BluePip Designs

I did it!  I got my WIP list down to ten!  Even more exciting, one of the quilts on that list is currently being quilted so there is a chance it might dip down even further.  I have been writing monthly recap posts for a long time now and I cannot remember it ever being this close to single digits before.  The first three months of the year have flown by, so it's already time to see how I did with my  goals for Q1 and make some new ones for Q2. Quilt Tally WIP List to Start the Quarter:  13 WIP List to End the Quarter: 10 Active QAL Projects:  1 Untouched in 2025:  7 Finished in Q1:  9 quilts, 4 cross-stitch projects, 6 small projects 2025 Q1 Goal 1: Switch Over to Quarterly Recap Posts Done. The best kind of goal - I accomplished this by not doing anything!  I hope you haven't missed my monthly check-ins too much as I tinker with how to spend my quilty time. 2025 Q1 Goal 2: Project Quilting I kept it ...

Good morning!  Today I am sharing some variations of my brand-new Space Parade pattern.  My mother-in-law is my number one pattern tester and she loves this quilt pattern so much that she immediately made two versions of it (in under a week!) and is planning a third! Her first top is the rectangular throw version of the quilt using the scrappy instructions.  She bought the black background fabric then used up all the bee fabric that she has been hoarding for the past few years.  The final quilt top is bee-u-tiful!  The random placement of her fabric really dances across the quilt top. She also dug into her stash and made a two-color baby Space Parade quilt.  The baby sized quilt makes two extra blocks and she incorporated these into the border she added. Finally, I couldn't resist making a baby version of the quilt in rainbow!  I used the scrappy single-block instructions in the pattern, but also pulled solid scrap...

It's a beautiful spring Tuesday, the perfect day for a pattern release.  It's time to blast into outer space with  Space Parade , the newest BluePip Designs pattern! As you can see, my obsession with postage stamp quilts is still going strong.  This iteration started with my attempt to design a houndstooth quilt block and morphed into an Irish-chain-type design! I did my original mock-up in the green and black color way that ended up being the cover version of the quilt.  My husband's input was "Cool!  That quilt looks like the old Space Invaders video game!" and he asked me to make him the quilt in those exact colors.  This was an easy enough request and I was happy to comply.  I used Stardust in Ebony by Dear Stella for the background fabric because the name seemed appropriate and a batik called Dotted Sparkles in Peridot by Robert Kaufman for the lime green feature fabric. I quilted this first ver...

It's hard to believe that another season of Project Quilting is over!  I focused mainly on small projects this time around , and had fun trying out different ideas in a small scale.  This week, as always, I veered a little bit off-track in the final challenge, Button It Up . The big red center is an actual button that you can press (aka a squeaker like what is in a dog toy)! I debated a long time on how to insert my squeaker, but finally decided to fully enclose it.  I put a piece of fusible fleece interfacing behind the red X block to make that fabric a little sturdier, then put the squeaker behind the X and pinned a square of interfacing the size of the whole center behind it.  I stitched in the ditch around the edges of the red hexagon to hold it all together, then layered and basted my quilt as normal. I was worried the the bubble would make things wonky, but it actually quilted up just fine.  I starte...

A short and sweet post today for this week's Project Quilting challenge, Follow Your Arrow !  I immediately thought of the humble mouse cursor and decided to center my project around that.  After playing with several different ideas, I decided to keep it very simple and do a single, stylized cursor. I almost never use the trackpad on my laptop, instead opting for this pink silent touch Bluetooth mouse.  All of the fabrics in this project came from my scrap bin - I started with the triangle fabric because they reminded me loosely of arrows and then chose fabric that went along with them.  For the eagle-eyed, yes, that dark green outline is the background fabric from my Rainbow Zephyr quilt ! I do have some thoughts about how I could improve the paper-piecing template I made if I were to make this again, but it's not bad for a first attempt.  At least I got all the triangles pointed in the same direction on the first ...

It's March and that means it's time for another Meadow Mist Designs mystery quilt reveal!  Can you believe that this is the fifth mystery quilt designed by Cheryl that I've made? This year's pattern was called the Marble Mystery Quilt , and I enjoyed getting the instructions on the first Thursday of each month.  After a little bit of prep work they made excellent leader and ender blocks for my other projects (especially all of those flying geese!).  Most of my other mystery quilts have been scrappy, but this time I actually started off with the correct yardage in my own chosen colorway. I backed the quilt with a purple wideback that I had in my stash - it was exactly the right width so I think  I bought it to get free shipping earlier this year when placing a different order.  I normally label fabric that I buy so far ahead of time, but this one was flying free so maybe it was just a nice coincidence.  I quilte...

Last April I started a "just for fun" quilt called Fado Road , and today I'm happy to share that the quilt is complete! This quilt jumped out at me from a "suggested for you" post on Instagram because it was so different from everything else in my feed.  I'm still obsessed with postage stamp blocks and web piecing , so it ticked those boxes as well.  It was also a true "decide once" pattern because after I chose the initial fabrics, I just plugged them into the pattern exactly as it was written.  Sometimes it's nice to sew just to sew, not make a ton of decisions about which fabrics to use where.  The quilt was constructed in sections and I put them together in between other projects as a relaxing break.  Unlike other quilts where I use the pattern as more of a suggestion, this one was a guide and I had to follow it almost exactly. The back of the quilt is a wideback from Tula Pink (ROAR! in Mist) , and I sent i...