Merry Mini QAL - Week 5 - Binding

Welcome to week 5 of the Merry Mini QAL! It's the final days of this Christmas in July party! I managed to get caught up last Monday afternoon, stitching my tree rows together and then adding them to my three quilt tops. Then they all just sat until Friday afternoon, when I finally got them all basted. It took less than an hour to baste them all, so why did I keep putting it off???

Saturday morning I started the quilting. I quilted diagonal lines in all the red squares on all three, then lines in all the tree trunks, then more diagonal lines in the green squares and wishbones in the trees.

Though I had thought about quilting the three quilts differently, once I got started I just wanted to keep doing the same thing for all of them. Sometimes it's better to have fewer decisions to make, lol.

For the background, I chose a small loopy meander. Usually I say this design reminds me of eyelet lace, but in this context it makes me think of strands of Christmas lights. The background of each Merry Mini took about 30 minutes to quilt.

As always, the quilting looks so pretty on the back, too.

Over the course of the day, I quilted all the colours for all three minis and the backgrounds of two of them. It definitely didn't take all day, I think I spent about an hour in the morning, another hour or so in the afternoon, and another hour in the evening. Then I finished the third background on Sunday afternoon.

Week 5 - Binding

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still a few days to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. Until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the links to go to the previous posts.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

The next step after finishing the quilting is to trim off the excess batting and backing. I always love how that simple step transforms the look of a quilt! It looks so much more finished when the edges are clean, even though they're still raw edges.

Some quilters get very particular about making sure their quilts are perfectly square. I'm not one of them. I use my long ruler and my rotary cutter to make sure each side is straight, but I don't fuss about getting perfect 90° angles.

Once the quilt is trimmed, I add my label to the bottom right corner on the back. I got these labels from Finer Ribbon (they've since gone out of business) and there were 1,000 on the roll at the start, so I don't think I'll ever run out.

Hanging the mini quilt

Since this is a mini quilt, we need to think about how it will be displayed. It's likely to be hung on a wall, so how do we want to do that? We could sew a sleeve to put on the back or add triangles to the corners. With either of those options, you use a dowel and nails or hooks on the wall. For the past couple of years, though, I've been using Command strips for small quilts. I started out with the strips designed for hanging posters, but when I ran out of those I started using strips sold as refills for the hooks. This most recent pack that Paul picked up are meant for outdoor use, but they work fine in the house, too.

I attach the strip directly to the back of the quilt in the top corners, then stick them to the wall. After Christmas, follow the instructions to remove the strip from the wall, then just peel it off the quilt. There's no damage to either the wall or the quilt, and no residue left behind.

I've had quilts hanging on my laundry room wall for years using Command strips. A few months ago one of them fell down because the strips weren't sticky enough to hold it anymore, and even after years stuck to the quilt, there was still no residue left behind. I stuck new strips on and hung it back up 😊

Binding

Once upon a time, I was certain that the only correct way to bind a quilt was to sew the binding to the front by machine, then hand stitch it to the back. Anything else was just wrong. Then came a day when I was making something for gifts and didn't have time to hand stitch the binding. This was pre-blog days, so I can't remember for sure, but I think it was a set of minis. Whatever it was, I decided to try machine binding and I was amazed at how quick it was and even more surprised that it didn't look horrible! Not that I did a great job, but that the look of binding finished by machine wasn't the abomination I thought it would be. I quickly made the switch to machine binding all my quilts, and I'm so glad I got out of my 'only one right way' mindset!

Over the years I picked up tips and refined my method, then in 2016 I published a tutorial for how to bind a quilt by machine. I still bind my quilts the exact same way! If you're not yet happy with the results when you bind your quilts by machine, check out the tutorial to see if there's something I do differently that might make a difference for you.

