Surprise! Finished in Time for the Parade

A couple of days ago I posted that I still had some quilting and the binding to do on the SAHRR 2023 quilt. But, surprise! We had a quiet Saturday, and I finished the quilting. Then I sat down after church today and sewed the binding on, so I could hand stitch while watching reruns of Home Town episodes. Win win! It was delightful to use this sweet fabric, and fun to search out coordinating fabrics from my stash. This fabric is from a few yeats ago. It’s called Corner of 5th & Fun made by Moda. The baby quilt finished at 37” X 40”, a nice size for baby, toddler and young child.

Corner of 5th & Fun, Moda fabric

Each week beginning January 16 with our Center Blocks, a different one of the hosting quilters chose the block for us to make that wee. Here is the list I copied from Gail then modified to show the blocks:

• January 16: Center Block, Gail @  Quilting Gail
• January 23: 1st Round:  Spool Block, Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• January 30 :  2nd Round: Stars, Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 6: 3rd Round: Hour Glass Block, Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• February 13: 4th Round: Flying Geese, Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 20: 5th Round: Square in a Square Block, Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 27: 6th Round: Pinwheel Block, Gail @ Quilting Gail
• March 13: Parade – showing all of your finished SAHRRs! @ Quilting Gail

I made classic blocks except for the Stars (Round 2) where I appliqued stars I got by using our cookie cutter as a template; I fused them to the pink fabric and used a pink thread for the blanket stitch around them. On the 4th Round I added some Party Hat Blocks that I made because of the little hats in the fabric. Thank you so much to Gail and to each quilting blogger that created the Stay At Home Round Robin 2023 for all of us to enjoy. Blessings, Janie @ Isabella’s Whimsy

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SAHRR 2023 Parade of Quilts

It’s been a fun few weeks of quilt making with Gail at QuiltingGail and all the other hosts who guided us with their blocks. March 13 is designated Parade of Quilts, and it is open to all participants, even if we didn’t get finished. 😊 I still have some quilting to do and binding, but let me show you what I have at this point.

Partially quilted

Instead of quilting, my husband and I spent most of the week on a beach vacation. It was wonderful. 🌊  I came home itching to make a colorful quilt filled with beach houses. Here is the cottage we stayed in.

Beach cottage

I want to thank Gail and her team of quilting bloggers for making SAHRR 2023 possible. It has been a great experience. Blessings, Janie Isabella’s Whimsy My Etsy Shop, IsabellasWhimsy Facebook Pinterest

Dust Off a Quilt Book…

Bea of Beaquilter is hosting a blog hop in March called Dust Off a Quilt Book, as she has done for several years. The idea is to look back over what quilt books we have and choose a pattern to make for the first time, to make again, or to use as an inspiation for a new quilt. After going through my collection I found one of my old favorites, Scandinavian Stitches: 21 Playful Projects with Seasonal Flair by Finnish maker Kajsa Wikman (published 2010). The book is divided by season and offers a variety of projects in each one. Kajsa’s book has quilts, wall hangings, stuffed toys, pillows, and other fun and useful items. I love the whimsical projects in this book! It was easy to decide to make something from it, something I had liked from the first time I opened the book. Before telling you about my current project, let me show you what I have previously made using Scandinavian Stitches. Back in 2015 I made the Frosty Baby Quilt (p. 30), so delightful! Then using scraps from the quilt I made a little coordinating pillow. That fox is just too cute! Then later I used the flounder from the Once I Caught a Fish Quilt (p. 88) to make two kids placemats. I enlarged Kajsa’s pattern to about 16″. They were fun learning experiences for me and fun for the kids’ meals.      Now for this current project. The Silakka Pillow (p. 82) had been floating around in my mind for years. I don’t know why I didn’t make it ages ago! I made a few changes to the original design. First of all we don’t really use furniture pillows very much, so I made it into a wall hanging, close to the pillow size of 16″ square. The next change was to the word silakka. This Finnish word means “herring”, a staple of life in Finland, but not a fish we use or talk about in my part of the world. So, I needed to choose a different word. Hygge (pronounced hoo-gah), is a Danish and Norwegian word that has become well-known in modern design, meaning “to relax, be cozy, enjoy the quieter moments in life”. I discovered its counterpart, friluftsliv (pronounced  free-loofs-leaf), and it expresses “the Nordic concept of getting outdoors.” It seems like a great word to go on the little fish wall hanging.

