Today we present the remaining projects by the QM Scrap Squad; they are scrappy versions of Raspberry Dessert by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. Here is Julie’s quilt which appears in the brand-new May/June issue of Quiltmaker.

Ruth used a striking color recipe! The teals and browns play together in a way that is rich and full.

She added voluptuous quilting which further enhances the design.

Ruth gave this quilt as a wedding gift. What couple wouldn’t be thrilled?!

Carol went with a multi-colored recipe for this project.

To me this version says “autumn campfire” or “back to school.”

And here is yet a different look, again with many colors but oh-so-unique from Linda:

And last but certainly not least we have Jane’s quilt. She rotated the design so it is no longer on point. What a great idea. And look at that braided border! So much fun.

The Scrap Squad has more pictures and comments of its own at the QM Scrap Squad Group on Quilters Club of America. You’re invited to visit there. To post your own photos and further participate on QCA, just take a minute to register (it’s fast and free).

Read more about the Scrap Squad here.

The QM Scrap Squad has been busily sewing on their scrappy versions of Julie Herman’s Raspberry Dessert.

You’ll find this quilt in the May/June Quiltmaker which begins mailing to subscribers today. The Scrap Squad got the pattern February 1 and took off like wildfire! I am so excited to show you what they’ve done. There is a giveaway on each SS member’s blog: you could win one of Julie’s Herman’s new patterns, and they are awesome!!! Please click on each quilt to read more and enter that giveaway.

First, a refresher: QM Scrap Squad is eight select readers who make scrappy versions from one pattern in each issue. The idea is to give you inspiration to use fabrics you already own so you can bust that stash you’ve been building!

And now, drum roll please, here are Scrap Squad versions of Raspberry Dessert; each photo links to the maker’s blog or webpage where you can read more and leave comments for giveaways:

This gorgeous blue and yellow version is by Kimberly. It's all sunshine and blue skies!

Here's the full shot!

This cheerful fruit-flavored version is by Donna. Isn't the border a nice accent?

Donna included this photo showing how she switched centers to one with more contrast. A good decision!

Dionne's Rainbow Raspberry, in which the colors seem to travel across the quilt in succession.

Going the extra mile, Dionne made a springtime runner for her mantel from the same pattern.

Talk about switching gears! This is Pat's quilt in colors the Squad dubbed "grilled cheese and tomato soup."

That’s a whole lot of eye candy, eh? I don’t want to overwhelm your senses,
so come back soon for the rest of the Scrap Squad’s amazing scrappy sensations and more fun giveaways!

Learn more about the Scrap Squad.

Visit the Scrap Squad Group on QCA.

See the Scrap Squad’s earlier project from the March/April issue.

Leave a comment here, too by midnight Thursday, March 31 and be entered to win fabric from Robert Kaufman! The winner of Quilter’s Linen fat quarters from Robert Kaufman is Mary from Missouri.

The newly-formed QM Scrap Squad’s first assignment has been very exciting! Each of the eight members made her own scrappy version of Rhapsody in Bloom from March/April (No. 138), a design by Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Design.

The featured quilt (above) is elegant in subdued shades of burgundy, purple, gold and green. The fabric line is Ella by Kathy Brown of The Teacher’s Pet for Red Rooster Fabrics.

Look what happened when Scrap Squad members dug into their stashes and created their own versions!

We got this:

Kim's version of Rhapsody in Bloom

And we got this:

Dionne's version of Rhapsody in Bloom

And we got this:

Carol's version of Rhapsody in Bloom

Aren’t they wonderful? And so very different from the original. That’s the idea behind the Scrap Squad: to show you ways to combine the fabric you may already own with Quiltmaker patterns for stunning results.

Hop on over to QM Scrap Squad to see all of the quilts and to hear what these people had to say about this project.

Should you make your own version, you can use the group to share your own photos. We love to see what readers are making with our patterns!

Quiltmaker is pleased to announce the QM Scrap Squad 2011. This select team of eight enthusiastic readers will make their own scrappy versions of one pattern from each 2011 issue of Quiltmaker. You can enjoy their work by visiting the QM Scrap Squad group on Quilters Club of America: see photos in the media gallery, discuss related topics and share your own scrappy quilts.

If you’re not familiar with QCA, please see this post.

These ladies have interesting blogs, too. They’ll sometimes talk about Scrap Squad but they always have other quilty stuff going on, too. You might want to pay them a visit.

The Scrap Squad is:

Ruth in Indiana (see Ruth’s blog here)

Linda in California (see Linda’s blog here)

Kim in New York (see Kim’s blog here)

Donna in Arkansas (see Donna’s brand new blog here!)

Dionne in Washington (see Dionne’s blog here)

Jane in Tennessee (see Jane’s blog here)

Carol in Ohio (see Carol’s quilt page here)

Pat in New Brunswick, Canada (see Pat’s blog here)

I spent a lot of time on this little quilt. The paper foundations look like this:

Four foundations are joined to make the block.

There are about 35 seams in each of the 16 blocks. It wasn’t exactly a one-weekend project.

