agilejack

I felt confident that I’d finish up my Brandon Mably Interweave quilt this evening, but I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get a lot done.

I sewed all the rows in the top section together and got the borders sewn on.

I had thought I would do the side borders before I sewed the rows together but decided agains that. So I sewed the rows then laid out the border pieces, sewed the border pieces together, then sewed the border strips onto the sides and top of the quilt.

I made a few mistakes on the left side… that was the final side of that piece. I had to unpick a few seams and reorganize it all, then sew it again. Then I screwed it up again!

So by the time I was done with that top piece, I sort of gave up on finishing the borders on the bottom piece. But I didn’t feel like I was done.

So I took the top piece off my design wall and laid it out on my guest room bed to get it out of the way.

I did get the borders on one side of the bottoms section done during my lunch break today.

I was going to move the bottom piece higher on my design wall so it would be easier to lay out the border pieces when I remembered… I can just roll up my design wall!

It’s so much easier to lay those borders out when they’re at a reasonable level.

Note: I’ve had quite a few people asking me about my design wall recently. You can find a blog post where I write about it here. I wish I was able to refer people to the seller but I’m pretty sure he’s not making these any more.

I’m positive I’ll finish up this quilt tomorrow night. Positive.

I have a good deal of fabric left over from this quilt. it’s probably enough to make another quilt, depending on what I combined it with. I’m thinking maybe an all Brandon Blue Swirly quilt as a palate cleanser. These are all third yard pieces with one 7 inch square cut out.

I had an inspiration today for a way to use up these scrappy blocks that I made about a year ago. You can see them and get more info in this blog post.

I had originally planned to arrange them into a color wash piece but I sort of lost interest in it. Arranging blocks on my design wall is not my favorite part of the process. And these blocks have been sitting in a drawer in the closet of my sewing room for a year… untouched and unloved.

@Tilkunviilaaja on Instagram is combining these little scrappy blocks with wonky varying shades of gray backgrounds and then arranging them into a quilt top. I like what she’s doing and it would be a quick way to make these blocks into something more substantial.

I’m pretty sure I have in the neighborhood of 160 blocks.

I’m thinking maybe using different values of one color of batiks to border these. Maybe yellows. Maybe indigos. Maybe use up some of my scrap KFC 2.5 inch strips to border them. I have a few ideas and will give it a few days to develop.

That might be a perfect palate cleanser. Bordering those blocks would go quickly and I could be onto something else in no time. I could also make them into economy blocks (square within a square). That actually might be really fun!!! Hmmm.

Here are the exciting photos of my boys from this evening.

Rico has now retreated back behind the end table and rocking chair.

I’m plaing pickleball first thing the morning and it looks like the weather will cooperate. Maybe even sun, but likely quilt cool. It will be good to be outside and invigorated.

It was so nice to see the sun today after so many wet days. It was wonderful to do a couple meetings this afternoon with the sun streaming in my sliding glass door.

I managed to get away from my desk between meetings and got my boys out for a glorious 2.5 mile walk.

Bender’s age is showing and it’s kind of nice to see some sense in him. He KNEW he couldn’t get up on that log. He did put his front feet up on it but he never attempted to jump up. But it is hard to see the years pile up on him. He’ll be 11 in April. He is definitely slowing down a little.

Rico, on the other hand, had no problem jumping up on this huge log.

The surprising thing with Rico is that he actually looked in the general direction of the camera.

After dinner I hit my sewing room and sewed together a couple rows of my Interweave quilt. Then I took a quick trip to Costco close to closing time. That’s the best time to go in my book. People are a bit scarce that time of night and I can get in out quickly.

Once I got home I was back in my sewing room and managed to sew the remaining three rows of my Brandon Interweave quilt together.

That entire top row made of the little squares is the border. It will go all the way around the quilt top. You can see the start of the side borders on the far right.

I didn’t get the rows sewn to each other.

I need to add the pieced borders to this quilt… all made from 2.5 inch squares. I want to add the borders while the quilt top is in pieces, rather than sewing on long strips once the quilt top is one huge piece. Since the border is all small pieces, that seems like a good plan to me. I could even add them row by row on the section that isn’t assembled yet.

Even though I’m not quite done yet, I’m really pretty surprised that this quilt top has come together so quickly. One thing that’s made it easier for me is that my brain does well at recognizing and understanding how things go together and once the repeat of the pattern gets in my head, I can really fly.

I mean, come on! Look at this!!!

