Apple Doll Quilt

Here’s the completed Apple Doll Quilt. It’s too small for an IKEA doll bed or to be used as a quilt for some of the popular 18 inch dolls. But it’s perfect for a small Waldorf doll or a Hazel Village doll or animal.

It’s the new Limited Edition visiting Hazel Village animal, Clara Otter, who is relaxing under this little quilt. Her bed is a cardboard flat that originally was used to protect a case of canned dog food from dents during shipping. Not only is it comfy, but it’s perfect for Clara as the Hazel Village animals like to create things they need from other available items.

I designed the tiny tossed apple print fabric which was printed at Spoonflower.com a long time ago. The fabric isn’t currently available for purchase.

Notice: This blog is not monetized: I do not use affiliate links. When there are links in a post, they are to give credit to another creative person, because I like or have used a product, or to help the reader easily find supplies for a project.

Doll Quilt in Progress: From Trash to Treasure

I’ve been quilting for HOW long?? And still I made an avoidable error. I recently purchased a pattern. When I read the instructions for cutting the fabric and looked at the instructions I knew that there was serious error for cutting part of the pattern. I should have drawn the block in EQ8 and checked it, which is what I did…eventually…but instead I just went head and cut out the fabric as directed.

I thought I could wing it, or change some other parts of the pattern and make it work. I re-cut a lot of the pieces, but no. The half square triangles (HSTs) were never going to work.

I could have just tossed the lot, but years ago I designed the apple fabric and had it printed at Spoonflower. No way I was tossing it!

It didn’t take me long to figure it that the orphan patches would make a sweet doll quilt. I laid the HSTs out in lots of different patterns but finally decided I liked a simplest layout. I got it all sewed together and looked at it for a few days. Nice, but it could be better.

I couldn’t be believe I was doing this for a doll quilt, but I took off the borders to added an inner red strip. I made raised flange from a 1 1/8 inch strip of red fabric. I folded the strip in half the long way and pressed. Then I sewed it to the pieced blocks using a very scant 1/4 inch seam. And finally reattached the apple border using a full 1/4 inch seam.

Doll quilt sandwiched, basted and ready to quilt

I do like version #2 better, though there was really nothing wrong with version #1! It’s all sandwiched, using up a remnant of cotton quilt batting, and is ready to quilt.

The puppy had surgery two days ago, so this will have to wait. The pup is sore, but doing well, but I’ll doing quiet tasks to be near her until she’s feeling better.

Once the it’s quilted, I’m planning on adding red binding. A doll somewhere is going to be toasty wrapped in her quilt, maybe dreaming of making an apple pie for her little person!

What I learned sewing the "Whirling Star" Block

The July block in the Civil War Quilts Sew Along 2024 is the “Whirling Star” block from BlockBase+. It is #3295 and attributed to Nancy Cabot. You can get the pattern from the preceding link if you don’t own a copy of BlockBase+.

The block above isn’t perfect, and I know why, as well how I could have made a pristine block. Here’s the scoop. This is a block that needs to be cut using templates. Not my favorite, but doable. I printed off the copy from the Civil Wars Quilts website at 100% and checked the one inch square box on the pattern to see if it was true. It wasn’t. I needed to put the printed sheet in my copier/printer and increase the pattern to 112%. (If you print a copy, check it. Yours might be just fine).

So far, so good. I pulled a cereal box out of the recycling bin to make templates. But then figured that since I was just sewing a single block, cutting the printer paper pattern would be fine. And it was. (If I were going to make multiple blocks, I would have cut them from plastic for quilt templates—readily available from multiple sources online).

How does this block get assembled? Here are the components of the central section of the block:

The center of the block needs to be “sliced” in half. There is a smaller triangle template and a wider one. Sew a pair of the the smaller and wider triangle together. PRESS. (This was my first oops. It was a really hot day, I was sewing upstairs using my Bernina which gives me the most accurate in 1/4 inch seams. The iron was downstairs. I figured I’d just finger press the pieces. NOT a good choice. Each of the seams in this block need to be pressed with a iron. Really!)

Sew 2 sets of triangles together to created half the central octagon. PRESS all the seams in the same direction, as shown in my photo above. This is critical to creating a block that is as flat as possible—not easy as 8 points come together in the center of the block.

Sew the two half octagons together. Then add the small half square triangle to create a square block. Awesome. The hardest part is all done.

Sew together the trio of small triangles that will attach to the central square. Press all these seams in ONE direction, doesn’t matter which way, just be consistent.

Pin the outer triangle sections to the inner square. Check to make sure you have the narrow triangle in the outer section match to the narrow triangle in the central square. It helps to use a dress makers pin to do that. Attach the two pieces, pinning along the 1/4 inch seam (not across it as you would to sew it). Open the block to check for alignment and adjust the two pieces as needed.

