October 2021 was my Quilt n' Sisters retreat. This year we went to Lancaster County, PA.  Whenever we get together, we do a fun swap. The swap gifts have been getting bigger and bigger - at least one person always brings a quilt to gift. Over the years, I've been lucky enough to receive 2 quilts in our swaps. This year I decided that I would make a quilt for the event.

Given the time of year, I quickly settled on the idea of making a Halloween witch-hat quilt.  Two years ago, Polkadot Chair released her Halloween Haberdashery quilt and I decided to make an improv version of that. In my version,  I wanted hats with bigger brims, and more variety in their placement within the block and in their shape. Above is where I started...but things evolved a little bit in the layout process.

The construction of these blocks was very similar to my little improv tents quilt: triangles on a big background. These hats would just have a hat band and brim instead of a tent door.  I planned to use one fat quarter per block for background.  Around this time, I decided that I really was going to like the quilt and wanted one for myself...so I decided to make two: one to swap and one to keep for myself. 

I made a few blocks to test my construction method, and then pinned combinations of backing + hat + band fabrics to my design wall to make sure that I liked my combos.

As more and more blocks began to accumulate on my design wall, I decided to go with a staggered layout.

I backed the quilt with minky and had it quilted with a spiky design. For binding, I went with a black and white print from Carolyn Friedlander.

This quilt finishes at 60" x 72". The blocks were trimmed to 12.5" square (unfinished) - 28 blocks per quilt. I had a lot of fun using bolder than normal low-volume prints for backing, along with seasonal prints that I've been collecting.

The house next door to our retreat Air BNB was a funeral home and was prefect for lots of Fall quilt photos.  Love the little owl serving as gate-keeper too!  For lots more retreat pictures, check out Quilt n' Sisters on Instagram.

In the colder months, I like to have seasonal quilts out in my living room. I've got a lot of Halloween quilts, Christmas quilts, and even a few Valentine's Day quilts. However, I didn't have anything to have out between Halloween and December 1 (I don't do Christmas until Thanksgiving is over).  So at my last sewing retreat in April, I decided to make a few quilts to fill that hole.

I chose these three patterns which are all made up of traditional blocks done in a scrappy way.
Going Places: this pattern is a minimalist layout of larger flying geese blocks combined with lots of  "blank" background squares. The flying geese in this quilt finish at 4" x 8".  This is the second time that I've made this pattern. I wrote up a tutorial that can be found here.
Bear Paw: I've been wanting to make another bear paw quilt for a while. I made a big scrappy double-bear paw quilt back in 2017, and more recently I started (and then abandoned) a bright bear paw quilt made with solid fabrics.  For this quilt, I knew that I wanted a 3x3 layout of blocks + sashing, and a quilt that finished roughly around 70x70.  To make that happen, I had to make blocks that finished at 22.5". That is a really funky-sized block and took a lot of quilty math and brain bending. 
Ribbon Star: This quilt is very straight forward and is made of HST and background squares. At this time I am not going to write up a tutorial, but I will say that my squares in this quilt are 4.5" x 4.5" unfinished and the quilt finishes at 72" x 72". From that info and the diagram above you can totally figure out how to make one of these for yourself!

I used the same fabrics for these quilts - and most of the colors are ones that I never normally use. I do like how they turned out tho.

Here they are all finished! I haven't had much sewing time at all this summer, but I'm happy to have these to be able to put out this Fall!
Thanks for stopping by!

We finished out 2021 with most of my family being sick over the holidays, so when I was faced with a new year...I didn't know what to think. I couldn't think of any goals or things that I wanted to accomplish. I just wanted life to go back to "normal." I wanted to make a quilt that was as comfortable and comforting as an old pair of jeans.  So I got out my blue scraps...again...and started on yet another log cabin quilt.

This quilt is the third blue log cabin quilt that I've made, and the 8th log cabin quilt that I've made in the last 2 years.  When COVID started, I started making a log cabin quilt because I wanted a mindless project - and it was great! I could sew away while my kids walked in and out of my sewing room with distance-learning school questions. It was so great that I made more and more of those log cabin quilts.

