ISQ stands for Incredibly Shrinking Quilt. Thats what I am re-naming the Mini Rings quilt I finished this week. If you read last weeks post I was looking for something to sew together. I had the pattern for the mini rings quilt on my to-do stack. A few months ago, Wasatch quilting had included a digital quilting package for this quilt in with the monthly pack I subscribe to. I thought it was a nice way to finish up a double wedding ring style quilt. A long time ago I made a queen-sized DWR quilt with FPP a pattern from Quiltworx/Judy Niemeyer. I didn’t have a longarm, so I brought it to my LQS to have it finished there. The LA person was helpful, and when I told her about my ideas for the quilting, she said it would be $$$. Plus, she thought the custom quilting would make the less than perfect piecing show more. Okay then. I settled for an all over design of leaves and vines, which was nice enough. When I think of the hours I spent putting the top together, it makes me feel like I could have done better by it. Back to 2025, and I have a smaller quilt pattern with quilting designs specifically made for it. I have made Sew-kinda-wonderful patterns before, using the Quick Curve Ruler designed by them. As I began cutting the fabrics and sewing them together I realized that this was a small block. I then read through the whole pattern, specifically the finished size 33″ x 44″. The blocks are 6″ – 5 ½” finished, I had originally looked at the block size where it is listed at 11 ½”. In my head I was making a block twice the size of the one on the sewing table. There are many steps to making one of these blocks. Lots of sew, press, and trim, sew, press, and trim, at one point I was doing the same steps 96 times. I chain pieced as much as I could and powered through them. Yesterday was the webbing and final piecing of the top. I took these four photos to show how much the quilt shrunk up as it went together. The pattern calls for 20 – 10″ squares, 2 1/4 yards background and 2 – 1/3 yards for the setting triangles. All that trimming and cutting used up most of the yardage. I am also rethinking the quilting motifs and which I can use. There are small ones to fit inside the arcs which, in my mind, are a waste of thread. The larger ones to fit in the two diamond shapes might be the ones I use. I may just sew parallel lines in the arcs and outline the inside wedge.

I am edging closer to finishing the Log Cabin or the Fabulous house series. I have two more motif things in the left hand corner. I am so ready to be finished with this project. I am concerned about finishing the piece, specifically ironing it flat. Many of the dyed flosses are not color fast, so I am hesitant to soak it or even mist it. I am wondering if it would be possible to soak it in synthrapol, then iron it and keep the bleeding down to nil. I may just do a test stitch with extra fabric and threads.

The kit for the Forest Fungi came in the mail yesterday. I want to get that started, as well as finishing the last pumpkin table runner. I am still a little undecided as to which color thread I want to use. I thought the aqua would be good, but maybe the purple. I really want to go with orange, the customer is very nice about it, saying “what ever you think”.

Be Kind.

Every year I tell myself I am going to capture the moment when spring does come. I think I missed it, again, but it is peaking right now in this part of the world. Green is the color, everything is growing and smells good, and the birds are singing in the mornings again. My bat friends have come back too. We just got back from a few days on the east coast, where it’s not quite as seasonally caught up.

I did get the fourth pumpkin runner done and that set of four off the frame, squared and bound. The backing(s) for the last three are together and on the frame. The first runner is a non-traditional colored one, aqua and purple, along with orange and black. I want to use a variegated thread, but have nothing in my stash that’ll work. I spent about an hour yesterday perusing the web for something appropriate. I found a few other things that I needed, and didn’t really need. Then I looked at the thread card I have for Signature and I think I found one that will work. It’s called Aqua Waters, and it was a small spool *on sale* too. All the dollars I saved went out the window with a new Quilt kit and a new Cross stitch pattern.

