If you are dreaming of summer or just need a project to brighten up your winter days, check out Poppy!

Have you always wondered how these picture quilts go together? Here is a fun project to learn the basics so you might even decide to go on and design something of you own! This one is all straight seam sewing, that goes together quickly in easy sections.

INNOVATIONS # 08754 Poppy! 24 x 24″ wall hanging pattern $9.00

Cover quilt for sale – $300.00

Workshop sample quilt for sale – $300.00

It’s January so the seed catalogs are piling up and I am starting to think about spring and new gardens. It’s a weird winter with the Forsythia already blooming confusedly in the rain! We know it is much too early to be planting outside, but not a moment too soon to dream of a flower garden quilt to while away the hours until Spring really arrives!

This is an original 12″ block design that I gave to 20 friends, along with a piece of the colorful batik and the instructions to combine it with coordinating colors from their own stashes and some yellow for each block, for a scrap quilt. When I got all 20 blocks back, I arranged them and added some flower blocks to make a Garden Path. A border of the starting batik gives a nice finish! In case you would prefer a one fabric background, that yardage is also included.

Garden Path – INNOVATIONS #06848 62 x 74″ $9.00

The machine quilted Cover Sample quilt is for sale, $1500.00. Email for details.

I’m not doing so well, am I?  With classes ended for this semester you’d think I’d have more time, but it’s not happening. It seems like there are so many things vying for the available minutes; meetings and appointments, shopping, wrapping, decorating, entertaining, plus all of those daily tasks that are never really done. Same for you, I’m sure!

I grab minutes when I can to try and finish the heron quilt. It’s deadline is in January and I have the next project bouncing around in my head. I laid it out after yesterday’s session to examine it from the back and found a few spots needing more quilting, plus the majority of the sky left to do, but the end is within sight finally!

I thought Focus Friday might help me focus more on this blog, and it has to some extent but I don’t want it to dominate and turn my blog into a sales venue, as it has been doing. I will try to do better. I did meet last week’s deadline on Facebook, but it didn’t make it over here to blog land. This week’s Focus Friday quilt is “Strip Trip”. I love this quilt. Not only is it pretty, it is so easy. There are only six different fabrics and they are cut into large units of color that get sewn together into a large block and then sliced into strips to be re-arranged and sewn together for the top. A great way to use the bright large contemporary prints, or even in solids for a more “modernâ€� look.

Strip Trip – INNOVATIONS #06447 approximately 56 X 71â€� Pattern: $9.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

The Cover Sample quilt is for sale, machine quilted, $1500.00. Email me for details.

The weather has taken a decidedly wintry turn with freezing cold rain and icy conditions. Time to start thinking about a nice cozy quilt project to take you into winter. Here is just the thing to use up a lot of scraps!

Focus Friday for this week is “Scrapmagic Starsâ€�, a true scrap quilt made up of repetitions of just one 12â€� block. Even the border is just more blocks colored in such a way as to imply a border by concentrating more dark fabrics there. I’ve placed my lightest fabrics toward the center to make it ‘glow’. The corners of your blocks done in contrasting color make the stars appear like magic when the blocks come together! So fun and easy!!

Depending on the fabrics you choose, you can get a totally different look as illustrated by the baby quilt shown below.

The pattern contains instructions for five sizes.Baby-36 X 48�, Crib-48 x 60�, Full-72 x 84�,
Queen-84 x 96, King- 96 x 108

“Scrapmagic Starsâ€� – Pattern: $8.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

The cover sample bed quilt is no longer available but the baby quilt, machine quilted, is $200.00. Email me for details.

Since we had Veteran’s Day this week I wanted to feature a patriotic quilt for Focus Friday, but I used that one, “From The Ashes�, last month for 9/11. I decided to go with “Kitty Corner Cats� , not because it is patriotic, but because it is shown on the cover in red, white and blue. This wall hanging features easy applique, either by hand or machine, on an eye-catching pieced background of catty-wampus blocks.

Fun whether you choose to do it in the traditional or the hot contemporary color scheme, or something totally different to match your decor, cats and quilts always go together!

KittyCorner Cats – INNOVATIONS #02332 approximately 35 X 35â€� â€� Pattern: $9.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

Both Sample quilts are for sale, machine quilted, they are $300.00 each. Email me for details.