Friluftsliv ♥ Enjoy the Outdoors

                                                                              And finally, being a wall hanging, not a pillow, we need to include a way to hang the fish. I used hanging triangles sewn to the two upper corners on the quilt back, then inserted a skinny dowel and hung it from a push pin.

Hanging Triangles, Dowel, Push Pin

Here is a list of all the participating quilters for the Dust Off a Quilt Book blog hop so you can stop in and see what everyone has made. I always enjoy checking in each spot and find so many creative quilts, of all sized and kinds. Enjoy:

March 6th

Quilting at the Farm

Lemon Tree Snippets

Creatin in the sticks

Natalie (on Beaquilter)

March 7th

Quilting Gail

Thrift Shop Commando

High Road Quilter

Moosestashquilting

March 8th

Kathleen McMusing

Words & Stitches

Isabella’s Whimsy ♥ You are here ♥

DesertSky Quilting

March 9th

LC’s Cottage

Cynthia’s Ark

Ms P Designs USA

Just Let Me Quilt

March 10th

Beaquilter

Karrin’s Crazy World

Quilting Patchwork Applique

Julie’s Quilts and Costumes

I hope you enjoy the Dust Off a Quilt Book blog hop hosted by BeaQuilter.com, and that you will see inspiring ideas on each of the quilting bloggers’ sites.

Blessings,

Janie, Isabella’s Whimsy

My Etsy Shop, IsabellasWhimsy

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SAHRR Round 5, Square in a Square

This week’s block for Round #5 was selected by Emily @ The Darling Dogwood. Her choice is the classic Square in a Square block. Emily is making her round Robin quilt in the Row by Row layout design. You really ought to take a look at her quilt; I love it!

Following my layout plan of using each round on two adjoining sides, I added the Square in a Square strips on the right side and across the bottom.

One more Round to go…what will it be? We will find out from Quilting Gail, the quilter behind it all, on Monday.

Blessings,

Janie, Isabella’s Whimsy

Etsy

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SAHRR, Round 4 Flying Geese and 4+

Anja Quilts and Round 4

Anja Quilts gave us one of my favorite blocks for this week, Flying Geese. I love Flying Geese Quilts, even though I have not made very many geese blocks. I added a column of Geese to one side of my little quilt as a beginning to balance last week’s Hour Glass blocks. I know in last week’s post I said I had already selected the fabrics for this week, but once the block was announced I changed plans and wanted to include most of the fabrics already used and one new one, the little pink flowers.

Something More

See the little Party Hats? I wanted to add them to the quilt also. So I did add them in a row across the bottom as the last part of Round 4.

At this point the quilt top measures about 28″ square. With two more rounds remaining I can think about adding 5″ or 6″ blocks to end with the baby quilt size I have been planning.

Once again I am eager to see what the next block will be!

Blessings,

Janie @ Isabella’s Whimsy

https:isabellaswhimsy.etsy.com

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Hourglass Blocks, Round 3 SAHRR

The third round for our SAHRR 2023 project was the Hour Glass quilt block, a classic block that I had been wanting to make. Chris at Chrisknits gave us the block. You can click on her link and see what her quilt looks like; she is taking a very different approach to Round Robin quilt making!

Here is a look at my progress. I’m very happy with how the quilt is developing.  I have been able to use only fabrics that I have in my stash, so that’s nice. The Hour Glass blocks finished at 4.5″, an inch bigger than the Spools and Stars.

Next week’s block will come from Anja Quilts. If you click on her link you can see her quilt with the 3 reounds added to her center block.

I have selected the fabrics for next week and am looking ahead to what the block will be. ♥

Blessings,

Janie at Isabella’s Whimsy

Ukraine, refugee relief

100% donation

Do you want to help Ukrainian refugees? There are many children and older people who need your help. Whether or not you quilt or sew, please consider purchasing my mug rug pattern. 100% of your purchase will be donated for refugee relief efforts.

