American Dream - the SAHRR Quilt

Here she is, my Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) quilt, American Dream.

 

Created completely by me while participating in Quilting Gail's Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) 2021 quilt-along with 6 other quilters who chose blocks for each round. 

A traditional Round Robin sets up the order of quilters and their block choices, passing the quilts around in the group for each quilter's round completion. This is my second time with SAHRR, making Fiesta Garden and The Moon and the Stars last year. It's also my fourth round robin quilt, since I enjoy the process so much!

Some of my fellow quilters designed their quilts in EQ. Me? I worked with what I had, no pre-planning, which made a few rounds look a bit odd to me. If you're interested in reading about each round, and all the joys and struggles, check out these posts:

SAHRR rules

Round 1 piano keys

Round 2 cross

Round 3 flying gees

Round 4 checkerboard

Round 5 wonky stars

Round 6 log cabin

Round 7 pinwheels

What do you think of the name? I usually have a difficult time naming quilts, but this one popped into my head within seconds. With the Americana theme, the house, a couple rounds that could be interpreted as grasses of the prairie, owning a home is certainly an American Dream. This quilt represents that perfectly!

So, how about a few more pictures? The center,

one of the corners,

and a closeup of the quilting, with the Happy Times pantograph.

Did I mention the size of this quilt? It's a big one, at 88" x 88". It's currently draped over the back of my living room loveseat, folded in half and still spilling off the sides! But the good news? It used up a lot of fabric, calculated at around 12.5 yards - woohoo! Just the back alone used up a ton of yardage.

At this size, American Dream it would make a great picnic quilt. It's already looking great on the grass. Wouldn't a basket full of wine, cheese, and other goodies be perfect here? And with plenty of room leftover to sit too!

I'm linking up my finish over at Quilting Gail's linky party, and if you also made a SAHRR quilt, I look forward to seeing it there. Can't wait to visit and read all about your creation!

Be sure to visit each of my fellow 6 quilters, or should I say, partners in crime!

• Gail @ Quilting Gail
• Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• Anja @ Anja Quilts
• Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Until our next SAHRR,

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Maine - Pine Tree State

Welcome to the US Block Tour and the state of Maine - the Pine Tree state!

 

It's my turn to showcase Maine, and present a free block for the US Block Tour - I hope you've been collecting! 

First, a bit of background as to why I chose to represent Maine though I live in California. I was fortunate to move there at the age of 10, spending the next 6 years living in wonderland, as my home was on an island in one of Maine's numerous lakes. I wish I could show my long-ago pictures of this beautiful state, but they're buried deep in the closet. So, please bear with my picture-less story.

On that lake, I learned to swim and ice skate, and still swim regularly to this day.  In the summers, we had numerous big family bbq's that included sailing on my Dad's boat, and water skiing with a boat borrowed from my brother's girlfriend. Those are some of my fondest memories!

Winters, though, were a different story. Shoveling snow, stuck cars, and an impassable island road were some of the highlights I would rather forget. Let's just say I don't miss snow!

For me, there are a few things that make the state of Maine special, such as lobster, moose, lighthouses, and pine trees - lots of pine trees. It's this tree that gives Maine it's nickname, The Pine Tree State, and the reason for my block.

With a finished size of 6", the block is easily paper pieced in three sections, using a background fabric and three greens. Scrap pieces work perfectly to make this tree, or several fat quarters would make a whole forest.

To add my Maine Pine Tree block to your collection of US quilt blocks, just click on the download button.

                                              

Need to catch up on block collecting? Here's blocks 31-34: 

Colorado, block 31, by Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio,

Ohio, block 32, by Appliques Quilts and More,

Connecticut, block 33, by Seams Like a Dream Quilts,

New Jersey, block 34, designed by Pretty Piney Quilts

Head over to these compiled lists, complete with images for the previous blocks, 1-30:

Keeping Up with the Free USA blocks (1-9)

More Free USA Quilt Blocks (10-14)

More Free US State Quilt Blocks (15-20)

More Free US State Quilt Blocks (21-30)

Be on the lookout for these upcoming blocks: 

New Mexico, designed by Windmill Quilts, coming April 4, and

New Hampshire, designed by One Quilting Circle, on April 11.

Happy travels across the country!

 

My Favorite Patterns

Stay at Home Round Robin - Pinwheels

It's the last round of the Quilting Gail's Stay at Home Round Robin, and this time it's pinwheels.

And boy, did this round ever increase the size of this quilt top, making it one of the largest quilts I've ever made at 88" x 88". It's too big to fit on my design wall, and I barely have enough floor space for a decent picture. I had to stand on my bed to take this one!

But I really like this pinwheel round, and there are elements of it I'd like to use in another quilt. I won't tell you which - you'll just have to wait till I get another quilt designed.

