BluePip Designs

I've been riding the WIP train pretty heavily for the second half of this year and I'm absolutely thrilled with how much cleaner my sewing room is!  Having to pack up most of the room so a new window could be installed helped a lot too. Here's my year by the numbers: Quilts (of any size) finished in 2019: 17 My oldest finish was a mini quilt made from a block I made in 2016 My last finish was a quilt I made with my son - started in June 2017 4 of the finishes were started in 2018 2 were started in 2019, fell into WIP status, but eventually got finished 7 were made sequentially, as in they were pieced and then immediately quilted and bound 2 of these were cross-stitch projects that got turned into mini quilts 5 were "regular" mini quilts 1 was made into a throw pillow 2 were sent out to long-arm quilters (this is a lot for me!) For the eagle-eyed - I did blog about 2 additional quilts in January, but those were both finished in December 2018 and th...

Merry Christmas Eve! Today I am sharing a quilt three years in the making: the Sleigh Bell Sampler ! My son and I started piecing this together in June of 2017, just after his 9th birthday.  He picked all the fabrics and did all the piecing with me at his side.  I was in charge of cutting and ironing.  The three main fabrics were purchased, but the rest is scrappy from my stash.  He also determined the final layout of the quilt. We worked on this on and off over the course of two years and at the end of summer 2018 all the blocks were pieced and put together with 2 of the 6 borders attached, and all of the pieced border elements made.  And then it sat.  As part of the sewing room cleaning I was doing earlier this year, I pulled it out in early August 2019 and challenged him to finish sewing it with me before he started the sixth grade.  A little bribery was involved, but we got it done!  After a trip to the fabric store to choose a backing...

There's nothing like a sudden, early cold snap to get you thinking about summer.  And there's something about a goal to get yourself motivated.  Add on that our window contractor is coming back on the 14th to finish up some work (including in my sewing room) and we'll have family here non-stop after the 20th and I think this is the earliest I have ever finished one of my goals! The first step was making two more blocks.  Both are slightly modified, but one is a block from the 2019 Summer Sampler and one is from The Quilt Block Cookbook . Next up was the part that has been holding me back - the setting.  I loved the one offered with the pattern, but didn't want my quilt to be quite so large.  So in the end I went with a traditional layout, doing a narrow 1" sashing with Libs Elliot Raw in Rinsed .  I left my outer border a little wider, but will probably trim it down after I finish quilting. Finally, I dragged the whole thing out to t...

Happy December! I am celebrating the holiday season with not one, but two Advent calendars.  I got a little excited and opened the cross-stitch one early, which means that that cute little doggy above was not a one-day finish.  The doily is also hand-made, but not by me - my great-aunt made it in the late 90s!  Neither box is currently available, but the cross-stitch one is from The Geeky Stitching Company and the sewing one is from Stitch Supply Co !  The boxes are almost too cute to open! My goal for December is to work on a quilt top that I spend a lot of time thinking about - my 2018 Summer Sampler. I spend a lot of time internally debating on a final layout for this, and it's time to just bite the bullet and sew it all together.  The blocks have been done since September 2018 and that's long enough.  I don't even want to get it quilted, just get it all sewn together so it's first in the queue to be quilted once the calendar flips o...