The quilt kit is an older pattern from Pen and Paper, called Forest Fungi. The kit uses a pretty new collection of Banyan batik prints. This quilt is perfect for my Bff, who is achieving a birthday milestone in June. I am hoping that I can get it done before I leave on an extended trip in mid May. I just checked and it has shipped and will be here tomorrow. The cross stitch pattern appealed to me, because of my fascination with mermaids. Plus I am so very ready to be done with the Fabulous Houses. I have been spending a few hours at the end of the day stitching the log cabin. I can definitely see progress. Maybe I’ll finish the chimney tonight.

I am itching to start something new in the quilting department. I have most of the fabric I need to make another Woodland Friends quilt and the panels for the other one, Frolic in Florals. I feel like I have been making a lot of forest themed quilts this year. Sort of like the year I made all the Julie Patchkis quilts. I still have some yardage left from those, but not enough to do anything with. I got out the mini rings pattern from SewKindaWonderful, I have a set of digital quilting designs specifically made for it. I can use the rest of the fabric pack of Love Letters, seems like a good project for today. It’s lightly raining, so my plans for weed whacking have to be put aside – darn.

I am curious about the new larger BOB dies from Accuquilt. They are supposed to cut a 16 inch block, or pieces for it. I really don’t need another die, especially because I had the best intentions of using the last three I bought and have not. Sadly I can’t even remember the ideas I had for them. Maybe I wrote it down – yep in a post from October 2024. I do want to make the log cabin quilt with the 1 ½” strip cutting die. Maybe I should look at the patterns associated with the dies, while I am there NOT buying any more. These two are made with the Go! signature circles die.

Be Kind.

This week I am quilting pumpkins, seven of them, lots of pumpkin runners. Each one is different, and only two have matching pantographs, so thats good for me, not boring and I can get a lot done assembly line style. I carefully sewed four of the backings together alternating in a 6 inch wide piece of scrap. Then I loaded it on to the frame, everything is good and square. Next I went through my batting scraps and “found” 7 cut off pieces that were wide enough. Each runner is small/big enough to fit in my sewing area of the frame. That is a good thing, as I don’t have to worry about lining rows up nesting or advancing the quilt. I just baste down the top, put the design together in the screen and press GO. There were a few bobbles here and there, tension issues mostly due to WOW prints.

I made my Starry Skies block and got the moon block from the center panel done. I made it with a gray ombre, rather than the yellow gold, I want my stars to shine. I have the center stars yet to do, but I put everything away after the moon block. I plan on doing one or two when each new star block is released. Speaking of BOMs, I made the 60 or so block pieces (Feb March ) for the Blooming Beauties quilt. They are in their own designated art bin box waiting for the next installment.

The X&+ quilt is finished too, got the hanging sleeve sewn on yesterday. It’s all ready to ship out today, well after I pack it up. I made a two part sleeve with an open section in the center to accommodate the “hang-it” self leveling magnetic hanger I got for it. I really like this hanger, as it is really easy to install, one screw and as the name implies, it self levels. As long as the quilt is square, (ahem) it looks good on the wall.

The log cabin is logging many stitches. I want to finish this, soon, I really want to move on to something else. The squirrel was fun to stitch, I may start the moose that goes in the top right corner. All the green tree things are intense with many color changes. I am thinking I may change one of the green shades to a lighter one, as it is very close in value to the others. Thus the pattern is lost and blurry. If you look at the finished picture there is more color difference, in my first green square (lower left) there isn’t much.

Be Kind.

Things I worked on this week.

• Message in a Bottle
• Tilda Applique Quilt
• Binding 5 quilts
• Quilted X&+ quilt
• 3 Bucket hats
• Finished woodland friends small quilt
• worked on the log cabin/fabulous house

Seemed like I was more busy than that, there were a lot of rainy days. I squeezed in some weed pulling and garden maintenance too. I probably should have taken more in progress photos of the MIB and Tilda projects, but I forgot and put them away. I had a fun time making the little bucket hats. The pattern is from Tie Dye Diva called “Pepper street baby and kid bucket hat”. Easy to follow and lots of pictures on the PDF downloaded from her Etsy store.

