Glad Tidings QAL Day 6 - Heart and Gift Blocks

 ***The Glad Tidings Quilt-along is now over, but the complete Glad Tidings pattern is available in my Etsy Shop.***

It's Day 6 and today we're making the last of our blocks—hearts and a charming little gift!

I've had so much fun piecing the little blocks for this project, and today's blocks were no exception.  I especially love the heart blocks—so simple, but so sweet.  Feel the same?  My Bless Her Heart lap quilt is a fun project that's great for showcasing (or using up!) your favorite charm squares. 

I made mine with three different charm packs of Regent Street Lawns by Moda that I'd been saving for a while.  I paired them with Moda Chambray, backed the quilt with a cozy flannel, and named her (yes, she's a she) "Bless Her Heart."  She's a favorite quilt in our house now—broken in, soft, and beloved.  

The pattern for Bless Her Heart is available for download in my Etsy shop, just in time for Valentine's Day.  Lol, just kidding!!  Let's slow down and enjoy Christmas before we move on. :)

In the spirit of savoring Christmas, have fun this weekend making the last of your blocks.  Monday we're moving on to assembly and borders—so exciting!

—jen

Helpful links:

Glad Tidings complete pattern

Glad Tiding Quilt-Along Day 3 - J, Wreath, and Y Blocks

***The Glad Tidings Quilt-along is now over, but the complete Glad Tidings pattern is available in my Etsy Shop.***

Happy Monday!  It's Day 3 of the Glad Tidings QAL!  Today we're moving on to our first letter blocks and they are a joy to make! 

I have to say, I'm really enjoying working this way—cutting a charm square, making a block, and stepping back to admire it before moving on to the next— instant gratification and so much fun!  It's also a joy to see your Glad Tidings blocks out there on social media.  Thank you so much for tagging me @jendalyquilts and using the hashtag #gladtidingsqal. :)

If you're looking for some more fast and fun holiday sewing, I've got a great idea for you—mitten ornaments!

These little mittens function just like a stocking and you can stuff them with treats before using them to trim your tree or decorate a gift.

 The pattern for the Mitten Ornaments is now available for download in my Etsy shop.

That's it for today!  Have fun making your blocks and I'll see you back here on Thursday for Day 4!

Happy quilting,

—jen

Helpful links:

Glad Tidings complete pattern

Glad Tidings Quilt-Along Day 2 - Star, Pinwheel, and Holly Blocks

***The Glad Tidings Quilt-along is now over, but the complete Glad Tidings pattern is available in my Etsy Shop.***

Welcome back for Day 2 of the Glad Tidings Quilt-Along!

 

Hope you're still with me after all of the cutting on Monday!  Today we're moving on and making our first blocks—the Star, Pinwheel, and Holly blocks.  If you haven't already planned out which 5" charm squares you plan to use for the various blocks, you may want to do so before you begin today using the info contained in the green box on the bottom of the Day 1: Cutting page.

As I mentioned earlier, we'll be cutting the charm squares as we progress through the QAL.  A 5" square of fabric isn't exactly a forgiving size, so on each of the block instruction pages, I've included charm square cutting diagrams to help you out.  If you need to reserve any cut pieces for use in other blocks or in the pieced border, I've made a note either on the charm square cutting diagrams or in step 1 of each of the block making sections, so pay particular attention to the charm square cutting instructions as you go.    

Have fun making your blocks and if you'd like to share your work on Instagram or Facebook, please consider tagging me @jendalyquilts and using the hashtag #gladtidingsqal—I'd love to see what you're up to!  Stay tuned for Day 3 on Monday (12/5)—we'll be starting the letter blocks and I can't wait!

—jen

Helpful links:

Glad Tidings complete pattern

Glad Tidings Quilt-Along Day 1: Cutting

  

***The Glad Tidings Quilt-along is now over, but the complete Glad Tidings pattern is available in my Etsy Shop.***

Welcome to Day 1 of the Glad Tidings Quilt-Along!

