Block Studies Collective | Garnish

As planned, I did work from stash this month for the Block Studies Collective with Tara Faughnan @tarafaughnan. I didn't have all the suggested colors, but that's ok. I definitely had enough to work with.

Problem was, I let the month get away from me working on other projects, and made just a handful of the assigned orange peel blocks. In fact, the one in the upper left in the photo below got tossed somewhere along the way, but I'd made one more, so I had four small blocks to work with when I got back to it.

So I decided to just let that be it, and to finish them into a little quilted piece before moving into next month's assignment. A little sashing, a little mitered border, and it was ready for quilting. 

I used a serpentine stitch - quick and fun - using Aurifil 50wt 2423 [Baby Pink].

Then I bound it in Kona Pepper. So nothing too complicated for this month's BSC challenge, but in the end, an enjoyable little piece. Honestly, after orange peels also being the prompt for this month's bee sewcial blocks, it's not like I didn't get a little practice.

The Potholder Project

It all began when we were in Eastern Washington earlier in the month, celebrating an early Thanksgiving with family. My niece and her husband were hosting, and wouldn't you know, she was using potholders I'd made over the years. She'd managed to snag THREE sets in the various family gift exchanges - these (in 2012!), these, and these. Which was great, but. They were, by now, very very worn and not looking their best anymore. Long story short, I ended up bringing home a stack of partially-made potholders that needed quilting and binding, and a stack of insul-brite ready and cut to size. I'd offered to finish the ones my niece had started, and make some new ones, so I had my job cut out for me, no pun intended. Here are the ones I finished by quilting and binding, ones intended as gifts for her camping friends:

As for the rest, I was left to my own devices, so I chose a variety of fabrics and designs.

Yay! They all finished about 8.5" square, and are ready to ship off to my niece to gift and to use. Potholders are so fun to make, I'm always happy to make more.

Leaf Napkin Rings

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate today! 

When I saw Bo @thesweetstitches post her Autumn Napkin Rings, I immediately thought it would be a fun project to do for our family Thanksgiving table. She shared a video that gave the basic technique, so I made up a sample. Not perfect, but good enough for me to move forward. If you guessed that free motion quilting isn't my first quilting language, who would be correct! But I was game to try.

On our next walk, I gathered a variety of leaves. Then I prepped a bunch of scraps and actually asked my granddaughter to help me with placing the fabric on the leaf shapes while she was here for lunch over the weekend. After she left, I finished up with the thread-stitching, placing the leaves on pieces of Pellon 71F | One-Sided Fusible Ultra Firm Stabilizer. The tutorial suggested firm felt, but I wasn't sure what that was, and had the Pellon on hand. Personally, I think it worked great - easy to sew through, but sturdy and easy to cut out after thread-stitching.

After the leaves were done, I just needed to cut a couple of toilet tissue rolls into quarters to make 1" rings, which I then hot-glued to the back of the leaves. Ta da!

Aren't they cute?! I'm super happy with them, and they inspired me to get the table set for the Thanksgiving meal pronto. Hopefully the family will enjoy them too, especially my granddaughter, who arranged all the fabrics.

Floral Stitches Year II - Bouquet

Stitching this Dropcloth @dropcloth Floral Stitches sampler began on a little road trip a few weeks ago. It was the perfect size to travel with!

It was the first of this series where I used two kinds of threads - mostly a double-strand of Wonderfil perle cotton #8; but those green leaves circling the flowers felt a little more fine, so I used a double-strand of Aurifil 12wt thread, and that worked a little better. One strand may have shown off more detail but what's done is done.



There were a lot of French knots in this one! Good thing I enjoy them, or at least don't mind them. It's  time to move on to some holiday stitching now....

A Trio of Sardine Pillows

Now that I think my Sardine Pillow-making days are over, I thought I'd share all three of them together. You've already seen the first one, made last summer for my 7-year-old granddaughter. She still sleeps with it every night. 

Top - Ruby Star Society Strawberry in Balmy by Kim Kight

Bottom - Ruby Star Society Sugar in Ruby by Sarah Watts

Head and Back - Dear Stella Moonscape Infinity

Fins - Ruby Star Society Grid in Graph Paper 

At her birthday party, her other grandma expressed a desire for her own sardine pillow, so she got one for her birthday too!

Top - Marcia Derse Palette in Grape

Bottom - Diamond Textiles Manchester Purple Sky

Head and Back - Ruby Star Rising Basic - Rashida Coleman-Hale Speckled Metallic Witchy

Fins - Redux Viola Hyperbolic Purple Pink Stripe by Giucy Giuce

And, my now 15-year-old granddaughter wanted one as well, so she just got hers today when the family celebrated her birthday.

