Favorite Finishes

I haven't been much of a blogger over the years, but now that I am "retired" I seem to have A LOT more time to waste doing absolutely nothing  spend sewing and organizing my projects.  I've been digging through my messy and overwhelming stash of fabric and projects, trying to come up with a plan of how I'm going to tackle this mess!   FYI... I am planning a HUGE de-stash in August -- basically a buy my stash sale!  Hopefully there are ladies out there that would love to take home some of the projects I am never going to finish.  More info to come soon...

Anyway...can I be honest here for a minute... Since closing the shop a few weeks ago, I seem to get a little bored and I truly miss seeing and talking to all my friends and customers every day, so this blog is a means for me to keep in touch with all of you.  The great thing about social media is-- you can choose to read what you want, ignore the boring stuff, look at all the pics, and then delete it and move on.  Perfect right?  So what I am trying to achieve here in these blog posts is to give you a little inspiration, keep you up to date with what I am working on, show a lot of pics and maybe share a few tutorials and how-to's.  Please feel free to scroll through the pics, read what you want, ignore the boring stuff,  delete it and move on.  I would like to hear what you have to say however, so I encourage you to leave me comments on what you like or dislike.  Thank you in advance and please bear with me on this journey...

Now on to some of my favorite quilts and other projects that I have finished recently.  I realized that if you ever visited us at Quilter's Haven, you got to see all of these quilts in person, but for those of you who don't have the luxury of visiting a quilt shop regularly, you never get to see my quilts and projects, so here is a little snippet of some of my favorite finishes...

First up is Gobstoppers...

Gobstoppers is our 2015 Utah Shop Hop Quilt.  

The theme this year was Quilts over Broadway and we chose Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so an everlasting Gobstopper was the inspiration for the blocks in this quilt.  I used Kona Mint green for the setting triangles, borders and binding and I really love how the solid mint sets off the scrappy blocks.

Next is an oldie, but a goodie...

Strawberry Social by the Pattern Basket

I made Strawberry Social well over a year ago, but it's still one of my favorite quilts!   I made this cheery quilt while we were living in Northern Michigan and it warmed my heart when it was -35 degrees outside.  The perfect spring project to brighten your day

And I just had to make a matching quilt to compliment Strawberry Social, or maybe it was the other way around,  my memory doesn't serve me well here, I think it was frozen and I just kept sewing my fingers to the bone just to stay warm and busy.  Regardless of which quilt came first...

Blossom by Fig Tree Quilts

Blossom by Fig Tree Quilts, made with a beautiful yet simple green & white color scheme.  I used Kona Snow and RJR Old Green (I believe it is called)  I previewed several different greens and nothing seemed to look just right.  So out came the color cards.  Have you ever had something specific in mind and nothing seems to work.  I wanted to make this quilt for months but I just couldn't find the perfect green.  I even considered making it yellow and white for just a second, but again, I guess I'm really picky because nothing worked.  Nothing worked until I pulled out the RJR solids card, and that old green was exactly what I wanted...at last a winner!!!  and I absolutely love this quilt.

I had three strawberry blocks left-over from the strawberry social quilt, and just couldn't bring myself to throw them out, so the little pillow came to fruition.  The pinwheel blocks at the bottom were the left-over scraps from the half square triangles on the strawberry blocks.

and here is the trio together with the Weekender bag that the amazing Jessie made and taught as a class at the shop.


More recently, I have been working on my Instagram Gardenvale mini quilt swap  #gardenvaleminiquiltswap and my daughter Lindsey @linneypooh is the organizer for this swap.  I'm new to this whole swap thing and I don't know if I will do it again because I am having a hard time parting with the mini quilt I made...

The cathedral window is the Pit-Bull of the quilting world...it always gets a bad rap!  The block is not the problem, it just takes a lot of time, so if you are into quick and easy, this might not be the project for you.

I can't show you the entire quilt because it is supposed to be a secret until you mail it to your partner, so here's a little sneak peek.  This is my second attempt at making a cathedral window quilt.  I followed the tutorial on the Moda Bake Shop called Charming Window Pillows by Angela Nash.  The instructions are very clear and there are a lot of pictures which helped make this attempt of this sometimes difficult block a little easier.  Don't get me wrong, this quilt is far from perfect, but I am happy with it...I'm just not sure if my partner will get it or not...I may have to keep this one!


I'm paper-piecing right now, which I love to do, and hope to show you how it turns out next time...so stay tuned!

Happy Quilting!
~Joni