BluePip Designs

January!  We set record high and record low temperatures and are on track for beating the lowest snow totals record set in 1930 by almost 10 inches!  My sewing is also up and down.  On the plus side, I finished six quilt projects this month and sent a seventh off to the quilter's, but on the minus side, I had to table the Pebbled Prairie pattern.  It's 100% finished, but my quilt mentor pointed out a design issue with the finished design that was later echoed by several others so I won't be releasing it at this time.  Such a bummer, but it's the right decision to make.  On to the next pattern! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 12 WIP List at end of month: 10 Untouched in 2024: 5 Active QAL Projects: 0 Quilts Finished Pebbled Prairie: Boats (November 2023) Pebbled Prairie Throw (December 2023) Game Tracker Personal Project (January 2024) Project Quilting: Birdhouses  (January 2024) Project Quilting: Sky Colo

This week's Project Quilting project took a bit of a turn.  After I did a paper piecing piece in the last challenge, I decided I wanted to go simpler this time.  My plan was to make a mini mini quilt and do something pixelated.  Of course, I decided all this before I even knew the theme of the challenge, which was revealed to be "Sky Color" at noon last Sunday. I didn't want to do a sunset scene, but I started by googling "pixelated sunset" for inspiration and fell in love with the color scheme of this picture.  Purple it was.  From there, I googled "purple Perler beads", thinking I could find an easy pixelated pattern to make with fabric. My favorite picture in the search results was this adorable little Perler bead Furby. I loved it, but I don't really have any personal connection to a Furby and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to make a mini quilt featuring one (though it would have been tiny and pixelated!).  I took a break and I came

Hello!  It's time for the long-overdue final reveal of my Postage Stamp Quilt project ! This quilt is a beast!  It's made up of 3,190 squares, cut at 2" and finishing at 1.5".  It measures approximately 86x86 and is backed in flannel, so it is heavy and delightful for snuggling two on the couch.  I'm actually surprised that none of the kids have claimed it for their beds yet because it is in constant demand in the family room. When I started this quilt in January 2022 I set out some rules for myself: 1. No black or low volume fabrics.  I want this to be colorful! This was mostly successful.  There's black on some of the prints and some of them are very light-colored.  If I were to make this type of quilt again, I would also leave out the grays and browns because they muddy it up a little bit.  Some of the navy and maroon prints read as black from a distance too. 2. Use solids! Yes, plenty of solids mixed in here.

Instagram is full of quilty inspiration, from new patterns to quilt-alongs to swaps and challenges.  One challenge that I have been watching for years is Project Quilting, in which a prompt is given on a Sunday and participants have one week to put together a quilted project that fits the theme.  For some reason, I've always felt too shy to jump in, but that all changed this week.  Introducing my Project Quilting Challenge 15.1 project: Birdhouses ! It's been a long time since I made a small art quilt just for fun.  I used to do a lot of swaps, but stopped because they were taking over all of my sewing time.  Working on this, I realized that I miss making tiny quilts!  It's such a great way to play with custom quilting on something that's easy to move around and doesn't take forever to finish the whole project. I went into this with the mantra of "don't overthink it" and hoping for something a little cartoony.  My ki