So by the time I finished the top, I was pretty much “over it.” I was in a hurry to start quilting. I rushed through the basting. I pulled the backing taut (much too taut) and used a minimum of safety pins. I slapped it down and started quilting—I had an idea that excited me so I jumped right in.

Uh-oh.

Ugly, ugly bumps.

This quilt began developing lumps and bumps and the ugliest puffiness ever. (It was much worse than it looks in the photos.)

I soldiered on, thinking that more quilting would help.

More quilting did not help.

I brought it to the Quiltmaker office, to see what my co-workers thought. One said she’d take it out. Another said she’d leave it in. A third was silent. (Probably a bad sign.)

I really did not want to rip, so I quilted some more. Flatness my friend, where are you?? Nowhere on this quilt, that’s for sure.

I finally faced up to it. I was never going to be happy with this quilt. I had invested enough time that I didn’t want to finish things up by doing a crummy job of quilting. It was time to rip.

A blind hem stitch had been used for the quilting.

I tried a couple of different seam rippers, and found that because of the zigzag stitches which are quite long, ripping wasn’t going to be as bad as I’d thought. I could carefully slide the ripper under each one easily and the entire job wouldn’t take more than a few hours.

So here I sit: my favorite chair, my favorite music on Pandora radio,  my seam ripper and my quilt. I’ve started frogging (you know: ripit, ripit). One and one-half TV shows later, I once again have three distinct parts instead of a lumpy quilt sandwich.

You can see from the leftover thread in the batting that I was quite far along with the quilting before deciding to rip it out.

So—here we go again. Sometimes we learn things the hard way.

What quilty things have you learned the hard way? Leave a comment by midnight Thursday, Dec. 30 and I’ll pick a random winner to receive a bundle of fat quarters. The winner is #66 Jessica C over at thebossyquilter.blogspot.com. Congratulations! A fat quarter bundle will be coming your way.

Good-Natured Warning: Making These Little Blocks is Like Eating M&Ms…Hard to Stop!

I started making these blocks about five years ago as “Leaders & Enders” a la Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.com, but I had so much fun making them–they soon took over my Brain-Free Sewing Zone. Darlene Zimmerman used this block in her Bloomin’ 30s design for Quiltmaker’s Small Quilts last summer.

Little Christmas Windmills

Here is one little 4″ block:

There is only one patch size in this block: 1.5″ x 2.5″

Each block takes 4 patches of Color #1 and 4 patches of Color #2.

Join each Color #1 patch to a Color #2 patch.

Arranging the patches like they are in the next photo will help you begin to see the block design.

Join these into pairs like so:

You can also look at it this way—you sew both pairs together in the same exact way. In the picture above, one is rotated to show the block design. In the picture below, they are oriented identically. This is how I sew them together—it’s easier for me to make them match than to try and visualize the block design and sew them as shown above.

Rotate one and sew the sections together to complete the block.

Make as many blocks as you want and sew them together into rows. The little quilt shown is set 6 x 7 for a total of 42 blocks. I cut strips 2″ wide for the borders.

In the Brain-Free Sewing Zone, I make lots of these little blocks. Whenever I’m cutting strips for anything, I always cut a 2.5″ strip too and throw it into my pile. So I have lots of 2.5″ strips ready.

This is a very small portion of the 2.5" strips I have cut.

When I need Brain-Free Activity, I cut the strips at 1.5″ intervals to give me the patches I need for this block. I have thousands of these patches, 1.5″ x 2.5″.

I have made them into hundreds of these Little Windmill blocks.

When I want a Brain-Free Project, I think of a color scheme and pull blocks in those colors. It always seems to work! Here I pulled fabrics while thinking “yellow and orange.”

For this group, I pulled blocks while thinking “blue and green.”

Here’s a completed quilt I did a while back, thinking “blue, green and purple.”

Have some fun making Little Windmills of your own. If you think “bright holiday colors,” maybe your quilt will come out something like this one. It’s next to be quilted, so I can hang it up in the next few days—because the Countdown to Christmas continues!

Diane's Little Christmas Windmills quilt top

Cabin Constellation

It was made from a pattern called Cabin Constellation which first appeared in the May/June ’05 issue (No. 103).

Peggy Stern from Baxter, Minnesota and Kathy O’Toole from Oakland, California are sisters who made the quilt together, in spite of living more than 1500 miles apart. It’s one of many projects they have worked on together through a system of long-distance quilting they have developed over the past 12 years.

Along with a cousin, Marilyn Petersen from Watertown, South Dakota, they sometimes have several projects going at once.

It takes the three women about three years to finish a quilt together. So far they have made about nine quilts and given away three as wedding gifts to young couples in their shared families.

Granddaughter Latice and her new husband

Cabin Constellation became a wedding gift for Kathy’s granddaughter Latice and her new husband.

Both sisters had been saying they wanted to use up some of their scraps. When Peggy saw this pattern in Quiltmaker, she thought it would be more fun than most patterns because it had more than one type of block. She suggested to her sister that they make the quilt. Kathy had already seen Cabin Constellation in Quiltmaker and liked it too.

