Tantalizing Table Toppers Sampler Progress

 I'll catch you up fast as I have not been posting as I complete blocks for this project. Pat Sloan tempted me with this wonderful idea to make a sampler using a block from each project in her book, Tantalizing Table Toppers. Here is the first block:

She also featured this gorgeous fabric called Frankie by Basic Grey in one of her previous projects. I bought this fabric and then, when the sampler project came up, I knew it would be perfect! 

Week two's block:

This week the block was several units which together make a border around the center. Pat is incorporating solids with her prints and as luck would have it, the fat quarter bundle for Frankie also included these gorgeous grunge solids. I'm trying to use my solids when Pat does to have a similar effect.

Week 3 is a bonus block:

I love this hexagon print and am trying to use it in fun spots throughout the sampler. This colourway is more white.

It is a busy print but up close it works.

Now skip ahead to the joining the left column of blocks to the center:

I finally have some curtain clips on my double rod and clipped up the progress on the sampler. At this point the left column - so three more weeks - of blocks is added and I sewed the sashing pieces on too. For some of this black I used a crochet print by Alison Glass because I needed more than a fat quarter of black. I'm loving the bright colours with the black. I chose to use the floral print with black background for the center of the first block and bought more of it for the final borders.

Here is the completed center outside on a nice summer day:

Next is to make blocks for a row above and below this piece. Then borders and we're done! I'm behind now with only the next block complete:

I'm having fun anyway! This block incorporates the hexagon print in the blue colourway. 

How do you stay motivated once you've fallen behind in a sew along?

Leave me your tips!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Favorite Sewlebrity - 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge

 My favorite Sewlebrity is Pat Sloan!

This is one of the prompts for Cheryl's 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge. 

I think I've been following Pat Sloan for almost as long as I've been blogging - 10 years!

This was a Pat Sloan quilt top I finished last year:

You can read about it here: Winter Fun

I'm sure you know her and if you don't - check her out :)  Pat Sloan

Pat's enthusiasm is contagious and she is a great designer. She is an encourager in every sense of the word - I think she's an enabler too!

I have made  a post in the past where I celebrated her birthday and featured some of her quilts that I made at that point. Happy Birthday Pat Sloan

Early on when I started following her, Pat had an online forum which eventually became her facebook groups. But! There is an 'original' group of us who still hang out in our own private group. This has been one of my greatest gifts from Pat. 

During the pandemic Pat has been a lifesaver for many. In the early days I watched her daily videos and felt some normalcy and joy in the everyday life that we were starting to come to terms with. I made a quilt with my daughter that first May which is a wonderful keepsake and memory for us.

May Rainbow quilt

This coming year Pat continues to make plans that I can't resist! LOL I am waiting for my copy of the Woodland Wonderland quilt to make after seeing her cute blocks and I've ordered the book, The Secret Lives of Color (which apparently everone else has too!) for the sewing and reading she will be doing with this book next year.

Pat has made my quilting life a joy! 

Who is your favorite Sewlebrity?

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Winter Fun Sewalong with Pat Sloan

It's already four weeks into the Winter Fun sewalong with Pat Sloan so it's definitely time I post some photos of my blocks!

I'm having fun using up a layer cake of Nordic Stitches that I couldn't resist buying several years ago now. The fabric is winter themed with knitting stitch patterns, deers and hearts. With the various shades of blue I thought this would be a good fit for a winter quilt that I could use on the couch long after Christmas and into the late winter.

Many of the fabrics are directional which adds a little challenge to the project. Every opportunity I get to use a directional fabric I take so that they don't end up as my last choices. Pat designed the blocks using a fat quarter bundle but also told us that we could use a layer cake. Here I needed to use two 10" squares to get the dark blue pieces but I was okay with that. I separated my doubles before I started choosing fabrics so that I would only use them when required. 

In block 3 I used a directional print for the corner square and rectangle - they are both cut from the same square. You can also see that there are several shades of blue - light, medium and dark - included in this line. I used the red as the dark fabric in this block and will put red in a few more of the blocks as a focus print. I am almost decided on using a solid red as one of my border prints as I do have some in my stash.

This week's sewalong post was the quilt layout and instructions for cutting sashing and borders. I have to do a bit of shopping or decide on a different layout than the one provided as I only bought one additional yard of a print in this line. 

You can join the sewalong through Pat's I Love to Make quilts page. Or just visit to see the link up posts and view the blocks other quilters have made in all kinds of fabrics. Either way it's a fun way to enjoy winter :)

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Madhatter Tea Party Challenge Quilt

I'm late! I'm late! But never one to completely give up on a challenge - so here's my quilt top. Finally!

The challenge was originally issued back in 2009 by Pat Sloan. If you 'google' madhatter tea party quilt challenge you will find the applique templates for the tea cups, tea pot, cream and sugar.

