Carol kicked off the Gridsters this year, doing a little throwback to fall, for she said she wanted to make herself a quilt for autumn. She asked us to use this tutorial from The Cloth Parcel.I had fun finding orange fabrics that would work, and picked up some bold orange Grunge dots to work into the pumpkins. She had mailed us the navy Grunge for the background, and after I finished my first pumpkin, I found I had enough for another, so I sent two. These come together quick and easy, so if you are thinking ahead…or behind…it would be a fun quilt for fall.
I think I mentioned somewhere along the way, that I had collected a full set of Frivols tins, shown above. Two other quilters, Kelley and Karen, mentioned that they had a full set, too. I wrote back and forth with each of them, wondering if they wanted to liberate their Frivols from their tins and make 2018 the year that we finally get them done.
There is this temptation to leave them fully entombed, I realize. They are so cute in their little boxes, and what will you do with all those little quilts? (Well, some aren’t so little.) But I can think of many places that you can donate these quilts, if you want (try starting with the Preemie unit at your local hospital, or a Domestic Violence Rescue shelter, or your granddaughter’s doll crib, just to name a few). The point is to have fun, to free up space in your sewing room and to get rid of Another Undone Project.
If you want to join in with us, too, we’re going to try to tackle one a month until all twelve are finished. If you want to work ahead…well, you have the instructions and the fabrics. You can still find Frivols tins if you do a search, so you can join in the making.
Here’s January’s: “Kindred,” using the Hello Darling line by Bonnie and Camille. The quilt finishes at 40″ by 40,” a perfect table-topper size. And here is the Mode blog announcement for how the cutting directions are wrong. It’s true–the quarter-square triangles should have been cut a bit larger; more on that later. I’ll always try to link over to Moda’s blog so you can update any errata/changes in your Frivols.
I love how each tin has a little treasure inside. This tin has some woven tape with Handmade with Love written on it.
And here’s the fabrics. I started with their lovely diagrams, cutting the blocks into pieces:
I stacked up two stacks of “twin” blocks–the instructions say to cut using two of the same fabric blocks, and no I don’t know why I have extras (on the left). In every Frivol there is a “bonus” block that you can make so you’ll have a sampler quilt. I’m not doing that, so instead I’ll keep the extras in my stash.
I cut them according to the sketch. So far so good.
I stacked up the pieces of one block, with the exception of the Half-square Triangles on all four corners. Then I kept going:
But I should have checked the Mode blog first, as I cut some of the white side triangles too small. You can see the problem here:
Block, untrimmed
I will simply true them up a little smaller when I finish all of them.
Six down, ten to go. I’m making good progress while listening to the sixth book in the Maisie Hobbs series:
I’m hooked on this series!
If you want to join in, dig out your Frivols tins and let’s get going. If you leave me your name and blog address or Instagram name, I’ll start making a list at the end of each final monthly Frivols post, with links. Lisa Bongean, of Primitive Gatherings, has a great write-up about “her” tin with her fabric line. Have fun hunting your tins down, getting ready to join up with us. I’ll do an introductory post near the beginning of each month, as well as a final post, on the last day of the month.
I would like to commit to getting the quilt top finished each month, with quilting, if I can. As I mentioned, the quilt tops are not too big that you can’t finish them on your domestic machine, and that will give us all a chance to practice our quilting. I’ve got a good start for January’s block, but I’m taking a break to go to Road to California, where I’ll have two quilt tops hanging in the show. I’m also taking three classes, so it will be a busy week.
January 2018 • No. 1 – Hello Darling by Bonnie & Camille February 2018 • No. 2 – Polka Dots & Paisleys by Minick & Simpson March 2018 • No. 3 – Eliza’s Indigo by Betsy Chutchian April 2018 • No. 4 – Windermere by Brenda Riddle May 2018 • No. 5 – Petite Prints Deux by French General June 2018 • No. 6 – Strawberry Fields Revisited by Fig Tree July 2018 • No. 7 – Songbird Gatherings by Primitive Gatherings August 2018 • No. 8 – Bread ‘n Butter by American Jane September 2018 • No. 9 – Little Miss Sunshine by Lella Boutique October 2018 • No. 10 – The Cookie Exchange by Sweetwater November 2018 • No. 11 – Sew & Sew by Chloe’s Closet December 2018 • No. 12 – Blue Barn by Laundry Basket Quilts
Criss-Cross Christmas Quilt, top finished December 2017
59 ” by 68″
It all started when my friend Leisa gave me a mini-charm pack of Merrily fabrics by Gingiber. Then the Fat Quarter Shop had the fat-eighth stack, and then when my making dictated more, I scooped up a layer cake of the line, and I was set (and I still have some left). I added Kona Snow, and got creative.
