Adding Blue

 

Okay, I think that's enough variety of blues for the last ingredients of this block. The quilt and pattern designer, Bonnie K. Hunter calls this a Lupine Star. That sounds like a good name to me. While I was cutting out the blue pieces I  tried to cut from mainly the lightest blues I had been working with for this quilt. So they're not all different as the pink block centers are, but I don't think that will matter too much once the other block that makes up this quilt gets added in-between.

Twenty-five Squares

I only managed to cut out the twenty-five 1.5" pink squares for the Lupine mystery quilt today. The good news is that I was able to get the majority of them cut out of the scraps I've been collecting as I've been going through all the clues which was easier than wrangling big pieces of fabric to cut out that tiny square.

At least I pinned them up with the block units they'll be going into on the design wall. 

Next up, the blue sashing that will go in-between the four block units. I cut out three block's worth to see how it looks. hmmm. Not too sure about that dark one.

Finished Spikies

 

The rest of the spiky star block units left to sew together was a pretty big stack.

Adding to the finished blocks up on the design wall kept me sewing.

The chain sewing was quite long, but these go together easily if you follow the pressing directions.

All they need is the final seam.

And there they all are, hurrah! Now to cut out the blue sashing and pink cornerstones that will go in between each set of four. Getting there.

Still Spiking

 

I dealt out the colors and prints for the remaining Spiky Star blocks for the Lupine Mystery and sewed most of them together.  Chain piecing style. The remaining piles to be sewn are in the foreground.

Not too many of these sets left to get together I have quite an assortment of pink, purple and "white/neutral" fabrics in these blocks. Some are great combinations, some not so much. Overall, hopefully they'll work in the quilt.

Getting Spiky

The next clue I'm working on for the Lupine Mystery quilt involves making some larger block units out of already made smaller block units. Two sizes of HSTs and the HRTs combine for this interesting almost its own block. 

I only had to un-sew one bit that I'd gotten the big HST turned the wrong way around. At least I noticed before it got sewn into the quilt, right?  Before I sewed together the next few, I set up the elements in stacks that looked like the final product.

So spiky! I love the look of all the variations in the pinks and white fabrics. These don't look so great on my white design wall. I promise they all have white fabric centers. Interesting how they visually just totally disappear. The final blocks will have the four sub-blocks with blue sashing and pink cornerstones in the centers. But those haven't been cut out yet...

Grey Birds

 Time for me to make another block for the BAMQ BOM, so it's back to the Box o' Greys.

This month it's Birds In The Air, and I'm going to use an EQ8 version.

I made two of these blocks, and I really like how they turned out. I almost want to make two reverse blocks to make a big four patch out of them.

So Many Kitty Ears

I buckled down and got started sewing the remaining sets of Kitty Ears units for the Lupine Mystery quilt. 

I love how these "Kitty Ears" units kind of have the look of Flying Geese gone wrong, or maybe just gone wiiiiiide.

Cutting the very last set to size with the Simple Folded Corners ruler.

It took a lot of trimming and sewing and pressing, but they got put together. Check out that pile of teeny tiny hsts™!

 But here they all are.  

Twenty-four sets of four "kitty ears" all done. You may be wondering if I had run out of white on white? No, just thought it'd be fun to put in two of my favorite white with black prints. This layout would actually make a very interesting scrap (or otherwise) quilt. Looks like columns of arrows.

  I am so very very ready to move on to the next clue.

Back to Kitty Ears

 

Today I got back to work in my sewing room, and I finished cutting out all of the pieces to complete the "kitty ears" for the Lupine Mystery quilt. 

They are all ready to get sewn together into the fifteen sets of four I have left to make. It's nice to work with the blue and white combination, I kind of got tired of all the pink and purple. 

Many Hands

 Another thing I worked on at Super Sew Day was putting together the quilt we're making for one of our relatives. This is a non-official Quilt of Valor for a veteran. As you can see, our design wall was the floor. I took a picture of the row I was sewing together with the sashing in between so that I'd get the blocks in the correct order and orientation.

The work went by so quickly with four of us working on it at once. The sashing had been pre-cut which was very helpful. And the majority of the blocks were actually 12.5" which always makes these group quilts go together more easily.

