I almost didn’t do this block because I was intimidated by the embroidery, but I couldn’t resist the ladybugs. So I got out my book of embroidery stitches, watched some YouTube tutorials, and queued up Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, featuring six hours of young women for whom embroidery…
Category: QAYG
Block 15 Family Affair
When I saw the pattern for this block I was sure I was never going to get it to work. Look at all those matching points and seams! No way, not even with paper piecing! To my surprise, and to the credit of block designer Janice Ryan, it came out great. Not everything matches up…
Block 13 Scrap Stars
My version of Scrap Stars differs a little from the original pattern. Let’s say I was making the best of a measuring error and leave it at that 🙂 My block frame is different, and I chose to use only two fabrics instead of the scrappy mixture that the designer Corey Yoder used so effectively….
Block 10 Iowa
This block came together very quickly, but it took me a long time to decide how to quilt it. I didn’t want to lose the ring, so I knew I wanted to treat all the green patches (center and corners) as background. I decided to do a small-scale meander there to make them recede. I…
Block 8 Friends Around the Square
I was practicing dot-to-dot free motion quilting when this block came up in the rotation, so I used that technique to quilt it. For the dark red triangles, I drew a line with a chalk pencil from each corner of the block to the middle of the base of each triangle, then marked 2 points…
Block 6 Focal Point
This block, designed by one of my quilting idols (Natalia Bonner), reminds me of opening or unfolding an origami box. I loved the way it came together when I was piecing it and I enjoyed planning how to quilt it, too. First, I echoed outside the center square to pop it up a little. Then…
Block 3 Lots of Love
I remember making this block, waaaay back at the start of the Splendid Sampler in early 2016. The heart in the lower right corner came out very uneven because I didn’t pay attention to my seam allowance. As a result, the block was the wrong size and was noticeably crooked. I left it on my…
Extra Block: The Magic of Christmas
Quilting on reverse of The Magic of Christmas This block was fun to make. I used three different white-on-white prints for the background and a leftover bit of a favorite dark red for the star. I wanted the quilting to make the star look like it was shining, so I added straight lines that radiate…
Block 1 Hearts Aflutter
Hearts Aflutter was the very first block to be released for the Splendid Sampler! This was my second attempt at quilting feathers inside a heart shape, and I think it came out a little bit better than the first one. My first attempt was on Block 29, Scrappy Happy Heart. You can tell this one…
Block 69 Full Circle
I really like how the quilting came out on this block! It was a little tricky to piece, but definitely worth it. When I quilted it, I wanted to emphasize the stripes in the top half of the circle, so I quilted straight lines about 1/4″ or so apart. In the bottom half, I used…
Bonus Block: Top of the Hill
I like the quilting in the hill and in the background on this block, but I’m not as happy with the echoed circles inside the sun (or moon, if you prefer). They aren’t as even as I’d like. I went a little too fast, I think. They do give it a sketched look that’s kind…
Block 70 Bows
This block makes me laugh every time I see it. Two of my bows are pointing in the wrong direction, and I didn’t notice at all until I sat down to quilt the block! I remember carefully arranging them, too, thinking I was doing it correctly. Hah! Funny how you can just not notice something…
Extra block: Susan’s Valentine
Embroidery is not my favorite stitching activity. For one thing, I have a cat who will happily shred any embroidered quilt that I put on a bed or couch, so including an embroidered block automatically means the quilt will either need to be hung on the wall or hidden away. However, the Splendid Sampler included…
Block 64 Rising Star
This one was fun to make. I really like the secondary pattern made by the orange corners, even if mine don’t quite line up perfectly 😉 For the quilting, I wanted to practice dot-to-dot free motion quilting in the outer squares. I used a chalk pencil to draw a diagonal line across each square connecting…
Bonus Block: Butterfly Charm Block (Pepper)
I included this block in my Splendid Sampler quilt because I came across the pattern while working on the Sampler and it delighted me. I added a little extra framing to make it the right size, since the pattern has the blocks finishing at 5″ instead of the 6″ needed for the Sampler. I love…
