Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 10!

❄❄❄Update:  The complete pattern for Sweet Shoppe is now available for download on my Etsy shop.  The pattern includes material requirements, step-by-step instructions, and full color diagrams to help you on your way.  Click here to view the pattern.❄❄❄

Welcome back for the final day of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!  This quilt-along has been so much fun for me because I've been able to keep the final quilt a secret until today!  So without further ado, here's a look at the finished Sweet Shoppe quilt!

Ta-da!  It's a table runner with colorful candy rows interspersed with strips of sweet stitching.  It's amazing to me how simple shapes and bright colors can combine to create a quilt that's bold and graphic but still very sweet.  Don't you just love quilting?!

Some Thoughts on Finishing Your Sweet Shoppe quilt:

The quilt was pretty before I added the red perle cotton, but I think the red stitching is really the cherry on top!  If you'd like to add the stitching to your quilt, you can also substitute 2 strands of embroidery floss for the perle cotton.  

But don't feel limited to finishing your quilt the way I did—there are countless ways to personalize this project.  You could do decorative machine stitching or a narrow quilted border pattern of wavy or swirly lines or ribbons within the sashing strips.  The larger blocks are an opportunity for some fun machine quilting—I can imagine spirals in the lollipops and maybe a small cross-hatch in the wrapped sweets.  Even the red and green peppermint stick rows could be embellished with complementary colored diagonal lines stitched between the HSTs.  And if you really want to take the Sweet Shoppe theme over the top, you could stitch little bows to the lollipop sticks or the narrow parts of the wrapped sweets and sew tiny buttons to the centers of the minty fresh and peppermint blocks.  Just have fun!

I'd love to see your finished quilts, so please tag me @JenDalyQuilts if you post them on Facebook or Instagram, or send a picture to me via email:  jendalyquilts@gmail.com.  And if you haven't been able to quilt along this year, but you'd like to make your own Sweet Shoppe quilt, the complete pattern will be available in my Etsy shop after Christmas.

Thank you all so much for following along with this year's Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!  Happy Holidays and, as ever, Happy Quilting!

Cheers!  Jen

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 9

Welcome back for Day 9!  After 8 days of piecing blocks and half-square-triangles (and I think we can all agree that we're experts at making HSTs by now!) we're finally going to start assembling our quilts!

Today we're making rows!  I just loved making a row quilt for last year's quilt-along, so I thought we'd give it another try this year with a different shape and size.

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 8

Happy Monday and welcome back for Day 8 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!

Today we're making lollipop blocks!

These blocks couldn't be easier—we'll be strip piecing the lollipop stick units and making snowball units for the lollipop tops.  Fast and fun, so let's get started!

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 7

Welcome back for Day 7 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!  Today we're making peppermint blocks!

These blocks are actually just like the minty fresh blocks that we made on Day 5, but they're red and white and spinning in the opposite direction.  We're also making twice as many as we did on Day 5, but because it's the weekend, we've got an extra day to get them done.  Ready?  Here we go!

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 6

It's Day 6 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along and today we're making wrapped sweets!

On day one, I suggested that you label your 2 favorite red fabrics as red print #2 and red print #3 and your favorite green fabric as green print #3.  The wrapped sweet blocks are the biggest in the project, so we'll be using your favorite fabrics (as labeled) to make them today.

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 5

Welcome back for Day 5 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!  Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!  With fresh snow on the ground here in New Hampshire and more on the way, my Christmas spirit is definitely on the rise, so let's get started!

Today we'll be making green peppermint blocks.  Or should I say spearmint or wintergreen blocks?  Either way, these blocks are super sweet and minty fresh!  Hmmm... "minty fresh," am I crazy or is that a cute name for this block?!

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 4

Woohoo!  It's Friday and Day 4 of the Quilt-Along!  Today we'll be making half-square-triangle units... only kidding!!  As promised we're moving on to something new—split quarter-square triangles.

These fun little units are so cute when they're combined to make Double Pinwheel blocks, just like the one pictured above.  We're going to be doing something different with our split quarter-square triangles, or "SQST"s, but I'm going to save that reveal for another day!  Now let's get started...

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 3

Wow, it's Day 3 already—welcome!!

You may have surmised from the above picture that we're making half-square-triangle units again!  These will be smaller HST units and we'll be making quite a few of them.  We won't be making the star pictured above for this project, but I'm definitely filing the idea away for another time—I love the red and green polka dots together!

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 2

Welcome back for Day 2 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!  I hope you all had a good weekend and that your fabrics are cut and ready to go!

Today we'll be making half-square triangle units in both red and green.  The method we'll be using makes 8 half-square-triangle units at a time—some quilters refer to it as the "Magic 8" method.  I like to make the half-square-triangle (or "HST") units a bit bigger than they need to be to start out with and then trim them down to ensure that the HST units are the exact size that I need, so that's the approach we'll be taking today.

Ready to sew?  Here we go!

Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along - Day 1

❄❄❄Update:  The complete pattern for Sweet Shoppe is now available for download on my Etsy shop.  The pattern includes material requirements, step-by-step instructions, and full color diagrams to help you on your way.  Click here to view the pattern.❄❄❄

Welcome to Day 1 of the Sweet Shoppe Quilt-Along!!  I'm so happy that you're joining us for the fun!

The inspiration for this year's quilt-along is Christmas candy—candy canes, peppermints, anything sugary and sweet, as long as it's red, green and white.

These are the fabrics that I chose for my Sweet Shoppe quilt.  The green isn't quite a mint green, but I just love yellowy-green right now and I couldn't help myself!

Just in case you missed my last post, here's a complete list of what you'll need for this year's Quilt-Along:

• 3 fat quarters - red prints
• 3 fat quarters - green prints (you can get away with 2 fat quarters and 1 fat eighth)
• ⅛ yard gray print
• 1½ yard white fabric for background (I'm using a solid)
• ⅓ yard fabric for binding
• 1⅔ yard fabric for backing
• 26" x 60" piece of batting

I'll be posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between now and Christmas and we'll wrap up on the 22nd—no pun intended!  I'll reveal a different block or component with each post and we'll work on assembling the quilt during the last week.  Some of the pieces we'll be working with are small, but this project is suitable for most quilters.

So, without further ado, let's get started!