Thankfully the wind was low enough yesterday evening after I finished the hand binding on my new Garden Peony quilt that my husband could hold it up outside for a few quick photographs. Garden Peony I love a good stripe binding, and the Ruby Star Society Melody Miller Rise and Shine! Heat Shimmer in June has a really subtle change in the stripe widths and orientations that I think adds up to a fun binding finish. The quilt top finished at 39½” square after quilting, squaring up, and binding. Garden Peony – Quilt Finish Detail I’m really happy with the points at the edge of the quilt. I’m n ..read more

I love my original quilting plan for Garden Peony, but for this version I wanted to free motion quilt an all over motif. That meant that I needed to settle on using a single thread for the quilting. I pieced the quilt top using 50wt Aurifil 4093 (Jade), which was a close color match to the background fabric, but I didn’t want to quilt on top of the prints with a green thread. Looking at the options in my thread stash, I chose 3 thread colors that blended in well with most of the prints in the quilt top: 2326 (Sand), 2214 (Golden Honey), and 2210 (Caramel). Garden Peony – Quilting Thread Test ..read more

As I promised yesterday, I have a quick video tutorial to share with you today. Not only is this tutorial perfect for showing how I cut the convex shapes from a directional print so that I could keep the print “right side up” as I was piecing Garden Peony, the added bonus is that this is actually also the most efficient way to cut convex shapes from any width of fabric! Cutting Convex Shapes Efficiently & From Directional Fabric For those of you who are reading this post via email, you’ll want to hop over and visit my newest YouTube video. For everyone on my blog, the video is embedded i ..read more

I sewed up a storm yesterday afternoon and not only I was able to get the curves for my next baby size Garden Peony quilt sewn together, but I also finished piecing the quilt top. I was moving so quickly that the only photograph I took was of the pieced quilt top. Ha! Garden Peony – Pieced Quilt Top I really love the spring time feeling of the Ruby Star Society prints set against Kona Enchanted. As a quick refresher, the fabrics I’m using for this baby size version of Garden Peony are: Fabric A – Ruby Star Society Rashida Coleman-Hale To and Fro Meandering Shell Fabric B – Ruby Star Society ..read more

Have you ever made a stitch and flip unit only to be disappointed to find that it is undersized? Because I do not pre-wash my fabric, this happened to me all the time, and I got frustrated enough by the undersized units that I avoided patterns with stitch and flip piecing. When I wrote the pattern for Star Pulse (my quilt along for this year), the piecing method that made the most sense included some stitch and flip units, and I figured that I was going to make sure that I was successful once and for all. I shared this tip during the quilt along, but I wanted to document it more carefully, so ..read more

There are several reasons I haven’t been making progress on my Frost Filigree quilt top. One is that I’ve been busy behind the scenes working on a few fun things (a collaboration that I’ll be able to share with you next week and finalizing the design for my next quilt along – Quilting Jetgirl Patrons will get the details about the next QAL design next month!). Another is that there are a few very small areas on the quilt top where there has been a bit of bleeding from one red fabric onto the white background fabric. Frost Filigree – Color Bleed The good news is that the areas are VERY small ..read more

Cynthia is working to formalize her large scale effort of creating and distributing charitable / compassion quilts into a non profit organization under the umbrella of Many Hands and Many Hearts. I love supporting Cynthia’s efforts, and I just sent off a set of blocks for her latest block drive. Patriotic Churn Dash Blocks I dug through my scrap bins and found plenty of red, white, and blue fabrics to work with. I made 4 larger churn dash blocks (they are 12½” unfinished). Patriotic 4-Patch Blocks And from the left over fabrics I was also able to make 12 4-Patch blocks. I have no doubt Cyn ..read more

I wanted to wait until we had officially made it through the first three months of 2024 before writing up my first quarterly check in post for the year. Pretty much entirely due to Project Quilting, I’m feeling like the year started off with a lot of productivity and finishes. I suppose it’s going to be interesting to see if other priorities got juggled around as a result. Here are my highlights: 2024 Q1 Finishes Just like it felt like, I definitely started off the year with a nice grouping of finishes: Orange Peel Chain (Project Quilting 15.6) Quilted Wrist Cuff (Project Quilting 15.5) Tim ..read more

This month we are making the final blocks so that we will be ready to piece the quilt top together in May. If you have already purchased the Star Pulse Quilt Along, you will receive an email today with a link to the Piecing Instructions #3 PDF. Look for an email from newsletter@quiltingjetgirl.com with the subject Star Pulse Quilt Along – Piecing Instructions #3. If you haven’t joined in yet, simply purchase the Star Pulse Quilt Along and I will add you to the email list and get the information out to you soon! Note: This is my blog post and not the newsletter email with the pattern PDF link ..read more

When I received my print order from Superbuzzy in February and realized that I didn’t do much to add to my VERY depleted yellow print stash, I pretty much immediately went back and placed another fabric order. This time, I ordered from Stash Fabrics. March Stash Enhancement – Stash Fabrics Order This fabric went on a JOURNEY you guys, and I am so happy it is finally here. For a long time, USPS was not updating the tracking information. Then it just said, “delivery running late.” I knew that this wasn’t due to any fault of Stash Fabrics, so I just figured I’d wait and see how it played out. O ..read more