It was pretty much make the blocks and create your own quilt. A lot of possibilities there, right! I took my time hand blanket stitching around the tea cups and such, but really wanted to get this one done this year.

I've always thought of it as my after-the-birthdays-are-over month quilt because in our house we have 3 birthdays from the end of February to the end of March - I want this quilt ready to hang when the birthdays are over! Because in my head I've always attached the tea party song, 'a very merry unbirthday to you - to you' to this quilt! LOL! 

So of course my quilt needs cake! Again, several years ago now, when I saw this cake block in the Snapshot sewalong by Fat Quarter shop I knew this block would work in my unbirthday month cake. Both my son and I think it would have been better with the yellow as the icing and the green as the cake but, it's done and it definitely suits the rest of the party decor!

Now that I'd added a different block to the mix I needed to figure out what to add that would still keep it looking like a tea party. I thought about a big top hat but it didn't feel quite right. I decided to go through my books by Pat Sloan to see if any of her other blocks would fit in.

Heart roses! Perfect. So fun to make in the fabrics I had set aside to go in this quilt. It's from her book, New Ideas for Applique.

Then it was time to start setting the blocks to see what I could do with the fabrics I had. I decided on making some of them 'wonky' and used a tutorial to help me with the cutting - even though I ended up making some wrong cuts and pretty much flubbing my way through!

I made the two outside columns first, alternating my sashing fabrics and measuring to get them both the same length. I decided to put a long block in each column to hopefully balance out the composition. Then I had a bit of leftover space in the middle column. I had been considering a label for the quilt and putting it on the front. 

Of course! Just like in Alice in Wonderland. I traced Pat's letters from the templates and even used her heart embroidery from her little Splendid Sampler cake block - which almost made it into this quilt too. Maybe the back label? The ric rac is sewn into the side seams of the black fabric; I think I'll stitch it to the quilt too when I quilt it. The black flower fabric reminds me of the flowers that sing Golden Afternoon in the movie :)

Then there was some humming and hawing trying to figure out the best use of the Alice in Wonderland fabric that I had for the borders - not enough to go around all four sides. I thought about adding little cake block or a teacup in each corner. Then I realized that where I will hang this quilt in my house you won't see the bottom all the time. So it's okay if it doesn't match or balance in the corners and that's when I came up with using the Alice fabric on the sides and top and more of the cards fabric across the bottom. I tried the card fabric on the sides but it blended right into the sashing where it's the same fabric - and alternating the fabrics around the quilt would require a lot of math and still be tricky to line up. 

Better late than never, right? This is my first UFO finish of 2017 - even though it's just the top. It's next in line to get quilted so it's done in time for April in my house!

Do you make challenge quilts? 

With JOY,

Sarah V.

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Quilting my way into the new year

Happy New Year! Best wishes for some productive time quilting this year. 

I spent the time leading up to Christmas and a few days after working at putting this lap quilt top together. It's made up of random blocks that were sitting in a pile waiting patiently - some longer than others. The 6 pointed stars near the top were actually handpieced by my husband's grandmother and have been sitting in my stash for almost 10 years! Happy to finally give them a home :)

My traditional New Year's activity is spending quality online time with the Sloanie group of quilters where we have a luau together, sharing photos of projects picked to work on over the evening as well as photos to keep us inspired (coffee, drinks, cabana boys. . . wink!) I pulled out these Little Wishes blocks designed by Pat Sloan for a challenge last year(um, make that 2015!). They never  became anything at the time.

Over the year I had made a few more units to make more blocks but never got around to it until New Year's. I really like that this block when set side by side creates another row of stars with a four patch inside. Unfortunately most of my scraps are dark and this feature really gets lost in my layout.

I went back to my cupboard and found these bright pinwheel blocks that were leftover from another project from several years ago too. I know I used some to make one side of a quilt for my son a few years back, but I still had these ones. I decided to border the Little Wishes blocks I had done and set them with the pinwheels to get it done! My family thinks it's pretty bright ;) I plan to donate this one either through my local guild or somewhere else local. Donating a quilt (or more) has been on my list of things I want to do for a couple of years - now all I have to do is quilt it!

I do try to work on Pat Sloan inspired projects over New Year's as the luau is with a group of friends brought together by Pat's work. And also because a lot of my UFOs are based on her work (LOL). This year I'm going to make a second Season of Grace quilt which was a joint project between Pat Sloan and Emilie Richards several years ago now. I made my first one using up a lot of my husband's granny's stash which I inherited when she passed. Several years ago my mom gave me her Christmas stash and I set it aside knowing I wanted to make a second quilt with it. 

Here's a great flashback post showing the progress on the first Season of Grace quilt.