I think these blocks all turned out beautifully, and I love the range of prints and solids that we all chose.

There was some rearranging happening when we did the horizontal white sashing + red solid cornerstones. Unfortunately I neglected to get a final form picture of the finished quilt top. The binding and backing got made as well, so that one of our members can do the long-arming this week. It will be a very quick turnaround which is great news.

More Kitty Ears

 

On the second day of Sew Day, I made more "kitty ears". (sung to the tune of "On The First Day of Christmas") for the Lupine Mystery Quilt. I'm of course, ending up with a whole lot of teeny tiny hsts™

Are my blues arctic blues as they're meant to be? I'd say that some of them get fairly close, but many are way off. I hope it ends up working out. I'm completely using up some of these blues, so this will be the last time they appear in one of my quilts.  

It wasn't all strip cutting, there was some fussy fiddly cutting happening. But at the end, I ended up with nine sets of four (out of the required 24 sets) done. I also cut out the rest of the blue squares that will be needed. Pshew, that was a lot. What a super fun, Super Sew Day(s) it was!

Time for Kitty Ears

Time for a Super Sew Day, so I brought along my stacks of "ice blue" and "white/cream" fabrics and cut out a bunch of the next clue I'm working on for the Lupine Mystery quilt. This block unit is called "Kitty Ears."

Well, at least two sets got done!

Bohemian Wife Quilting

I've finally made a start on getting the Bohemian Wife quilt actually quilted. First I did the vertical lines. A lot of stopping and starting, but it worked out. Used the walking foot, it went very well. 

Then I switched over to quilting the quilt blocks. And it turns out, I really should have switched over the thread color I was using.  

The medium red/purple that I was using blended in pretty well with all those vertical prints and on a lot of the blocks. A lot of the blocks have straight lines, which are tough to do well with free motion quilting. 

So I got out my new ruler quilting foot and the ruler I bought to go with it. Definitely straightened up my lines a lot, (especially for my first time) but still not good enough especially with that dark thread. And a lot of the blocks use lighter colored fabrics as well which makes that situation even more apparent. The quilting ruler is on the quilt there, but it's quite see-through isn't it?

I pinned up the quilt on the design wall to see if it was even visible from a normal viewing distance. Nope, not really. 

But a couple steps away from the quilt and yikes on bikes! Just to me, it will always bug me. I'm not planning on entering this in any shows or competitions, so it truly doesn't matter. Except I'll know it looks bad and takes away from the look of the quilt I've spent so much time making. 

I will have to pick out a whole bunch of quilting and then switch over to a lighter color so every little but and squiggle shows up so plainly.. Sigh, still un-picking and trying not to just give up on this one when I'm so close to finishing.

.

Simple Sawtooth Star Blocks

A small group of friends is making a Quilt of Valor style of quilt for one of our parents who served in the military. One of us designed a really nice quilt in EQ8 and we diviiiid up the block making responsibilities. I didn't have much white fabric around, so I found this great white on white print to use with the solids.

Thank goodness the organizers reminded us to pre-wash, because look at those red splotches on the color catchers.

Here's my two Simple Sawtooth Star blocks.

September To-Do

Here's how my design wall is looking on the first of September. Four finishes are pinned-up, as I'm not working on piecing or designing, just doing a lot of quilting at the moment. Those finishes do need to move along and make room for what I'll be working on this coming month.

 Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐  

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making units following the clue instructions

BAMQ BOM - make monthly blocks of varying sizes through the year.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - Decide on borders, make backing & binding

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023  Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🌀🌐 David Owen Hastings class piece, assemble into quilt top, quilt, finish🥏👽 

                                      

Quilting

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife - Finish quilting it🌀🌐 

Final Steps 

🥏👽 Bending the Calendar - Cut up? Re-arrange? Embellish?🌀🌐 

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching -  🌀🌐

Body Pillow-knit cotton pillowcase - 🌀🌐 

Quilted Dog Jacket for Meg - 🌀🌐  

Hey! This Is All Finished!

Mosaic Table Runner -  this one is going right onto my dining room table.

I continue to be a bit shocked. This is now five months in a row with some actual finishing happening. 

Yes, it 's not all that much, but there's some movement happening on several of these projects, 

I am planning on continue with the finishing energy into September.