That’s it. You should have 1/4 of the background beyond each of the eight points in this block. That allows you to sew this block to another block or sashing without loosing the sharp points.

My center isn’t perfect and the seam allowance beyond the points is better in some places than others. It’s all in the careful pressing…or in my case, the lack of it.

Nevertheless, it was a fun block to make and I learned a lot in the process!

Double Irish Chain Quilt with Elusive Foxes, Work in Progress

My 6 month Black Labrador old puppy is keeping me very busy but I did get a window of quiet this week to start assembling my Double Irish Chain Quilt. The foxes in the fabrics are tossed, so they aren’t all going to be upright in the quilt. It’s just fun to see how many of the foxes end up in boxes and whether they are on their way in, way out or upside down!

Here’s the pooch, thinking about whether to swim to get the stick I tossed in the river! She’s new to swimming so her decision was to keep all her paws on the riverbed and give the stick a miss. All good!

Double Irish Chain Project

I’ve had some kelly green fabrics in my stash for years and pulled them out a few months ago. I’ve never made a double Irish chain quilt, so decided this might be the perfect project for these fabrics. I had a green that reads solid and another green on white in 4 designs that is a good background fabric. But I needed one more fabric. My stash doesn’t have a lot of yard plus cuts, so I had to get imaginative. Finally I pulled out a fabric with foxes on it that I decided would be a fun contrasting fabric (the yellow in the diagram above).

Here are the fabrics for this quilt.

It will be interesting to see how many of the little foxes appear in intact in the 2 inch pieces (the yellow squares above) in this quilt!

Halfway Through the 2024 Rainbow Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along

Wow. We’re halfway though the 2024 Rainbow Edition of Cheryl Arkison’s Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along. I started with a very muted palate but had a stack of warmer fabrics. Those started to enter play as winter turned to spring. Here are the blocks so far. I think the scrappy blocks are my favorites, but they are all fun.

Peg Doll Crèche

Our Church School is having a week long summer day camp again this year, with the theme of Christmas in June. I’m volunteering with the craft projects. We are planning to have the children make several crèches over the course of the week.

One of them is this peg doll crèche. This is my mock up. These are the standard size Boy pegs, Angel pegs and Girl Pegs and I had a baby size peg in my stash. We have enough pegs for each child to have a Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, 3 Wise Men and a couple shepherds. I think we actually will have enough peg dolls for the children to add other village figures, like the crèches in Italy and France, were you have to hunt among the villagers to find to Holy Family. So much fun!

The kids will be given baby pegs in a tiny wooden bowl which I found at the Etsy shop, BlessingsFromHeaven7. Here is the sweet Baby Jesus in a bowl. (I only used peg dolls from my own stash for my crèche to make sure there were ample figures for the campers).

If you want more information on how I make my peg dolls, you can look at my tutorial on making Pea Sprout Peg Dolls or my tutorial on making Leaf Peg Dolls. Peg dolls are really are fun to make and not difficult!

"Piece of Cake" 2024 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt Top

Assembled! Here is my version of Karen Montgomery’s 2024 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt she has named “Piece of Cake.” I wasn’t so sure about the colors while I was sewing it, but now I think this is one stunning quilt.

Back in February, when my bag of mystery fabrics arrived, I pulled out two reds which I didn’t particularly like. You can read more about that in my post from February 22, 2024. At the time I knew I’d swapped in fabrics of similar values to those I’d decided not to use, but I really had no idea what they would look in the finished quilt top. Whew. It worked out!

Like many of the other mystery quilt participants, I also decided to use a print fabric in the 4 patches flanking the center of the quilt. Karen has them as background fabric, with the intention that they could be used to do a fancy quilting design in that negative space. With all the dark fabrics in this quilt, I felt that having 4 cream patches wasn’t the best option for my quilt. I did lay it out with the background patches, but I felt it was just too white.

This quilt is assembled on the diagonal. The steps in Karen Montgomery’s mystery quilt are always very easy. But the assembly, despite all her excellent instructions, is always mind boggling. It’s the point where I’m so glad I didn’t decide to make more than one version because the piecing steps are so easy! But when I’m done, I’m so glad I made at least one!

"Cake Stand" Block

Karen Montgomery revealed the 2024 Brown Bag Mystery Quilt pattern a few weeks ago. She called the quilt “Piece of Cake” and at the reveal explained why: The main block in the quilt is called “Cake Stand.”

The steps in Karen’s mystery quilts are always deceptively easy. The challenge comes with the assembly. This one isn’t too hard if you carefully follow her excellent “exploded” diagram. But it takes lots of checking and rechecking to avoid flipping blocks.