This is one of last year's Merry Minis

Finishing the binding by machine stitching it to the front of the quilt is pretty much the only time I don't always match the bobbin thread to the top thread. I match the top thread to the binding fabric and match the bobbin thread to either the backing fabric or the thread I used for quilting. I want that line of stitching to be as unnoticeable as possible on the back, so I choose whichever one will blend in the most. In the case of the Merry Mini above, you can see I chose a red thread, to match the backing. Of course, the binding is red, too, so for that quilt the top and bobbin threads did match.

My three QAL Merry Minis are sitting and waiting, with their labels clipped on, ready for their bindings. I'm hoping to get them all finished before the calendar flips over to August.

Thanks for joining me for the Merry Mini QAL! I hope you've had as much fun stitching your Merry Mini quilt as I have 😊

My First Quilt with Jenny Kae Parks

It has been a busy July here in Devoted Quilter land, with the Merry Mini QAL and the work I've been doing on other patterns, not to mention starting a new job as a virtual assistant. Whew! No wonder it feels like the last Friday of the month snuck up on me quickly! It is the last Friday of the month, though, which means I get to share another My First Quilt interview 😊 This month Jenny Kae Parks is sharing the story of her first quilt. Jenny Kae Parks is a quilting teacher and designer.

You can connect with Jenny at her website, on Instagram, on Facebook, and on Youtube.

And now, here's Jenny's first quilt! Isn't it pretty?

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

2021 I made quilted placements for a project with my kids. I fell in love with the possibilities. I dove in and never looked back!

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

I made a log cabin quilt using strip piecing.

Who taught you to make the quilt?

Elinor Burns. No lie! I used her VHS lessons on The Log Cabin. Then a friend, Patty and I got together every week to quilt. I learned a lot from her. I used to record Quilt in a Day, Simply Quilts, Love of Quilting etc and watch them when I got time to myself. And I checked out SO many books and magazines!

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

Yes!  It took few years for me to realize that they were my color trifecta. Almost every quilt I made has blue, purple and green. I have branched out, using the quilter's secret weapon aka the color wheel. 

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I fell hard! I was planning my next quilt while making my first one. 

Where is the quilt now?

It is hanging in my closet. I use it for presentations to guilds.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

Plan more time for quilting! When I have the top done, I am irritated I am not finished yet! So I skimp on the quilting to finish faster. Instead, plan at least 30% of the time is spent on quilting. For example, if it takes me 60 hours to make a quilt top, plan 20 hours to quilt, at least.

Anything else you want to share about your first quilt?

I still love it! I love the colors, the arrangement, the blocks and the feel of the washed quilt. The log cabin is one of my favorite blocks! 

Thanks for sharing your first quilt with us, Jenny! I love it, too!

Merry Mini QAL - Week 4 - Quilting

Welcome to week 4 of the Merry Mini QAL! How is your Merry Mini coming along? I have to admit that this past week I fell behind on my own QAL. I was doing really well, even with three mini quilts underway, but then we decided to go hiking twice this week. No regrets, both hikes were great! It just means that now I have some catching up to do. (And if you'd be interested in seeing some of my hiking pictures, you can follow me on Instagram!)

Even though I don't have my Merry Mini quilt tops finished, I do have all my trees made! I love this little forest.

Week 4 - Quilting

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still time to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. From now until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the links to go to the previous posts.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

Now that your quilt tops are put together (and mine soon will be, lol), it's time to baste and quilt them! I love mini quilts for a lot of reasons and two of them are that I can use scrap pieces of batting for them and I don't have to piece a back to fit! I can't explain why, but I can put dozens of pieces together for a quilt top no problem, but sewing even two pieces together for a backing seems like too much work. Another bonus - with a mini, basting goes so quickly!

Have you thought about how you'll quilt your Merry Mini? I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to repeat what I did for my first two, or if I'll do something different this time. In case you don't have any ideas yet, here's what I did before. All of this quilting was done on my Janome 6700 with Aurifil 50 wt. thread.

