Round Robin #2 - Stars

Welcome back to the Stay at Home Round Robin!  This week it is Wendy's turn to tell us what to add, and she picked stars!  Be sure to link up with her this week at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life.  

Stars are fun because there are sooooo many options!  I recently took advantage of the deep end-of-year sales at Accuquilt and bought some new dies.  One of the dies I bought is the Rising Star block-on-board, and this seemed like a great time to try it out! It's a 10" (finished) block, and I'm doing a row by row format with each row finishing at 40", so that meant making 4 blocks. They came together rather quickly.  I am using Island Batik scraps for this quilt, and intentionally did not choose one background fabric.  The background fabric from this row was also in last week's spool row, but not as background.  

So here are my three rows so far.  I haven't actually sewn my rows together yet, as I haven't decided on my layout.  That's one thing I like about doing this as a row by row, as opposed to the medallion style I've made the previous two years--I can wait longer to actually put it together, since they are all the same length.

Be sure to visit all the hosts today to see the different stars we made!  And here's the full Stay at Home Round Robin schedule if you are sewing along:

• January 16th Center Blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 23rd 1st Round: Spools -- Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• January 30th 2nd Round: Stars -- Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 6th 3rd Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• February 13th 4th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 20th 5th Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood ⮜ That's me!
• February 27th 6th Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• March 13th Parade: Show off your finished SAHRR!
  
  
  
  
  
  

Round Robin #1 - Spools

Welcome back to the Stay at Home Round Robin! This week it is Roseanne & Sue from Home Sewn By Us who tell us what to add, and they chose spools. I'm honestly not sure I had made a spool block before! 

I hadn't decided how I wanted to make my spools when I noticed that a quilt magazine I had out on my table had a spool block, though not in the quilt pattern I had been looking at!  So I planned on that block without actually looking at the instructions.  Turns out it was for an 8" block, and I didn't want one that big.  No problem, I could figure out the components from the picture and size them down, and was even able to cut the pieces with my Accuquilt. The picture I followed was from the Norfolk sampler by Wendy Sheppard in the Spring 2022 issue of Quilter's World.

I made my blocks 4" finished.  Since I'm doing a row by row format this year and I started with a 40" row, that meant ten spool blocks.  I made them all with the same fabrics.  I decided to orient them all the same way, rather than alternate the tilt of the spool.  Here are my spool blocks with my "center" row.  I haven't actually stitched the rows together yet, as I haven't decided what order I want my rows.  

If you are playing along, be sure to link up each week because there are prizes this year!  Every week that you link up, you will get an entry into our drawing, which will take place after the March 13th parade. Here are some of the sponsors and prizes:

• Island Batik  3 fat quarter bundles
• Hobbs batting  Queen Size Wool Batt
• Aurifil Thread  Colour Builder: (3) 50 wt Milan Grey spools
• Prairie Spirit Alpacas  12″ x 18″ Alpaca /Wool pressing mat
• Oliso  Mini Iron – your choice of color!
• Fat Quarter Shop  $25 gift certificate
• and MORE!!!

Here is the schedule for this year's Stay at Home Round Robin.  And be sure to visit all the hosts today to see how we each added spools to our quilts.

• January 16th Center Blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 23rd 1st Round: Spools -- Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• January 30th 2nd Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 6th 3rd Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• February 13th 4th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 20th 5th Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood ⮜ That's me!
• February 27th 6th Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• March 13th Parade: Show off your finished SAHRR!

Stay at Home Round Robin 2023 - The Beginning

Welcome to the 2023 edition of the Stay at Home Round Robin! What is a Stay at Home Round Robin, you ask?  It is the brilliant idea of Gail of Quilting Gail.  In the Before Times, guilds or other quilting groups might sponsor a round robin, where a quilter would make a center of a quilt and then pass it on to another participant, who would add a round then pass it on, etc, until the quilt was returned to the original center-maker.  When everything was in lockdown during Covid, Gail had the idea to do a round robin solo.  She invited some blogger friends, including me, and we each pick a quilting element that is the prompt for that round. 

 

Everyone is invited to sew along.  We'll pick a new thing to add to the quilt each Monday. The full schedule is below.  If you decide to sew along, there are sponsors and prizes this year!  Each week's post will have a linky party, and you'll get an entry to the prize drawing for each time you link up.  Link up for each week, get 7 entries.  Decide to only do 4 rounds?  That's still 4 entries!

• January 16th Center Blocks: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• January 23rd 1st Round: Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
• January 30th 2nd Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
• February 6th 3rd Round: Chris @ Chrisknitssews
• February 13th 4th Round: Anja @ Anja Quilts
• February 20th 5th Round: Emily @ The Darling Dogwood ⮜ That's me!
• February 27th 6th Round: Gail @ Quilting Gail
• March 13th Parade: Show off your finished SAHRR!
  

This week, you choose your center.  The last two years, I've done my Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR) as a medallion-style quilt.  This year, I decided to do a row by row format.  The beauty of SAHRR is that it's your quilt!  Don't like a round?  Skip it!  There are no quilt police here, we promise! I was dreaming of a vacation and beaches, so I decided to channel that into my opening round. 

I bought the flamingo die for my Accuquilt last year (2021) during holiday sales and hadn't used it. This seamed like the perfect time.  I added some palm trees to reinforce the tropical, beachy look.

 

I am super pleased with my row and the flamingos.  Doesn't looking at it make you want to be on a beach in the sun?

All my fabrics are Island Batik scraps; I'm not using a particular collection this time.  I'm starting with a row that is 40" across (finished).  I did decide that I would add 1" sashing in between each row and I chose Island Batik's solid cobalt.

Be sure to check out each of the SAHRR hosts to see what they chose for their centers!  Then join us each Monday as we reveal the next round and show you how each of us interpret and incorporate it into our quilts. 

            Gail @ Quilting Gail
            Roseanne & Sue @ Home Sewn by Us
            Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
            Chris @ Chrisknitssews
            Anja @ Anja Quilts

Have additional questions?  Gail may have covered them in her introductory post, or leave a comment here.  In closing, here are my completed SAHRR quilts from the past two years.

2022, Unnamed

2021, Ursa Major

A Start to 2023

Happy New Year!  I know I am a bit late with that, but the last two months of 2022 were pretty terrible for me and I'm still dealing with a lot of things, and haven't been able to write blog posts in a while.  I've been sewing as much as I can, though, and should have things to show soon. 

In the meantime, I'm excited to be starting 2023 as an Island Batik Ambassador, my fifth year with the program.  I am honored to have another year with this great company working with their beautiful fabrics!  There are some fun challenges in store for this year! There are quite a few new faces for 2023; you can see the full list of Island Batik Ambassadors here.  And we're each getting an introductory post this year!  Mine hasn't been posted yet, but if you keep an eye on the Island Batik blog, you can read them all as they go up.

I never did announce a winner for my giveaway that went with the Crayola Explosion quilt from the Lone Star blog hop in December.  Cindy L. is the winner of a set of strips from the Chickadee collection; I've emailed to let her know and will hopefully get to the post office this week.

I have some fun quilts planned for 2023!  I hope your year has been off to a great start, and I look forward to seeing what we all can make this year.