Bright Side Up Mini Quilt

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Welcome to this week's TGIFF party! I've been waiting to share this mini quilt for a long time. 

A few months ago, Monika of Penny Spool Quilts messaged me to say she was thinking about starting a subscription box that would feature Canadian quilt pattern designers and Canadian fabrics. When she asked if I'd be interested in being featured, I couldn't say yes fast enough! 

I'm incredibly honoured to have been the featured designer in the first Quilt the North box! Check out this Instagram reel if you'd like to see everything that was in the first Quilt the North box, which was sent out in September. My box got stuck in the mail thanks to the Canada Post strike, but it finally arrived last week. Isn't Maple the Moose adorable?

Now that the boxes have all been received, I can finally share my Bright Side Up mini quilt. Aren't these bright colours fabulous?

Because the box includes all the fabrics needed to make the project, the pattern has to be for a small project (think mini quilt, bag, cushion, etc) and can't require too many different fabrics. My EQ8 is full of quilts and blocks I want to make someday, so I went browsing through that to see if I had anything that would fit. As has happened many times before, I found myself staring at this quilt I designed several years ago. I love it, but every time I look at it I wonder, "Do I really want to make that many flying geese?" 

It wasn't a candidate for the box anyway, since it's a throw size quilt, so I was about to move on and keep looking when I realized that just one block would make an excellent 20" square mini quilt. Ooooh, I liked that!

Then I had to choose fabrics from Northcott. No hardship there, Northcott's COLORWORKS solids are my favourites and the ones I use most often, anyway. Picking what colours to use was tough, though! I kept mocking up the block in different colour combinations in EQ8, and I loved every variation. Eventually I had to make myself stop playing and just choose 😂

The winning combination is COLORWORKS Dandy Yellow, Admiral, Patriot Blue, Love Potion and Toscana Ebony. I used COLORWORKS black for the background for mine, but it wasn't available when Monika ordered the fabrics for the box, so we substituted the Toscana. I love Toscana fabrics, too!

Though I'm not keen on making as many flying geese as I would need for a throw size quilt, I do like making flying geese using the 4-at-a-time, no waste method. I'd love to know who looked at 5 squares of fabric and thought, "If we sew them like this, cut them like that, then sew like this, and cut like that, we'll have 4 flying geese." My brain does not work that way, so I'm glad hers did, whoever she was! It's kind of like when I think about all the steps involved in getting from cacao beans to the chocolate we eat...who figured out that process?

I really love designs that take common units, like flying geese, and turn them into fun quilts. That's exactly what Bright Side Up is - classic units that come together to make something that looks more complicated than it is. I love quilt photography sessions at the beach, too 😍

Most of the time, when I'm working on a mini quilt, I'm going to do some custom quilting. Though I've moved away from doing that on larger quilts because of all the time it takes, I love doing it on mini quilts! As always, I used Aurifil 50 wt for all the quilting, which was done on my Janome 6700 domestic machine.

I started with the continuous lines in the pink flying geese. That's one of my favourite designs to quilt in triangles because it's quick and it doesn't have to be perfect to look good.

I did teardrop flowers in the blue flying geese (what would you call this design??). This is another design that doesn't have to be perfect to look good, plus you can do any size teardrops and add as many as you need to fill the triangles.

Then I did dense back and forth lines in the yellow star points. I love the texture that comes from quilting simple back and forth lines!

I probably spent the most time trying to decide on a design for the blue squares. I ended up choosing to quilt diamonds in the center of each square with straight(ish) lines. They're nowhere near perfect, but that's pretty much a theme in my quilting, so it's all good.

Once all the bright coloured sections were quilted, I did a dense stipple in the background. Black thread on black fabric is never easy! There were several times I quilted over lines I had already done before I couldn't see the thread. While that's technically a no-no for stippling, I don't think anyone will ever notice or care.

I'm obsessed with how the quilting looks on the back!! All that texture is just amazing and the black thread shows up much better on this side.

I've seen two finished Bright Side Up quilt tops so far, which is always fun. I'm really looking forward to seeing how people quilt their mini quilts. Even though we're all using the same fabrics, they'll still look different depending on how they're quilted.

If you want to meet new Canadian quilt pattern designers, sign up for the Quilt the North subscription box! The next box ships out in December, featuring a Nova Scotia designer.

That's my finish 😊 What have you finished recently? Link it up below, then visit some of the other links to celebrate their finish, too.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

My Quilting Tattoo

A few days ago, I did something I've wanted to do for a long time! Here's a sneak peek before I share the whole story 😊

Eleven years ago, Paul and I got matching tattoos to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Up until deciding to do that, rather spur of the moment, I had never even considered getting a tattoo. When we went in, the tattoo artist asked which of us was going first and I said I would, because I was worried that if it looked like it hurt a lot I would chicken out! 

Sometime after that, maybe a year or two later, I started thinking I'd like to have a quilting tattoo. For a while it was just a vague, maybe someday kind of thought. Then I started feeling more and more like I wanted to make it happen. Problem was, I couldn't decide what I wanted! There are so many great sewing tattoos out there! Vintage sewing machines, quilt blocks, thread spools, needle and thread, scissors... On and on the choices go, and I couldn't settle on anything. I love the idea of a vintage sewing machine, but I don't sew on one, and, while I love my Janome 6700, it's not really tattoo material. I spent years collecting ideas on Pinterest, but that was as far as it went.

My other hold-up was I didn't know who to have do it. The guy who did our tattoos in 2014 had moved away, so I couldn't go back to him. Then a friend had a full sleeve of tattoos done and the work was gorgeous, so I asked her for the recommendation.

