Favorite Blocks Part 2

 Yesterday, I shared about my favorite quilt blocks to make again and again. I am wrapping that up today, and would love to hear about what quilt blocks are your favorites.

1. Log Cabins (shared yesterday)
2. Flying Geese (shared yesterday)
3. Stars -Wonky or sawtooth 
4. Drunkard's Path
5. Churn Dash

Picking up where I left off - on Stars. How can you not love a star? It's definitely a very traditional block, but I feel like you can give any block a modern twist in many different ways....one being, make it wonky. I tend to make wonky stars over sawtooth, but I still love a good sawtooth star.  Here are some of the star quilts I have made.

Wonky stars in peachy pink and white. 

I loved this fabric so much, I just wanted it to be one giant sawtooth star.

Another twist on a star, with bug patchwork blocks sewn to make a star quilt.

This Liberty of London star quilt was so fun. So much negative space so the stars could really shine.

And this might be my favorite wonky star quilt, that makes me instantly crave Starburst candy. One of the best things about a wonky star is the center square can be a fussy cut, so you can have a fun design and showcase a beautiful piece of fabric.

The Drunkard's Path block is a more recent favorite. I used to HATE sewing curves, but like anything else in life, the more you try it, the better you get at it. If I was going to give any tips on drunkard path's it would be - the bigger the curve, the easier the sewing. Go slow. And use pins. I almost NEVER use pins. But I do on small curved pieces. I haven't made a ton of circle blocks, but this one quilt I recently made is one of my favorite things I have ever created.

Are the seams on the circles absolutely perfect - No! But do I still love it so much- YESSSSS!

In my opinion, the drunkards path lends to a more modern block. Especially when you combine a curve with straight lines. The contrast between the two is where it's at!

I am breaking the rules on quilt humility here, but I loved this quilt so much. The only way I was able to part with it was because I started a quilt in a similar color palette months before I made this one, knowing I was going to keep the original.

This is an example of a BIG drunkard path. Much easier to piece, and also better to feature a piece of fabric that you want to show off.

This is the drunkard path quilt block I am making to keep. Using little bits of fabric scraps from past projects to create some early evening moons. I have two blocks done and seeing this just made me eager to make some more.

Finally, rounding out my top 5 blocks-- the churn dash. I actually have not made this one that much, but I really do love it! I generally am not a fan of HSTs but this block mixes HSTs with basic patchwork, and it actually comes together quickly. Additionally love the idea of fussy cutting the center of the churn dash!

I made this for a mini quilt swap, but love the idea of creating this in 9 blocks, 3 x 3, and turning it into a quilt. 

These fabrics and colors!!!! I had almost forgotten about this one, and it just made me feel like I need drive to the beach and get frozen yogurt. Something about Heather Bailey fabrics just makes me think of summer fun!

And that is it - my five favorite quilt blocks. The list of runner ups would be endless (square in a square, improv triangles, plus blocks), but these are the blocks I always go back to.

What are your favorite quilt blocks?

Favorite Blocks - part one

 I was looking through pictures this weekend of quilts I made, and I noticed that there are some styles I make again and again, some colors I make with often, and some blocks I always go back to.

My top five very favorite quilt blocks to make are (in no particular order)

1. Log Cabins
2. Flying Geese
3. Stars (wonky or sawtooth)
4. Drunkard's Path
5. Churn Dash

Log Cabins are so easy and fun to make and you can either make them with precise measurements, or my personal fave, improv style, where you keep building it out until you get to your desired size. Here are some of my favorite log cabin quilts. 

I love this quilt. One of the few I regret not keeping. 

This quilt is basically one big log cabin, all pieced around the center block.

Same with this one. This quilt was pieced around the center block, with different colors on each side of the cabin.

Flying Geese blocks I make again and again. In fact, the very first original pattern I created and wrote down was made around making flying geese blocks against a patchwork sky.

This was my first geese quilt that prompted the pattern creation. And even though I created a pattern for it, I changed it some with each subsequent version of it.

And then this one was just geese with different blocks around it.

I feel like this post is getting lengthy, so I will continue it more tomorrow, and my kiddos are off school today for Mardi Gras and asking me to play cards, so I am going to wrap this up tomorrow.

In the meantime, I'd love to know what your favorite blocks are!!

Scraps from older projects becomes something new.

I shared about a quilt I made recently that is/was one of my favorite finishes in a long while.  This lavender quilt I made began with the idea of simply making geese in a patchwork quilt that was soaked in shades of lavender. 

Side note. I love making one at a time geese. I know it's not very efficient, time-wise, but I love doing them this way to make more of a scrappy block. Another downside to one-at-a-time geese is that it can create waste. But when I made the quilt I mentioned above, I took the trimmings of each goose block and stitched them together to create other blocks. So basically my trimmings from each 1-at-a-time flying goose (lol) created 2 sets of HSTs. I stitched each of them together and from the trimmings, I got a smaller flying goose block. WINNING!

I have actually made several lavender quilts in the past couple years, and I had saved all my scraps in a large ziplock bag and used them all to build this new quilt top.

So this is where I started-- dumping out my bag of scraps, and then some ironing.

I ironed and stitched together some of the diamond and geese I had already made from scraps.

Look! No wasted trimmings, they all became little geese in different sizes. I can't tell you how gratified I felt using these pieces up. 

I kept building and decided for this one, I wanted more white space and didn't want the lavender as saturated. So I used low volumes in black and white, white with a little bit of color, and threw in some creamy colored fabrics for contrast.

I mentioned above that I really love flying geese blocks, but I also REALLY love stars-- sawtooth stars, wonky stars, FPP stars- you name the star, I will love it. I have been trying to sneak these stars into quilts, lately, and of course, this quilt needed one, too. 

And here she is, all done and ready to be quilted. I included a lot of my favorite fabrics and favorite blocks and can't wait to get this one quilted up and ready to go! And I still have a lot of lavender scraps, so I am thinking I am going to work in another color  of scraps and put it back in a bag for a quilt top for another day!

Update  - Quilt IS FINISHED!!!

It is available in my shop here!

Taking a Break from Unfinished Projects

As I often do at the beginning of a new year, I told myself I was going to chip away at my pile of unfinished quilt tops. I thought I had only 17, but a few days into 2023, I opened another bin up and found 6 more. So I tried to make myself promise that for every 2 new creations, I picked up 1 unfinished quilt top. I have actually done a decent job so far. Of the 6 quilts I have made since January 15th, 3 of them were unfinished quilts. 

Here are the 3 quilts I started ages ago that are now all done:

I blogged about this one  here. - this one was 129 weeks from start to finish according to Instagram.

This one was bag of strips I bought in 2013 and was my first strip quilt. Only I sewed it with less than 1/4 inch seam allowance and the seams were fraying. I pulled the quilt top out in January, restitched the seams, then cut top into blocks and voila! A finished quilt almost TEN YEARS in the making. It is in my shop here.

And this one. I blogged about it here and am still in love with this quilt. Very much so.

So three completed quilt tops, and three new ones. This one is one I started and finished in a few days.

Simple, big patchwork with a sweet little star tucked in for good measure.

I debated the placement of the dark teal pieces, but in the end, I think it works.

I have been struggling to find the good spots of natural light in this new house. It seems fine for close up pictures, but anytime I try to get the whole quilt in a picture, the picture comes out bleh. If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears. 

See. This is close up, by a window, no filter. This picture truly captures the color and texture of the quilt. And I am loving my new quilt labels, so had to get a little shot of that. 

This quilt is in my shop.