For any quilt with embroidery or applique, the hardest part for me is figuring out how to deal with those elements. Outline them? Stitch over them? It's so hard to choose! Because the Merry Mini letters are so thin, I chose to stitch kind of loosely around them, without outlining each individual letter. I stitched a meander with random snowflakes in the background.

Here's how it looks from the back.

An option I'm considering this time around is to quilt a rectangle frame around the words, separating them from the quilting entirely. Another interesting option, especially if you used fabric markers or crayons for your words rather than stitching, would be to quilt right the whole quilt with an allover motif, going right over the words. Something like a crosshatch, straight lines, or some stippling would look great.

These trees were so much fun to quilt! It doesn't show up well in the pictures, but I used brown thread to stitch back and forth lines in the trunks (that wasn't the fun part), then I switched to green thread to outline the tree and stitch swooping lines to resemble draped garland. I love how they turned out!

Another option would be to stitch back and forth lines in the green part of the tree, too, or wishbones, or to echo the diagonal lines of the sides into the middle. Or maybe join me in getting lost in Pinterest searching for ideas for quilting in triangles (I can't be the only one, right?).

Apparently I didn't take any closeup pictures of the alternating squares rows after the quilting, and I've given these two away, so here's the view from the back. I treated the white squares as part of the background. In the red and green squares, I used matching thread to outline the square, then quilted a swooping line from corner to corner around the square. Yes, that meant starting and stopping in each square individually, but there aren't a lot of them, so it wasn't bad.

These squares are pretty small, but there are still other options - back and forth lines (can you tell they're a standby motif for me?), or maybe just outline the squares and don't quilt anything else in them. They'd stay kind of puffy that way.

I think the Merry Mini would also look great with some big stitch hand quilting, either as an accent along with some machine quilting or with only the hand quilting. I don't feel like taking on any hand quilting over the summer, but maybe some of you with air conditioning will do it so I can admire it.

I hope this post has given you some ideas for how to quilt your Merry Mini! Can you believe next week is the last (partial) week of July, and we'll be ready to move on to binding?

When you share pictures on social media, remember to use the hashtag #MerryMiniQAL and tag me (@devotedquilter on IG and @devotedquilterdesigns on FB) so I can see!

Scraps Take Flight Pattern Release

I made this quilt last year and since then it has been the one I reach for the most when I'm in the living room. Actually, when I was working on it, I intended to donate it, but that never happened because I fell in love with it and had to keep it for myself!

Scraps Take Flight was the first regularly scheduled pattern released to Stash Artists members after the membership opened last June (the first, first pattern was Reverberate, which was ready for members to download as soon as they joined). Since then I've had a lot of fun sharing stash-friendly patterns with members, like Ombre Twirl, Blooming Beautiful, Pinwheel Irish Chain, and more. If you love stash-friendly, scrappy patterns, join the waitlist so you'll be notified when the Stash Artists doors open again in the fall.

Stash Artists patterns remain exclusive to members for at least a year, after which they may be made available to the general quilty public. Since it's a year after its release to members, Scraps Take Flight is now available in my shop 😊

Did you know one of the names for a group of butterflies is 'flight'? I love the extra layer of meaning that adds to the pattern name - your scraps can take flight when you turn them into these fun butterflies, plus there's a whole flight of scrappy butterflies in the quilt.

The butterflies are traditionally pieced and the butterfly body is raw edge applique. One Stash Artists member also embroidered antenna on her butterflies, which was a great addition.

The Scraps Take Flight pattern has instructions for the 62" x 72" throw size I made, plus a 42" x 42" baby quilt and a 92" x 92" queen size. 

How many butterflies do you think you could make from your scrap bins? Head to my shop to get your Scraps Take Flight pattern, then dig into your scraps to create your flight of scrappy butterflies 😊

Merry Mini QAL - Week 3 - Tree borders

Welcome to week 3 of the Merry Mini QAL! Isn't it fun seeing how different your mini looks once you've added the alternating squares borders? Here's how my three look at the end of week 2.