Kathy picked the colors by looking through many books and narrowing the color scheme to a combination that appeared mostly in antique quilts from the mid- to late-1800s. Both sisters pulled fabrics from their stashes, which differ considerably.

They exchanged enough fabrics so that each had some from both stashes. They made extra blocks so that in the end, some could be eliminated if necessary.

Kathy says their tastes in fabrics and designs are very different but they each admire what the other can do. “It’s nice to bring two totally different sets of eyes to the same project and to use each other’s fabrics. Most importantly, the joint project gave us some alone time during visits when we were surrounded by other family members. These sessions together alone bring back the good old days of playing paper dolls when we were kids.”

The women as children in South Dakota

The women grew up on a farm near Watertown, South Dakota. Along with Marilyn, they belonged to a girls club organized by their mothers, through which they learned to sew, embroider and bake cakes and cookies. Like many others, they discovered quilting when America celebrated her Bicentennial in 1976.

A September wedding in Wisconsin

Peggy’s son Tad was married in September and Marilyn’s son Bruce will be married in January. Each couple will choose a quilt when the family gathers next for the holidays. By that time, another cousin who is Marilyn’s sister, Liz from Dallas, will have been added to the circle. The women are learning to chat online and to hold conference calls for virtual quilt meetings.

“This is about more than quilting. We are trying to keep a family together in an era where we are geographically scattered. I love my local five-member quilt group in the San Francisco Bay area, but I value even more the time with this virtual family group that dates back to childhood,” says Kathy.

What’s your long-distance quilting story? Have you made a quilt for a special occasion? We always love hearing in the comments what our readers are doing.

Cabin Constellation will be available for purchase as a downloadable pdf in the near future. We’ll announce its debut here.

I decided to play around and see what happened. The most obvious thing was to sew the rectangular patches together.

I made three strips like the one above.

I knew I wanted to use this fabric for some sashing. I love those little birds!

I sewed them together and liked what was happening:

I trimmed it up (no stressing over the irregularities) and started auditioning other possibilities.

Eventually decided against the red polka dots. A little too intense.

Landed here. I have an idea for the edge treatment, but first I’ll quilt the whole thing as a rectangle.

I love quilt basting spray for small quilts like this. I use just a few safety pins. I treated this as a practice piece for machine quilting. I tried all kinds of different ideas and it was really fun and relaxing. Here’a side shot of some clamshell-type quilting in the borders. It’s freeform, no marking and no stressing. I used pink thread.

Now I take the plunge: freeform cutting of the edges into soft, flowing curves.

I love it!  It’s just what the doctor ordered. In my next post, I’ll share a great tool for cutting bias binding strips, because of course on a curvy edge, bias binding works best.

You need big squares cut 9.5″ x 9.5″

You need small squares cut 3.5″ x 3.5″

You need rectangles cut 3.5″ x 9.5″

Join them as shown below.

I created a “fake” border by making all the perimeter patches dark. I like this effect a lot and will do it again sometime.

I only auditioned one border fabric, because it was so funky and unpredictable that I just had to use it.  It’s a FreeSpirit from about five years ago, designed for a line by Terrie Hancock Mangat called Fiesta. The print is called Pie Party. Isn’t that fun?

The people in the border are just wonderful!

So are the dogs!

I didn’t want to lose the craziness of the scene, so I cut the borders 11″ wide. I like this! Even though I had several yards of the fabric (off a clearance table), I had to piece the top and bottom border strips; I also needed to add corner posts.

In some ways I think this is hideous. But I also love it because it is so weird. Have you made a hideous/funky quilt? We’d love to see it.

Now to think up some off-the-wall quilting designs and calm down the edges with a simple binding fabric. I’ll keep you posted.

Let me tell you a little bit about Bonnie. She’s a prolific quilter, a lot of fun and she makes great scrap quilts. She has a workable system for using her scraps (Scrap User’s System in Jan/Feb ’09) and for making one quilt while she’s working on another (Leaders and Enders in Jan/Feb ’08). If you ever have the chance to hear Bonnie speak, go! When I heard her speak, I sat there thinking “I can do this–I should do this–It’d be so simple to set up a system like hers.” She’s inspiring.

I’m so glad that we’ve been able to introduce Bonnie to QM readers and, in our July/Aug ’09 issue we’re starting a mystery quilt designed exclusively for us. It’s called Christmas Lights and part 1 is now available in the magazine.

Special Offer: If you’ve missed any of the previous Quiltmaker issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, we’ve got a Bonnie Hunter Special on sale now. You get 4 issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, including July/August ’09 to start the Mystery series all for $10.99.

Book Review + Giveaway: Bonnie is also the author of a book called Scraps & Shirttails: Reuse, Re-Purpose, Recycle! The Art of Quilting Green, published by Kansas City Star Books. This book is filled with Bonnie’s ideas to recycle everything from stash fabric to thrift store finds. Bonnie will help you tame your scraps and turn them into quilts, and the book has 12 fun patterns as well. Leave a comment mentioning your favorite quilt-related blog  by 12 noon Mountain time on Friday, June 19 and I’ll select 5 different people to win a copy of Bonnie’s book!