Today we're going to start with cutting.  Admittedly not my favorite part of the process, but necessary to get to the fun stuff :).  Because there are a lot of moving parts with this project—42 charm squares and 15 different blocks!—we'll be cutting only the background fabric today and cutting our charm squares as we move through the QAL.  To help you stay organized, on the instruction sheet, I've designated the background pieces that you'll need for assembling the quilt with a little †.  You can set these pieces aside until we assemble on Day 7 (12/19).

As I mentioned, we'll cut the charm squares as we go, but before we begin piecing on Day 2 (12/1) you may want to do some planning and decide which charm squares you intend to use for the various blocks.  On the bottom half of the cutting instruction sheet, you'll find a list of how many squares you'll need for each of the blocks to help with your sorting.  One thing to keep in mind—if your charm pack has a lot of light or low volume squares, you may want to reserve these for the pieced border to make sure that your blocks show up against your background fabric.

If you haven't had a chance to gather your materials yet, don't worry, we won't start piecing until Thursday so there's plenty of time to catch up.  Jump in whenever you can—the instruction sheets will be accessible throughout December and the complete pattern will always be available in my Etsy shop.

Good luck with your cutting—you've got this!!  I'll be back here on Thursday with Day 2 and instructions for our first blocks.  So exciting!

—jen

Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along — Day 7: Assembly

Happy Monday!  I hope you enjoyed your last weekend before Christmas.  Here in New Hampshire, we got six inches of snow, I finally put ornaments on the tree, I baked two kinds of Christmas cookies, and I'm feeling hopeful (wishful thinking??) that the rest of my online shopping will show up on time.  Five days until Christmas?  Bring it on!

It's Day 7 (and the final day) of the Homespun Holiday QAL and today we're assembling and finishing our table runners! 

The assembly for this project is super simple — just adding sashing between each of the blocks and all of the rows, always pressing towards the sashing. 

Then it's on to finishing.  In the interest of time, I chose to quilt my table runner with an all over quilting pattern (Holly Hop by Apricot Moon Designs), but I think this project would look great with custom quilting that accentuates the shapes and elements of the different blocks.  And if you wanted to do some very simple quilting that underscores the homespun look of the project, you could big stitch quilt by hand down the center of all of the sashing strips using perle cotton.  Yum!

Ready to get started?  Here's the link for today's pattern sheet.  Please note that there are two pages again today.

The pattern sheets for the Homespun Holiday table runner will remain available through the end of the year.  In January, I'll make a complete pattern for the project available in my Etsy shop.  I'd love to see your finished runners, so please feel free to share with me via email or social media (Instagram or Facebook/@jendalyquilts).

And that brings the Homespun Holiday QAL to a close.  It's been a joy to quilt along with you and I hope you have a happy and healthy holiday!

—jen

Helpful QAL links:

• QAL Page
• Materials Page
• Day 1 - Cutting
• Day 2 - Star Blocks
• Day 3 - Holly Blocks
• Day 4 - Poinsettia Star Blocks
• Day 5 - Tree Blocks
  
• Day 6 - House Blocks

Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along — Day 6: House Blocks

Happy Friday!  It's Day 6 of the Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along and we've finally reached my favorite block of the QAL—houses!

I love the look of these simple, but graphic little houses.  And with straightforward piecing and stitch-and-flip corners, they couldn't be easier to make!

Ready to jump right in?  Here's the link to today's pattern sheet. 

Have fun making your house blocks and have a great weekend!  Assembly on Monday!!

—jen

Helpful QAL links:

• QAL Page
• Materials Page
• Day 1 - Cutting
• Day 2 - Star Blocks
• Day 3 - Holly Blocks
• Day 4 - Poinsettia Star Blocks
• Day 5 - Tree Blocks

Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along — Day 4: Poinsettia Star Blocks

I cannot believe how quickly December flies by!  December 10th already, and to be honest, I have lights on the tree, but no ornaments, and the Thanksgiving quilts are still out.  Maybe I need to spend less time working on Christmas quilts and more time on Christmas decorating.... nah!!

