Patchwork Scraps and Umbrella Block Pillow Cushion Cover

It's time for April showers! And my turn again at QUILTsocial.com. I designed this fun pieced umbrella block to welcome the season that melts the snow where I live.

Celebrating Spring with a cheery quilted umbrella cushion

I got to use the PFAFF quilt expression 720 to create my project - my favourite PFAFF yet! 
For this cushion I decided to design one side using scraps from my stash to create a double four patch set of blocks with no repeating fabrics. Of course you could make it more controlled scrappy, but the challenge to reduce the stash is an ongoing one. With Earth Day next week I thought it would be a fun way to remind quilters that most of us already have enough fabric. What?!

Or, maybe this message is more encouraging:

Use up your stash so you can build a new one!

 Honoring Earth Day: use your stash to make a quilted patchwork cushion

I used the built in Patchwork Program to make quick work of sewing all the patchwork squares together. You can see it at work in this post.

When it came time to quilt the patchwork side of the cushion, I used different decorative stitches along the seams. 

Using handlook stitches on the quilt expression 720 for quilting patchwork

And I used a zipper to close the cushion this time. Of course I found a yellow one in my stash!

Finishing the quilted umbrella cushion with a zipper

When I took my cushion cover outside to find a good place for a photo, I discovered that I have daffodils coming up in my front garden bed. This is my first Spring in our new house and I'm delighted to be finally living on the Sunny Side of the Street! Bring on the bulbs!

Embrace the season of change and find some time to quilt JOY into it:)

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Monterey Medallion progress at the end of March

I have been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with this guild project; it's the Monterey Medallion by Atkinson Designs.

I made a decision to change to the twin size of this quilt. Realistically, I was falling behind on completing all of the floating stars and when my daughter was home over Christmas she said she really liked the colours. So - change of plans! I'm turning this into a quilt for her and now it doesn't have to be a queen size quilt.

Since then I worked on completing all of the wood pile blocks. I'm really pleased still that I chose the bright turquoise for the contrast fabric. 

All that's left now is to make all of the Jacob's ladder blocks. The four patches were the first step many months ago; I'm working on making all of the hst blocks for them. Hoping that before Easter I will have all of the blocks complete!



With Joy,

Sarah V.

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A Wordy Scrap Vortex

This quilt is an ongoing labour of love. I started it as a scrap vortex quilt several years ago and promised myself last year that I would work on it again. But for whatever reason, I didn't.

Believe it or not I started this quilt in 2016! Here's a link to that post.

This year I told myself that I would work on it during the month of February. I have been trying to focus on one work in progress a month. The hope is that if I give a project a month  of my attention I should come close to completing it, but if not, at least move it forward and determine if it's something I still want to work on.




It took me until almost the end of February to finally give myself permission to play with this quilt again. Do you do that? Work on the things for everybody else before the project that is just for you?  I have heard artists refer to this kind of project as a 'passion' project - something that they want to make just because, just for them.

I realized as I played (finally!) that a lot of the mini quilts that I've created over the last few years kind of belong with this project. One spoke to me and wanted a word added to it.

Begin.



I found some of my other word mini quilts and think that they will all be joining this project too.

I took some photos of the layout that I came up with and then put the project away again. Maybe I will play with it a bit this summer; I know it will be ready for me when I decide to play again.



Do you have a passion project?


With Joy,


Sarah V

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Lucky green quilt top for St. Patrick's Day

This week I finally put together the blocks I won last March at my Quilt Guild. Green Irish Chain blocks! I used the webbing method of sewing the blocks together and had it done in under two hours. 

Here is the quilt top on our queen size bed and you can see that it probably would fit a double bed right now.

There is definitely no 'drop' going on! Now the question becomes - do I leave it as is and finish it this size? It wouldn't be used on this bed then, maybe gifted? Or put on one of the single beds in the house?

Or do I need the quilt on my bed and should make it larger? I have a few of the nine patches that I could add with a wide white border. I've also thought about a wide border with a winding shamrock applique - but then this quilt top would never get finished! I also thought about a row of rainbow squares inside two white borders. . . 

What would you do? Call it done or make it bigger?

Would you push your luck;)

With Joy,

Sarah V

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QUILTsocial week featuring PFAFF's quilt expression 720

It's been a busy week!

It was my week over at QUILTsocial to review PFAFF's new quilt expression 720. This is my favourite of their machines that I've tried so far. 

I tried some of the built in decorative and creative stitches with a sewing font and created this tea cup coaster for my tea-loving daughter.

You can read my posts from the week over here. Leave some comments too :)

With Joy,

Sarah Vee

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