My Favorite Quilt Block Blog Hop

When Carla of Creatin' in the Sticks asked hoppers to join her Favorite Quilt Block Blog Hop I signed up right away. I love playing along with blog hops and challenges.

I create some of my favorite projects during these events and I loved having an excuse to work with one of my favorite quilt blocks.

I have several favorite blocks and wasn't sure which one to pick at first, so I asked my husband, "What is my favorite quilt block?"   He answered within seconds,  "The nine patch."

Later I asked my daughter the same question, she also said, "The nine patch."

That solved my dilemma right away of which block to choose.  The nine patch is such a great block.  It is cute by itself, it looks great in other blocks, and even makes some pretty spiffy corner stones in sashing.

For this hop I new exactly which quilt I wanted to make. I had been eyeing a nine patch pattern I found on Pitnerest.  I am not sure the name of this pattern or where it originated from but it was captioned Scrappy Stars.  I clicked the link to find more info but it lead me to one of those weird sites that have nothing to do with the picture.  If anyone knows the pattern let me know!


I wanted to have it all quilted before today, but Hurricane Dorian had other plans.  We didn't have much damage here.  Just a little rain and wind and few branches fell, and we did not loose power this time.  Yay! But I did loose a couple days of sewing due to hurricane prep, so it is still in the flimsy stage.

*Update* Ack! Yes that is one of my triangles is turned the wrong way in this photo.  Good thing I haven't quilted it yet, that one will get turned around. There are actually three turned the wrong way this one and two more at the bottom. And I thought I had them all going the right direction. Ah well, things were bound to get turned wonky with this many blocks.

Since I didn't know the dimensions of the pattern online, I decided to come up with my own and I wanted to go small. I chose 3 inch finished square for my nine patches and Triangles in a Square blocks and a lot of them. The top measures 69 x 81.  Its a biggy.  I did 23 rows across and 27 down.

That ended up being 311 nine patch blocks and 310 Triangle in Square blocks (another one of my favorite block builder pieces).

I started out sewing the nine patches in groups of 50 at a time to break it up. 

I pulled the colors from my scrap bin.  I cut some colors into 1.5 inch squares and sewed a few nine patch squares together individually.

For the majority of the nine patches, I cut a 4.5 x 1.5 inch strip and sew an identical white strip to it.  Then I trimmed off 1.5 inches and added a 1.5 inch white square to that section to make the middle row.

That left a 3 x 3.5 inch section.  I sewed a three inch colored strip to that and then cut that in half to get my bottom and top rows.    Then sewed the nine patch rows together.

This method seamed quicker than cutting 2799 individual 1.5 inch squares and sewing them together one at a time.

Next I needed 310 Triangles in a Square.  I love these little blocks.  They are usually seen as parts of other blocks, most notably in the 54-40 flight block and its variations. I opted for the darker blues for the triangles.  I wanted the blue triangles to stick out a bit. The nine patches have some blue in them, but I kept those on the light blue or teal side.  I didn't want to have any of the triangles fade into the nine patches.  Once all 310 of those were done it was time to sew everything together.

Laying the quilt out was fun.  I loved playing with these small nine patches, they are just so cute!
The quilt was so big it didn't all fit on the design wall. I had to put the last two rows on the floor.

I am lovin' this nine patch quilt!

If you want more nine patch inspiration check out some of my older projects.
You can click the label Nine Patch to see them all.

For even more inspiration, check out all the other favorite blocks posting today,
and follow along all week to see even more!

Monday, September 9th

Just Let Me Quilt

Words & Stitches

VroomansQuilts

PamelaQuilts

Songbird Designs

Days Filled With Joy

Quilted Delights  (Me)

Tuesday, September 10th

Quiltscapes

Melva Loves Scraps

Stitchin At Home

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Mary Mack Made Mine
Just Because Quilts

Den syende himmel
Selina Quilts

Wednesday, September 11th

MooseStashQuilting

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Kathleen McMusing

Karrin's Crazy World
April Grace Quilts
Hazel’s Daughter
Seams To Be Sew
Limeleaves

Thursday, September 12th

Websterquilt

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Nutz 4 Redwork
Quiltsbyjoanne
Ms P Designs USA
Pampered Pettit
Hill Valley Quilter

Friday, September 13th

For the love of geese
Life in the Scrapatch

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Alycia Quilts - quiltygirl
Domestic Felicity
The Joyful Quilter
QuiltFabrication
Creatin' in the Sticks

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Star Light Star Bright - Island Batik August Challenge

This August, half the Island Batik Ambassadors were Showcasing the newest collections in the Beat the Heat Blog Hop.  If you missed any, you can still go back and check them out HERE and see beautiful inspiration for all the new Island Batik lines coming out right now.

The other half of the Ambassadors, those of us with fabric lines coming out a little later, were given our own challenge to create a Star Light, Star Bright quilt.  The quilt had to be lap size or larger and showcase any star block we chose.

I had lots if different Star blocks and patterns pop in my head and then I thought, let me go see what kind of Star dies there are on the Accuquilt website.  