This time around tho - it wasn't as enjoyable making the blocks. When the quilt was done, I didn't love it. It didn't have the magical feel that I was going for. Instead it felt uncomfortable - it was so similar to so many quilts that I've made that it actually gave me a very weird disquieting feeling to look at it.

Even tho finishing the quilt wasn't very exciting, I did finish it and had it quilted by my long-arm quilter. I went with a navy blue minky for the backing because it is hard to find wide-back gray minky these days. The highlight of the quilt is that I got to bind it with some binding that a friend made for me as a gift.

This quilt was made for our living room couch - for snuggling. I made it a little larger than my other log-cabin quilts. This one has a 6 x 7 (42 blocks) layout using 12" blocks. It finishes at 72" x 84".
Maybe one day it'll become a favorite. For now, I think that it signals the end of my log-cabin quilting making phase. For a while at least.

I love it when people say that they would love a new quilt for their birthday (or Christmas!).
So when my sister said she wanted one, I got to work on another gray and blue quilt. I gave her this one last year, and wanted the 2021 version to coordinate.

The original design doesn't look like much, but I used lots of different fabrics for the background and geese, and to me, that makes the quilt come alive. (Anyone see where my layout differs from my pattern? Hint: upper right corner. I just flip-flopped the placement for a goose block and a blank background block. )

I backed this quilt with minky and had it quilted by my long arm quilter using a pattern from Urban Elementz called "Malachite."  I settled on that pattern because it looks like a topographical map to me: it looks like my geese are flying over a topo map!

I love how this quilt turned out! It finishes around 72" x 76", and I wrote up a quick tutorial for it. You can find that tutorial here.
Thanks for stopping by!

Remember when I made the pink ocean waves baby quilt and  said that I wanted to make a big version? Well I made it - I just made it in yellow, not blue!  The first one I made used squares that finished at 2", and just by making the squares 1" larger, you can end up with a throw-sized quilt.

I pieced this version of the ocean waves quilt with ALL 3.5" unfinished squares and half-square-triangles, which made it possible to web-piece the quilt. It also made the scrappy background nice and evenly scrappy - without any of the larger rectangular background pieces typical in the Ocean Waves block.

As is the case with all of my scrappy quilts, my design wall played an integral part. It takes a lot of time to lay out all of the squares, and to make sure that similar fabrics aren't placed too closely to each other.

I pieced this quilt over the summer and it feels so bright and sunny!  I backed the quilt with "Amber's Posy," a Liberty lawn floral print. I wanted a light and bright multi-color print to back this quilt.

As a treat to myself, I had this quilt quilted by my local long-arm quilter.   I wanted a loopy pattern  and the quilter nailed it.

It felt a little weird to be taking pictures of my summer quilt in late October with patches of snow on the ground, but it'll be amazing to pull this one out of storage in June!

Quilt Details:
This guy has 36 blocks and finishes at roughly 72" x 72".
There are 12 HST and 4 solid fabric squares per block. If you do the quilty math: that makes for 432 HST and 144 squares.
Thanks for stopping by!

Second set of commissioned twin quilts! I had a lot of fun working through the design process with these guys. I started off with a very complicated busy design, slept on it, and then edited heavily in the morning. Below on the left you can see the start of my design (marker, tape & paper), and on the right is where the design ended up (EQ8).  I love the final design!

In total, there are 6 different blocks in this quilt; measurements and piecing instructions are saved in my story highlights on Instagram. (Click here to see my highlights.)  You can also check out #stellarsamplerquilt for more pictures of the quilts.

I cut all the fabric pieces at once and worked hard to keep all of the pieces for each block organized.  Once the tops were pieced, I backed them with pink and blue fabrics from designers who now work for Ruby Star Society, and quilted straight lines.

I bound the quilts with a small gray striped print from Figo Fabrics.

These quilts will soon be off to new twins and I hope that they get lots of use and love - as always!

Quilt Details:
These quilts finish at 40" square.
All solid fabrics are Kona solids from Robert Kaufman. For the blue quilt, I used Candy Blue & Regatta. For the pink quilt I used Melon & Peach. The background fabric for both quilts is Snow - a slightly off white fabric.

