The Darling Dogwood: February 2025

Monday, February 24, 2025

Round #6 - Kites

Welcome to the final week of the Stay at Home Round Robin! This week it is my turn to give the prompt. I chose the kite unit. When we were all discussing our rounds, I noted that Kathleen started the rounds with her first initial as inspiration and I am closing with the same letter. On that note, if you decide that the kite unit is not for you or if you just want a different choice, you can choose something inspired by your first initial or Kathleen's first initial. 😊

The Kite unit has a heavy point at one end and a skinny point at the opposite end. I cur mine with my Accuquilt; the cube companion set of Angles has a kite shape, and you use the triangles that form a half rectangle as the side pieces. There are lots of other ways to cut the kite shape; Deb Tucker of Studio 180 Design calls her tool that cuts this unit the Corner Beam. These kite units are frequently combined in sets of 4 with the heavy points all facing in and the skinny parts out. It is up to you if you want to use your kite units solo or in bigger blocks with multiple units.

Since I am making 12" blocks for my sampler-style quilt, I create my own blocks using kite units. I had a lot of fun with these blocks! And I'm really pleased with the ones I came up with.

For my first block, I used 2 sets of 2 kites. I put the first set inside a larger star and had a second set of kite units radiating out like spotlights.

The second block is my favorite. I added stacked flying geese. I'd like to play with this block some more at some point.

Here is the rendering of all my blocks together.

And, since this is the last round, I can show the real blocks in the finished quilt top! All fabrics are from Island Batik. I chose an assortment of 12 different blue fabrics plus the neutral Cornsilk for the blocks. The setting triangles and sashing squares are Dark Gray solid.

Now it is your turn to add your final round to your quilts. The link will be open for one week. Remember that you get an entry into our prize drawing for every week you have linked up.

I hope you have enjoyed the Stay At Home Round Robin 2025! You now have a month to complete your top. On March 24th, a month from today, we'll be back with a parade of finishes! Gail will have the final link up. You do not need to have a finished quilt; a finished top is enough.

Here is the 2025 Stay at Home Round Robin schedule:

January 13th: Center: Gail @ Quilting Gail
January 20th: 1^st Round: King's Crown block or inspired by your first initial Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
January 27th: 2^nd Round: Half Square Triangles Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3rd: 3rd Round: Stars Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10th: 4^th Round: Slice & Insert Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 17th:5^th Round: Partial Log Cabins Brenda @ Songbird Designs
February 24th: 6th Round: Kites or inspired by your first initial or the letter "k"
Emily @ The Darling Dogwood 🠜 You Are Here
March 24th: Finish Parade: Gail @ Quilting Gail

Monday, February 17, 2025

Round #5 - Partial Log Cabins

We are getting close to the end of the Stay at Home Round Robin! Today it is Brenda's turn to tell us what to add to our quilts. Brenda chose partial log cabin blocks. You may want to do quarter log cabins, or you may want to use half log cabins.

Because I am doing my SAHRR sampler-style this year, I wanted blocks that stood well on their own. Log cabins and their variation usually gain impact by being combined together; I needed something that didn't need multiple similar blocks together. The first block I chose is a sort of log cabin flower. I consider this a half log cabin because you build the block on two sides of center, as opposed to all four sides in a traditional log cabin.

For my second block, I made a log cabin heart. I'm calling this a half log cabin because in my mind, the block is half heart, half log cabin! You can interpret the prompt many different ways; that's part of the fun!

If you are sewing along, this week's link up is with Brenda of Songbird Designs. Remember that every week you link up, you are entered into our prize drawing! We have fabulous prizes:

One of 3 fat quarter bundles from Island Batik:
- Flutter Fields
- Shadow Blooms
- Bubbles Curves and Corners!
Oliso Pro Plus Iron
Hobbs Batting
A pattern of YOUR choice from A Quiltery
A quilt pattern from Devoted Quilter
A pattern from Sew Fresh Quilts
Aurifil
and more to come!

Here is the mock-up of my quilt as it stands now. There is only one round left. Next week's it's my turn to decide what to add!

Here is the 2025 Stay at Home Round Robin schedule:

January 13th: Center: Gail @ Quilting Gail
January 20th: 1^st Round: King's Crown block or inspired by your first initial Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
January 27th: 2^nd Round: Half Square Triangles Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3rd: 3rd Round: Stars Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10th: 4^th Round: Slice & Insert Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 17th:5^th Round: Partial Log Cabins Brenda @ Songbird Designs
February 24th: 6th Round: Me!
March 24th: Finish Parade: Gail @ Quilting Gail

Monday, February 10, 2025

Round #4 - Slice & Insert

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 a slice and insert block. This was probably the most difficult round for me to decide what to do, because I consider slice and insert primarily an improv technique, and I'm not really an improv gal. So I had to think of how to put slice and inset units in a 12" block.

I played around in EQ8 and came up with two designs I liked. I intentionally used different widths for my inset in each of my two blocks so they wouldn't be too similar. I cut slightly oversized squares, did my slice and insert, and then trimmed my units to the size I needed for my blocks. I didn't worry about them not matching up perfectly.

And here's how all my blocks so far look together.

The link up this week is with Wendy. How will you use slice & insert blocks?