Block 58 Homeward Bound
Quilting on reverse of block 58 Homeward Bound I love this block design! I really like flying geese blocks, though I don’t use them often, and the graduated color and scale in this one are very pleasing. With the quilting, I wanted to emphasize the sense of motion by making lines that ‘stream’ out from…
Block 52 Coneflower
Quilting on reverse of block 52 Coneflower I’m still working out good approaches for quilting on and around appliqué and embroidery. For this block, I wanted to suggest the bumpy texture of the center of the flower, so I quilted some loops in there. I also wanted the appliqué to stand out, so I echoed…
Block 34 Lemonade
This was another easy and fun block to make. Since there were only two small curved patches, I did them by hand. I chose simple quilting, just a wishbone inside the lemon, echoing outside, and some light outlining to set off the white square and the corners. I used a thread that would show up…
Block 29 Scrappy Happy Heart
One of the nicest things about joining the Splendid Sampler Quilt-Along was discovering new (to me) quilters and designers. Christa Watson, who designed this block, was one of those discoveries. I love her blog and her easy and happy quilt designs. This was one of my favorite blocks to piece. I have mixed feelings about…
Block 28 Stitching Fashion
The original design for this block includes the dress, a spool of thread, and a needle, but I decided the dress would be enough of a challenge on its own. It was paper pieced and some of those pieces are tiny (all the Sampler blocks finish at 6″ square, not including the blue borders). I’ve…
Block 22 Goose on the Loose
I’m working my way through these blocks! At this point, all the piecing and setting is done (I made 70 blocks in all) and I’m quilting each one. I chose quilt-as-you-go so that I could easily do custom quilting on every block. Once I’ve quilted them all, I’ll join them together, add the backing, and…
Block 21 Sweet Candy
When I chose the quilting for this block, I decided to echo the candy theme with some ribbon candy in the center square and then use loops in the orange triangles to suggest the crinkly edges of a candy wrapper. I practiced continuous curves in the lighter background squares (clearly, more practice is needed) and…
Block 16 Pieces of Friendship
I love how this block comes together. It looks complicated, but Lindsay’s design is deceptively simple. When this block came up in my to-quilt pile, I had just learned the fern design (Angela Walters again, I love her Craftsy classes) and I wanted to practice it, so I decided to use it in the dark…
Block 5 Simple Simon
Simple Simon was easy and fun to make. I wanted the quilting to emphasize the gold stripes, so I didn’t quilt over them. I also wanted to enhance the contrast between the light green and dark green background squares. I did a simple back and forth line in the lighter squares, and I practiced the…
Block 24 Inspector Sidekick
My flying geese are improving! I still cut the points off where they meet the borders, but the inside ones came out pretty well, and the seams match up (mostly) inside the block. I’m making progress! I chose continuous curve and echoing for the quilting. I did the center square first, and had to break…
Extra Block: String Hearts Variation
This block was inspired by the blocks in Elizabeth Dackson’s String Heart quilt combined with my desire to use up some skinny scraps from other Splendid Sampler blocks. She posted the original pattern and tutorial in 2013 but I found it in 2016, so the block ended up in my sampler quilt. The free pattern…
Bonus Block: Earth Day
This bonus block was released in honor of Earth Day, April 22, 2016. To make it, I broke my rule of not using blue in my blocks (I set up that constraint to challenge myself to explore other colors, because I love blue) because the earth in the center is supposed to be blue and…
Block 40 Flights of Friendship
I love this block design, and I don’t love how I quilted it. Definitely a live-and-learn moment. The block features four happy little dancing stars. In the original pattern, the stars are colorful and the background is plain, but I saw another quilter’s variation (she is Rat Ferré from Barcelona, but I can’t find her…
Block 18 Lina’s Gift
This is my first basket block ever! The basket is a traditional quilting design with lots of variations. I’m pleased with the colors I chose even though it didn’t come out looking basket-like. It looks more like the bear’s paw block because I chose a dark green instead of a lighter background color for the triangle…