Recently I was commissioned to make baby quilts for boy-girl twins! The twins' dads live in CA and have pretty modern taste. My first thought was to go minimalist, abstract, improv modern with my quilt design. I worked, with my quilty friends' feedback, to pull together a palette from my stash and then I started working. My design evolved and I simplified & tweaked. I stared at it on the design wall....and I didn't like it.  Yuck.  The problem with doing commissions, and working closely with your buyer during the process, is that you can sometimes find yourself creating things that you don't like.  Conversely, sometimes working for a client with taste that is different from yours can push you out of your comfort zone to try new designs or palettes - and it's a good thing. In this case it was the former. I didn't like the quilt that was looking at me from my design wall, and I couldn't keep working on it.

Once I made the decision not to move forward with those first attempts, I quickly settled on a simple single large-scale star-in-a-star block in two different, but similar, color-ways.  I have been wanting to make a quilt using this block ever since I made these three blocks for a traveling quilt project.  At the end of this post I will include a link to a tutorial for this quilt.

I quilted straight lines on my Juki with a 1" separation. You can see more on how I sew my straight lines by visiting my Instagram page (HandmadeMyrth) and watching my "sewing tools" highlights.
I love the texture that straight-line quilting adds to a quilt.

I had a mini gray and white stripe fabric on hand (Figo fabrics by Ghazal Razavi) that I used to bind both of these quilts. I backed them in two different gray prints. The moon phases print is another  one from Figo, while the other is from Cotton + Steel (or maybe it was when they were Ruby Star - same designer, different company).

Solid fabrics used in these quilts:
Kona Silver for the background of both quilts (lt gray)
Kona Slate for the dk gray star in the teal quilt
Kona Glacier for the teal star
Michael Miller Jewel for the magenta star
Michael Miller Clay for the dk gray in the magenta quilt

Thanks for stopping by. Click here to be directed to the tutorial for this quilt.

On Valentine's Day this year, I was supposed to be quilting that blue log-cabin baby quilt in my last post, or maybe I was supposed to be quilting some commissioned place mats. I just really didn't want to though, so I got out all of my red, pink & purple scraps & strings and started playing around with some new log-cabin blocks.
I started off with the idea that I wanted to make a quilt with alternating light and dark pink/red log-cabin blocks.  I used 12" blocks in all of the log-cabins quilts that I've made so far. This time I wanted to try making smaller blocks: 8" blocks.  HOWEVER: I quickly discovered that I really didn't like all of the contrast with the light and dark blocks. I didn't take a picture of that stage in the evolution of these quilts - it really wasn't pretty.

I made plenty of blocks in both light and dark before I decided that I didn't like them together.
So I separated them and started on the light pink version first. This one has mostly low-volume prints with little bits of light pink fabrics. The center squares are magenta and I love how they pop.

I backed this one in platinum wide-back minky and had it quilted with the Urban Elementz Rhododendron pattern. I wanted something loose & loopy with a large scale. For binding, I used the last pink low-volume fabric in my stash: tossed pink piggies.

This quilt has 72 of those little 8" log-cabin blocks and finishes at 64" x 72".
You ready for the next one?  When I was done with the light pink version, I picked up the super saturated 8" log-cabin blocks and made some more of those. These guys have low-volume centers with dark pink and red logs and shots of  medium & dark purples.

I also backed this version in minky: bubble gum pink this time. I had my quilter quilt this one with the Dizzy Izzy pattern that I also used for my "Bee Wild" log-cabin quilt. I can't wait to wash this one and see the crinkle and drape.
I bound this quilt with a orchid Halloween print that isn't super Halloweeny.

This quilt also has 72 blocks and finishes at 64" x 72".

As I was sewing along on these blocks, my mind started to wonder and I began to wonder what super LARGE log-cabin blocks would look like. Along with that thought, I also started to look the little bits that were left over from ends of strips and I wanted to try using them somehow.
My first thought was so sew the "crumbs" in to strips and use them to make a round of logs in my blocks.

