Name: Tossed 9-patch

Designed and made by: me, though of course there is nothing new under the sun, This idea has been around forever.

Finished size: 51″ x 71″

Quilted by: Linda

Retreat! (At Last)

Posted on by
11

Our retreat group was so happy to get together again after having to cancel the last two scheduled get-togethers due to you-know-what. We went to Kim’s Summit Retreat in Maggie Valley, NC, and it was perfect.

We were greeted by this beautiful Sassafras leaf on the front steps

Assembling some of the triangles from one of our previous swaps

Haha! This was a donation quilt project we were scheduled to do in October of 2020!

This was picked up from the quilter and I got it bound. More later.

One group member modified the free Kaffe Fasset pattern “Carnival” so she could use smaller blocks

This is a paper-pieced block-of-the-month that two of our members are doing

One retreater is making at least two quilts from fabric featuring national parks

I took these orphan blocks and put them on the design wall…

…then made additional blocks and strips to fill in the holes

That was so much fun! We are looking forward to the next one 😀

 

A Little Finish

Posted on by
17

This is a quilt top I made as I was working out the details of the Lightening pattern I did for Studio Stitch a while back.

This is only 36″ square, so it will be a quilt for Ronald McDonald House in Winston-Salem, where they use this size for incubator covers.

I quilted this on my domestic sewing machine (a Bernina 550). I did not use the BSR stitch regulator primarily because it is packed somewhere in a moving box, though honestly, I don’t feel the need for it. I quilted a meander because it is fast and easy.

My blogging friend Clair pointed out some time ago that gold thread goes with almost any quilt top, and I’ve found that to be true! This is my favorite gold thread because it does look really gold but it is NOT metallic. (Metallic thread can be a bear to quilt with.)

As always, I used Bottom Line in the bobbin. I love that thread! If you have it in black and white you can blend it with almost any backing, though I have bought a few other colors as well.

And FYI, nobody paid me to say all this, and I bought the thread with my own money, etc, etc.

In case you missed it, here’s the quilt for which this was a practice piece. Last I looked Studio Stitch still had the pattern available free with purchase and even had one bundle of fat quarters left of the fabric.

Thanks for reading, and have a good week!

 

Teaching Again!

Posted on by
11

Hooray! The pandemic is finally well enough controlled around here for Studio Stitch to start offering classes again!  We’ll still all wear masks, which means classes will be scheduled for half days so we won’t have to figure out lunch.  But it is SO encouraging to have the opportunity to be with other quilters again and feel a little bit normal.  Most of us have now been vaccinated, so it feels much safer, though we will continue to take care!

Here’s what I’ll be teaching in the next couple of months.

Better Binding Painlessly, May 11. This is a basic binding class that teaches techniques and answers common questions about how to bind a quilt without going crazy doing it.

Little Landscapes, June 1 in the afternoon and June 2 in the morning.  This is an introduction to landscape quilting.  We make little landscapes in class to learn the basics so you’ll be ready to make landscape quilts of any size on your own.

This pine tree has green flannel for foliage and lots of free motion quilting for texture
I made this after reading Happy Villages by Karen Eckmeier

Plaidish, June 10 afternoon and June 11 morning. This is a free pattern available from Kitchen Table Quilting. It’s a great way to learn about color, value, and matching the corners on tiny pieces.There’s more information about all of these classes, plus many others, on the Studio Stitch website.  If you’re near Greensboro, I hope to see you 🙂

Tessellations again!

Posted on by
12

In a moment of madness, I agreed to do a program on tessellations for my MQG in Greensboro.  I’ll be posting the same information here so we can all share it and so that these blogs can serve as “handouts” for my presentation.  To start, here’s a blog written by my friend Jean Larson, who has designed and made several award-winning tessellation quilts.  To view some of Jean’s quilts, click HERE.  –MJP

Tessellating designs make me happy.  Tweaking those designs is even more fun.   I want to share the joy of starting with a very, very simple design and watching it blossom.  