A little about my design process for this round. I knew I wanted it to be blue again, with small bits of red to tie back to the center block's patriotic quilt. So, I made a few pinwheels, using the same light blue fabric from the flying geese round. It's always a good design element to repeat fabrics or colors throughout a quilt to provide unity.

Now what to do? In the picture above, I have somewhat of a layout idea, and decide to make a few cream pinwheels. After pondering their placement, I added the extra blue background in different widths to make those pinwheels dance along the border.

Oh I really like that! But once again, my idea was thwarted by not having enough light blue background fabric to cover more pinwheels and sashing. Dang it!! So now what?

While pondering that question, I decided I didn't like this pinwheel border right next to the green one. The color and block transition just looked odd. Alright then, how about finishing up the blue dot fabric from those flying geese to add a transition border? And more unity of course!

Much better. The red, green, blue and cream dots in that fabric does a great job between the two borders, joining them together.

Moving on to solving the gaps between the pinwheels. With no other light blue in the stash that was a close match, I decided to sew the pinwheels together, removing the spaces between them. That left large spaces on each end of the pinwheel sets. After testing out a few more blues, I dove into my patriotic bin, and settled on a dark blue print with red, white and light blue crosses on it.

That works okay, and having spent a few hours agonizing over this pinwheel round (see all those scraps I was playing with?), I was satisfied well enough to finish it up.

Though this pinwheel round is not quite what I wanted, it still looks fine, and I'm declaring this quilt top DONE! Now to find backing that's large enough (ya, right!), and get 'er quilted. Plan on seeing the final finish March 29, when there's a SAHRR Finish linky party over at Quilting Gail's - I hope to see your project there!

Do check out all the pinwheel rounds from my fellow round robin quilting friends this week. If you're sewing along with us, share your round robin at Quilting Gail's SAHRR linky party.

• January 11:  centre blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 18: 1st Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• January 25: 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 1: 3rd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 8: 4th Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• February 15: 5th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 22: 6th Round: Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
• February 28: 7th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail 

See you again March 29. Until then,

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Stay at Home Round Robin - Log Cabin

Welcome back for round 6 of Quilting Gail's Stay at Home Round Robin. This week is my block choice, log cabin.

I bet your looking at this round and wondering, huh? I'll admit, even though this round features my block choice, this is probably my least favorite round, for several reasons.

While I like the green, turns out I ran out of not only the green plaid but my favorite cream dot print used in the piano key round. That left me with a dozen log cabin blocks to play with. Sure, I could have made more with different fabrics, but that leads to the next problem.

What I discovered, at least for my quilt, log cabin blocks do not make the best choice for a border. I hope that my round robin quilt friends have found a way around this, though I know one asked about skipping a row. And I don't blame her if she chose this row to skip!

So, with a lack of fabric and a poor block choice, this is what happens. An odd border. The best I could come up with was using 8 log cabin blocks in the top and bottom borders, in sets of two. A group of two in each corner,

and two in the border centers.

Okay, that solves for the log cabin problem. Fortunately, I had just enough of the large green plaid to put pieces in the center on the sides.

To solve the remaining green fabric problem, I found a close-in-value green in the stash, just enough to fill in the blanks.

Overall, it looks ok, almost like lightening bolts coming from those stars. But I think I'll put this border in the 'fail' category.

Hopefully, my other round robin quilt friends were more successful with this round - be sure to check out what they did. And link up your round robin creation below!

• January 11:  centre blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 18: 1st Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• January 25: 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 1: 3rd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 8: 4th Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• February 15: 5th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 22: 6th Round: Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
• February 28: 7th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail 

Happy Quilting!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Stay at Home Round Robin - Wonky Stars

The Stay at Home Round Robin, hosted by Quilting Gail, features wonky stars for round 5.

Well, this round worked out well for my design. Sorry to say, but I'm not that fond of anything wonky - I more of a clean lines, everything balanced type of designer. That's why there's only four stars - I had no interest in making more. 

And even though I didn't like the yellow plus signs from before, thankfully, they're now blending in with the addition of the yellow stars in the corners on this round.

Just so I didn't regret my yellow choice as before, I used a softer yellow, one not so bright and with a touch of gold in it.

I even placed them in a sparkly dark blue night sky. If there weren't two more rounds to help increase the quilt size, I think I would stop here. But I shall continue cause the next round is mine, and it would be awkward if I didn't do it.

Check out how my other round robin quilt friends are creating their rounds, and be sure to link up your round this week with Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts on My Quilting Life.

• January 11:  centre blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 18: 1st Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• January 25: 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 1: 3rd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 8: 4th Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• February 15: 5th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 22: 6th Round: Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
• February 28: 7th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail 

Now onto round six, which is my block choice. Not sure what I'm going to do yet but I'd better get it figured out. Until then, 

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Lucky Charms for Quilt Block Mania

Here we are with another free block this month for Quilt Block Mania. The theme for February is Lucky Charms, which is also the name of my block.