Back in June I took the plunge and reached out to her tattoo artist, Lawrence, and booked an appointment for September 30. When he asked what I wanted, I sent him a whole Drive folder full of inspiration and ideas, hoping he could turn it into something coherent. The only things I knew for sure were that it would be on my right forearm and I wanted a line of hexies that wrapped around my arm. I loved the shape of this vine tattoo, so I sent that along with a picture of some hexies lined up on a table.

Beyond that, I told him 'maybe include a needle and thread, or a spool of thread, or a hexie flower' with pictures of all the options so he would know what I meant. He said we'd meet before my appointment to go over what I wanted, and then I settled in to wait for the end of September.

The week before my appointment, I emailed him to check in, and he said, "I just finished reviewing your ideas..all good….we don’t need to meet for this…I’ll have this stuff put together for ya for Tuesday." What??? I wanted to see what he was making out of the mess of ideas I had sent, lol. Waiting those last couple of days was tough!

When I arrived on Tuesday, he had a bunch of drawings printed out and we sat down to build the plan. He had a couple of options for the line of hexies, bigger and smaller, connected or not. I chose the smaller hexies and connected, so it looked like they were sewn together. Once I could see how much space the hexies would take up on my arm, I opted to skip the spool of thread and the hexie flower, going with just a needle and thread.

He started with the line of hexies, wrapping them from just above my wrist to my elbow. Tattoos are done with a transfer of some sort that puts the lines on the skin so the tattoo artist can follow the lines with the ink. This picture shows the transfer, before he went over it with the ink.

Once the hexies were outlined, he added the transfer for the needle where we wanted it, then picked up a Sharpie and literally drew the path of the thread freehand. No wonder we didn't need to meet ahead of time! He wasn't satisfied with the first couple of tries, so he erased those with rubbing alcohol and tried again until he was satisfied. Once he was happy with how it covered the space around the hexies he sent me to look in a mirror to be sure I was happy with it, then inked it all. I asked if the thread could be blue (of course!), but he recommended sticking with black because the colour inks are a thicker consistency and aren't as good for thin lines. In this picture, the hexies are outlined, the needle is partially done, and you can see the Sharpie line for the thread.

Once the needle and thread were done, it was time to add the colour! I chose pink, purples, blues, and teal. He suggested having another warm colour, so we added yellow. It was so much fun to watch the hexies come to life as he worked his way up my arm! Filling in shapes is more painful than outlining is, though, so by the time he was getting to the end of the line I was definitely ready to be done.

The last thing he did was add a tiny bit of white to give the needle some shine, which I hadn't even considered, but is a great little detail.

When he was done and I could go to the mirror again, I couldn't stop twisting my arm around and grinning! I am thrilled with how it turned out!

The next afternoon I set up my phone and took a little video to show it off. You can see the video on Instagram. These pictures are taken from the video because I completely forgot to take pictures like this, so they're not the clearest, but they give you an idea how it looks when you're seeing all of me, not just closeups.

I did take closeup pictures after recording the video. The hexies look kind of textured, but that's just because it was fresh and the skin needs to heal. They'll look smooth once the healing is done. That can take weeks, though, and I'm too excited to wait that long to share it.

Seeing it makes me ridiculously happy. As a friend pointed out, that's a good thing, considering I'll be looking at it for a very long time 😆 

Someone else pointed out that a lot of people probably won't understand what it is, which is true, especially if they don't notice the needle. It's not the most obvious quilting reference, but I think quilters will recognize it, even if they've never done EPP themselves. Whether they do or not, I know what it is.

As we were driving home on Tuesday, Paul asked if I'd go back to Lawrence again. 

I said, "Yes, absolutely." 

"Are you planning to get more?" he asked. I just laughed. I have no plans for more tattoos, but I have heard they're addictive, so who knows? Haha!

Do you have a quilting tattoo? Or would you consider getting one?

8 Point Meadow in Make Modern

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase after clicking a link. This does not affect the price you pay.

It has been a while since I had a quilt published in Make Modern magazine (I think the last one was Illusion, back in January of 2023), so I'm excited to say I have a baby quilt in the brand new issue that was just published. Meet 8 Point Meadow!

Okay, as far as quilt names go, that's not one of the greats 😆 Why is naming quilts so hard?? I came up with 8 Point Meadow because the star block is called 8 Point Star in EQ8 and, with the green background, the pink, purple, orange, and yellow stars reminded me of wildflowers.

I think this was the first time I made a quilt with the blocks on point. I love how it changes the whole look of the block. Here's the block set normally; it looks straighter and less interesting, somehow. 

But tip it 45° and it looks more dynamic. 

The star points are paper pieced. I know it's possible to piece that unit traditionally, but I really like the simplicity and accuracy of paper piecing it. Of course, I used freezer paper for the paper piecing, so I didn't have to remove the paper from the blocks when they were finished (it's the only way I paper piece!). You can learn this magic, too!

I don't have a lot of pink, purple, yellow, or orange fabrics in my stash, but I was able to pull enough for this baby quilt without repeating any.

For the quilting, I chose not to quilt the star points at all. They're outlined and the whole background is quilted with a dense, loopy meander, which really makes the stars pop. They show up beautifully on the back, too.

The loopy meander quilting always makes me think of eyelet lace for some reason. It gives the quilt fantastic texture, too.

I wanted the stars to be the sole focus, so I used the same green for the binding and the background. Now that I think about it, I could also have done a facing to achieve the same effect, but I never think of that. Binding is just automatic.

For the pattern for 8 Point Meadow, along with 9 other projects and some great columns, get your copy of Make Modern issue 66. Or subscribe to get 6 issues a year, all of them full of inspiration and eye candy 😊 Make Modern is celebrating their 11th birthday, so subscribers get a fun bonus pattern, too!