I downloaded and printed the next Starry Skies block, and the center block(s) for the quilt. Lots of paper foundation piecing to do. Maybe tomorrow, as today I am going to lunch with a friend. This months block is the Aires constellation. It’s pretty simple, only four stars and lots of background. The center is a bit more involved with 10 stars and a crescent moon. The version (see photo on left) I am making has the mountains border on the bottom.

I received 7 table runner quilts for a custom quilt job. They are all the same pattern and size, halloween themed pumpkins. I figured out that I can piece the backings together with long strips of scrap backing fabric. That way I can load four at a time, and save my lower back from the ache of pinning each backing on separately. Typically, I would use the same whole backing for this, but each runner is different colors and has a coordinated backing. Once my customer chooses the pantos I’ll get started. I am trying to make a bit of money, and stream line the process, time is money.

I finished the Manor house cross stitch and got it sent to the recipient. I was sorry that I didn’t have time to frame/finish it properly. I stitched the simple border in a backstitch using a gold-ish brass floss, I imagined a matting and narrow black molding for framing. I’m curious to see how it turns out. I am back to stitching the Fabulous Houses again, making headway on the cabin. There are lots of details in the logs, with color changes a plenty.

Be Kind.

This month is almost over, one more week. I can’t say if it went by quickly or slowly for me, as I ended up finishing a few things and starting a few things. I sort of stopped looking at the calendar, not knowing the exact date only the day of the week. It was slightly freeing of the normal time pressures for me. Most are self imposed to-do lists for the week or day, but my days seem full of activities, and low stress.

I finished the Manor house part of my stitchery project. I want to add a simple border to it. I looked at a few different Art Deco inspired ones and think a simple one will finish off the piece. I may add the dates it was built and re-modeled, and I am thinking of a golden color floss. or maybe black. I am looking forward to restarting the Fabulous houses piece to finish the Log Cabin and finish that piece. It has been a looong year of stitching on it.

The X&+ Zen Chic quilt top is back together (with many more neutral color blocks) bordered and ironed. I am thinking of ways to quilt it. I can be lazy and do an all over panto, or do the panto in the center and a border/corner quilt pattern around it. I was also contemplating extending the block seam lines out into the plain borders. There is also the question of whether to use angular quilting motifs or curving ones. I was leaning towards curvy, but then I saw some that were more straight with rounded corners. I need to keep thinking on this one, to figure out what is going to work. I also have to finish the quilting on the Woodland Friends quilt which is currently on the frame. It is about 75% done, might finish it off later today. I like this panto – Grace, as it has enough coverage and interest, with only a little back tracking.

I trimmed the last four quilts that I have longarm quilted. Thats a project for this week too, get them bound and do a photo shoot. The sun has been shining in my favorite photo shooting spot once again. I’ll get every thing set up and do a few hours of clicking and cropping. I have quite a few quilts that need to be added to the listings in my shop. Sadly no recent sales there, an influx of new product could spark some interest.

I started a new quilt top yesterday, it is a mini version of the Pumpkin Patch pattern I made from Cluck Cluck Sew patterns. It’s called Mini Brightly Holidays, there are four different versions, a pumpkin, Christmas tree, star and heart. I like this one as it is a good scrap buster. I am using the fabrics from the ½ yard bundle I got to make the Woodland friends top. The blocks are 6 inches finished, I used the animal faces in place of four of the star blocks, and nixed the stars for solid squares. I also bought a Layer cake of Halloween themed prints to make another pumpkin patch quilt. It’s not too early to start thinking autumnal quilts. I should knock off the blocks I need to make for the Blooming Beauty BOM before starting anything else. The next set should be arriving this week. Once this little quilt is together I AM going to pull out the Message in a Bottle quilt and work on it to finish it. Thats my plan for the rest of the month.

Be Kind.