BluePip Designs

The year is almost over and it was time to buckle down and make some progress on my first goal. I got a boost early in the month from my virtual quilt retreat - I ignored my family and just concentrated on sewing for an entire weekend. And when the retreat ended, I just kept sewing! Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10   WIP List at beginning of month: 17 WIP List at end of month: 15 Untouched in 2020: 4 Active QAL Projects: 2 Kid Projects: 2 Quilts Finished Adventure Quilt (January 2020) Big Top Quilt (July 2020) Chalk Stars Sample Quilt (October 2020) - Secret until spring! Quilts Started Snowflake quilt ! This has been on my to-make list since I first saw it last year and it was finally time to make one up.  I couldn't participate in this year's quilt-along because I was working on Camp Stars and Chalk Stars, but now that those are done I got right to work.  I didn't do mine in the order of the quilt-along anyway so maybe it's better that I just did it o

Happy Black Friday!  I just got my Chalk Stars quilt back from the quilters and put the binding on - I can't wait to share it with you this spring!  In the meantime, I was playing with the scraps from it and put together this fun rainbow pillow. I named the block Shadow Pinwheel because the negative space in the middle looks like a traditional pinwheel block.  However, the color placement makes it look much more modern!   I usually make a pillow whenever my batting scraps are overflowing - pillow forms are such a great way to use up fabric I no longer care for and tiny batting pieces (I cut the scraps up into 1" squares to stuff my pillows with).  I always do an envelope closure too - it's so much easier than inserting a zipper.  As long as you give yourself enough of an overlap there's never any problem with gapping! For fun, I drew up my block in EQ8 and put it into a full quilt just to see how it would look.  Seems like it would be a fun one! It looks pretty good

My 2020 Adventure quilt is done ahead of schedule! Such a rarity in the quilting world, right?  But after I finished the last two blocks and assembly at the virtual retreat my guild put on earlier this month, it was a breeze to baste and quilt this.  I did a simple meander in gray over the entire thing and was able to quilt the whole thing in a single afternoon with only two bobbin changes! This quilt was a yearlong event put on by my guild.  Each month was created by a different member - you may remember that back in May I contributed a 12" block featuring two borders and triangles .  We weren't working together and we didn't have any priority knowledge of what the other blocks would be.  I told my aunt my vision for this quilt was "something you'd see in a picture book" and I think I succeeded! My original thought was to photograph this at our local aviation museum, but it was closed due to COVID.  My son and I decided to stop at the nature preserve instea

 As promised, I'm back today to share the results of my at-home 2020 retreat, completed safely from my sunny sewing room!  The first official Zoom call was Friday evening, but I treated all day Friday as a retreat day.  First, I finished machine-sewing the binding to the front of my Big Top quilt - doing the hand-stitching was my Zoom call handwork.  By the end of the weekend I was about halfway done sewing it down.  This is a full-size quilt so I am very happy with my progress! I also did my first round of masks (adult-size ones) and laid out my adventure quilt blocks so I could see what the final round would look like.  After the meeting, I made the last two blocks and first thing Saturday morning I sewed them all together! I spent the rest of the day Saturday working on my Plaidish quilt.  I knew finishing it was a long shot, and I was right.  I made 15 pink blocks and got the dark rows sewn together.   The rest of the retreat was just small odds and ends - my sewing energy was

 One of my 2020 goals was to go on a retreat.  Once COVID hit, I figured that was off the table, but my guild leadership team has worked hard to put together a fun virtual event! Obviously, meeting via Zoom and having my kids barging in constantly won't be quite as peaceful as getting away from it all, but I'll take what I can get at this point.  I went on  my first and only retreat in 2018  and the only problem I had was that I didn't bring enough projects to work on, so I thought I should plan out this weekend as if I was leaving the house. First, I'm working this week on quilting my Big Top quilt .  I've got all the pink wedges and brown arcs quilted already and I'm currently working on the vertical blue stripes and the blue bits of sashing that form the outer border.  Once I've gotten all those quilted, I'm going to put my binding on so I have some handwork to do during the calls. Next, it only seems appropriate to finish up the Adventure Quilt that

 Today I am happy to announce the release of Camp Stars , the newest BluePip Designs pattern! This modern quilt finishes at a generous 64"x80".  Mine is backed in flannel and quilted very lightly (unusual for me, I know!) and already in high demand as a new favorite at our house.   The working title for this quilt was "Man Stripes" - my husband asked for something that was a little simpler than the quilts I normally make.  He also wanted it to feature orange, his favorite color.  I've only backed one quilt in flannel before and he loves that one, but it's too small to cover him so he requested flannel as well.  The final result is definitely masculine and rugged but also has some elements that make it fun to put together. The curves in this pattern make it a little challenging, but once you've pieced those together the rest is just a big strip quilt and it goes together quickly and easily!  The pattern includes quilting instructions as well as piecing in