I liked how the fabric crumbs looked (see above on my design wall), but it wasn't ENOUGH. You know? They didn't pop enough. They weren't noticeable enough. My next thought was to sew strips that were now too short to use on my growing blocks in to sashing and boarders. I sewed them in 6" lengths, and then cut them to be 3".

This stained glass window shot of the quilt top hanging in front of my window shows you the "fabric crumb"  sashing and logs.  These blocks are 20" with 3" sashing.

My mom wanted this quilt (which makes me happy because then I can visit it), so together we chose this paper boat backing fabric and I quilted it with straight lines in my machine.
This one has 9 blocks and finishes 72" square.
I had such fun with this quilt: making design decisions as I went along, and letting myself explore new ideas as they came to me. This one is truly improv and I love it the most right now!

Thanks for reading along. If you'd like to see lots of pics of all of my log-cabin quilts check out #myrthslogcabins on Instagram.

This is my 6th baby quilt commission in less than 6 months. And you know what? Each time I am faced with designing and making a baby quilt, I go about it differently. Sometimes I go through my sketches, sometimes I look at old quilt books, and sometimes I look at quilts that I've recently liked on social media.
For this one I literally opened the curtain on the closet where I store my fabric and began going through my larger cuts of fabric...looking for potential pieces for a quilt backing. I fairly quickly settled on the low-volume pirate print (see below).

The person commissioning the quilt mentioned that the baby's room was blue. I looked in that section of my stash first, and my eyes fell on all the blue scraps and strings that were left over from my numerous recent blue quilts (see here, here,  and here). It didn't take long for me to decide on some blue log-cabin blocks. I toyed with the idea of using yellow or red center squares, but abandoned that idea and went with navy blue centers and accents of darker blues in the blocks.

I've been making my log-cabin blocks 12" square, and kept with that plan for this quilt.  I did 9 blocks total in a 3 x 3 layout.

I quilted straight lines roughly 1" apart for this project. I like how the straight lines don't compete with or overwhelm the scrappy blocks.

I had just enough of my penguin scraps to bind this guy (also bound this quilt with them).  These penguins backed my Magnolia Mystery Quilt, so I'll always have them there, but let me tell you: make sure you love every fabric that you use to back a quilt!  Why?  Because when you trim your quilt, you'll have a significant amount of scraps left over from trimming that backing.  Sometimes it feels like those scraps from backings go on and on forever.  I'll be a little sad to have them gone from my stash (both yardage and scraps), but it also feels good to have used them up.

This quilt finishes at 36" square and will make a nice floor mat or stroller quilt. I hope that it gets lots of use and love!

Back in 2013 I finished a "value diamonds" half-square triangle quilt in turquoise and gray. It was one of a couple of turquoise quilts that I made between 2012 - 2015. After that series of 6 quilts, I was tired of looking at and working with turquoise so I avoided it for 9 years or so.
That original HST diamonds quilt was the first quilt that I entered in a quilt show (a small local one), and was one of the first that I ever sold.

Recently, the buyer for that quilt reached out and asked if I could make another one! I think it's fun to revisit a past project and make slight tweaks. For my 2021 version I stayed with the same turquoise + gray + low-volume fabric palette, but tweaked the border design.

I quilted this quilt on my home machine and took the opportunity to do more orange-peel quilting - but this time I quilted through every-other diagonal. I talk about orange peel quilting more in my blog post for my Ocean Waves Quilt. For this quilt, I love how the circles are so much more clear. You can really see the quilting on the back of the quilt too!

I bound the quilt with another two-tone stripe binding. I attach binding using my machine, and below you can see that sometime it isn't quite perfect (I went over the binding on the front in the corner there). Oh well. I love how it looks on the back, I love how quick it is, and I love how it lasts.  I used to finish the binding on my quilt by hand and I do have one or two old quilts where the binding has come un-sewn.

Quilt Details:
This baby quilt finishes at 36" square. I made the border out of 2" x 4" (finished) rectangles this time, and 2" finished corner squares.  I used 32 pairs of fabrics to make my half-square triangles, and they finish at 4" square.
You can see all of my turquoise quilts at #myrthdoesturquoise.
Thanks for stopping by!