Joy

The final small project I've squeezed in some time for is the Joy wall hanging that I picked up the pattern for a little over a month ago. The design is by Pam Puyleart of Cottage Creek Quilts and I like the whole seasonal "inspiration series" of patterns she has out right now (which includes similar layouts for "grateful" and "create").

The photo is rather washed out, but the flash and lighting just wouldn't cooperate with me tonight.

It was very easy to make this pattern; the most time-consuming part was having to redo the snowflake because the fusible just didn't want to play nice when I went to remove it from the first snowflake I cut out. So I had to cut out another, with slightly better results. Honestly - I don't know what my problem is with fusible of late. But I had problems with the "joy" text in this project as well and in September with the text on the Punkins 4 Sale quilt too. I've heard fusible can "go bad" and that you can get a bad batch, but I've used three different purchase of fusible with not ideal results. Fortunately, things went better with the Ginkgo quilt. Was that just a better batch of fusible? Or because those were batiks? I don't like the fraying I seem to be experiencing and don't know how to solve it. Ideas?

Point Setta Tablerunner

Another quick project I've been working on are these "Point Setta" table runners. I picked up the pattern at last year's quilt retreat (this year's retreat is at the end of this week - yippee!), figuring that although I didn't really need the pattern to figure out how to do this, I'd support the pattern designer, Crooked Nickel Quilt Designs.


The pattern uses charm squares, a background fabric, and fusible grid. It's really not difficult to make, but as you can see, I can manage to have two of the same grids come out at different sizes (I intentionally made my runners smaller than that which the pattern called for). The top one in the photos is made from 3 Sisters' line Glace; the bottom one is made from April Cornell's Nostalgia line. I have another one all fused from the Glace line and just need to sew the seams.

I'm not fully convinced that using the grid is any faster than if I had simply pieced them all using normal techniques. But it's always worth trying something new and learning a new method! I'm hoping I might be able to finish these as Christmas presents, but am not sure how I want to quilt them. It seems like too much work to put a design element in each square, but I'm not sure an all-over meander is really what I'm looking for either. I have time to decide: while I might be sewing at retreat this weekend, I won't be machine quilting on tables in a resort - too painful!

Scrappy Flag

I haven't had tons of time for sewing of late, but I did put together an hour here and there to piece together this flag wall hanging.


The pattern is called "Scrappy Flag," and it's designed by Glory Daze Pattern Co. The pattern features an eagle in the blue section, but I won't be adding it in, as I don't honestly care for it. I've had the pattern forever and thought I'd made enough of them - this is the 7th one of these that I have made (I definitely didn't want to see this after a few Christmases ago when I made 5 of them as gifts) - but I had a request to make one as a birthday/Christmas present. I'll have to quilt this after I get back from vacation, but I've already got the backing fabric and a lovely gold thread that I think will work really well. I'm still undecided on the quilting pattern, but have a month or so to figure it out. Any ideas or suggestions?