Start with a simple gridded block and create a light/dark design.  Here, I’ve started with a 3 x 3 grid.  Then re-color the same block with the lights and darks reversed

.The grid lines are only for design purposes, and each block can be constructed with a single square block with 2 corner triangles attached using any method you prefer.

Here are some design possibilities…Quilt_1A simple “cat head” quilt using only 2 colors.

Different looks can be achieved with variations in the color placement.

Blocks can be inverted and turned for even more quilt designs.

Just imagine all the possibilities with color in these!!!!!

It’s even more complex when you design with a 6×6 grid.  Here are the positive and negative versions of another block.

These blocks can be constructed using half-square triangles integrated with larger fabric pieces.  If these blocks were to finish at 6 inches by 6 inches.  The center column on each block would be a single 3.5 inch wide by 6.5 in long piece of fabric.  The side strips would include some half-square triangles.

A couple of the quilts that can be made:

Looks like spools, some gray, some white, all standing up.  Same quilt with alternate blocks turned a quarter turn yields a different  clearly recognizable tessellation.  Reminds me of tessellating doggie rawhide chews 😉

Now back to the spool quilt from above.  The “thread” areas have been colored in.  No blocks have been turned.

Jean spool 5This shows the power of color and value (lightness and darkness).   The colored part, being next to the gray and being closer in value to the gray, unites those parts of the block, and gives the illusion that we have all gray spools on a white background, some standing up, some lying down.

I hope these examples can be the seeds to sprout some design experimentation with tessellating shapes.

  1. Start with 2 square grids
  2. Create a positive design, and its negative design
  3. Alternate them in a quilt layout
  4. PLAY!
  5. And play more with color!

Happy Quilting (and Designing)!!   –Jean Larson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Review, Part II

Posted on by
19

Here are the rest of my 2020 project completions.  As previously mentioned, shelter-in-place was an opportunity!

I designed and made Fiddlesticks after seeing a number of similar quilts on the internet.

Pineapple Fabrics requested pineapple blocks for a children’s hospital donation project, and my friend Chela and I each made several.

I finally finished this little art quilt, which was started several years ago

This quilt used up a lot of scraps!

I made numerous projects inspired by books I reviewed for C&T.  The quilt on the left is a modification of a pattern that appears in New Patchwork and Quilting Basics, by Jo Avery.  The block on the right is one of my favorites of the year; the pattern is in Quilt: Modern Curves and Bold Stripes.

The quilt above is modified from my friend Elizabeth’s Merrion Square pattern.  The pattern is available in her Payhip shop and includes several variations.

This quilt was made with a jelly roll I won in a contest!  The pattern is in Love Jelly Roll Quilts.

Who can resist the colorful fabrics by Kaffe Fasset? I made two quilts with them. This pattern is available free from Free Spirit Fabrics, here.

And here’s the quilt made with leftover blocks:

Above is another Scrap Quilt, 64″ x 64″. I was planning to teach it in January, but the COVID numbers have gotten too high here for that to be safe right now.

This is the quilt in crib size

The quilt above is another I developed for Studio Stitch.  I think they still have some kits left if you’re interested.  My friend Mary just sent me a picture of her completed quilt from the kit!

This next quilt, 12″ x 12″, was just a block for years after I took a leaf pounding class.  I finally quilted it, and I’m happy with the result.

Here are 3 that I know you’ve seen before, but they were completed in 2020, so gotta show them:

It’s always a great idea to offset the intersecting seams!
Quilt on a chair

And finally, here’s my end-of-year art quilt.  I’ve had this idea in mind for some time so I was glad to finally get it out on fabric.  I think the tree topper needs a golden starburst around it, so I’ll be adding that before the next holiday season, but at least the quilt is mostly done.

Xmas, 25.5″ x 31.5″

Whew!  2020 had some redeeming accomplishments despite all the “challenges”, as we like to call them!  I hope you find that the year had some good points for you, as well.