As part of the first Island Batik Ambassador box, I received the Accuquilt Go Cutter with a cube set of dies and I figured I might as well add more dies to go with it, specifically some with odd angle cuts, like stars.

I did a search for "Star" on their website and several popped up.  When I saw the Blazing Star by Elanor Burns I fell in love and it was shipped to my house in a couple days.

This die comes labeled so you can easily know which pieces are which. It also gives cutting instructions for strips if you want to cut out different colored A, B, or C sections.

I cutout the cut peices in no time at all.   I love the notched corners on these dies.  That means no dog ears to trim and clean up.

I also used the accuquilt to cut out the pinwheels in the sashing. The pinwheels measure 2 inch finished so I used the 1 inch finished Half Sqaure Triangle die, another die I purchased for myself. I love tiny pieces and this die cuts these small triangles out nicely and with no dog ears to cut off later!

For the colors of this quilt I started with this orange and pulled pieces to match. I got another piece of this lovely orange in my second Ambassador box and I just love it.

 It is from the Foundations collection and is called Large Netting. They have other colors in this pattern, but I really love this orange. I could have a whole bolt of this and be one happy lady. It has hints of yellow and several shades of purples. 

I quilted it using Hobbs Cotton Batting with scrim binding.

 I pieced together some of my left over batting pieces from my previous projects and it quilted up fantastic and the quilt has a nice fluffy feel to it.

I took the quilt with me on my vacation this week to get some photos of it out in nature.

We were in the upper part of South Carolina visiting one of my favorite places, Lake Jocassee.  The water is super clear and I love the mountains rising up in the background.

On the way to our next destination we stopped by Looking Glass falls in the Pisgah National forest. We love this waterfall.

I found out it sure is hard to get the quilt to hang straight with all the wind that comes off the waterfall. 

Even this far away I needed two quilt holders and it still caught the air making the top puff out like a quilted sail.

This quilt had some great adventures before being dropped off at its final destination in Asheville at some relatives.

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Jelly Roll Race - 4th Finish Q3 2019 FAL

I'm on a roll!  I finished the quilting and binding on this Jelly Roll Race quilt the other day. 

It is now ready for snuggling under. 

This makes my 4th finish for the third quarter of the 2019 Finish-A-Long.  

I started this one in June when I was showing some quick quilting ideas to the class I teach. 

I knew this one would be a quick finish since I had the top done at the beginning of the quarter.

With a plan to quilt a quick all over design on it, I put it on this quarter's list hoping it wouldn't turn into a UFO sitting on the pile year after year.

I am happy to have this one finished and so quick.  It is colorful and bright and makes me happy to look at it.

I used some of my older fabrics from my stash for the backing.  These Sea Turtles make the perfect companion for beach photos.

This one measures approximately 57 x 64.

You can see all my Q3 hopefuls here.

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Half Sqaure Triangle Quilt and 3rd finish for Q3 FAL

This quilt is the second quilt I taught in the beginner quilt class I teach. This is the version I sewed along with the students.

I wanted the class to be able to tackle Half Square Triangles since they are used in so many different quilt blocks.

What better way to learn them, than to make a whole bunch of them and turn them into a quilt.  We used 5 inch squares and the two at time method to create our HSTs for our quilts.

I like splitting my yardage in half for backings and adding a coordinating strip in the middle or slightly offset. I feel like I have less left overs when I do it this way.

Making a quilt with just HSTs also gave the class a chance to fiddle around with their own design layouts, which was fun.

Below are a few of the layouts the students came up with.  It is fun to see all the different color ways and layouts everyone came up with.

Catrina's

Derricka's

Miyako's

Sherryll's

  

This quilt is also my 3rd finish for the third quarter of the 2019 Finish-A-Long.

This one just barely turned into a UFO when I put it aside to work on a couple other projects.

I didn't want it to stay on the UFO pile though, so I added it to the list this quarter. All it needed was some quilting and binding and now I have another completed quilt.  Yay!

Check out my full Third Quarter list of UFO hopefuls here.

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July Box from Island Batik - Island Batik Ambassador

It's Christmas in July for Island Batik Ambassadors! 

We all received our second boxes full of goodies to complete the rest of the Island Batik Ambassador challenges for the year and I am super excited to get started on these next projects!

Check out what came in my box.  

Here is a close up of the neutral fabric that was sent, it was hard to see the small dots in the video.  I am excited to work with this one.

This next set is the Kaleidoscope 10 inch stacker and the coordinating fabric.  Look at those spots on that yardage!  In the video I said they remind me of lizard skin or dragon scales.  I really love this one!

I am also excited to use this Sand Bar set.  This coordinating fabric also reminds me of dragon scales.

I must have dragons on the brain.  

Another item I am really excited about is the Block on Board die from Accuquilt.  It has all the shapes I need on one die.  Can't wait to run this one through the machine.  Come back in September to see what I create with this one.

And check out these gears! They remind me of Steampunk.

There was so much good stuff in the box! Thanks again to Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, Aurifil Thread, and Accuquilt.

Let the quilting commence!

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