A quick update about my embroidered text block. When I wrote last week's post, that text block was still drying after being soaked in water to get rid of a bit of stickiness after dissolving the Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy. I'm happy to report the stickiness was gone when it dried after that soak. I do find the fabric doesn't look as pristine a white as the other two (they were all cut at the same time from the same fabric), but it still looks white, if that makes sense.

Week 3 - The tree borders

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still plenty of time to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. From now until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the links to go to the previous posts.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

This week we're making the tree borders. There's a little bit of strip piecing going on and the trees themselves are foundation paper pieced.

Strip piecing is oddly satisfying. It feels great to stitch strips together - it's fast and it's easy - and then cutting them apart reveals these perfect little units. The tree trunk units would be fiddly to sew with individual pieces, but they become perfectly manageable with strip piecing!

If foundation paper piecing is new for you, or you haven't really conquered the technique yet, don't worry! These tree units have only two seams per tree, so they're the simplest paper piecing you could do.

I have two paper piecing tools to recommend for you. The first one is freezer paper. If you've been around here for any length of time, you've probably heard me sing the praises of freezer paper for paper piecing. If you're new here, trust me when I say I talk about freezer paper every time I talk about paper piecing 😊In fact, I love this technique so much, I teach it for guilds and for workshops I host myself once or twice a year. Now I'm excited to say I also have an on-demand workshop to teach the magic of paper piecing with freezer paper!

Why do I love freezer paper so much? My absolute favourite reason for using freezer paper for all my paper piecing is that I never have to rip out the bits of paper when I'm finished making a block. I used to hate that part! Now I don't have to do it. At all. Ever. Where I used to avoid paper piecing because I didn't want to have to rip out the papers, now I can paper piece whenever I want without subjecting myself to that frustration and annoyance. It's fantastic.

The second reason I love freezer paper is that you can reuse your templates. These templates I'm using for my current three Merry Mini quilts were used to make my first two Merry Minis last year and they're still perfect. After this week, I'll have made 30 trees with these two templates, plus one template printed on regular paper to be able to make these templates, instead of the 30 templates I would need if I were using regular paper. 

If you'd like to reuse your templates and never rip out bits of paper again, be sure to check out my on-demand workshop!

If I haven't convinced you to give freezer paper a try, and you're going to stick with regular paper, then you might like this tool instead. Carolina Moore designed the Foundation Piecing Water Pen to make removing the papers easier. When your block is finished, you fill the pen with water, then run it over the seams on the paper side. The water softens the paper, making it easier to pull away from your stitches. While I prefer using freezer paper, I have tested this out and it worked really well, so I recommend it if you're paper piecing with regular paper.

Once your tree borders are added, along with the spacer borders you'll find in the pattern, your Merry Mini quilt top will be finished. Can you believe how quickly that came together??? Next week we'll get to baste and quilt it! Do you know how you'll want to quilt yours yet? I haven't even thought about it for mine yet.

Remember, if you share your Merry Mini QAL progress on social media, use the hashtag #MerryMiniQAL and tag me (devotedquilter on IG and devotedquilterdesigns on FB) so I can see. I'd love to cheer you on!

2024 Mid-Year Review

We are just past the middle of 2024, which means it's time for me to pause for a few minutes and see how I'm doing with my goals this year.

Before I dive into that, though, I have some exciting life/work news to share 😊 I've been wanting to move out of childcare for a long time, but there aren't a lot of work opportunities in our small town, so I stayed with what I knew (and what gave me summers off!). Early in the spring, though, one of my childcare moms told me they would possibly be moving away over the summer, leaving me with only one little that I could count on for next school year. That wasn't going to be enough income for me, so we made the decision that when school ended, I'd be finished with childcare. Cue the angel chorus! We didn't know what I'd be doing instead, and I kept saying it was entirely possible I'd be checking in people's groceries. However, I've started working part time as a virtual assistant for another pattern designer, doing for her business the same kinds of things I do for my own Devoted Quilter business, like blog posts and creating PDF downloads. I'm only a little more than a week into it, but I'm enjoying it so far and it's a lot quieter than childcare, that's for sure.