I just started making…and putting them up..and making…and deciding to enlarge it…
Then I moved around the blocks, making sure the light of the mini-charm-square blocks were balanced against the heavier “filled-in” blocks. At some point I decided I was done.
I sewed them together, stopping mid-way to celebrate Christmas and get the flu. Because the flu shot is only partially effective this year, more people will probably get the bug. The good news, though, that by having had the flu shot, the duration and intensity will be lessened. I hope so.
I’m decorating for Christmas and wanted to change out my Tiny Quilt from Autumn to Christmas, but then got wondering how a teeny-weeny quilt would look, so got busy. These little quilts fit onto plastic picture frames:
I have two free patterns for you here, but please remember the drill: Don’t print off umpteen for your next class, or guild meeting swap or your mother. Please send them here to get their own pattern.
As you can see from the samples I made up, I play fast and loose with some of the placement of pieces, really using them more as a guideline for cutting, than anything else (although I did cut out the tree exactly).
Cut out all the pieces for the pattern you’ve chosen. As I noted above, sometimes I used the pattern (shown here before I added the labels) as sort of a general guidelines. You need an accurate tree, and a nice straight edge where you’ll sew it to the tree (the diagonal line in the photo, above).
I sewed the “sky” pieces to the sides of the trunks then trimmed the edge that would attach to the tree. More detailed tutorial is also on my OTHER Christmas Tree block tutorial, which is sized somewhere in between these two tree sizes. (I should open up a Christmas Tree lot with all these patterns.)
Sew the “right” side onto the tree. Make sure you keep the marked top triangle point pointing upwards.
Trim any stray areas (above), then add the other side.
Straighten out the bottom of the tree assembly. Center, then sew on the tree-trunk unit, pressing seam towards tree (so it looks like the trunk is under the tree).
Now to add the snowdrifts on the little tree. On the left, I sort of place that wedge-shaped piece, determine the angle but flipping it up and down (on the right). When I have the angle I like, flip it back up so right sides are together, and stitch along the upper edge. Trim.
Repeat for lower snowdrift. Trim excess.
For the bigger tree, I added on 2″ strips to frame the tree. It needed something to jazz it up, so I got rid of the bottom strip on the pattern and just used strips all around.
Layer with batting and backing and quilt. I did a meander in the sky area around the trees, then some straight lines in the snowdrift on the teeny tree, and some straight lines in the frame around the bigger tree:
I also quilted some swirls in the center of the tree.
Time to trim. The teeny trees trim to 4-3/4″ by 6-1/2″ and the larger tree is trimmed to 8-3/4″ by 10-1/2.”
Make a sleeve for the back by cutting a piece the same size as the quilt top, but then hem the lower edge, turning it up twice and top-stitching. I know it’s hard to see in this print, but again, feel free to check out the other tutorials of tiny quilts.
I brought out my Blythe doll and one of my husband’s nutcrackers to pose by the quilts.
Looks like Blythe has the hots for the Santa skier. And here I thought she’d go for the more traditional guy:
He does look a little formal. Hmmm. Evidently not her type.
Recently I taught a class for my Home, Sweet, Home mini quilt. I snapped these photos as they were working; they’d all mostly prepped up their pieces before coming, and it made the class go quite smoothly. I loved all the different ways that people did their blocks (shown here at our Guild Meeting):
Here are most of them (some didn’t bring them to Guild):
It wasn’t until posting these up that I found two errors in these quilts. Isn’t it funny that you don’t see things…until you do? (Hint: it’s in the bushes.) I love the rainbow quilt made by my friend Lisa. I may have to make one for myself.
I had fun finding orange fabrics that would work, and picked up some bold orange Grunge dots to work into the pumpkins. She had mailed us the navy Grunge for the background, and after I finished my first pumpkin, I found I had enough for another, so I sent two. These come together quick and easy, so if you are thinking ahead…or behind…it would be a fun quilt for fall.
Recently I taught a class for my 
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 