It's Day 4 of the Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along and today we're making Poinsettia Star blocks!

These cute little 5" blocks are a variation on a Sawtooth Star, one of my all-time favorite quilt blocks.  By substituting a pieced center square with a gold diamond, I was hoping to achieve an abstract poinsettia look.  I realize it's a stretch, but I love how the block looks anyway!

Here's the link to today's pattern sheet:

Have fun making your Poinsettia Star Blocks and have a great weekend.  Next week we'll be moving on to my favorite blocks of the QAL, can't wait!

—jen

Helpful QAL links:

• QAL Page
• Materials Page
• Day 1 - Cutting
• Day 2 - Star Blocks
• Day 3 - Holly Blocks

Homespun Holiday Quilt-Along — Day 2: Star Blocks

Happy Friday and welcome back for Day 2 of the Homespun Holiday QAL!

I hope you're still with me after that big cutting session!  Just think how much fun it will be to be able to focus on piecing from now on. 😉

Today we're starting small and making six Friendship Star blocks — three from each of your gold homespuns or prints.

These are fast and fun little blocks to make.  The only complication is that you'll need to make sure that three of the stars (made with one gold homespun/print) spin in one direction, and that the remaining three stars (made with the other gold homespun/print) spin in the reverse direction.  Not too tricky!

Ready to jump in?  Here's the link to the pattern sheet for today's blocks:

If you're just joining us, you can find links to the materials page and Day 1 - Cutting page on the QAL page on my website.

And if you'd like to share your work on Instagram or Facebook, please consider tagging me @jendalyquilts and using the hashtags #homespunholiday and/or #homespunholidayqal—I'd love to see what you're up to!

In the meantime, have fun making your star blocks and have a great weekend!

—jen

2018 Christmas Quilt Along Coming Soon!

Yay!  It's quilt along time again!  And the theme of this year's quilt along is "Deck the Halls" — I'm thinking garlands and greenery, holly and berries, wreaths and ribbons...  

The quilt along will start on Monday, December 3rd and once again, I'll be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from the 3rd through the 21st.  The final project is a mystery that will be constructed and revealed in stages throughout the month.  This year we'll be doing fairly simple machine piecing (with some smaller patch sizes) making this quilt along suitable for most quilters, including confident beginners.

Here's what you'll need for this year's quilt along:

• ⅞ yard background fabric
• ⅞ yard dark red/burgundy print for piecing and binding*
• 2 fat quarters red prints—one should be a medium red print and the other a lighter/brighter red print
• 3 fat quarters green prints—one dark, one medium-dark, and one medium
• 1⅛ yard fabric for backing
• 40" x 40" piece of batting

*If you'd like to use a contrasting fabric for your binding, you'll need only ⅝ yard of the dark red/burgundy print and ⅓ yard binding fabric.

I'm going with a more traditional, warmer color palette this year—forest greens and cranberry reds set against a cozy tan background—but if you prefer brighter, more modern colors and prints please use what you love.

If you can't quilt along with us this year, be sure to follow along here or on Instagram or Facebook @JenDalyQuilts.  Hope to see you back here Monday!

—jen

Back to QAL page.

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!

2017 Christmas Quilt-Along Starts this Friday!

♫It's the most wonderful time of the year♫... time for my annual Christmas Quilt-Along!!

The Quilt-Along starts this Friday, December 1st.  This year's project will be pretty straightforward—with standard piecing and blocks suitable for all quilters.

Here's 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

Wondering what shades of red and green to buy?  Here's a hint...

This year I'll be posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between December 1st and December 22nd, that way you'll have the weekends to catch up if necessary.  You can follow along with the Quilt-Along here or on Instagram and Facebook @JenDalyQuilts.  

I can't wait to get started and hope to see you back here Friday!