Snowflake QAL: Week Nine

Joan Cumming has been working ahead on her Blizzard quilt! Isn't it spectacular?!?! She added even more stars to make the whole top bigger. Beautiful!!

Welcome to Week Nine of the QAL!

Snowflake Sampler: two 36" Fierce Feathered Stars

Star Flurries: one 20" No Y Seam Feathered Stars or Fierce Feathered Stars (your choice of construction method)

Feathered Star Blizzard: two 16" AND two 8" No Y Seam Feathered Stars

Can you believe there is only one week left? Time flies when you're piecing one million tiny bits of fabric together... isn't that how the saying goes? ;)

Congratulations if you are caught up! Congratulations if you're still hanging in there! Congratulations if you're waiting for the right timing to dig in! The point is, you've challenged yourself to do a difficult thing and I admire that. It's so worthwhile to push yourself and learn new skills, I salute you!

Sampler folks: I have a video tutorial series now on how to construct the Fierce Feathered Star. If you feel safe and cozy within the confines of paper piecing (no shame in that) and are nervous about tackling the non-paper piecing star, watch the videos! They'll give you the boost you need to begin.

Next week, we'll sew our tops together! If you want to get yourself prepped, make sure all of your papers are removed. You could also begin cutting out any sashing strips if you have them (Sampler and Blizzard) and sewing them to the appropriate stars. Again, not part of the challenge this week, but if you're looking for ways to get ready, those are good places to start.

I cannot tell you how satisfying this is to seam together! FUN! This was my Sampler top from the first QAL I hosted last summer.

Hop on over to my closed Facebook group to join the discussion, share pictures, ask questions, get encouragement. We are a community and we'd love to help you out!

Feathered Star QAL: Week Nine

Week Nine: Assembling the whole quilt top!

We've come to our final week of the Feathered Star QAL!

Congratulations if you are caught up! Congratulations if you're still hanging in there! Congratulations if you're waiting for the right timing to dig in! The point is, you've challenged yourself to do a difficult thing and I admire that. It's so worthwhile to push yourself and learn new skills, I salute you!

Week Nine instructions: Use the Feathered Star QAL pattern to assemble the quilt top.

Before endeavoring to construct the top, make sure all of your papers are removed from the paper piecing stars and the appropriate sashing strips have been sewn onto the feathered stars according to the pattern. This will make assembly go smoothly!

Start on page 11 of the Feathered Star QAL pattern to begin assembling the Bonus Stars and follow the remainder of the pattern paying VERY special attention to the diagrams.

To get great results: go slow, take one step at a time, check and re-check your sewing in relation to the diagrams, PIN CAREFULLY AND FREQUENTLY, sew and press with care. 

I cannot tell you how satisfying this is to seam together! FUN!

My focus has now shifted to quilting and to be honest, I'm stumped! I'm sure something will come to me and when it does, I'd love to share ideas with you!

Click the photo to buy your own pin from Eye Candy Quilts! You might as well pick up a second pin for a fierce quilter friend!

Question: HOW PERFECT IS THIS PIN?! Anneliese of Eye Candy Quilts generously provided this enamel pin for me to giveaway! It's adorable and precious and perfect for this crowd! ;)

In the last two newsletters that I sent out to the QAL participants, I asked them to share progress photos using certain hashtags and today I used a random number generator to pick the recipient. Kristen Lee was the winner! Congrats, Kristen!!

Kristen has posted many progress photos, but here's just one beautiful example:

I'm not exaggerating when I say that my favorite thing is seeing the beautiful things that you make with my patterns. It's so awesome! Thank you for sharing photos and inspiring us all!

From Janet MacIntyre:

I get excited every single time Chris Simon shares her work, too! ;) Here's just one of her beauties:

It's safe to say that I might hyperventilate as these quilt tops begin to emerge. And I welcome that! 

Thank you so much to everyone who has participated in this QAL. It wouldn't have been much fun without you! I am considering hosting another QAL over the winter months (snowflakes?) so make sure to sign up for my newsletter (if you're not already) to hear about any developments. If a busy summer schedule wasn't ideal for you, perhaps a winter QAL would be better?

Hop on over to my closed Facebook group to join the discussion, share pictures, ask questions, get encouragement. We are a community and we'd love to help you out!

I'm down with OPP

OPP: Other People's Patterns

I'll be honest, usually I'm so busy working on MY next thing that I don't make the time to test or buy OPP.

While I am still busy and making good use of my time advancing my own patterns, projects and tutorials, I've been having the BEST time following along with Eye Candy Quilts's Smorgasblocks quilt-a-long. Here's how my blocks are starting:

Anneliese of Eye Candy Quilts has pulled the best of FREE blocks from around the web to combine into this one quilt (being revealed week by week). My No Y Seam Feathered Star was the first block, the X blocks called Raspberry Kiss blocks from Wooden Spoon Quilts were second, and third were the Spinning Pyramid blocks designed by Jessee Maloney aka Art School Dropout for Robert Kaufmann! 

To see what's coming up next, you need to follow the Eye Candy Quilts blog or Instagram feed @eyecandyquilts!

Amazing maker Richy Jr. from SpazzyCat Designs is also participating in the Smorgasblocks QAL with this start (his photo):

I can't tell you how much I love the dark background and seeing this kind of creativity applied to my pattern! I can't wait to see his pyramids. Follow him on Instagram to see more (@richyjr16).

That's all for now. OPP are fun and this has been a good mental break for me: to make instead of design/write/figure out. :)