BluePip Designs

Nothing impressive this month, as you can tell from the slowness of the blog.  Settling into distance learning was a big adjustment, even with kids who are mostly self-sufficient.  When I did have time to sew I mostly worked on two projects and didn't finish either of them!  Trying to relax and remind myself that there's no race to finish everything at once.
Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10 WIP List at beginning of month: 16
WIP List at end of month: 18
Untouched in 2020: 4
Active QAL Projects: 3
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Graveyard Smash mini quilt mash-up (started October 2019).  My goal for the month was to finish all three Halloween cross-stitches into one large mixed-media piece, but as I started to work with them I realized combining all of them would result in a piece too large to hang comfortably.  So I started with this spider because my vision for him was the strongest and I absolutely adore how it turned out.  I have plans for the other two and I'm hoping to f…

Popping in quickly on this gorgeous fall day to share my goal for September.  Below are three of the Halloween cross-stitch patterns that I've made over the past two falls

I've been wanting to experiment with a mixed media mini quilt for a long time and coincidentally there are also two Halloween quilting patterns that I want to try.  So my goal for the month is to get these guys sewn up and ready for the holiday! I'm linking up my goal at Elm Street Quilts.

August was a slow month here on the blog, mostly because I spent my time working on only one project at a time.  When I wasn't working on quilt tops I was making masks and literally chasing waterfalls with my kids - we finally found one that they could walk behind and through!
Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 17
WIP List at end of month: 16
Untouched in 2020: 4
Active QAL Projects: 2
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Blueberry Jam (started June 2020)
Quilts Started
None!

Quilt Progress (5 WIPs touched)
Big Top - It's not finished, but it's much closer!  My goal for the month was to enlarge the top, baste it, and start the quilting.  However, after I made it bigger I got a little scared of the basting part and ended up sending it over to a friend with a long-arm to baste it for me.  She's still got it so I fell a little short, but I'm still linking up with Elm Street Quilts to show off the finished top because it's so awesome!

Making the C…

Hello!  Today I am sharing my latest scrappy quilt - Blueberry Jam!  My son and I biked to the lake to get some nice pictures of it and the light ended up being funny - oops.  So just imagine we are standing closer to the lake and there aren't a bunch of trees between us and it. 


The blues on the top of this quilt are completely scrappy and all from stash.  Some squares are cut from tiny scraps and only appear once and others are from larger pieces of fabric and appear multiple times, but I made sure no fabric touched itself when I sewed the blocks together.  I did buy the tan fabric (Spectrastic in Sandstone) that I used in the pinwheels. I could have pulled that from stash too, but I was putting in an order for something else and couldn't resist my current favorite basic.  Even the batting is scrappy - it's the off-cut piece from my Sunshine Quilt (I buy a 96" roll of batting and cut what I need for each project).

The back of the quilt is a long hoarded piece of fabri…

I finished the top for my most recent quilt-along this week.  It's actually the only thing I've worked on at all this week - very unusual if you follow me at all on here!  On Sunday, I watched Sleepless in Seattle and cut all the template pieces for the final fans, on Monday I finished the wedges, and then it took me four days to sew all the sashing in - it was tricky but I figured it out!

My goal for this month is to keep the momentum going!  I want this to be a full-size quilt so I need to make one more row of wedges.  I also want to get it basted and start the quilting.  And that's where I'm going to stop with this goal.  Top finished, quilt basted, and quilting started.  I'm facing a fabric shortage (the third row wasn't part of my original plan!) and all my usual sources are out of the colors I used so I might need to get creative to finish this up.

I'm linking my goal up with Elm Street Quilts. Pattern is available HERE if you'd like to make this s…

Another colorful, varied month. I spread myself a little thin early on - I was working on too many things simultaneously and felt like I wasn't making progress on any of them. Once I sectioned it out better and was only working on one thing at a time (or one thing with a leader and ender project - all those Blueberry Jam blocks were sewn as leaders and enders!) I felt like I was doing much better.  I also took some time to turn my Quilt and Mini Quilt gallery pages into actual galleries!  I like that you can see everything at a glance now.Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10 WIP List at beginning of month: 17
WIP List at end of month: 17
Untouched in 2020: 4
Active QAL Projects: 3
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Sunstar Quilt with bonus mini! (started January 2020)
Quilts StartedMy latest quilt-along is off and running - this time it is the Big Top quilt by Brigit Gail. I haven't done solids or curves in a long time and when I saw this one I couldn't resist! It's also going t…

Today I'm checking in with the result of my July OMG goal - putting the missing rows of my Forgotten Fat Quarter quilt put together!  At the beginning of the month, I was two months behind and knew that a third would be coming soon.  I decided to do the rows in the order that they were released.
First up was the yellow row called Around the Corner.  I used my biggest chunk of yellow fabric, which coincidentally was the leftover yellow fabric from the centers of all my Sunstar blocks!  Unfortunately, this still wasn't enough to do the row as written, but I still caught the spirit of it (half-circles) and I think I like my own layout just a little bit better.

Next was a teal row called Mown Grass.  My gray fabric looks like it's just textured at a distance, but up close you can actually see it's tiny scissors!

The final row is called Cross Stitch.  The gray fabric in the big Xs reminds me of Aida cloth which is what I use in my cross-stitch.  The tiny diamonds are a differ…

Today I am sharing my Sunshine Quilt.  A quilt so summery that it is wearing flip flops for its official blog picture!