I’ve been giving a little thought to what quilt I might want to make from all the Brandon Mably fabrics I ordered yesterday, and I have some good scraps left over from this Interweave quilt. I thought it might be fun to make a bright and bold version of this quilt I made for my bed. It’s Moss Garden and is a free pattern. You can find it here.

I am picturing in my head what this would look like with all those bright, saturated colors and vibrant designs. That’s one option.

I had an idea for another quilt this afternoon as I was looking at Facebook during my lunch break and saw an ad., This is a quilt that is mass produced, but I love the big blocks and the bold and saturated colors.

It would be easy enough to replicate this. Big blocks of different sizes, rows of different heights, some thinner strips here and there. I hopped onto Excel and dummied up this “pattern.”

It’s basically made up of three rows that repeat. I’ve tried to set it up so that there are no seams to match when the rows are sewn together.

I would have to do some cyphering to get the blocks and strips the right size so I could maintain a square quilt. I’m thinking there is some magic formula to figure this out. Some stellar math skills would come in really handy about now. I might just come up with several different block designs that are the same size that can be put together to achieve a random and casual look.

More ideas. They just keep coming!

I did. I had to. Because it’s literally been days since I last bought fabric. Plus, I felt the strong desire to replace all the Brandon Mably fabrics I’m using in this new quilt… and a “few” more.

And because I know someone will ask, I bought these on Tennessee Quilts. I don’t tend to shop there often but they had the four fabrics I really wanted. And then it just went sort of crazy from there. None of these were on sale.

These are all Brandon Mably fabrics. They are all part of the Kaffe Fassett Collective. I have no idea what I’m going to do with these, but I will be happier knowing they are all in my stash. They are all so much fun and my brain is buzzing with more ideas for these fabrics! Plus, some of this will be a gift for a friend for her June birthday. It’s good to plan ahead.

I went and played pickleball after dinner tonight. It was a much better night than yesterday. I had some really good games and really enjoyed myself. I was so glad I didn’t have a disappointing play session again.

When I got home I was greeted by two dogs who were clearly not happy with their lack of activity. So I played a little game with them where I hide treats around the living room and they have to find them. We played this game three times. It helped a little.

Games like this are very mentally stimulating for dogs. Working their brains like this for 15 or 20 minutes is as good as a two-mile walk. They are both snoozing on the floor next to me as I type.

I didn’t have much time to sew tonight so all I got done was one row on my Interweave quilt. And it might be my favorite row of this quilt.

That yellow fabric with the blue blooms is so amazing!

I also decided earlier today that I would absolutely make this quilt just nine rows instead of the ten in the pattern. And I decided to remove the fabric I had at the top previously and replace it with this rainbow fabric.

The reason I like that rainbow fabric better is that it brings yellow and green to the top of the quilt. For me, it helps accentuate those colors elsewhere in the quilt.

I’m hoping to have more time tomorrow night to get a few more rows of this quilt done. The weather is supposed to be nice the next few days so this gal and my boys are definitely going to be getting our walks in!

Looks like this quilt top will be done pretty quickly. I had better start thinking about my next project. Maybe another palate cleanser. Hmmm. Ideas.

Had a bit of a sleep in this morning. Then after a hot shower, some breakfast and a couple cups of coffee I hit my sewing room to start getting all the fabric pieces for my Brandon Mably Interweave quilt up on my design wall. I was a little surprised how quickly it all went up.

Before I started I set up all my fabrics around my sewing room so I could easily access the pieces I needed and I could keep it all in order.

I had to move pretty carefully on the first few rows to make sure I had everything in the right place.

Once the pattern started making sense in my head, I had it all up in no time.

I’m so surprised at how this looks. I was really thinking it was going to be a lot more chaotic. It actually feels somewhat ordered and I’m pretty happy with how it looks.

I went and played pickleball this afternoon and when I got home I dug in and started sewing this together. I was able to get four rows done.

Isn’t that fun?!?!? I’m really loving the brightness of it and the eclectic group of fabrics.

Here’s the first four sewn rows at the bottom of this photo. I lost a good 7 inches with seam allowances.

I’m making the twin size. It’s supposed to have 10 of the patterned rows of fabric. Even though I’ll lose around 9 inches in seam allowance when it’s done, I think I’m going to end with nine rows because 10 might be too long. I’ll make that decision later but it’s likely I’ll make that adjustment.

Here’s a little eye candy.

Haha! I’m loving this quilt!

It was another rainy day here in Portland. So my dogs didn’t get much activity. Bender handled it pretty well.

(That reminds me… my sparkly winter tree will come down next weekend. I always leave it up until time changes in the spring.)