Right now it feels like my regular summer break from childcare, but I know it will really hit me when Paul and Nathan go back to school in September and no littles are dropped off here. I'm quite looking forward to soaking in the peace and quiet that first day! I'm also looking forward to putting more time into my own business, since my 'regular job' is now less than half the number of hours each week.

So that's one big life goal achieved, even though I never actually wrote it down anywhere 😊 How am I doing with the goals I did write down?

1. Keep making small quilts

I've finished 3 small quilts so far this year, which I define as a baby quilt or smaller. One hasn't been blogged yet, but I do have pictures, so I should get to that soon. The others are Rippling and Shining Through, which are both baby quilts.

I've also started 4 more small quilts recently (three Merry Minis for the QAL, plus the test version of the next Stash Artists BOM pattern), so I should have plenty of small quilts to celebrate for the second half of the year, too.

2. Sew some clothes

So far this year I've made two shirts, but I don't have pictures of them. I wear a lot of dresses in the summer and want to make a couple of new ones, but I haven't taken the time to do that yet. Maybe soon.

3. Moments with Jesus Easter QAL

I loved this year's QAL! For the past four years, this has been one of my favourite projects of the whole year. Because I love it so much, I've already started planning for next year. Not that I've quilted either of this year's two quilt tops...or any of the ones from the previous years...

4. All things Stash Artists

Stash Artists just passed its first birthday and I love the members! It's wonderful to get to sew with some of them every other month, and I love planning new patterns for them, like Ombre Twirl.  I'm excited to see what the second year brings 😊 If you love stash-friendly patterns and virtual sewing sessions with friends, get on the waitlist so you won't miss it when the membership doors open again.

5. WIPS-B-GONE 2024

This is coming up quickly! I mentioned an abundance of unquilted tops sitting and waiting, didn't I? I need the WIPS-B-GONE challenge as much as anyone else! Sign ups will open in September.

6. Finish my Hexie Rainbow top

I'm making progress! At the start of the year I was working on squaring up the second corner, which is now finished and I'm working on the third. Here's what it looks like today.

Paul and I will be traveling to Jasper National Park next month for our 25th anniversary, so there will be lots of plane time and time in the Airbnb for hand stitching. I think it's entirely possible I could finish the top this year.

7. Regular workouts and 300,000 steps a month

Well, this one is a yes and a no 😅 My goal for workouts is to do 2-3 yoga or strength training workouts from Youtube each week and I've only missed that target two weeks in the first half of the year. I like Yoga with Adriene and Nourish Move Love, if you're needing some recommendations. I can notice an improvement in my strength, which is great motivation to keep going.

The 300,000 steps a month on the other hand...I've only reached that goal once so far, in May. 300,000 a month averages out to be about 10,000 steps a day. In April I averaged about 9,700/day, which is pretty close. In March I averaged about 8,200, which isn't close at all. Altogether, my average for the first half of the year is 9,064/day, and I'm fairly happy about that.

One other thing I noticed was that if I did a workout, there often wasn't time/energy/interest for a walk, so I usually only did one or the other on a given day.

Overall, I'm not stressing about the 300,000 per month, but I'm going to keep trying to get more steps in. I definitely feel better when I move more, whether that's yoga, strength training, or walking.

I'm feeling pretty good about my year so far! Did you set goals for 2024? If you did, how are you doing with them after half the year?

Merry Mini QAL - Week 2 - Alternating Squares

It's week 2 of the Merry Mini QAL! How did your embroidery or colouring of your text block go? I thoroughly enjoyed working on the embroidery for my third text block. Some of it was done sitting in the backyard, and Saturday morning I lowered it after finishing a thread and found this guy on my lap.

Apparently he's a white satin moth caterpillar. He's also very lucky I didn't flick him off before I registered that he was just a caterpillar and not something yucky like a spider. After taking his picture, Paul coaxed him onto a leaf so he could be gently deposited back on the ground.