I had my son get out the fabrics and sort them so I could figure out which ones I had enough of to make the quilt top itself. New Year's Eve eve day I cut out the fabrics and put them together so technically, this top was finished last year ;) I'm going to cut out all the backs for the stockings next and plan to quilt the top long before Christmas so I have time to put the buttons on - which I may even try doing with a sewing machine!

I also got caught up before midnight on the 150 Canadian Women quilt blocks being put out by Next Step Quilt Designs. My plan is to sew them into groups of 4 and set them with thirteen 12 inch Maple Leaf blocks. My sister gifted me with some of her stash at Christmas which is good because I have never really "stocked" red in my stash - nor whites for that matter! This project is fun for me on so many levels - a long project, sewing with others, patchwork (only so far!), and history. Each block is named after a Canadian woman in history and comes with her story. Also the challenge of working in such a limited palette - even though I am stretching into burgundy and pinks - is fun. And it will be a quilt for me which also seems to be a theme for me this year!

After all this catching up I slowed down. A lot. Overwhelm hit as I tried to figure out what next and to get my year of quilting planned out. I decided there was lots of time for that and to pick a quilt that I wanted to work on first. 

Yup. You guessed it, another Pat Sloan challenge! These are my blocks from the Madhatter Tea Party challenge - in 2009! I finally finished blanket stitching one of the last tea cups during the Rose Parade and then made the Snapshots quilt along Let Them Eat Cake block. Now I'm pondering some more additions. I look forward to sharing some progress with you on this one again next month. My goal is to have it up in our house for April after our birthday season is over.

This holiday season I'm grateful to be a teacher with time off over the holidays! Wishing you much joy in the year ahead.

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Happy Belated Birthday, Pat Sloan!

It's been another wonderful year of quilting and this past weekend was Pat Sloan's birthday. Pat has brought a lot of JOY to my quilting experience. The friends, the challenges, and her happy fabrics, but especially her enthusiasm and quilt designs :) Here are some of the things I made this year thanks to Pat!

This past year Pat designed and shared this free block of the month with FreeQuiltPatterns. The quilt is called My Secret Garden and I used several loved and special fabrics for my version.

Pat started The Splendid Sampler this year with Jane Davidson and over 80 other designers!

I have not kept up with the blocks as they come out, but I'm still having fun:)

Here's my first blog post about the project where you can see the fabrics I'm using.

I have several online quilting friends that share a love of all things Pat Sloan. This year some of us exchanged blocks for our birthdays. Here is a collage showing some of the blocks I sent - two are not posted here as the birthdays are still happening! Sometimes I used Pat's fabrics and other times I used blocks she designed - like the snowman:) The blue star above is from one of this year's Aurifil designers Christa Watson - another project that Pat co-ordinates!

My scrappy bento box blocks were my birthday blocks. I decided since my last post to put the purple border on the inside:) 

I used Pat's fabrics for my block in the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks volume 13 that came out in the spring!

I recently got Pat's newest  book too - Teach Me to Machine Quilt! She has a challenge going on right now practicing machine quilting on panels. 

Pat Sloan is an inspiration and a true quilter herself. You can find her online almost everywhere! Start at her blog and enjoy her passion for the wonderful world of quilting. You can even listen to her very own radio show :)

Happy Belated Birthday Pat!

With JOY,

Sarah V.

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Meanwhile back in the studio - November catch up

November is flying by! Here's a quick look at what's new around here and waiting for my attention.

The panel I bought at the Fibre Festival last month is perfect for Pat Sloan's latest challenge - machine quilting! Her new book arrived and now I need to make time to try it.

More new fabric (shhhh!) and a new magazine. Yes, I'm a contributor again!

My day is NEXT Friday! I'll be sure to remind you to visit Quiltmaker and the blogs they feature each day for your chance to win some fun giveaways.

That beautiful green fabric {basic mixologie by Studio M for moda} didn't stay long in my stash! I'm using it in my border for my Secret Garden quilt - another Pat Sloan challenge that has a deadline for this weekend IF I want to win a prize (yes, please, Pat!)

I've been supply teaching a lot (yay!) and when that happens I find it really hard to stay on top of projects in my studio. I'm trying to resolve that, working on a little step at a time instead of trying to finish something or not even start. Can you relate? My cats are looking forward to a little more cuddle time in my space too - they only do this when I'm around to see it (I think!) ;)

The next PFAFF machine I'm reviewing arrived! It's a sweet little work pony :) It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the other machines I've tried, but it purrs along with patchwork.

Those nine patch blocks I mentioned? They were sitting ready and waiting so that this morning - when we actually were ready to leave early for a change - I had time to sew them into rows! And it went speedy quick with my little PFAFF pony!

 I'll let you know when I review it over at QUILTsocial next month ;)

What do you like to know about sewing machines? Leave me a comment and maybe I can work an answer into my review!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Two My Secret Garden Blocks for July

This month Pat Sloan gave us two blocks to make for the My Secret Garden mystery block of the month. I really love the print in the background star and hope to get a chance to use it as a feature fabric in another block.