Rico didn’t handle the lack of activity quite as well. This was him as Bender slept…

Back to work tomorrow. I’m happy to say that we have some days of sunshine in the forecast for this week. It will be very welcome.

My pickleball got canceled this morning because of snow! There was snow falling at my place when I got up but it didn’t last long and it didn’t stick to the ground.

It was absolutely gorgeous on the way down to Rico’s sheep herding lesson. The sun was out with some beautiful clouds and I could see the snow covered hills in the distance.

It was cold enough that I wore my down jacket, a hat and gloves for our lesson. It was windy which made it even colder. As we were finishing our lesson the rain started and it rained all the way home.

I did stop and buy a huge bag of oranges at one of the road side stands that are all over the place this time of year.

They are really reasonably priced and soooo good! Linda and I bought a bag last weekend and really enjoyed them. I’m always happy when I find really good oranges.

It was dry but cold when we got home, so I bundled up and headed out with my boys for a three mile walk.

I didn’t get around to taking my Flower Baskets quilt outside for a photo because it’s so wet and muddy. So I threw it on the guest bed instead to get a better look at it with the borders.

And now I’m almost wishing I had gone ahead and just made it queen size. Oh well. It will have to be what it is.

After a nice nap on the sofa I got up and fixed dinner then hit my sewing room to start working on my Interweave quilt. With all the fabric cut I dug in and started sewing strip sets. I can’t go into a lot of detail on how this goes together. You’ll need to get the pattern. Just let me say that the pattern is really well written, includes a lot of color images, and it has lots of detail.

I did use my metal ruler method to make sure I was keeping my strip sets straight as I pressed them. Here’s a video that explains how I use the ruler.

I had all the strip sets sewn and sub cut pretty quickly.

So with all the fabric cut and these little units made, I’ll be ready to start tossing this all up on the design wall tomorrow.

A woman I’ve been mentoring at work recently gave me a gift card to Amazon, so I decided I wanted some under-counter lights. I found these rechargeable LED lights. They are really easy to use and you can set them to come on automatically when they detect motion in the kitchen.

They go off pretty quickly if there’s no motion in the kitchen. I only bought two lights to see if I liked them. They were really easy to install and I really like the way they work. So I just ordered another set.

I’m playing pickleball tomorrow afternoon and plan to get busy on this new quilt tomorrow morning. It will be interesting to see how quickly it comes together.

I’m really wanting to start sewing on the Interweave quilt that I cut Brandon Mably fabrics for earlier this week. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t start until I finished the borders on my Flower Baskets quilt. So I dug in tonight and got it done!

I wanted to add borders to make this quilt a rectangle. So I added 2.5 inch borders on the sides and 6 inch borders on the top and bottom.

I didn’t want to wrestle that large top up onto my design wall to photograph it. It won’t fit. So if the weather cooperates I’ll take it outside tomorrow and get a good photo of it.

The plaid fabric isn’t printed perfectly straight. And across a longer length of fabric the wonkiness gets more and more noticeable.

Since the side borders are relatively narrow, that wonkiness wouldn’t be very noticeable. But on the wider top and bottom borders I was worried it would be really disturbing. So I decided to piece the top and bottom borders with 6×10 inch pieces. It has the same feeling gas the sashing that is all cut differently. And it seems to have alleviated the issue I was afraid of.

Here’s one length of the wider pieced border.

It will be interesting to see it in one piece tomorrow.

I was really missing my friend Linda as I was pressing all these borders.

But I managed to get it all done.

Ha! You can see the crooked plaid in that length of narrow border! Oh well… too late to fix it now!

Here’s a corner to show the difference in the width of the top and side borders.

I’m really glad this is done and I can start working on my new quilt tomorrow!

We’ve had so much rain the last few weeks. I’m pretty sure we’ve had close to 8 inches since my brother and SIL were here a few weeks ago. It rained most of the day today but cleared up around 3:00. So we got out for our first walk in a few days. We were all glad to have an opportunity to stretch our legs and get some air. We walked almost three miles!

Even though it still feels like winter, I’m starting to see signs of spring as we walk around the neighborhood.

I was so surprised when we walked around a corner and I saw that pink rhododendron in full bloom. It’s the first one I’ve seen and it seems so early!

All these blooms are making me feel hopeful that winter is on its way out. And next weekend we welcome Daylight Saving Time. The day the time changes in the spring is my favorite day of the year!

All our winter rain does make for wonderful spring blooms.

I keep forgetting to share this video I took of the sun setting at the Oregon Coast a week ago. It was such a great ending to a wonderful day.

