BluePip Designs

A short but busy month.  I was busy putting together my own quilt-along, but a new pattern on Instagram caught my eye and I had to jump into its quilt-along as well.  Add that to the two quilt-alongs I already had in progress and my year-long postage stamp project and I spent plenty of time working on plenty of different projects!  I've only had two finishes so far in 2022 and I'm looking to double that number in the next month. Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 11 WIP List at end of month: 14 Untouched in 2022: 5 Active QAL Projects: 4 Quilts Finished None. Quilts Started Blue Zephyr - My newest version of Zephyr to go along with the quilt-along I am hosting. Desert Cove - My new quilt-along project.  I got the top pieced and basted quickly, but I haven't had time to sit down and quilt it.  It will be done soon though - I need the pins back to baste my One Tw...

It's finally time to start your Zephyr quilt !  This week we are cutting our background fabric.  When I make a scrappy quilt, I prefer to cut my scrappy pieces as I go along so I can balance it as necessary (and because I always seem to find a fat quarter hiding somewhere that is perfect for the project that I am working on).  However, I know some of you have all your fabric picked out already, so I am going to offer a few tips for cutting the pinwheels as well. IMPORTANT NOTE:  When I started cutting my quilt, I noticed a small error in the cutting instructions for the twin-sized quilt.  I have fixed the problem and a new version of the pattern is available.  Please see the note at the bottom of this post for instructions on how to get an updated version. Background Fabric Zephyr includes instructions for making the quilt in five sizes, and the cutting information is all in one table.  To start, hide the informat...

 Welcome to the Zephyr QAL!  I'm so glad you decided to sew with me! I use two different approaches when it comes to scrappy quilts: curated scrappy, where I start with a plan and only use scraps that match that plan ( Panda Love  and  Wake Me Up, Watermelon ), and true scrappy, where I just start sewing and grab whatever scrap is closest or feels right ( Summer Scrap  and  Kinship ).  Both are beautiful, but have distinct looks when finished.  I've made three Zephyr quilts so far and used both of these approaches to choose my scraps. The first Zephyr I made was the Pink Zephyr , a two-color baby-sized version.  I've always wanted to make a pink and gray quilt and my pink scraps were overflowing so it was finally time!  I alternated between light and dark scraps for interest, but wasn't real picky about what counted as light and dark.  This gives the quilt nice movement, which is helped by...

Good morning!  I hope everyone is having a Super Sunday!  The Zephyr Quilt-Along starts next week and today I am sharing my Christmas Zephyr quilt. I have a large box of Christmas novelty fabric that rarely gets used and I decided that Zephyr , with its large pieces, was the perfect way to show them all off.  A few of the prints are large scale that they look blobby from a distance, but up close they are perfectly adorable - the perils of using novelty fabric. The background fabric is Phospher in Rocket Red - there are so many cool "almost solids" out there and if you look at my recent finishes you can see I'm sewing my way through all of them!  This quilt wasn't a gift or intended to be done in time for the holiday; I was just having fun sewing with Christmas fabrics in December.  My top was done before Christmas, but not long-armed or bound until the new year.  My only goal was to finish it while there was ...