BluePip Designs

One of my enduring goals is to catch up on all my old quilt-alongs (QALs) - they are so fun to start but hard to finish.  When I talked about my double-digit WIP list, most of the items on it were QALs that I had lost interest in.  Last year I really buckled down, finishing three QALs and starting zero!  2025 QAL Finishes: Marble Mystery , The Rest of the Quilt Back , Pooh Corner My WIP list currently has two old QAL projects on it and both of them are almost finished: the 2019 Summer Sampler (1 block and a lot of setting away from completion) and Under the Sea (3 main blocks and some finishing blocks).  However, there are several new QALs I want to start in 2026 so I made a deal with myself: one old QAL block before I start a new QAL project. One Under the Sea compass block down, one new QAL started guilt-free!   Farm Fresh  is a new QAL from Lori Holt featuring her old books, Farm Girl Vin...

This week's Project Quilting challenge features one of my favorite types of fabric: Plaid!  Of course I've made the Plaidish quilt , and one of my first PQ challenges was a plaid scarf .  I've also done a couple of plaid-inspired tops, like Dwight B Plaid and Giraffe Love .  Finally, it often shows up on the back of my quilts, especially when the back is a warm snuggly flannel (see Meeple Colorblock or Camp Stars or the Sudoku Quilt or Modern Fans ).  But this week, I decided to piece my own over-sized plaid potholder. My husband says it looks like I just quilted a piece of existing plaid fabric, and I take that as a compliment because it means that I did a good job of picking fabrics.  These are actually all off-cuts of backing fabric from other projects, so it makes me even happier that they all play so well together.  The lightest fabric is from the Macaron Mystery Quilt , the black is from the Cuddlekiss pattern that ...

Welcome to January and another season of Project Quilting ! I was initially stumped by the theme for week one, A Clean Slate , so I went to my go-to spot for inspiration: typing random phrases into Google Images to see what comes up. I didn't use the words "quilt" or "quilt pattern" because I was looking for inspiration, not a pattern. It took a bit, but with a little tweaking of my search terms this little sprout appeared amid all the images of chalkboards. Once I saw it, I couldn't get it out of my head. I decided to combine it with the pile of low-volume scraps that were too small for my Blue Coin quilt and this was the result. The rock in the picture is a large decorative boulder that came with our house. My kids take all of their first day of school pictures standing on it, so it also symbolizes a clean slate to me - the beginning of a new school year. I made up my own paper piecing pattern for the sprout...

It's noon on December 31st, and I am done crafting for the year.  My hobbies expanded yet again this year, but this time it wasn't a new craft, it was going to the movies!  I love the peace and quiet of the dark theater and forcing myself to sit still and focus solely on the screen so much that I went 101 times.  Luckily, I still found the time to produce many lovely quilts and assorted small projects.  2026 is bringing big changes to the BluePip house - my oldest teenager is turning 18 and graduating from high school this spring!  I'm not sure I'm ready to be the "parent of an adult", but I also know that I don't have a choice in the matter.  But before all that goes down, let's take one final look back at 2025. Quilts Started in 2025:  16 Quilts Finished in 2025:  20 WIP List on January 1:  13 WIP List on December 31:  9 Number of current, active QAL projects:  0 (But changing soon!) Number of WIPs without any progress:...