I’m scheduled to play pickleball in the morning, followed by a trip down to Molalla for Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson.

If we get rained out in pickleball, I have been invited to play with a group in a local school. So I’m covered regardless of what the weather decides to do. There are actually some snowflakes in the overnight forecast.

NOTE: Copyright Anne Ibach 2024. 

PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS TUTORIAL FOR COMMERCIAL REASONS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. CONTACT ME AT anne@agilejack1.com FOR PERMISSION.

This tutorial is for making this 8.5 inch block that is repeated across the quilt top. This is my variation of a quilt block that’s been around for ages. The quilt design is mine. 

I made my quilt a throw size with 8 blocks by 10 blocks. A total of 80 blocks. The top measures approximately 64 x 80 inches. To make your quilt bigger, make more blocks, over and over and over.

Fabrics needed for 80 quilt blocks: 

Block centers: 1/2 yard cuts of 10 different color coordinated fabrics

Sashing strips (Roman Glass): 2 yards

Corner triangles (Sharks Teeth): 2 yards

Here’s a list of the blue fabrics I used. They are all Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics 

Center Strips

Philip Jacobs Glory in Cool – maybe out of print or hard to find

Philip Jacobs Curly Kale in blue

Philip Jacobs Caladiums in blue

Philip Jacobs Dorothy in blue

Philip Jacobs Lucy in blue

Philip Jacobs Feathers in Cool

Philip Jacobs Curly Baskets in Delft – Out of print. Could sub Philip’s spiral shells

Kaffe Fassett Paisley Jungle in blue – likely out of print and hard to find. Very expensive on Etsy

Sashing strips — Kaffe’s Roman Glass in blue

Corner Squares/triangles — Brandon Mably Sharks Teeth in Cobalt

Cutting Instructions

Cut eighty 4 X 12.5 inch center strips from the 10-1/2 yard cuts. Eight from each fabric 

Cut 160 Sashing strips: 1.5 inches by 10 inches

Cut 80 corner squares: 5.5 X 5.5 inches

Cutting corner squares into triangles: Critical to maintaining swirling effect where blocks meet. 

Stack up your 5.5 inch squares with the right side of the fabric facing up and with all the sharks teeth pointing up.

I stack up five or six and then cut these squares along the diagonal with the cutting line going from the lower left to the upper right. STACK AND CUT ALL 80 BLOCKS THE SAME WAY TO MAINTAIN SWIRLING EFFECT in the corners where four blocks meet.

Sashing strip cutting notes: 

I cut a 10 inch width of fabric strip and sub cut the 1.5 inch strips from that piece. 

Constructing the blocks

Center sashing strips on each side of the the block centers and sew. Press seam allowances toward the sashing strip. I make a lot of these units at one time.

Center sharks teeth triangles on each side of the center strips with sashing. Pin and sew being careful to not stretch the cut bias edge of the triangle. Press seam allowances toward the sharks teeth.  

Square up each block to 8.5 inches, being careful to maintain the diagonal center line of the block. 

Make many more blocks and lay them out on your design wall. Alternate orientation of the diagonal of each block to create the criss cross pattern. Sew it all together. 

Variations on this block:

I’m putting together fabrics for a red/orange version

Since color ways of sharks teeth are limited, try different fabric patterns for the corners that will give interesting swirly effects.

Maybe colored stripes….

Or black and white stripes…

You can see a quilt top made from a variation of this quilt block here.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Today was quite a day at work. Anytime I come back from vacation I can count on a good number of people needing my attention that first day. So today was chock full of meetings. I was in meetings from 9 am to 5:00 with a half hour break about mid way! I was exhausted by the time my day ended. I stepped away from my desk at about 5:30 and headed out for a 2.5 mile walk with my boys. We all needed it and it felt good to move my body and get some fresh air.

I wanted to get the fabrics for my new Brandon Mably Interweave quilt all cut tonight so I started pressing all those jumble fabrics…

…and then got to cutting. It’s a lot of strips and a lot of sub-cutting the strips. Oh, and counting. A lot of counting. But I got them done… all the accent strips and background pieces.

So now all I have to do it make sure I know what I’m doing and then start sewing.

I was glad that I didn’t have plans so accomplish a ton of stuff tonight as I have a bit of a headache after my hectic day. I’ve already taken some Tylenol PM and hope to be in bed at a reasonable hour tonight.

But before I left my sewing room I took a photo of the fabrics I put together Sunday before Linda left. This quilt will be a replicate of my recent blue quilt.

The polka dot fabric will be the strips along the side of each center piece.