I’m slowly putting the quilt together, but with two adult dogs and a puppy with chronic diarrhea, I’m only managing a couple rows a day. The other day this is how I was informed that it was supper time and that sewing time for the day was over!! Quitting is all you can do when your design “wall” is blocked!

One Block Three Ways: "The Road to Washington"

The Road to Washington Block is the May block in the Washington Whirlwind Block of the Month on the Civil War Quilts website. The photo above is the block I have decided to put into my quilt. Many of the blocks I’ve already made are orange but I have one red and blue block and needed to make some more.

I pulled out a selection of 30’s Reproduction fabrics that I thought looked great together and made this block. Here is the block I made with the first set of fabrics.

It’s okay but I find it to be a bit jarring. So I went back to the stash and swapped out a 3 of the fabrics for new ones. Then I laid out 2 variations of the new block, to see which I liked better.

I initially planned to keep the red fabric adjacent to the chaining blocks. But it was still a bit jarring. So I went with the red facing toward the two large corner squares. I think it has better balance and will be a much better fit with my quilt.

It was fun to play with the colors. And I was reminded that when it’s not clear which color might work, it’s always worth thinking about green!

Ribbon Quilt Wall Hanging

This is the wall hanging I made, using the instructions from the class by Sarah Bond “Make a Ribbon Quilt Top” on Creativebug.com

All the fabrics were in my stash except the black and white stripe. I sewed some strip sets and then set this project aside for a while. When I came back, I was amazed to discover I had more than I needed to make this wall hanging. I was so excited to be able to complete the top in an afternoon, rather than several days.

It has been quilted with straight lines using my walking foot. I did vary the distance between stitching lines, just doing what felt right when I started a new row.

Back

Here’s the back of the the quilt. Stripes on the front and dots on the back! It’s a batik I found in my stash when I was weeding fabrics out that I’ve decided to move along. (I definitely found some things I didn’t remember I had. So I have some ideas for new projects).

I used binding bits left over from other projects to make the binding for this quilt. It’s always fun to make a multi-color scrappy binding from the leftovers!

I love how bright and cheerful this quilt is. It’ll look great in one of my inside hallways.

Self Portrait Using Fused Fabrics

One of the members of our guild makes a lot of art quilts using fabrics with a fusible backing. She has lots and lots of scraps. She offered to set up a project where we could make a self portrait during one of our meetings. She told us the portraits didn’t have to be realistic…we could do anything we wanted to create.

She pre-cut the background fabric squares and probably also put fusible backing on some bigger pieces of fabric. But she also included a lot of her scraps—just little bits. The smirky smile on this portrait was one of those scraps and so are the eyebrows.

The friend sitting next to me looked at my portrait and commented that I needed to add some sort of embellishment. Our box of scraps had a rectangle of yellow streaky fabric that sort of looked like fur…so I added one of my dogs!

The group had a really great time and we all created our fusible portraits in about 45 minutes. Hooray for scraps and friends who share!

Ribbon Quilt Top

I thought I was going to loose this one to the wind while attempted to get a good photograph of this little Ribbon Quilt! It almost took off! I got the idea for this quilt from Sarah Bond’s class about making a Ribbon Quilt on Creativebug.com.

This quilt is really all about the joy of color! I needed to buy the black striped fabric, but all the rest of the material was in my stash. It is wall hanging size. I thought about making it larger but decided it would be the perfect color pop hanging in my hall.

It just makes me so happy!

Ribbon Quilt Wall Hanging top

"Making Music" Graphic Tee Wall Hanging Top

This is my “Making Music” Graphic Tee Wall Hanging Top. I found remnants of some 1930’s reproduction fabric in my stash with very similar color to the Tee shirts in my little quilt. I really like the fabric with these blocks.

These are some of the 12 inch blocks from Amy Friend’s “Graphic Tee Quilt Along.”

Now I need to pull off the the foundation pattern papers so that I can sandwich the top and quilt it.

First Quarter of the Quilters Playcation Rainbow Adventure Sewlong 2024 Blocks

Here are the first 12 blocks of my Rainbow Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along hosted by and blocks designed by Cheryl Arkison. You can catch the action at 2 PM Mountain Time (4 PM EST) on her Instagram feed @Cheryl_Arkison. All the blocks are improv. They are also free and you can join in at any time. You can also find them posted later on her YouTube Channel.

My blocks are roughly 9 inches square, but they do vary. So I’m planning to add filler fabric as needed when the time comes to sew the blocks into a quilt.

This is a really fun project. Anyone can do it. Cheryl demonstrated how to make each block on her Tuesday IG lives.

"Making Music" Graphic Tee Quilt Blocks

Here are my four completed blocks for Amy Friend’s Graphic Tee Quilt Along. I’m calling my project “Making Music.” I’m going to use them in a wall hanging rather than making the whole quilt in the quilt along project.

