BluePip Designs

While finishing a quilt is always a happy day, finishing a quilt that has been sitting for a long time is an extra happy day!  Under the Sea is a fully paper-pieced quilt.  The pattern was designed by Kristy at Quiet Play and I started it when she first released it as a monthly quilt along back in February 2023.  Over time, I fell behind - sometimes when I'm waiting for the next block of a QAL to be released I start something else and don't feel like immediately transitioning back when it finally arrives. This year, however, I've been on a real "clean up my WIP list" kick so I decided that before I started any new QAL project I had to make a block for an old QAL quilt.  And because I like starting new projects, that was all I needed to get it done.  I had a set of solid colors that I used to make all of the blocks, and most of the print fabrics are from Kristy's fabric lines .  The background is Spotted by Zen Chic , but...

I've been on a purge streak lately, which for my sewing room means finishing up lingering projects.  My WIP count for quilts is currently at 7, which feels like an all-time low.  This was then immediately off-set by a shopping spree for the three (3!) baby quilts which I get to make this fall as gifts.  I'm excited for both the quilts and the new babies who will be receiving them. Quilt Tally WIP List to Start the Quarter: 10 WIP List to End the Quarter: 7 Active QAL Projects: 1 Untouched in 2026: 3 Finished in Q3: 4 quilts, 10 cross-stitch projects, 2 small projects Let's jump right in and look at how I did with my Q3 Goals : 2026 Q3 Goal 1: Halloween Snow Globes Done .  This was a carryover goal from Q2 and the fall weather gave me the push I needed to finally finish them up.  I've been putting finishing them off since January and it took all of 40 minutes to complete. 2026 Q3 Goal 2: Honeypot Sampler Nope.  I think my original int...

I spent a lot of time in September preparing for the next major holiday coming our way: Halloween! It started off with this adorable Boo to You piece that I stitched with The Fat Quarter Shop.  This was a free pattern that they released in conjunction with a quilt pattern.  I used my own colors and designed my own border and love how it turned out. Next, I tackled this Stitchonomy daily piece from 2021.  If memory serves me correctly, I finished more or less on-time, then decided I wanted to frame the final piece and set it aside to do "later".  And five years later, "later" is here.  I found a lacing tutorial and bought a frame and now I have a new Halloween decoration. A quick look at the back because I'm proud of how neat it looks.  I used a spool of thread that my sewing machine hates and I think I'm on my machine's side now - it broke several times and there was one place where the manuf...

Surprise!  I made a scrap quilt that isn't blue-themed! And, yup, the cat's out of the bag: I'm a Packer fan!  I think my dad thought I was joking when I said that the reason for my trip back home was to take quilt photos, but I was completely serious.  In fact, there's more: It's a two-sided quilt!  I actually finished this quilt back in March, but knew the photos needed to be taken in Green Bay and this was the first time since then that I've been back.  It was almost magical - the day was so windy, but each time my son held up the quilt for a photograph, the wind would die down and it would hang perfectly straight.  It's like the quilt wanted to be photographed at Lambeau!   I loved the Octadot pattern when it was released in October 2025, but there was a small problem: I had told myself I wasn't allowed to start a new quilt until I finished a few quilts from my WIP list.  But it was one of...

Another summer is drawing to a close, and this year I actually finished my summer quilting project before it ended.  Meet Oh, Granny ! I wasn't actually looking for a new quilt to make, but I saw an in-progess Oh, Granny  quilt on BlueSky and it was love at first sight.  I've been in love with simple square quilts since I made my postage stamp quilt and this fit the bill perfectly. As with all my scrappy quilts, I had some self-imposed rules to keep the quilt cohesive: The third round of each block was made with solid fabrics.  I choose three cool colors and three warm colors and made five blocks with each color scheme. The color of the center square was determined by the color of the solid fabrics. The other two rings could be any colors, but these were the opposite (warm/cool) of the solid fabrics. The final layout is a checkerboard of cool and warm blocks (determined by ...

What do you do with your scraps of quilt batting?  I buy my batting by the roll so I can always cut the perfect width of fabric, but the height is a different matter.  Sometimes the leftover is big enough for another project - if I'm lucky I can get a baby quilt from it, but mostly it goes to one of my mini quilts or cross-stitch minis.  But there comes a point when it's too small for even the smallest coaster. When that happens, it's time to cut the batting into squares and make tiny stuffed things!  I aim for roughly 1 inch squares and when the item is stuffed and finished, you can't tell that it was filled with batting scraps instead of fiberfill.  This lets me make custom-sized pillow inserts with ease (I think the largest size that I've made is about 18") or I can make small items like these Perfect Pocket Pillows that I made last month.  The best part is, I never run out of stuffing!  When my kids were small a...

In July, I did my first solo trunk show, and in the midst of gathering all the quilts and figuring out what I wanted to say, I realized it was absolutely, positively important that I made the Diamond Cuddlekiss quilt I had saved in my mock-up folder. This was important, because one of the themes of my presentation was that it's ok to not follow the pattern exactly (I'm terrible at following the pattern exactly).  And this quilt illustrated that perfectly.  I was recoloring the diagram in EQ8 and clicked wrong and ended up with this absolutely gorgeous secondary pattern.  When my son pulled the quilt out of the pile at the show, he accidentally held it up sideways at first, and the audience went wild - they loved how the sideways, recolored version looked like argyle.  I've added this version to my to-make list (I think it would be fun in Christmas colors!) - the versitility of this template keeps surprising me. If you want to make your...

Most of my sewing room decluttering attempts involve making scrappy quilts, but the quilt I'm making today has a slightly different story: yardage that was specifically set aside for a project.  Two years ago, I was looking for something in my sewing room and came across a bag with some fabric scraps and the pattern for the first quilt I ever made .  The feature fabric in that first quilt was elephant-themed and I instantly decided it would be fun to make that quilt again with some current elephant fabric.  So I hopped online and placed an order for some elephant and coordinating fabric.  But when it came, I was working on another project and it got placed in a bag, labeled, and set aside.  Fast forward to now when that fabric finally became a quilt! The timeline for the two quilts is this: June 2011: I made the original quilt (with fabric from Joann's!) June 18, 2024: I ordered the fabric for the updated quilt June 20, 2026: I s...

I knew this wasn't going to be a big sewing quarter due to my son's graduation and then I was injured and spent the very first day of it in Urgent Care getting five stitches in my right index finger (not a sewing injury).  I took advantage of this time to get my sewing machine's annual maintenance done and learned that spring is a more popular time for that than fall is.  But I'm happy to report that today my finger is completely healed, my machine is home, my son has graduated, and I'm back on a "regular" summer sewing schedule! Quilt Tally WIP List to Start the Quarter:  9 WIP List to End the Quarter:  10 Active QAL Projects:  2 Untouched in 2026:  4 Finished in Q2: 2 quilts, 3 cross-stitch projects, 4 small projects Let's jump right in and look at how I did with my  Q2 Goals : 2026 Q2 Goal 1: Finish Blue Coin Done .  Once I pulled this back out, I was able to finish the quilting in a single afternoon and bind i...