The blocks in this quilt were made by others as part of my very first quilt block swap.  I love thinking that there are sixteen other quilts floating around out there with quilt blocks that I made in them.  I used a traditional setting but made it scrappy: the cornerstones are just regular scrappy yellows but the sashing is from my "problem" black fabrics (those that always too black or too white for whatever I'm doing).  In this quilt, everything fits together perfectly!
The back continues the scrappy fun.  I've got off-cuts from two other quilt backs, two pieces of previously unused fabric with dates as old as 2013 on the selvedge, and some mystery pieces.  So a little bit of everything in colors that match the front.

I finished off the quilt in a scrappy manner too.  The quilting is a simple meander, but I used a mini spool of pale yellow (Aurifil 21…

I have greatly enjoyed writing my month-end recap posts, and today I'm going to take an in-depth look at how I'm doing.  I have four goals for 2020 and I'm happy to say that I've made progress on three of them!
My first goal is to give away five quilts.  This one was actually easier than I expected!  I had two gift quilts that were finished and one that was half done already.  I jumped right in and finished the half-done one, then did a sample quilt that ended up being doll-sized, so it was easy to give those four away.  I also donated a quilt that no one around here seemed to love - I hope it found a new home that appreciates it.  This goal was actually easier than I expected and I'm currently working on another quilt that is going to be a surprise gift so I am surpassing it!

My second goal is to finish old WIPs and end the year with less than ten quilts on the list and it is a lot tougher!  I started the year with 17 quilts on my WIP list and halfway through the ye…

I've spent the past couple of months working on old projects and staring new ones.  As a result, my current quilt-alongs have been a little neglected.  For my Adventure Quilt, I'm not that worried since July is a catch-up month and there won't be a new block released.  But my Forgotten Fat Quarter quilt is now two months behind and the next row is coming out any day now.

My July goal is to get caught up on the missing rows for this quilt.  I want to finish this one on time with the actual quilt-along!  I'm linking up my goal at Elm Street Quilts.

Today is the first day of the 2020 100 Days 100 Blocks at Gnome Angel!  There are two great patterns to chose from this year.  Kinship was released last year and resulted in this scrappy beauty:

There's also a brand-new pattern called "Making the Cut" which creates a giant pair of scissors (there's also a more traditional layout included).  This pattern was actually released back in April and I got impatient and started it a little early - it was exactly the distraction I needed when all the COVID stuff was scary and overwhelming and my sewjo was disappearing fast.  Mine is close to being finished already!

In addition, I participated in the pre-event Block Battle Contest.  I didn't win but I had fun making my blocks and seeing people vote on them.  My second block even tied with the eventual winner!  Thank you to anyone who voted on mine and congratulations to the winners!

I won't be participating in the official quilt-along because I didn't take pictures o…

The name of the game right now is "quick sewing" - I've given up most of my early morning sewing time in favor of bike rides before the day gets too hot, so most of my sewing has been in tiny chunks.

Goal #1: Get my WIP List Under 10
WIP List at beginning of month: 17
WIP List at end of month: 17
Untouched in 2020: 4
Active QAL Projects: 2
Kid Projects: 2

Quilts Finished
Wake Me Up, Watermelon (started April 2020)
Panda Love (Pandamonium) (started July 2018)Block Battle Mini (started April 2020)

Quilts Started (2)
I started two scrappy quilts this month, both focused on large-scale stash busting!  I'm calling them Blueberry Jam and Plaidish.  Both are intended to be quick finishes, not long-term residents of the WIP list (a girl can dream!).  I generally alternate cutting and piecing when I only have a short time to sew, but they also work as leaders and enders.
You may be wondering "How is your WIP list still at 17 if you finished three quilts and only started two?&qu…

One of my unofficial goals this year was to use my stash.  I make a lot of scrappy projects, but most of them just use tiny bits - I grab a 2.5" square from this fat quarter, then a 3.5" square from that one, oh, and maybe a 1.5" by 2.5" rectangle over here.  My fat quarter boxes are overflowing and let's face it, some of the fabrics in them have been around forever and are just feeling a little stale.

I've been working hard (Forgotten Fat Quarter, Watermelon Quilt) at using up stash, but there's always more to get through.  Here are some of the recent projects I've undertaken to make room for new fabrics!
First, Blueberry Jam. This is a pattern called Peanut Butter Pinwheels that I won earlier this year.  I've been using blues in my leaders and enders quilt, but two 2.5" squares doesn't make much of a dent.  So I'm grabbing all the cuts that are less than a fat eighth and cutting them into the squares for this.  The blocks are nice a…

Pandamonium is finished!  This one is subtitled "Panda Love" because everyone who sees it tells me how much they love the pandas!  I started with a basic color palette inspired by the panda fabric itself (shown in the lower righthand corner block) and the rest is scrappy around that, using a tally mark system to balance the colors in the quilt.  The sashing is Spectrastatic in Lunar, my new favorite blender, and was purchased over a year after the blocks were finished.


Finishing this top was my successful February goal and you can read more about the layout in that post.  When I came back to it, I had a happy surprise: I knew that I had bought the hexagon panda fabric to back the quilt in, but completely forgot that I had bought an equal amount of yardage of a hexagon neutral from the same collection.  That simplified making my back - I no longer had to piece an entire center strip together.  I settled for a single stripe to show off my color palette yet again and incorporat…