I took advantage of the design wall I added this month to put up all of my Secret Garden blocks. The one on the bottom is the bonus block for this month. Pat has it laid out here in her plan so I decided to do the same. This column of the quilt seems to have the same blue background!

Here's a closer look at the bonus block. It's actually the same block as the first one with the fabric placement changed.

This is my block 1 - can you see the changes? I changed mine from the bonus directions that Pat gave out. 

I wonder how many different ways you could play with this one block!

Looking forward to August!

With Joy,

Sarah V

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Two Months of Secret Garden Blocks

May got really busy for me somehow - procrastinating on projects put me behind on the quilts I'm making for me. This is the May block from Pat Sloan's My Secret Garden block of the month. 

My Secret Garden May Block

I really wanted to use the blue Denyse Schmidt print that I've been holding onto as the background. Using 4 different colors for the pinwheels really adds some movement to the block. This is the first block the fabric in the darker inner border has made an appearance - I will have to start including it in more!

I'm really happy with how my June block turned out. Pat showed two fabric placement variations which you can see here. I wanted to try and make my center star float so I chose two different light fabrics for the star background fabrics. 

My Secret Garden June Block

I also took another design cue from Pat - I noticed one of her blocks used the three primary colors (red, blue, and yellow.)  I have a tendency to use the secondary colors a lot - green, orange, and purple. I went through my stash of fabrics set aside for this project and got as close to the secondary colors as I could! Fun to see how the coral Tula pink fabric has played several different roles for me in these blocks. 

Now I'm caught up on this project until next month;)

How are you doing with your Block of the Month projects?


With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Birthday Blocks for April

Yes, April! 

April's birthday quilter requested blocks in blue for her Florida home. I chose the Aurifil block of the month by Christa Watson. I used a some of all the blue Pat Sloan fabrics I had! The center is not as liberated as it could be, but I'm still happy with the outcome.

The birthday group of is made up of a group of quilters who met online through Pat Sloan's forum. I try to incorporate a design and/or fabric in each block. I don't always, but it's fun to try!

There was no birthday quilter in May but there are several in June. 

Here's the first one that's already been celebrated:

This quilter wanted a snowman of any size. I used Pat Sloan's snowman from her book, "New Ideas for Applique", and just left off it's cute hat. The background fabric is from Pat's Sweet Life line of fabric.

Two more June blocks are made but I'll share them later this month once they've been received!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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My Saved Stash is Blooming into a Secret Garden

I couldn't resist any longer!

Pat Sloan got me again! She rocks at designing blocks that pull me in and her newest Block of the Month *My Secret Garden* is no exception. This is my stash of fabrics - lots of blue! - that I am going to finally let bloom into a quilt!

Pat Sloan My Secret Garden

I am proud to say that I planned my projects before I started cutting to make the first block!

I'm using my Visual Project List Board to help me focus on finishing this year.

Subscribe to my newsletter and get my templates to make your own Visual Project List board

Then I dove in!

I'm keeping this block on my design wall for a little longer - it makes me smile to look at it :)


Are you quilting for YOU this year? I hope so!



With Joy,

Sarah V

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Quilting with Colorful Fabric and Thread

I made up another placemat using some of my Story line fabric scraps.
This time it's my Eat With JOY placemat pattern. I used some of the Cotton and Steel pencils too. I love the print that looks like weaving I used on the side borders. And the pink. The orange. The fun minty green with circles. You get the idea :)

It's interesting because I would never walk into a quilt store and be attracted to this type of geometric/modern/abstract fabric. And yet using it I find it really easy to express my ideas and to use the prints to make something that I like. The bright colors really help a lot!

This placemat will be for my daughter who has always loved butterflies. The back of the placemat was a great place to use up my fat quarter of this Elements print by Tim Holtz.

I have to say that I am enjoying using my driveway as the background for photos! Who knew it was such a neat surface to contrast with quilts.

While I am working on things that have deadlines, I'm trying really hard to still make time to quilt for fun - and for me! This is the August block from the Friends on Chelsea Lane kit I was gifted. It's classic Pat Sloan.

I really had fun using a variegated spool of thread from Pat's Aurifil thread box. I have hesitated to use it because it looks red, white and purple but upon using it I discovered it's orange, white, purple and a little bit of lime green. Super fun!  In this photo I was trying to show that the orange in the thread actually matches the daisy in the flower to the right of my needle. So the thread does match something in this quilt!


Linking up with The Needle and Thread Network - Canadian textile art bloggers.


Hope you are quilting something fun and colorful for you too!


With Joy,

Sarah V

p.s. I have a giveaway going on until October 1 over here!

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