BluePip Designs

Welcome to my monthly recap of all the projects I worked on this month! I severely underestimated how much sewing time my pattern release and spring break would take away from me so it's a shorter list than normal, but sometimes that's just how it goes! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 11 WIP List at end of month: 12 Untouched in 2023: 4 Active QAL Projects: 2 Quilts Finished Fair Day (March 2023) Quilts Started Scrap Cabinet - I first saw the Scrap Snap pattern when I was linking up my January OMG finish , and it's been hanging out in my head ever since.  When I was cleaning up the sewing room after finishing my pin banner , I looked at the sewing machine, saw the red thread already threaded, and couldn't resist starting this project any longer.  I'm not going to share a picture right now, but the quilt is called "Scrap Cabinet" because I am restricting myself to ONLY use fabric that's already

A lovely, quick project to share with you today.  A few months ago my son received a small pin for his participation in stage crew and over spring break he did a lettering project to earn a high school letter for drama!  He's devoted many hours to the crew this year (at least as many as I have to quilting) and we're so proud of him.  He doesn't want a letter jacket, but he does want a special way to display his awards in his room so I offered to make him a pin banner. He won't get the actual letter until sometime in May, but when he does all I have to do is sew it on and he'll have a wonderful keepsake.  Since he's very artistic too, we made this into a group project.  We looked at different examples of banner shapes and sizes online and he was able to measure a letter that was on display at his school.  From there, he made me a construction paper template of exactly what he wanted. He was thorough enough to give me actual angle measurements and lengths, but I j

Hello!  I'm back today with another version of the brand-new  Fair Day quilt pattern.  This version is called Bright Day because the two main colors are neon! This is actually the first version of the quilt that I made.  It's a smaller baby-sized quilt because I was working off of my original rough draft and my quilt math was wrong.  I didn't even realize I had done my calculations on a 12-block layout until I was trying to lay everything out to match my mock-up.  I didn't have enough fabric to make four more blocks and my accent fabric didn't work with the other three colors, so this cute baby quilt is what I ended up with!  I do love these colors together so I have no regrets.  It's still adorable and will make some baby very happy one day! The back of Bright Day comes from two other quilts: the Alice in Wonderland Challenger Quilt  and the Wake Me Up Watermelon Quilt .  That makes three quilts in a row with a scrappy, scavenged back and I had almost forgot h

I'm pleased to introduce the newest BluePip Designs pattern today.  Meet Fair Day ! Recently I've become fascinated with combining small blocks together to form larger patterns, and Fair Day is my first successful experiment.  All of the blocks are pieced traditionally and the pattern comes together quickly. It feels like I am stuck in an endless winter this year (it's snowing right now as I'm writing this and there's more predicted for later this week), but the colors and patterns in Fair Day make me think of the county fair in the summer time which is how the quilt got its name.  I've never actually entered anything in the fair, but I'm considering entering this one - maybe it can win a real ribbon! I've been digging deep into my stash this year and the blue background fabric is one that I've had forever.  It is a Grunge-like Moda fabric from before Grunge was released.  The red, white, and yellow fabrics were purchased to compliment it - I espec

Today I'm sharing a quilt that can be made from a single layer cake, no additional fabric required.  A lot of quilts that are made from precuts require purchasing additional yardage to round things out, but this one doesn't.  And, best of all, it's made with dinosaur fabric! Do you still remember your favorite dinosaur from when you were a kid?  Mine was the stegosaurus!  We used to sing the "I am a Stegosaurus" song in kindergarten and I might be humming it right now as I write this post.  When I first saw the Stomp, Stomp Roar fabric by Stacey Iest Hsu I was charmed and when Fat Quarter Shop asked me to make this shortcut quilt and the dino fabric was on the list of available layer cakes I was thrilled! I've actually wanted to make a dinosaur quilt for a long time, and I even bought fabric to do so, but I never found a pattern I liked enough to cut into it (aside for a few masks for my dinosaur-loving son).  I decided that one dinosaur quilt is probably e

After sewing all day, including in some small gaps between running kids to events (10 minutes is long enough to pin a long seam or do a little ironing.  Normally not worth it to me, but when I'm on deadline every little bit helps!) my Kinship top is done! A basement photo after dark isn't the best indicator of the true colors, but I did take this one earlier today in natural light to show my mother-in-law the super skinny sashing I used between my rows - it finishes at only half an inch!  I don't think I've ever used such a tiny sashing on a big quilt before, but I wanted to keep the green as an accent, not a feature. Cheers to my last-minute finish of  my monthly goal for February !  The pattern is called Kinship and it was used in the 100 Days 100 Blocks quilt-along hosted by Gnome Angel in 2022 .  The layout is my own and I'll talk more about it when the quilt is completely finished.  For now, I'm linking up my successful finish at Elm Street Quilts !

