Category: Quilting and Sewing

I can’t remember how many trips I’ve had around the sun since I first started this quilt.  Here it is, January again, and it seems as good a time as ever to share my January quilt top!  The pattern for the January quilt block was designed by Lady Harvatine and is available in her shop.


My version is full of different fabrics in every color.  I selected fabrics that felt like taking a walk through my favorites, and I included many precious scraps and cut into other prints I’d been “saving”.  My only rule was color in the circles and low volume in the backgrounds.  Some of my low volume background prints are rather loud but they work for me.  I love seeing all these prints together!


I will admit that precision in piecing all these curves was a challenge for me.  It has been for some people who make this quilt, especially because very piece has bias edges to deal with.  I decided not to worry about precision but I did square up my blocks before piecing the January quilt top together.  For my layout I made thirty blocks and pieced them in a 5 blocks by six blocks top that measures about 55″ by 66″ My January quilt top has been on and off my design wall many times while I worked (or didn’t work) on it.  At every stage my second daughter exclaimed “this is my favorite quilt!”  I appreciate feedback from my children about my quilts, especially when the design, color, or fabrics resonate with them.


This quilt top makes my heart happy.  It contains so many favorites!  I am thrilled to have finished it and now need to decide on quilting.  I’m sure my daughter would love to wrap up in it while it’s still winter!

Christmas sewing is underway in my studio and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.  Meet my Anthem quilt: Peppermint Edition!  This is the Anthem quilt pattern with cheerful holiday colors to make a festive peppermint version.


I was sitting in my car when the idea struck: pink and red stars on a green background and my little girls happily snuggling under it while watching a Christmas movie.


I started with the stars, picturing a pink and red swirl.  The colors I used were Moda Bella Solids in Ruby (red) and Moda Bella Solids New 20 color 9900-385 (pink).  I particularly like the Ruby red – it is a great color!


Once the stars were made I began the hunt for just the right green… which was harder to find than I expected.  I made test blocks in several colors before narrowing my favorites to Kona Pistachio and Kona Pear.


In the end I decided not to choose between them and instead use both.  I alternated the greens as I sewed my blocks together to create a secondary pattern with the background fabrics and continue the minty feel of the quilt.  I like the green pinwheels where the blocks connect and the overall feel of the quilt is happy and festive, exactly what I pictured.


This pattern is great because it comes together easily and without too much time.  I have several complex quilts underway and they’re amazing, but it’s also nice to finish a quilt quickly and easily.  When I’m sewing with a deadline, either for a holiday or for a gift, I favor patterns like this one.


Want to make your own Anthem Quilt: Peppermint Edition?  I’ve updated the pattern with fabric requirements and piecing instructions for two background colors.

Download yours today and have a Christmas quilt top ready before you know it!

While writing my Hunter’s Star quilt pattern , I cut fabric for a second version in blue and green.  This quilt top is all solids and I chose colors that play off each other to really grab the eye.  The blue is the same color I used in my Lucky Lone Star quilt, and the green is somewhere between a lime and a chartreuse.  I quilted this version with straight lines, following the seams in a ditch-stitch method.  It turns out that the Hunter’s Star quilt pattern is my favorite for gift-giving right now; I may make a third if time allows.  No special rulers or templates, no fabric waste.  My kind of quilt.


Since this is version two, and because I shared my random high school physics story along with version one, it seems only fitting to share my other random science class story now.

It was my sophomore year of college and I was knocking out the last of my GE requirements, one of which was Physical Science.  I looked forward to seeing the cute boy I often sat next to, but everything else I could do without.  Especially the monotone voice of the professor.

And then there was one day – just one, mind you – when he was a little more interesting than usual.  He actually brought an object lesson to demonstrate his principle and talked with a little more animation.  His lecture topic:  centripetal and centrifugal forces.  His object lesson:  a large bucket of water.


Surprise, surprise.  He began the age-old demonstration of swinging the bucket in a large circle to demonstrate how it stayed in the bucket without spilling.  Of course it worked… until he slowed to a stop.  Suddenly a ball of water shot out of the bucket and straight into my face.  I still remember the slow-motion feeling of watching a ball of water move through the air toward me, the blurry face of the professor on the other side of the strange shape.  Me, my notes, my desk, my bag – all wet.  The students to my right and left got a drop or two on them; those above and below me felt nothing.


He paused for a fraction of a second to blink and observe what he’d done, then continued his lecture without a word to me or even a change of expression on his face.  I couldn’t decide what was funnier; the water or his total disregard for his mistake.

So there you have it, my most memorable experience from my university science classes.

Moral of the story:  never sit in front of the professor if he shows up to class with a bucket of water.


Moral of the photos:  make more Hunter’s Star quilts.

The Hunter’s Star quilt pattern is available in my Etsy shop .   Buy yours today!

-Jennifer