Spin & Sparkle

I love pinwheel quilts, scrappy quilts, and the colour blue, so this new quilt checks all the boxes! Meet Spin & Sparkle 😍

Spin & Sparkle is the Stash Artists pattern for May (We're not talking about the fact that I still haven't blogged about the March pattern, Summer Dreamin' 😆 I'll get it posted eventually) The Spin & Sparkle pattern has baby, throw, and queen size instructions, all of them made with the same number of HSTs, just in different sizes. I made the baby size, since I'm still on a mission to use batting offcuts. Zach was thrilled to be hiding all 6'1" of himself behind the 48" quilt for these pictures!

To write a new pattern, I start by figuring out all the quilt math, so I know how many blocks I need, how many units, etc. Then I figure out the cutting instructions for the size I'm going to make (the other sizes usually get figured out later), then I make the sample quilt. When it comes to figuring out how many pieces to cut, HSTs are among the simplest blocks - you need 1 square of each fabric for every 2 HSTs. I know that. And yet somehow I still managed to cut, sew, and trim twice as many dark blue/light blue HSTs as I needed. I take that as incontrovertible proof that I am right to always send my patterns to a technical editor before they're released! Having someone else check my math will never be a bad idea.

When I was planning this quilt, I figured I would quilt it with the double-loop design that always makes me think of wind. That seemed appropriate for a giant pinwheel quilt, but the quilt had a different idea. Once the HSTs were all up on the design wall, the quilt started whispering that it wanted to be quilted with a big spiral. I resisted. I really don't enjoy walking foot quilting. I think it looks great, but it's incredibly boring to do, so I avoid it like the plague. The quilt insisted, though, and by the time the top was pieced I knew I'd have to quilt that spiral.

The quilt, of course, was right. The spiral was boring to do, but it does look fantastic!

I love how it looks from the back, too. It was a bit windy while we were at the beach, so getting straight pictures of the quilts was tough. You'll have to believe me when I say my Spin & Sparkle is not a parallelogram!

When I quilted the spiral for my Burst quilt, I got myself stitching in the wrong direction, so that the part of the quilt already quilted went to the right of the needle. That meant as I got closer to the edges of the quilt, more and more had to pass through the throat space. When I was getting ready to start this spiral, I was very aware of that, but I still started going in the wrong direction! Yes, this quilt did feel like a comedy of errors at times. Thankfully I realized it as soon as I started making the second pass of the spiral, so I stopped, ripped out the stitches, and started again in the right direction.

I used Aurifil 2600 to quilt the spiral. It's visible against the blue fabrics up close, but it's not distracting at all, and it's not noticeable from a distance. All you see from a distance is the lovely texture.

One of my favourite things about scrappy quilts is remembering where all the different fabrics came from or which projects they were previously used for. That floral binding the corner above? I made a skirt with that years ago. A bunch of the fabrics, both blues and low volumes, come from the years I was an Island Batik ambassador. They were so generous with their boxes of fabric that I may always have some in my stash! There are a couple of blues that I bought at a quilt shop in Canmore, Alberta, when Paul and I were on our 25th anniversary trip last summer. A scrap quilt is like a fabric collection of memories.

If you love scrappy quilts as much as I do, you'll love the Stash Artists membership. Doors will be opening for new members next week, so get on the waitlist to be sure you don't miss that. New members will get access to the Spin & Sparkle pattern as soon as they join, along with our current BOM, Kitchen Party.

I love designing and making these Stash Artists patterns and quilts! As I type this, background fabric for the next one is in the dryer, and I'm excited to start cutting into my stash of pink fabrics for it this week. And even though I haven't cut a single piece for that July quilt yet, I've been working on the design for the September quilt over the past few days, and I think I've settled on the colours for it. There's no chance I'll ever be bored, so long as I can make quilts!

Time For a Change

Today's post is a bit different. I've been thinking about this for months, and it's time to make a big change here at Devoted Quilter.

I've been struggling with writing the devotions for a long time. Not because of a change in my faith or anything like that, I just find I'm putting off the actual writing more and more. Or sometimes it's that I don't have anything I want to write about and I'm frantically searching for ideas. 

Any time I thought about stopping them, though, I felt anxious about it, without being able to put into words why I felt that way. One day I realized I worried that by not writing devotions, I'd be letting God down. As soon as I thought that, a line from the song Jireh, by Maverick City Music, went through my head: "I'll never be more loved than I am right now. Wasn't holding You up So there's nothing I can do to let You down." I actually laughed out loud! It felt like the sweetest reassurance from Him that it was okay to stop.

I've taken summer breaks the last few years, when I'd stop writing new devotions at the end of June and plan to start writing them again in September. This time I'm not setting an end date. I'm looking forward to reading my Bible each day without having the thought, 'How could I use this for a devotion?' in the back of my mind.

I don't feel like I'm finished writing for God, but I have no idea what that might look like in the future. To be honest, I'm kind of excited to see what He's planning. I've told Him the ball is in His court now, and asked Him to show me the way forward when the time is right.

Thank you for all the encouraging comments you've left on devotions over the years, and for emails you've sent telling me how they impacted you. That has always meant so much to me! Knowing God was using my words to speak to you amazed me every time.

Quilting content will continue as usual. The Devoted Quilter blog isn't going anywhere! In fact, I'll be back tomorrow with a new quilt finish to share 😊

Kitchen Party BOM - Blocks 3 and 4

I had every intention of not falling behind on my Stash Artists Kitchen Party BOM blocks this year...and yet here I am already playing catch up 😂

In March I went to Nova Scotia for almost a week for my Nanny's funeral, which meant I wasn't home sewing or doing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into a quilt pattern design business. I was also running the Roman Adventure QAL and Devotional Journey at the same time, which really increases the amount of computer work that needs to be done. Between those two things, I didn't get the March blocks made.

April just felt busy the whole month. I was still running the QAL, Nathan had a sports tournament, we went to pick Zach up from university, I wrote two quilt patterns, and fulfilled a huge wholesale pattern order (yay!). Phew! With all that, I didn't get the April blocks made, either.

I was determined not to keep falling behind, though, so on Wednesday, the last day of April, I pulled everything out, put blocks 1 and 2 back up on the design wall, and cut the fabrics for the March blocks (block 3). Then on Thursday I sewed all eight of them.

Block 3 is paper pieced, so of course I used freezer paper to make mine. I always hated ripping out the bits of paper after finishing a paper pieced block, so freezer paper is the only way to go for me! Did you know I have an on-demand Paper Piecing with Freezer Paper workshop? You can learn this game changing technique anytime that fits your schedule and then you'll never have to rip out the bits of paper again either. Seriously, it's like magic!

Block 4 (for April) is an applique block, which was perfect for working on while chatting with my mom on the phone and then listening to a podcast. Sam Hunter and Kitty Wilkin kept me company while I cut out and fused the shapes for the two blocks.

I'm calling them finished for now. I still haven't decided if I'm going to stitch around the applique shapes for blocks 1, 4, and eventually 11, before assembling the quilt top or if I'll stitch around them with the quilting. I still have a few months to decide 😊

This isn't anywhere close to the intended arrangement, but I love seeing the blocks all on the design wall together.

So now I'm all caught up...until the May blocks release on Monday 😆