You have the choice of 3 donation levels: $5, $10, or $15. PM me for other donation amounts.

Thank you from my heart.

Blessings, Janie Isabella’s Whimsy

https://IsabellasWhimsy.Etsy.com

Spools and Cookie Cutter Stars, SAHRR 2023

And so…

Last week was Round 1, but I didn’t get it finished on time. So this week I’ll show you the layout inspiration quilt I found, Round 1 and Round 2.

Inspiration quilt layout

This quilt does not look anything like my quilt will. It caught my eye because I want to make a baby quilt, so I will need to use partial rounds so that two blocks make one entire round to keep the size small enough.  This off-center medallion quilt looks a bit like a big Log Cabin layout. This colorful quilt was made by Jo Avery. You can read her blog post about how this quilt was used on a magazine cover.

Round 1

The Round 1 block presented by Roseanne @ Home Sewn By Us was Spools. I decided to try my hand at the classic spool block, in use since the early 1800s. Here is very a nice blog post about the classic spool block.

Here is a mug rug I made several years ago with spools, but I didn’t use the classic 9 patch block for any of them.

Round 2

Round 2, Stars, was given to us by Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

For my stars I decided to applique with fusible web. (I’m really not very good at piecing and had to do a LOT of ripping out of the spools.) My choice of stars was a Cookie Cutter for the pattern ♥ You can see the cookie cutter in the upper right corner.

What’s Next?

I can hardly wait to find out!

Blessings,

Janie, Isabella’s Whimsy

IsabellasWhimsy.etsy.com

Isabella’s Whimsy on Facebook

 

Stay At Home Round Robin 2023

Once again I am joining in the Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) hosted by Quilting Gail and 5 other blogging quilters. In simple terms, the idea is that each Monday one of the leaders will announce what kind of block we should all make and add to our quilts. Do not think for one minute that all the quilts will turn out the same. No, every quilt will be unique in design and colors.

Week 1 – the Center Block. For this year’s quilt I have selected a feature fabric and am using it for a simple 12″ square center block. I plan to use the same fabric as the quilt backing. I have pulled a few fabrics that coordinate with the whimsical feature fabric to use in making the blocks and borders to fill out the quilt top.

Whimsical Feature Fabric for Center block and for backing.

12″ Center Block, finished size

Coordinating Prints for Blocks and Borders

Here is the schedule for the upcoming weeks:

• January 16: Center Block; Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 23: 1st Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us 
• January 30 :  2nd Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life 
• February 6: 3rd Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews 
• February 13: 4th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 20: 5th Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
• February 27: 6th Round: Gail! @ Quilting Gail 
• March 13: Parade – showing all of your finished SAHRRs!

I hope you will visit these lovely quilters’ blogs and see how all the SAHRR 2023 quilts grow.

~ Blessings, Janie

SAHRR 2022, The Finish

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the Stay At Home Round Robin experience and hope there will be another one next year! The Red, white and blue quilt finished at 56″ X 69″, nice and comfy for a throw or even a bed quilt if you are not too tall.

Finished SAHRR 2022

It was fun deciding different quilting designs for each round, something just right for each set of blocks. Center block – outlining the vintage Album block; Curves – simple boxes between the circles; Diamonds – diamonds inside each pieced diamond and in the plain blocks, too; Wonky Stars and Shoo Fly combined – simple lines with orange peel “flowers” in each corner; Signature blocks – a large zigzag design; the final round with Rail Fence, appliqued Orange Peels, and red filler fabric – outline outer edge of peels, X’s through Rail Fences, and simple lines in filler fabric.

Various Quilting Designs

I found a great navy blue with outline-stars for the backing. Now it’s all folded and waiting.

Special thanks to Gail @QuiltingGail for organizing the SAHRR 2022 experience, and to the quilting bloggers who guided us through the 6 Rounds: Emily @TheDarlingDogwood , Roseanne & Sue @HomeSewnbyUs , Wendy @PiecefulThoughtsofMyQuiltingLife , Gail @QuiltingGail , and Chris @ChrisKnits .

My main hope when I joined this group was to get out of my quilting slump, and I am happy to say it worked!

Blessings,

Janie @IsabellasWhimsy