Focus Friday for this week is “So Much Thread�, an easy introduction to picture piecing pattern that would be perfect for your sewing studio. Or your friend’s sewing studio! Quilters can never have too much thread!

It’s not too late to crank out some Christmas gifts with this quick and easy design, it’s all straight seams. Just choose three stripey effect fabrics for the thread, two shades of tan for the spools and a smidge of black, plus a background Presented with two different orientations it will be easy to choose the one that fits your space.

So Much Thread – approximately 46 X 25â€� or 28 X 41â€� Pattern: $9.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

Both Cover Sample quilts are for sale, machine quilted, they are $300.00 each. Email me for details.

“Goose on the Loose” is one of my earlier patterns that continues to be a best seller. Now at the end of October, I am reminded of how it came to be as the wild geese are flying overhead. They don’t stay in those nice orderly V’s as they are usually depicted, but rather they tend to ravel out into tangled skeins as they constantly switch positions, honking loudly at each other as they go. Usually a quilt gets named after it is finished, but this one had a name before it was even started. I looked for a block that would portray the vision, maybe with Flying Geese blocks, but instead I settled on Fox and Goose, which doesn’t even contain Flying Geese. Instead it is worked from half square triangle units and what can be easier than that! Half of the blocks have gray sky centers and half have autumn leaf colors and it is the way that they are sewed together that gives the effect of the geese straying from their formation. I love to make it so you have to really look for where the block is, makes people think it was harder than it really was! Of course that is all laid out for you in this very easy pattern.

The pattern contains instructions for both a wall hanging and a bed quit. There is only about half a box of patterns left and it will not be reprinted, so act fast if this is a quilt you would like to make.

Goose On The Loose – approximately 36 X 42â€� or 72 X 84â€� Pattern: $8.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

Cover Sample quilt for sale, lovingly hand quilted, a steal at $400.00 Email me for details.

The PRIZE winning bed quilt, made from batik fabrics and free motion machine quilted in swirls and maple leaves can be seen in the Large Quilts Gallery on my website.  It is also for sale.

Did it again! Friday got away from me! This week I will focus on the “New Leaves Wallhanging” which is a take-off on “Third Weekend in October”, that wonderful autumn leaf quilt that I showed you last week. Not long after that pattern was released, I started getting questions about how to adapt it for a wall hanging. To do that, you would have to redesign two edges to get that neat border effect, but then you would be left with not so many leaves, in the smaller version. So I decided to design a new version, which is based on a smaller leaf size so you get enough of them to be interesting. Plus, of course, those four nice borders with the overlapping leaves. For my sample I used all batiks and arranged the colors as a progression through the seasons, from spring through fall. But feel free to color yours any way you want!

New Leaves Wallhanging  INNOVATIONS # 99218  Approx 39.5 X 49    $8.00
To order click on Patterns in the side bar.

New Leaves Sample Quilt   SOLD

Ooops! Focus Friday was supposed to keep me on track, but we did a road trip on Friday and I totally forgot! Then I got busy over the weekend. This was supposed to be a no brainer, since it was the third weekend in October and I happen to have a pattern by that very name!!

I designed Third Weekend In October to be a contest quilt and it made the rounds and did very well. It is all pieced, partially using unique foundation papers and my quilt is all hand quilted. I started getting requests for the pattern, but I resisted for several years because this quilt which is meant to look like fallen leaves, has no repeated block and I thought that quilters would be frightened of the graph that lays out the design. You work the individual units, then sew them together into nine patch blocks. From there on out you are in familiar quilter territory – sew the blocks into rows and the rows into a queen sized quilt top.

I finally gave in and produced the pattern and I am so glad I did! It has been my all-time best seller and continues to claim that distinction, having sold well over 30,000 copies!!

Third Weekend In October – approx. 85 x 110″  pattern $8.00 To order, click on Patterns in the side bar.
The sample quilt is not for sale.

A lovely autumn scene, the fat cat dreaming in the fall sunshine with colorful autumn leaves falling all around. A day just like today! Very easy to do using templates and half square triangle units. Rotary cutting, easy piecing, with an easy tip using freezer paper to get the cat’s stripes just right!

FAT CAT DREAMING – $9.00
Innovations # 03236 approximately 35 x 35″

To order the pattern, click on PATTERNS in the side bar and scroll down.  The pattern sample quilt is also for sale, only $300.00, email for details.