Block 17 Family Stars
I like the hidden star in the center of this block. It was a little fiddly to do all the tiny flying geese units (which just means I need more practice), and I definitely stunted some of the points on the stars, but I love the way it sparkles on the block. I wanted the…
Block 71 First Stitch
I’ll admit I have mixed feelings about how I quilted this one. I tried some big-little loops in the yellow pieces but they don’t thrill me. The rest looks fine, but I had to break thread a bunch of times to make it work out in the pattern I wanted. I was kind of glad…
Bonus block: Inside Out
I had a lot of fun making this block and deciding how to orient the four log cabin units. Pat Sloan designed it and she shows three different layouts in the pattern (I think I used a fourth). When it came to quilting it, I wanted to use a design that contrasted with the angles…
Block 48 Whim
I decided to use an allover design to quilt Whim and went with an echoed paisley that I’m trying to improve. It’s one that Angela Walters does in a lot of her videos. I’m struggling a little with the teardrop shape, but I’m getting there! I like the way it looks on this block. I…
Block 39 Balls in the Air
This one was tricky to piece with all the little tiny slices! I accidentally skipped a step at one point and had to pick out a seam and re-do it. But it came out all right in the end. I went with very simple quilting that pressed down the dark green spears to make them…
Block 30 Simple Surprises
I really like the way this block turned out. I wanted to add some diagonals for movement, and then it looked right to bracket the two green squares with echoed lines to give the block some solidity. I did the red-brown quilting first and then finished up with the dark green triangles that divide each…
Block 11 Crocheted Thoughts
The original design for this block includes an embroidered motif that looks like a crocheted doily and crochet hook. Somehow I never got around to doing that part, so when all my other blocks were finished I decided to embroider the quilt title, my name, and the date instead. I quilted a leaf design in…
Block 26 Dreaming of Dresdens
This is one of those blocks that I was sure I was ruining while I was quilting it, but when it was done I decided I like it after all. I quilted the zigzags in the background first and then did the arcs inside the Dresden petals and outlined the inner circle. I went around…
Block 66 Happy Thoughts
I had fun piecing this block and wanted to quilt it in a way that emphasized the motif in the middle that looks like it’s dancing. I quilted around the center square and then around edge of the brown shape, creating a diagonal line from the corners of the square to the edges so I…
Block 36 Inchy Hexagon Club
I realize you can’t even see the quilting on the front of this block, which is probably just as well. Neither could I while I was quilting it 🙂 I echoed the outer edge of the hexagon ring and attempted a small-scale meandering fill in the black background. I wanted the hexie ring to stand…
Extra Block Spinning Stars
This one isn’t actually a Splendid Sampler pattern, but I found it while I was working on the Sampler and decided (crazily, as it turns out) to make it at 6.5″ size and add it to my sampler. Whew. I can’t recommend making this block that size. The paper-piecing pattern is from Yvonnes.dk and it…
Block 35 The Wishful Garden
This block was fun because I haven’t done much embroidery, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how well it came out. I wasn’t sure how to quilt around embroidery so I did a little research and found (unsurprisingly) that you don’t quilt over it. I started with gold thread…
Block 14 Flying High
This one went very quickly as I only quilted in gold. I started with a wavy line from edge to edge, then echoed back along it. I traveled along the block edge, started the second line, and quilted up to the first seagull. Then I echoed around the seagull until I reached where I’d started,…
Quilting the Splendid Sampler with QAYG
I decided to try quilt-as-you-go for the first time on my Splendid Sampler. After all, this sampler is about learning new techniques! To do this, I sashed each 6.5″ unfinished block in 2″ wide blue sashing and placed it on a square of batting slightly larger than the sashed block. I wanted the sashing…
A Splendid Journey
In 2016 I stumbled upon The Splendid Sampler Sew-Along just before it kicked off, and decided to join on the spur of the moment. I’d never done one before but I thought the small block size (6″ finished) and relaxed schedule of two blocks per week seemed do-able. I kept up for most of the…