When I saw both the Lucky Charms theme and the accompanying color scheme of sweet-tooth sugared-tones from Design Seeds, 

I immediately thought of Lucky Charms cereal. Is it the same for you?

Though Lucky Charms was not one of my favorite cereals as a kid (I was more into Pops, Smacks or Apple Jacks), it still has a certain appeal to it with the fun marshmallow shapes. For a fun diversion, check out the history of Lucky Charms - it's quite interesting.

Of course, before proceeding in block design, I had to check that the charms  would work with the color scheme. In the picture, I see a pink heart, a blue moon, an orange shooting star, a green clover on a hat, a horseshoe, and a rainbow. Not sure what the yellow blob is (a pot of gold maybe?), so we'll just ignore that one.

Hmm, the sweet-tooth color palette doesn't have blue which would eliminate the moon. But I'm going to use a bit of artistic license and change the moon to yellow to suit the given color palette and my block. Sure, I could have done the horseshoe, but I like the moon better.

So that the heart, star, clover and moon appliques look their best in the block, I designed an easy four part background of light color-scheme-themed fabrics to set them on.

With just a few fat quarters or scraps, the Lucky Charm block is easy to piece and applique. The pattern includes full size templates for creating the charms - just be sure to trace (or print) them in reverse. 

The 12" x 12" (finished) Lucky Charms block is free and available for download from the 'Free Block Patterns' section of my FREE page. 

In downloading the pattern, you agree not to share the file with others, but direct them to the QuiltFabrication.com/Lucky Charms for Quilt Block Mania post. Feel free to tell others about QuiltFabrication and become a follower yourself through any or all of the following: direct delivery of posts to your inbox, or by following on Bloglovin, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

Here's a look at all the 12" Lucky Charms blocks available this month.

Don't forget to visit all the other designers for their Lucky Charm themed blocks to make one fabulous lucky and charmed quilt! 

Lucky Horseshoe by Carolina Moore
Lucky Squares at Slice of Pi Quilts
Lucky Spin by Carolyn Burgess
Charming Wreath Block by Blockofthemodotcom
Lucky Squares Improv at Love to Color My World
Luck and Sunshine
Luck o' the Irish at Patti's Patchwork
Simply Charmed by Cotton Street Commons
Hi My Name is Lucky by Heidi Pridemore
Swedish lucky horse by duck creek mountain quilting
Charmed Clover at Perkins Dry Goods
Charming Lucky by Puppy Girl Designs
Star Bright at Studio R Quilts
Lucky Charms by QuiltFabrication
Magically "Quilt"lious
Wishing Stars
Heart Shine 4th by Sara Flynn
Lucky Shamrock Block
Lucky Gnome
Feelin' Lucky by Inquiring Quilter
Pastel Clover at Blue Bear Quilts
Daddy Hex by Pretty Piney Quilts
Pieced Lucky Hat
Sam's Pot of Gold
Love and Luck by PhoebeMoon Designs
Maneki Neko by Capaquilts
The Butterfly Charm

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns

Stay at Home Round Robin - 1

Are you ready to sew Round 1 of the Stay at Home Round Robin? This first round features the easy and always popular piano keys.

If you're just joining in on the fun, Welcome! Quilting Gail is hosting another Stay at Home Round Robin, a quilt you work on completely by yourself instead of passing it to others for each round. Since we're at round 1, there's plenty of time to join in. For more details, the Stay at Home Round Robin 2021 post should answer any questions you may have.

For my piano key round, I hit the scrap bag for the blues and reds, and found a multi-colored dot print to tie everything together. Little did I know I would become attached to those dots, wishing I had more of it!

As for the design, I used the size of the blue scraps, roughly figuring out an even spacing. This was not designed in EQ - it's completely free form sewing using pieces that I had.

For extra punch, and a fine way to deal with the corners, I added in red squares. Now didn't that liven it up!

I had said before that the center block leans patriotic, but I don't want the final quilt to be completely red, white, and blue. So expect a different color for the next round.

This week, Chris from Chrisknitssews, who chose piano keys, is hosting the Round 1 linky party. When you've completed yours, link up for everyone to see! 

And be sure to see what my fellow quilters have dreamed up for their round 1 piano keys. We'll be back next week for round 2.

• January 11:  centre blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 18: 1st Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• January 25: 2nd Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 1: 3rd Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 8: 4th Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• February 15: 5th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 22: 6th Round: Susan @ Quilt Fabrication
• February 28: 7th Round ME!!! @ Quilting Gail 

Happy Quilting!

My Favorite Patterns