After finishing my embroidery, I dissolved the Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy I used to transfer the template onto my fabric. I shared a sped-up video of the process here, if you'd like to see. It was pretty impressive, though my fingers stayed sticky for quite a while, even after washing. I rinsed the embroidered fabric a couple times in bowls of clean water, then left it to dry. It was still a bit sticky feeling after it dried, though, so I soaked it in warm water for about 20 minutes, then left it to dry again. As I'm typing this (on Sunday evening), it's still drying, and I have my fingers crossed all the stickiness is gone.

Week 2 - The alternating squares borders

If you haven't already joined the QAL, there's still plenty of time to join in for some Christmas in July fun! You can pick up your pattern here. From now until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule. Click on the link to go to last week's post.

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

This week's sewing will involve some small scraps of red, green, and white. Do you have your scraps organized so it's easy to find what you need? If not, you might like the tips in my PDF guide Escape Scrap Overwhelm.

I love sewing with small pieces! I also love chain piecing, which makes the whole process go faster. That's maybe not much of a concern for a small project like Merry Mini, but if you're sewing dozens of squares together, then chain piecing is a real time saver. 

If I'm sewing a row of squares, I usually don't sew squares 1 and 2, stop, add square three, stop, add square 4, etc. Instead, I chain piece the squares into pairs first - 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, etc. Here are my pairs for one of my Merry Mini quilts.

Then I sew the pairs to each other - 1/2 and 3/4, etc. Chain piecing into pairs first doesn't save a huge amount of time, but it does cut down on the starting and stopping required to put a row of squares together and I'll take that as a win.

Here are my alternating squares rows sewn together. Once your alternating squares rows are finished, you can go ahead and stitch them to your text block. I'm going to sew the rest of my rows before adding them to the mini quilts, so I can make sure I'm happy with the balance of fabrics for each one.

Leaders and enders/spider/scrap square

I love using leaders and enders when I'm chain piecing because it lets me work on a scrap quilt kind of in the background as I work on my main project, though it does require a little prep work to have pieces ready. I first learned about leaders and enders from Bonnie Hunter, the queen of scrap quilting. I'm not super consistent with it, since I don't always keep up with having pieces ready to go, but my current leaders/enders project is flying geese to make a throw size quilt with my Flying Together block, and they're accumulating nicely.

The idea is to start chain piecing by sewing together a unit from your leaders and enders project (which is the leader), then sew your main project pieces. Here you can see my flying geese unit has been sewn and I'm ready to start the first of my pairs of squares.

When you get to the end of the pieces you're chain stitching, end the chain with another piece from your leaders and enders project (the ender), which you leave under the needle. You can see my last red square at the back in this picture, followed by the flying geese ender (I'm also sewing bonus HSTs with these stitch-and-flip flying geese, so I guess I'm really working on two scrap quilts with these leaders and enders). Cut the chain between the ender and the piece before it.

When you're ready to start your next chain, the ender from the previous chain is already under the needle, ready to be the leader for this chain. Stitch your units together as usual, then end with another ender unit.

This method is especially helpful when the units you're piecing for your main project involve starting at the point of a triangle, which can sometimes get pushed down into the throat plate of the machine (aka eaten by the machine). When there's a leader, that triangle point doesn't get eaten because the threads are being pull along by the leader. Even when I'm just working with squares, like for the Merry Mini, I still like using leaders/enders.

If you don't want to fuss with having units prepped for a leaders/enders project, you can achieve the same effect by starting and ending with small squares of fabric. This small square can be reused many times, which has earned it the nickname 'spider' for all the threads hanging off it after many uses.

If you share your Merry Mini QAL progress on social media, be sure to use the hashtag #MerryMiniQAL and tag me (devotedquilter on IG and devotedquilterdesigns on FB) so I can see. I'd love to cheer you on!