Here is the full schedule for the Stay at Home Round Robin:

January 13th: Center: Gail @ Quilting Gail
January 20th: 1^st Round: King's Crown block or inspired by your first initial Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
January 27th: 2^nd Round: Half Square Triangles Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3rd: 3rd Round: Stars Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10th: 4^th Round: Slice & Insert Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 17th:5^th Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs
February 24th: 6th Round: Me!
March 24th: Finish Parade: Gail @ Quilting Gail

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Botanical Dreams Table Runner with Island Batik

Welcome to the start of the Runner Up Blog Hop with Island Batik and Studio 180 Design! I am very excited to be on the kick-off day of this hop. The details of the challenge were to take my assigned collection, Botanical Dreams, and create a table runner using that fabric and at least 12 units made with the V Block tool from Studio 180 Design. I had an additional layer to my challenge: time. My ambassador box with my V Block tool didn't arrive until January 16th. That gave me 18 days from when it arrived to when I needed to post. Subtract a day for filming my video and another for writing this post, and that left me with only 16 days for this challenge. Even with a smaller project, that was going to be a bit tight, as I have both a full-time job and a school-aged kid. But I made it!

I absolutely love the purples combined with the oranges and peaches of the Botanical Dreams collection, and floral motifs are my absolute favorites in Island Batik's fabrics. I decided to pair these fabrics with the neutral Muslin, which has a nice, soft, yellow glow to it. I felt like the glow of the Muslin was a great compliment to the oranges in the collection.

My first step was to design something with the V Block unit. I immediately thought about the classic blocks 54 40 or Fight and Road to Paradise quilt blocks. I played with both of them and loved what I created, but it wouldn't work for a table runner. The blocks create fabulous illusions of curves, but you need multiple blocks to get those illusions and it wouldn't work visually in a smaller project.

V Block units before being trimmed to the perfect size

I needed a block that could stand on its own. I browsed Studio 180 Designs' Blockbusters collection. These are free block patterns that use their tools. Many of the blocks combine several of their tools. You can find the block busters here; you will need to scroll down a little to get to them. There were a lot of great blocks that use the V Block! I picked block buster #61: Sweetbrier. This block uses both the V Block and Split Rects tools. I had Split Rects from an ambassador challenge a few years ago, so this worked out perfectly!

I chose to make 15" Sweetbrier blocks and thought that 3 blocks would give me a good-sized runner as well as let me showcase a decent number of the fabrics from Botanical Dreams. Each block uses 4 fabrics from the collection, plus Muslin. There are a total of 14 different fabrics in this runner and it measures 19" x 50".

I used Island Batik's solid orange for the back. I did simple organic wavy lines down the long way down the runner for the quilting. All piecing and quilting was done with Aurifil thread and Schmetz needles. For the quilting itself, I used a light yellow on the top and bright orange in the bobbin--I don't typically use two different color threads in quilting, but it worked well for this. The batting is Hobbs' Thermore polyester batting; it is thin and great for smaller projects.

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design, Schmetz, Aurifil, & Hobbs.

On the conference table at my work

It's really hard to get pictures of a table runner if you don't have a nice table! I took it to work and tried a conference table, but it was hard to get a good shot. I also took it to my office. It's not quite the right size for my table, but it does look great with Overflowing Heart, my ambassador challenge from August of 2023!

On the table in my office with another Island Batik quilt on the wall

Kim at Chatterbox Quilts was also sent Botanical Dreams, and she has a different Studio 180 Design tool to work with. Be sure to go see her beautiful table runner! And today is just the first day of this hop; Island Batik ambassadors will be showing off new collections all month long! You can find the full schedule here.

Monday, February 3, 2025

Round Robin #3: Stars

Welcome to the halfway point of the Stay at Home Round Robin! Today we turn to our fearless leader, Gail of Quilting Gail, to she what she says to add to our quilts. Gail chose Stars!

I'm doing 12" blocks, so stars gave me a whole lot of options! Since I chose a fairly complicated star block as my center, I picked fairly straightforward and common stars for my 2 star blocks: Ohio Star and LeMoyne Star. I cut both of these (and in fact most of this quilt) with my Accuquilt.

Truth be told, I originally planned the LeMoyne Star for Anja's half square triangle round last week, since I use HSTs to make the classic 8-point LeMoyne block. But as I started narrowing my blocks from possible to actually making them, the LeMoyne Star ended up fitting better with the star blocks.

Here's how my quilt looks at the halfway point:

Head on over to link up with Gail this week if you are sewing along. Remember, every week that you link up earns you one entry into prize drawings at the end. Get behind? No problem! Link up when you are able to catch up. We know that life can interfere with sewing sometimes.

I hope you love sewing up stars this week! Here is the complete Stay at Home Round Robin schedule:

January 13th: Center: Gail @ Quilting Gail
January 20th: 1^st Round: King's Crown block or inspired by your first initial Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
January 27th: 2^nd Round: Half Square Triangles Anja @ Anja Quilts
February 3rd: 3rd Round: Stars Gail @ Quilting Gail
February 10th: 4^th Round: Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
February 17th:5^th Round: Brenda @ Songbird Designs
February 24th: 6th Round: Me!
March 24th: Finish Parade: Gail @ Quilting Gail

Sunday, February 2, 2025

Runner Up blog hop

I hear that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, giving us 6 more weeks of prime quilting weather! The Island Batik ambassadors have been sewing away, getting ready for the Runner Up blog hop. This hop will feature Island Batik's brand new collections that will be hitting stores this week. Each of was sent a tool from Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design and was tasked with making a table runner or bed runner using that tool and one of Island Batik's beautiful new collections.

I am on the first day of the hop! Come back on Tuesday (February 4th) to see what I made with the beautiful Botanical Dreams collection.

Each Friday, Island Batik will open a new giveaway for a fat quarter bundle of one of the featured collections. Additionally, many of the ambassadors will have bonus giveaways on their day of the hop. Here is the full schedule of the Runner Up blog hop.