My first block was the drumming dog. My second block was a xylophone playing wolf which got revised because that print wasn’t up to the quality of the other fussy cut motifs.

The drumming dog makes me laugh. My grandfather was a high school principal. When my father was a boy, they had a fox terrier. The dog was not allowed in the school, but their house was only a couple of blocks away, and the fox terrier would occasionally appear at assembly and sing along with the national anthem which amused everyone except my grandfather! (Though I know he had a great sense of humor, so off the record, he probably thought it was funny too).

Graphic Tee Quilt Blocks

Amy Friend is hosting the Graphic Tee Quilt Along. Her pattern includes T shirt blocks that are 12, 9 and 6 inches square, coming together to make a quilt. All the blocks are foundation pieced.

Foundation piecing is great, but not something I love to do. I’m so slow…it takes me most of day to make a single block. I’m only planning to make four 12 inch blocks which I will use to make a wall hanging. This pattern caught my eye because I love putting pockets on wearable T shirts

I’ve chosen to put real pockets on 2 block and the other two will have a design patch sewn into the block. Playing music is the theme of this wall hanging. ds

There is an error in my piecing on the two T blocks with the real pockets. My neckline is angular but in the pattern it actually is a smooth curve. Since I made the same error in two blocks, and I like the look, I’ve decided to leave it as is. So now it’s my “decision choice”, the quilter’s line to explain an “error”.

I’ve made two other blocks so far, but I'm thinking I might rework those. But I do really like this one!

Year to Date in the 2024 Quilter's Playcation Adventure Sew Along

Here are my first 9 blocks in from Cheryl Arkison’s Rainbow Quilter’s Playcation Adventure Sew Along. Having fun with improv for a third year! #qpadventuresewalong2024. Join us at @cheryl_arkison on Instagram and follow the hashtag above.

"Boy's Playmate" block

Did I mention I have a puppy? What’s a sewing machine, she asks? This is the February block in the Washington Whirlwind Quilt Along.

Until I sat down to write this post, I didn’t know what the block was named “Boy’s Playmate”. Seems very appropriate for a puppy-themed block. That, and the fact that my adolescent male dog really does think the puppy is his new playmate! For now they are playing on opposite sides of her fenced play yard.

If you make this block using the cutting instructions on the blog, it’s really important to use scant 1/4 inch seams if you want a 12 1/2 inch unfinished block. There’s no wriggle room for error! But it does work if you’re careful!

My Version of the Brown Bag Mystery Quilt 2024, "Piece of Cake"

Every winter, Karen Montgomery offers a Brown Bag Mystery Quilt. This year the title is “Piece of Cake.” The participating shops know what the finished quilt looks like and they pick the fabrics for the bag. They might just show paint chips of the colors or one possible fabric for the bag. But this project is essentially an unknown to the quilters participating.

I looked at a couple shops and the one fabric I saw that appealed to me is out of my comfort zone. But I really liked it. It was “Cranberry” from Kim Diehl’s “Quiet Grace” line printed by Henry Glass & Co., Inc.

“Cranberrry”, photo from the Henry Glass & Co. Inc website.

I didn’t know Karen Deihl’s fabrics so I did a quick search to have a look. To my eye it looks a bit retro/prairie. But I loved the rich red in this fabric so decided to take a chance on this bag.

Here’s what I got.

Fabrics picked by the shop for my Brown Bag.

Wow. These are really dark fabrics…and no sign of the “Cranberry” design I liked. Oops. Now what? The background cream is great and I like the red berries on black and the tiny floral on green. I really don’t like either of the red fabrics…especially the red and cream one.

So I went back online to look for other Karen Diehl fabrics I could possibly substitute. Mind you, I have no idea what this quilt pattern looks like! I only have yardage amounts and I heard that a lot of the pieces are small so large prints aren’t a good choice unless you just want the colors and don’t mind the designs disappearing.

The photo at the top shows the fabrics I am going to use. I took photos of them and put them in grey scale with the 2 fabrics I am jettisoning.

In the left hand photo, the cream and red origin fabric is paired with the yellow green floral fabric. They have virtually the same color density, so I’m fairly confident that is a good swap. In the right hand photo is the dark red fabric paired with the brown and cream floral. The background of the brown floral is almost as dark as the red fabric, but the flowers are much brighter than the paisley pattern in the original. So this choice is a risk. But I really like my modified selection of prints, so I’m going to see what happens!

And so begins yet another adventure.

Speaking of adventures, I just adopted an 8 week old puppy last week. With every 2 hour potty breaks, and not as many naps as my last puppy, I’m not getting much done. So don’t be surprised if you don’t get an email announcing a new blog post every Thursday. But I’ll try my best to keep the posts coming!