I dummied up a few blocks to see how this will look.

If you’re looking at these photos on your phone or in email it will likely be a bit messy and they will be out of order. So here’s a screen capture that shows what I’m seeing as I type this post.

It’s definitely a different feel from the blue version. This is so saturated. So much color. It lacks the airiness of the blue quilt. Where the blue quilt feels summery and light, this version will feel dark and moody. It will be fun to see it come together.

That’s it for tonight. My boys have settled in for the night and it’s time to rest my poor head and unwind in preparation of a good night’s sleep.

I drove my friend Linda to the airport this morning. It was snowing when we left my house. When I got home the sun was actually shining.

Good grief… my street sort of look abandoned!

I’m really glad I took all day today off. It was nice to unwind, do some laundry, tidy some things up, and generally settle in after my vacation.

The house in incredibly quiet. I really enjoyed my visit with Linda. We were so lucky to get a few days of good weather. We were very productive. We bought a lot of fabric. We ate a lot of tacos. And we laughed.

When Linda was packing last night she was working on finding places in her suit case for all the fabric she bought on her visit. While doing this she counted up everything she bought — over 60 half yards of fabric, plus one five yard piece for a backing!!! That’s a total of 35 yards of fabric!!! More than enough for seven quilts!

I’m happy to say that I didn’t buy that much fabric, but I did pretty well. I think I ended up at around 15 yards of fabric purchased while she was here.

It’s a good thing I already have my next quilt in the works. Here’s an idea of what it will look like. My house is quiet, but this quilt is not!

I’ll still need to arrange how all those fabrics appear in the quilt.

Those area all Brandon Mably fabrics and are part of the Kaffe Fasssett Collective. They’re pretty crazy! In a good way! I’ve wanted to make a quilt from all Brandon fabrics for some time. And this idea just came to me the other night.

Here’s the pattern I’m making.

I’ve seen several of these made up in the last few days and there are really fun. I want to make one out of black and white fabrics with a little color soon.

I started cutting fabric for this new quilt tonight. I got all the fabric for the horizontal strips cut.

I was too tired to start cutting all the accent and background fabrics. I’ll take a couple days to get all of that done.

I still need to add the plaid borders to my Flower Baskets quilt top. I’ll get that done before I start sewing on this new quilt.

Back to work tomorrow. I’m glad it will be a short week.

Bender is helping me celebrate the ridiculous amount of fabric in this house!

We got up this morning and headed down to Molalla for Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson. It was so gorgeous! Such a luxury to have another amazing spring day. And Rico did a lovely job working his sheep. He was in his happy place.

I took this picture of Rico a year ago today!

When we got home we grabbed some lunch and then hit my sewing room to finish up my Flower Basket quilt. It didn’t take very long but it took a little brain power to finish it.

I still have to trim those cornerstones from the edge and then add borders. But my brain hurt so much by the time we had this done I didn’t have anything left to give and didn’t want to mess it up at this late stage.

I love this corner of the quilt. I hope it’s square!

I really hate to admit this, but after two on-point quilts with sashing, doing the sashing with cornerstones in one long strip is probably the way to go. It would solve all the brain activity this quilt required… and would solve the issues I had with the Jumble Quarter Log Cabin quilt that nearly did me in.

If I ever do another on point quilt with sashing and cornerstones, I will try that method. If I ever do another on point quilt with sashing and cornerstones. If.

I want to use wider borders on the top and bottom of this quilt to make it stop being square. Just stop it! So I tossed some fabric up and I think it will work. I will probably add the width in several different cuts of the plaid so that the wonkiness of the print is minimized. I’ll give it a little thought. We may finish this up tomorrow.

After this bit of work we dug in and made the backing for Linda’s Australian Aboriginal quilt. And you know how much I LOVE making backings!

And Linda loves backings as much as I do!!! There was a little bit of swearing in that room today.

But I do love that yellow fabric. We added a strip of a lovely black print to give my long arm quilter enough fabric.

The quilt top, backing and binding fabric are all folded and packaged and will be taken to my long arm quilter tomorrow.

I had thought I would take my Aboriginal Libby quilt to have her finish, but I’m thinking I still want to trim it down. It’s just too damned big for a sofa quilt. We will look at it tomorrow and see how would look with some inches removed from the perimeter. I can just picture myself wrestling with it as I try to get off my sofa. Too much fabric!!!

It’s raining a little tonight. We’re thinking we will have take out tacos one more time for dinner tomorrow as our swan song. Linda heads home on Monday.

We are so happy we had two gorgeous days this weekend.