BluePip Designs

Today I am sharing the third Windsuit sample that I made: my fun 1980s print Baby Windsuit quilt ! Even as I was making the solids mini quilt and the dyed denim throw-sized quilt , I knew that I wanted to make a version that included the leftover houndstooth fabric from the back of my second Cobblestone quilt .  From there, I was off to the races trying to piece together a baby-sized quilt top from my stash.  I easily matched the houndstooth with a fun purple Giucy Giuce  print (now out of stock) that had a motif that was always just a little bit too large to use as a fussy cut. I ended up chopping the edges off of each piece just a little bit and loved the overall effect.  A little more digging in my stash, and I found the perfect fabric to be my pop of yellow with its matching accent colors.  But when I went to make the half-square triangle blocks and the striped blocks I realized I had an issue - do you see it? Too much blue and teal!  No matter how I laid my blocks out, two of the

Today has been a long time in the making; I first came up with the idea for my Windsuit quilt pattern in July of 2022 when I was watching the Season 4 Part 2 release of Stranger Things .  At the time, I even called it my "Stranger" pattern, but that sounded just a little too sinister so I decided to go with Windsuit instead in honor of the wonderful early 1990s fashion trend. I took a little trip down memory lane (any other Xennials still have stacks and stack of old photo albums?) and found many, many examples of my family (both kids and adults) wearing these comfy, noisy, coordinating two-piece sets.  The swish, swish, swish of the nylon as you walked was just so satisfying!  I had several, but the blue one in the first picture was my absolute favorite, and, as you can see, they were versatile enough that my grandparents chose to wear them on Christmas Eve 1992! You could even wear just the jacket if you wanted to show off your

The first quarter of 2024 flew by in a flash.  You might remember that I ended 2023 in a bit of a funk , so I decided to jumpstart 2024 with a challenge I've always admired but never partaken in: Project Quilting !  Project Quilting is a series of six different prompts to make an entire quilted project in just one week and I'm happy to report that I successfully finished all six challenges. Challenge My Project Challenge Prompt My Personal Challenge 1 Birdhouses I went into Week 1 with no expectations. I ended up making a FPP project based on three renderings of birdhouses created by my children. 2 Sky Color My goal was "fast and pixelated". I achieved one of these!

March was a balancing act.  I successfully finished the last two Project Quilting challenges and made an additional baby quilt, but I also spent a lot of time on my computer working on two different patterns.  Windsuit isn't quite ready, but it's oh-so-close and I can't wait to release it so all of you can make your own versions as well!  My son and I made a "March Madness" board game bracket and we've been busy playing all the games on there in our limited spare time.  Throw in a spring break weekend getaway and the first major snowstorm of the winter and it was definitely a full month! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 10 WIP List at end of month: 11 Untouched in 2024: 4 Active QAL Projects: 1 Quilts Finished Windsuit - Baby Print Version (March 2024) Project Quilting 15.5 (March 2024) Project Quilting 15.6 (March 2024) Quilts Started I am designing a row-by-row quilt with another member of my guild.  She did all of the basic

The Project Quilting challenges have made the first three months of the year fly by - I can't believe March is already almost over!  I also can't believe that this is the first time I have participated - I'm already looking forward to season 16 next year.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.   The sixth and final Project Quilting challenge is Irish Chain .  I have always admired Irish Chain quilts, but I've never actually made one.  Luckily for me, my kids are home on spring break this week otherwise I probably would have over-extended myself and made a full-size Irish Chain quilt.  Instead, I made a single oversized block into the cutest little baby quilt! My quilt is based on a sketch of a Triple Irish Chain block that I found on a website featuring vintage quilt blocks and a single Rubber Ducky quilt block by Kelli Fannin .  I enlarged the duck block so that it would fit in the center of my 30" Irish Chain block, and then I added a simple border

This challenge was not what I was expecting at all!  Sunday morning I was lazily thinking that I'd like to make something with curves this week, but when noon rolled around I saw the new challenge was Wearables . I've made some wearable projects before, but it's not really something I enjoy.  Making identically-sized pieces that fit together and look good in 3D is just super stressful for me and sewing is supposed to be fun.  It's basically the same as hemming curtains or mending a pair of pants to me . I'm much happier looking at the beautiful creations of people who enjoy that sort of sewing. So I made a scarf. I am obsessed with flannel-backed quilts and every time I trim one before binding I think, "I should make a scarf with this!" before I throw the extra flannel in my flannel-scraps bag.  If this piece of pink flannel looks familiar, it's because it's from the back of my Project Quilting Week 3 Challenge project . When I trimmed the quilt, t

February was full of literal flying geese and computer admin.  I made more flying geese for two projects than I normally make in a year!  I also soft-launched my brand-new standalone pattern shop, BluePipDesigns.com !  You'll hear more about this when Windsuit is released, but please go and check it out now! Quilt Tally WIP List at beginning of month: 10 WIP List at end of month: 10 Untouched in 2024: 5 Active QAL Projects: 0 Quilts Finished Mother (February 2021) Project Quilting: Inside Out (February 2024) Project Quilting: Hourglass (February 2024) Quilts Started Kona Solids Quilt - Technically, I started this on January 31st, but not until after I published the blog post.  It is a free pattern by Robert Kaufman fabrics featuring Kona Solids.  I used my color card and raided my stash to to find the closest matches to each color (some of them aren't Konas - don't tell!).  I made all twelve blocks this month and will be making the fun half-sq

It's snowing this afternoon.  That's not really remarkable for a Tuesday in February here except that this winter is on track to be our least-snowiest ever (in contrast to last winter, which finished as the fourth-snowiest ever).  We also set a record high temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit just yesterday, so it's a pretty big overnight shift.  I'm not just talking about the weather because I'm in the Midwest and that's what we do, however.  I'm talking about it because it ties in to the theme of my recently completed quilt, Mother. I will address the elephant in the room first: this is a square quilt.  It looks awkwardly shaped because the rectangle blocks aren't what you are used to seeing.  But if you get out a ruler and measure it, the quilt is in fact 60x60.  Moving on, this quilt is made from the Mother pattern designed by Taralee Quiltery for the Portland MQG as a quilt-along in 2021.  I was initially drawn to the teardrop s