TGIFF - Rippling

Welcome to the first Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday of July! It's time to celebrate our finishes and cheer each other on. After all, no one understands the joy of a finished quilt like another quilter.

Every other month I release a new pattern for Stash Artists members, and I'm excited to get to share this month's pattern, called Rippling. You know I had fun digging into my stash of blues for this one!

I had the hardest time naming this quilt. When I sent it to Yvonne for tech editing, I asked her for suggestions and she said it reminded her of "ripples formed in sand by lapping ocean waves." I can't believe I hadn't noticed that. There are already a couple of patterns named Ripples, so I went with Rippling. Thanks, Yvonne!

One of my goals again this year is to make more small quilts, which I define as anything baby size or smaller. With that in mind, I made a baby size Rippling quilt (the pattern also includes instructions for a throw size). Paul's nephew and his wife are expecting their first baby (a boy) in the fall, so Rippling will be his once he arrives. It feels great to already have it ready and waiting for him!

When I cut the blues, I skipped any fabrics that had distracting amounts of another colour. I did use a few fabrics with white, which I don't find as distracting as other colours.

This was the fabric that made me realize I had to limit the secondary colours. I cut it thinking the kites would be cute in a baby quilt, but really they were just distracting. The pink and yellow drew the eye, taking away from the rest of the quilt.

There are only two seams in each Rippling block. Yes, two! As you can imagine, the blocks came together quickly, and not long after that I had a quilt top.

A few weeks ago I said I've been leaning more towards open, all-over quilting designs lately. This quilt wasn't having any of that! It demanded custom quilting in each section. Sometimes you just have to listen to the quilt! Do your quilts make demands when it comes to choosing their quilting designs? 

I started by doing a small loopy meander in the white parts, using Aurifil 2021. You can see in this picture that the white isn't solid. I love blender fabrics that read as solid from a distance, but have a little something extra when you get up close.

I wasn't sure I had enough left on my spool of 2021, so I picked up a couple more spools when we were in St. John's for Aiden's graduation. Good thing, too. Look how close I was to finishing when I got to the end of the spool.

Of course, a few days later I opened the box where I keep my cones of Aurifil, only to find an almost full cone of white (2024) I had forgotten about. D'oh! At least I know I have lots of white on hand now 😂

Next I outlined the orange triangles and filled them in with back and forth lines using Aurifil 1133. I echoed the diagonal line about 1/4" away, too. Quilting such a bold line sure feels scary and every wobble seems magnified, but then it doesn't even show up from a distance or in pictures of the full quilt. There must be a life lesson in there about doing scary things.

I had left the blues for last because I didn't know how I wanted to quilt them, and the quilt wasn't making any more demands now that I was committed to the custom quilting. I pinned it up on my design wall for a couple of days while I thought about it. I kept coming back to wishbones, so that's what I did. I chose Aurifil 1158, which is a dark blue-grey that I find works nicely on a wide variety of blues.

I love how the quilting looks on the back! I haven't been doing as much of it lately, but this quilt has reminded me just how magical custom quilting feels.

With all those blues, I had to use a scrappy blue binding, too.

I took Rippling and another quilt to the beach when we went for a BBQ supper last weekend and roamed around taking pictures while Paul cooked our burgers. Someone had built this tiny inukshuk on a rock and it was too cute not to use as a photo prop.

I love taking quilts to the beach! Really, I just love being at the beach. This is one of my favourite supper time views, too, and we eat here quite a few times every summer.

That's my finish! What have you finished recently? Link it up below so we can celebrate the finish with you. Don't forget to visit some of the other links, too, so you can help them celebrate their finishes 😊

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Merry Mini QAL - Week 1 - Text Block

Let's get this Christmas in July party started! It's week 1 of the Merry Mini QAL and we're starting in the middle of our mini quilts, with the text block.