Top - Night Rainbow Asphalt Scallop Black Deborah Fisher Windham Fabric

Bottom - Sand Hill Charcoal by Anna Pitjara

Head - Diamond Textiles Manchester Pluses 

Back - Robert Kaufman Remix Ovals by designer Ann Kelle

Fins - Kona Rich Red

All three sardine pillows were the 36" size from the Sardine Pillow pattern by Kristin @woollypetals. Plus, they were each personalized to the recipients' design or color preferences, which made making each one a thoughtful and enjoyable process. Plus, I think the whole family got a kick out of them, whether they actually wanted/received one or not. Can't beat that!

Bee Sewcial Round-Up 2025

It's been a very busy year with Bee Sewcial @beesewcial, the improv and solids-only bee I've been in since its inception in 2015 by Leanne Chahley @shecanquilt and Stephanie Ruyle 
@spontaneousthreads. It continues to be a welcome challenge each month as I respond to the prompts set out by my beemates. In 2025, I created 37 blocks for our group quilts and two finished quilts!

January: Lace for Leanne @shecanquilt

For this prompt, I made three blocks to equal our normal contribution - the first inspired by the edging of a lacy shawl in Leanne's inspiration pin board, approximately 8" x 11", it was constructed ruler free. The second block was the most challenging, and would be about 11" x 14" if in more of a rectangular shape. And then the final improv Lace block was 8.5" x 10.5".

February: Bee Still My Heart for Stephanie @spontaneousthreads

Inspired by the work of Clyfford Still, my block for Stephanie, if trimmed into a rectangle, would measure 15.5" x 25", so there's plenty of room for Stephanie to trim. And that blue line? It represents the lifeline from my right palm, per Stephanie's request.

March: Kintsugi for M-R @quiltmatters

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery with lacquer and gold or silver dust, and we each incorporated bits of retroreflective fabric into our blocks, courtesy of Stephanie @spontaneousthreads. My first block measured 9.5" x 15", and I found working with the retroreflective fabric a bit tricky. You can't iron it, so finger-pressing it is, and even then, it didn't seem to want to lay completely flat. Thus, with my second block, 11" X 17.5", I stuck with more straight lines which seemed to help.

May: Ode to Joy for me @aquilterstable

Basically, I asked for six to eight mostly black and white-ish 6.5" blocks representing things that brought my bee mates joy. I made eight blocks - a fork, a cup, a quilt, a tree, a block representing my circle of family, a table, clouds, and a roller bag to represent my joy found in travel.

Happily, I got all the Ode to Joy blocks made into a finished quilt, 57.5" x 80"!

June: Embrace for Emilie @mili.tra

I think this may have been the most challenging prompt for me this year! Emilie introduced us to the Zorn Palette, while we responded to her Embrace prompt. My first block, 14" x 15", was very representative of my own style, but with the second, 12" x 14", and third, 7" x 8", blocks, I tried to make them softer, while still having some relation to the first. Another aspect of the challenge was the request to create blocks that were not square or rectangular, but rather blocks that didn't have any sharp dents or concavity. Do click over and see Emilie's amazing quilt top!

July: You, Me, We for Jen @jen.broemel

Jen asked us to "make two 13” x 13” blocks in your signature style or how you most enjoy making." Fun, right? Then we were to cut our 13" x 13” blocks into quarters so that Jen would have eight square(ish) blocks that she could quilt and embroider upon (her signature style).

September: Fantastical Flowers for Karen @capitolaquilter

My first flower block was both fun and challenging, and ended up at 16" x 17" with room to trim. Echinacea is a favorite, and I obviously took inspiration there. Karen gave us the option to make a pollinator instead of a flower for one of our blocks, so I tried my hand at a hummingbird, 12" x 12".

October: Inside/Outside for Felicity @felicityquilts

Such a unique prompt! Most seams sewn with black or charcoal thread + at least one seam sewn with neon thread + at least one seam sewn on the front of the block with raw edges showing + (this is a biggie!) added texture on the front through a small section of fabric manipulation. On my first block, 12" x 13", I created some diamond pin tucks. My second block, 13" square, contains a few twisted pin tucks in addition to the black/neon threads and exposed raw seams.

November: pretty petals for Tia @tiacurtisquilts

Tia asked us to help her make a wild and wonky orange peel quilt. Here are my improv petals, each approximately 6.5" square.

AND, as I shared yesterday, I just finished another Bee Sewcial quilt - from my Minimal Shapes prompt in 2024. Spare, 76" x 76", was so named due to its minimalistic elements.

So wow! That added up to a lot of collaborative improv. Can't wait to see more of the quilts that result.