You'd never know February was a short month from the amount of sewing that I got done.  I finished so many different things and I can't share them with you yet - should be a busy March on the blog! Add in a pattern release and I'll be on here sharing plenty! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 12 WIP List at end of month: 11 Untouched in 2023: 4 Active QAL Projects: 2 Quilts Finished Postage Stamp Quilt (January 2022) - Blog Post Coming Soon! Bright Day (January 2023)  Dino Loop (February 2023) Quilts Started Under the Sea  - Now that Rainbow Blossom is done, I can start another Quiet Play pattern club!  I like having a paper piecing project to do to mix up my regular piecing.  It works a different part of my brain!  This quilt-along is two blocks a month for six months, but I'm planning on stretching it out over the entire year. Quilt Progress (4 WIPs touched) Sew Place Like Home  - This month's block is Glinda, the go

 The four-year quilt-along is done! Rainbow Blossom was the first pattern club offered by Kristy at Quiet Play and she didn't originally intend for people to sew all the blocks together into one top - it was just a way to share a collection of her old and new blocks over the course of a year.  But of course, lots of people besides me did just start sewing them together!  All the patterns on this quilt top except the music note are by Kristy (I improvised the stem and the flag onto her hexagon block to make it into the eighth note), though not all of them came from that first pattern club.  The seashell is from her most recent one and the Xs above the Twinkle are from Issue 35 of Make Modern magazine . The name comes from the fact that it's a scrappy rainbow quilt with one of my favorite basics, Blossom , as the background.  After I started making the quilt, Kristy came out with her first fabric line , so the binding and the backing (now available as a wide back, mine is piece

January was cold and snowy, and the Rainbow Blossom quilt took up almost all of my time.  I did custom quilting in matching colors on it (using my domestic machine) so there was a lot of thread burying to be done.  I'm very happy with how it turned out and to be done with it! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 11 WIP List at end of month: 12 Untouched in 2023: 5 Active QAL Projects: 1 Quilts Finished Rainbow Blossom (January 2019) Quilts Started Test Block Sampler - One of my goals this year is to publish at least three patterns.  While I was deciding what fabric to use for my first test block, my bin of Lori Holt fabric caught my eye and I decided that all of my test blocks this year will be from that fabric.  At the end of the year, I should have a scrappy sampler that showcases all my pattern design efforts! Bright Day - After tweaking the test block, I went ahead and made an entire test top for the same pattern! I made

  This corner flip was a beautiful accident.  I wanted to show how close I was to finishing the binding, so I flipped the corner back and it landed exactly like this.  For once, no further fussing was necessary. My January OMG was to finish the top of my Rainbow Blossom quilt , baste it, quilt the background, and get the binding on.  I went above and beyond and the whole quilt will be finished by the end of the month!  I could have finished the binding before I took this photo, but I like having handwork to do in the evening while watching television so I am going to save that for tonight. My original plan was the quilt the background around the pieced elements, put on the binding, and then come back to finish quilting the colorful bits when they were stabilized by the background quilting, but after the top was basted, I couldn't resist starting with that pink seashell - I could see how I wanted it quilted in my mind and it seemed silly to wait. I like to take pictures of my quilt

Our snowy January weather (including an e-learning day) has been the perfect excuse to stay inside and sew.  I'm enjoying the quieter days and getting a lot done!  I wish I could have taken my finished quilt top photos outside, but with roughly 18" of snow on my deck it's just not possible right now. My postage stamp quilt !  This quilt top is huge and turned out exactly as I envisioned it.  My 5'9" son is standing on the left and the bottom is still dragging on the floor (his little brothers are standing on the couch to hold their parts up).  I've ordered some flannel to go on the back and when it gets here my longer quilter is going to baste it for me. I'm planning on straight-line quilting it myself, but I don't have the pins or space to do the basting.  My son has already claimed this for his bed! I had all the blocks for my Rainbow Blossom top finished in December, so all that was left was to sew them together.  This one is a more manageable size

My final recap post of 2022!  December is traditionally a slow sewing month for me, and this year was no different.  I have no regrets, except for maybe the quantity of homemade cookies that I ate!  I did make good progress on three different projects and I'm looking forward to spending more time in my sewing room during January. Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 11 WIP List at end of month: 11 Untouched in 2022: 1 Active QAL Projects: 1 Quilts Finished None. Quilts Started None! Quilt Progress (4 WIPs touched) Postage Stamp Quilt - December is the month when my year-long personal project was supposed to end and I am very close - only seven blocks to go!  Everyone knows that the year doesn't really end until winter break is over so I'm giving myself two bonus days to finish this "in 2022". Rainbow Blossom Quilt - The last two blocks for this quilt (a pink seashell and the wo