If you haven't already joined the QAL, we're just getting started, so you're not even behind! You can pick up your pattern here. From now until the end of July, the Merry Mini pattern is 20% off with the code MERRYMINIQAL, which should already by applied if you click on the link. Once you have your pattern, enter your email address here to have the weekly emails sent to your inbox so you don't miss any of the QAL blog posts.

As a reminder, here's the weekly schedule:

July 1 - Make the text block 

July 8 - Make the alternating squares borders

July 15 - Make the tree borders

July 22 - Quilting

July 29 - Binding

Week 1 - The text block

The Merry Mini pattern is written for that text block to be embroidered by hand, which is how I made both of mine last year. I love the bit of texture the hand embroidery adds, and how delicate the text looks. You can't achieve that with applique or piecing, that's for sure!

Not everyone wants to do hand embroidery, though, so I have a couple of other options to share, too.

Hand embroidery

First, let's talk about transferring the text for hand embroidery. When stitching on white fabric, you can simply trace the design onto the fabric using a pencil. It's easy and cheap, two of my favourite things! The stitching hides the pencil lines, so no need to worry about using a special, removeable pencil, either. Most of the time this can be done on a table, but if you can't easily see the template through your fabric, you can always use a lightbox to make it more visible. If you don't have a lightbox, tape the template to a window, tape the fabric over top and voila, you have a lightbox (I've done this more times than I can count!).

This time I'm trying a new-to-me product from Sulky called Sticky Fabri-Solvy. It's not a new product, but I haven't used it before. It's water soluble, so you stitch through it, then submerge the fabric in water and the Fabri-Solvy dissolves.

 You can print directly onto the Fabri-Solvy, but I chose to just trace the text, since I already had the template printed out. Once the design is traced (or printed), you simply peel away the paper backing and stick the Fabri-Solvy onto the fabric. This would be the perfect method if your background fabric is too dark to see the template through.

I've made a start on embroidering my letters, and I'm looking forward to working on the rest this week. Hopefully I'll get to do some of that stitching out in the backyard with a cup of tea.

I'm doing chain stitch with three strands of DMC embroidery floss, number 816. I love that chain stitch gives a fairly thick line, especially with three strands of floss. I do find the Fabri-Solvy makes it harder to pull the needle through the fabric, so I've been using a thimble to make that easier. Other than that, there's no difference when using the Fabri-Solvy.

Here's a link to a chain stitch tutorial from someone more experienced than me at embroidery. Alternatively, you could also use a simple backstitch. Backstitch will give a thinner line, but it would absolutely work.

Fabric marker

Instead of hand embroidery, you could use fabric markers for your text block. I bought a set of Ohuhu fabric markers to try. The colour is wonderfully vivid, as you can see. I started off using the broad end of the marker, but quickly switched to the fine tip, which gave me a lot more control.

There's a slight bit of colour bleeding at the edges of the letters, but it's not bad. I did have to be careful not to hold the marker in one place at all, though. These are the only fabric markers I've used, so I don't know if the bleeding would be less with another brand, or if this is pretty standard. Whatever brand you use, I recommend testing the marker on a piece of scrap fabric first.

These markers claim to be washable, but I haven't tested that out. Since this is a Christmas wall hanging, I doubt the finished quilt will ever be washed, so I'm not worried about the washability. I did set the ink with a hair dryer, though, as recommended by the manufacturer, just in case I do ever need to wash it.

Crayon

If you don't have fabric markers, you can also use crayons. I've used this crayon technique for quite a few projects now, and I have a full tutorial for it here. This time I chose not to trace the letters with a pencil first, so they don't have the dark outline my other projects have had. 

The colour is a little softer than with the fabric marker, but still plenty visible.

I thought of the Merry Mini QAL as a way to help motivate me to make myself a Merry Mini quilt...and now I have three started. Ha! Here they are together. The question is, will I finish them all during the QAL? We'll have to see how the  month goes!

Which technique will you use for your Merry Mini text block? I can't wait to see! Be sure to use the hashtag #MerryMiniQAL when you share on social media. Happy stitching (or colouring!).