This lovely calendar of English Paper Pieced blocks is no longer in print, but I was inspired to make several of them from month to month in 2016 and 2017. This is the block for today, January 17th. But I "cheated" and decided to rotary cut and machine piece the patches. January 17th block Here are the two halves. Yes - you've heard it before - no y-seams! Triangles, diamonds and half hexagons are all cut using my rotary cutter and standard rulers. I've covered those lessons many times here on my blog, so do a search! Two halves in another set of fabrics. (Wish I could find this one!) Here she is quilted - all straight lines. Quilted block Here's another one done in browns. These blocks measure 12" high and 13" wide. I quilted the blue one and put binding on. It makes a lovely table topper. Another orphan block rescued and given a life of purpose! Table Topper inspired by the January 17 block in Katja Marek's New Hexagon Perpetual Calendar Here's

I love working with the beautiful kaleidoscope fabrics by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex. Fabricadabra was the first collection that challenged me to play. Yes, they debuted in 2015! Paula still designs fabrics with motifs like this. Single panel of Fabricadabra - large and small motifs I fussy cut the small motifs and placed them in the centers of my 6-pointed stars. They will finish to 7" high. Six pointed stars with fussy cut motifs of Fabricadabra in the centers   Here's one block up close. Notice that there are no y-seams! Single Star with no y-seams Then I put the stars together into a ring. The center hexagon was interfaced and stitched over the hole the ring of stars created. Ring of 6 stars around a large kaleidoscope Here's that center hexagon interfaced, turned and ready to be placed over the center hole. Interfaced hexagon to turn the edges I also used the small motifs as the centers of a LOT of Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks (English P

Today is January 13 and a few years ago I was making a block here and there from the New Hexagon Block a Day calendar by Katja Marek. 6" Block inspired by the January 13 English Paper Pieced version While I am quite comfortable with EPP and these patches were not difficult, I wasn't too excited about the sizes of the patches. I realized I could easily rotary cut the diamonds, half hexagons and triangles and put them together with my sewing machine. I did just that! Here are some photo steps: Two 60 degree triangles (finish to 3" high) Added a half-hexagon to one side. Added a second half-hexagon to the other side. Rotary cut two more half hexagons and diamonds. Notice there are NO y-seams so far.  Stitched those last 2 seams and I was done. Hey - this was easy. Let's make some more! And I did! Notice that each of the six blocks uses a different gray print to set them into a larger triangle. But the other fabrics are the same throughout. Six January 13 blocks stitched

We all have them - leftover blocks from quilts or other projects, but we're not motivated to make more so they can fit into another quilt. Everyone can use a tabletop trivet or potholder, right? I made two (maybe more) quilts using the Bella Collection by Lotta Jansdotter for Windham Fabrics. This is from 2012. They are fresh and modern and I loved working with them. Bella fabrics from 2012 Here is the first quilt I made. It was improvisational and I had hoped that a magazine would have picked it up. Pink slip! I guess they didn't want to figure out how to pattern it. I called it Bella's House. It hangs in my house year round. Bella's House. Beautifully quilted by Kathy Gray. I made some simple trivets and stitched them together and patterned this for Creative Grids. One of my daughters owns this. Two strips sewn together and then cut with a 60 degree ruler. Here's one of my orphan blocks. I since removed the white triangles on the sides. Orphan block looking for a

I finally put all my 2018 blocks together into a quilt and it was quilted by Jeannie C. of my local guild. It has been given to a local charity so someone can enjoy these glorious colors. Do you remember the blocks? Gypsy is the print and Bedrock is the solid looking blender (also by Windham). 3 different blocks made with Gypsy  and Bedrock I was given 23 fat quarters of this fun fabric, so I was somewhat limited by block sizes. Let's see the fabrics. 23 fat quarters of Gypsy I made 16 blocks total and then arranged them on my design board. 16 blocks auditioning for an assembly I honestly can't remember why I was given some extra yardage, but the good news is that I was able to use it for borders. The blocks finish to 10" x 10", so I couldn't wrap the quilt with a single fabric; I added border squares. Here she is finished. Gypsy Cobblestones Variation Quilt: 50" x 50" I barely made a dent in that stack of fat quarters. Time to play again! I revisited my

Happy New Year, the year of the Water Tiger! In my Quilter's Block a Day calendar , January 2 shows the Four Leaf Clover block. This is a vintage pattern from the 1940s (and probably earlier). Can you believe those templates? Here's a photo of a REAL block done by Patricia Bryant of Australia who challenged herself in 2017 to make every single block in my calendar! Four Leaf Clover by Patricia Bryant Both Patricia and I used raw edge appliqué in our work. Those melon shapes are easy to work with. If you click that link, you can download this  Four Leaf Clover  in 2 sizes of blocks. And go take a look at the CD listing of the  Quilter's Block a Day calendar  in Etsy - remember, there are 366 blocks in TWO sizes each AND 12 quilt patterns. All in one place with easy to navigate and print what you want. Happy New Year!