Rockport Quilt Show

We went Friday, but I’ve been busy with other things and didn’t manage to sit down and write a post. First of all, it was cold! It took a little over an hour to get there plus another few minutes to find the Presbyterian church. They had antique quilts on display in the sanctuary. 

I wasn’t really in the mood to take pictures, but I did enjoy looking at the quilts. The show quilts were in another part of the church. I don’t know what it was—maybe a fellowship hall? It just sort of wound around and down some halls. I tried to take a few pictures—I did like some of the more modern quilts. 

I wanted to get a picture of this double Irish chain….or is it a triple? I’m not sure. The way the place was configured, this was a high traffic area, and I had to come back a few times before I could get an unobstructed picture. 

So, this was apparently a judged show, but I’m not sure how the winners were chosen. I saw quilts that I knew were a kit and not that well executed get higher ratings than something beautifully constructed and completely original. Of course, I wasn’t a judge and that is just my opinion but I did wonder how they made their choices.

I enjoyed visiting the vendors, but I didn’t buy very much: three patterns and some replacement blades for my big rotary cutter. 

I would definitely like to make these patterns, but I truly don’t know when I’ll have the time. That seems to be the story of my life.

We did get to have lunch at Charlotte Plummers. The gumbo was perfect for a cold day. 

It was only a cup, but I had the salad bar also, so it was enough! 

SAHRR Round #2

Happy February and welcome to Round #2 of the SAHRR. The prompt for Round 2? "Make mine a double." How funny! Last week I had added a double hourglass border for my Round 1.

It would have been the perfect choice for Round 2! I am always either a little ahead or a little behind. 

I had to think about it a while....I was lacking on inspiration. I was hoping to just add a solid border of the focus fabric. 

Reba agreed with me! (She wanted to play and wouldn't stay out of my way.) I knew I wanted to use the focus fabric, and I knew I didn't want to use white and finally settled on a strip of the focus fabric with a narrower contrast strip on either side of it. A "double stripe" of something scrappy. 

The focus fabric is primarily blue and aqua.....I thought the opposite colors on the color wheel (orange and red-orange) would be a nice contrast. I wasn't sure how much orange I had, but more than I thought.

Why does a fightin' Texas Aggie girl have so much orange in the stash? I do like orange; it's such a happy color. I cut up some pieces and sewed them into strips. Then I added the orange strips to either side of the focus fabric.

And here's my "double stripe" border. I'm still trying to decide whether I want this square or rectangular. I need to decide soon, I think. Right now, the measurement is 52" x 52".

The Last Week of Blues

Well, the last week of blues for the 2026 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I’m sure we will get to make more blues next year. There are only so many colors to pick from, so they will continue to make an appearance every year. And the scraps continue to accumulate every year. Speaking of every year, I was cleaning out some of my stacks and found some blocks from a previous RSC. And, there are some blue ones!

I got way too excited when I found these! I didn’t do the RSC last year, so I’m thinking they were from 2023 or 2024. Anyway, I got excited enough to make some more.

This block was from s Stashbuster challenge that I never did finish. I’m going to try and get more made. I need to figure out what I did with the ones made in previous years. I should have other colors somewhere. I may get a few more blue ones made today before I move on to the next color. 

I’m linking this post to SoScrappy. 

Just for fun, I made a collage of all my January blocks. 

I am going to try and maintain the momentum for the following months, if possible. 

Free Pattern Friday

I was looking for a pattern to use some (a bunch) of charm squares. I had a vague idea what I was but didn’t know if I could find a pattern. While I was looking, I found this one:

It’s called Four Patch Charm Quilt.

It’s not what I was looking for, but I like it and would consider making it at some point. It requires 3 charm packs and 2-3/4 yard of background to make a 63” x 69” quilt. It’s so pretty with the batiks and navy background, but it would also work for scrap squares. I think I’m about out of navy background, but I will look for some today at the quilt show. 

Have a good weekend! I’ll be back tomorrow with my Rainbow Scrap Challenge update. 

Cold Weather Sewing

Okay, I didn’t enjoy the cold temperatures, but I was able to get quite a bit done. I cleaned house nearly every day—not finished, but I was happy to make a little progress. 

While cleaning up my sewing area, I uncovered two boxes of 5” squares.

I have 7 or 8 of these boxes that are full. I was trying to figure out what I could make that would use up a lot of squares and came up with this: 

It went together pretty fast, but after I took the picture, I noticed I had messed up on the bottom right corner. Darn! At least I figured it out before I put the border on. That’s what I kept telling myself while I was ripping and resewing. Here it is fixed and with a border. 

The size is approximately 63” x 74”. It took 102 of the 5” squares, and I was able to empty a box! 

The quilt was so quick and easy, I may end up making another one. I will also continue to look for inspiration for other quilts that can use up more squares. It would be great to empty another box! 

My sewing time yesterday was spent on the random sized scraps I dug up while I was straightening up around the machine. I sewed a few 6” blocks.

This is 8 that I finished. There are about 8 more is various stages of completion. It’s fun and doesn’t require much thought, so I was happy. 

I was hungry for something hot and made some ramen for lunch.

This was a last resort. I called Kikko’s (Ramen shop), and they were closed until today. Mine’s not authentic, but it was actually pretty good. 

The weather is warming up today, so it’s back to the real world and no more holing up in the house. There is a quilt show in Rockport Friday that I’m hoping to go to; I looked at the weather forecast for Friday and it should be fine, although it’s supposed to be cold again Saturday and Sunday. 

SAHRR Round #1

The round one prompt was released Wednesday, but I was busy getting ready for quilt guild and then attending quilt guild, so I got a little bit of a late start. It’s okay, I’m caught up now. The prompt was hour glass, and I like hour glass blocks, but it wasn’t really inspiring me. Well, never one to leave well enough alone, I decided to juj it up a bit and make a double hour glass. 

I know how to make a double hour glass, but I didn’t know how wide to cut my strips to get a certain size block. Nor did I know what size block I wanted to make. I tried to google it, but I kept getting the measurements for a regular hour glass. Never mind, I would have to experiment and see what would happen. I ended up cutting 2.5” strips, and the blocks came out 8.5” unfinished. The center block is 24”, so I could make the math work without having to add extra coping strips. Bonus! 

I am trying to use scraps, but I had a yard of this yummy plum-colored Jot Dot, and I have plenty of the Toscana background.

The 8” blocks are a little large, but that way I didn’t have to make so many. Here’s my Round One all finished:

I like the way it turned out, although I’m not sure I love all the white. Oh, and don’t look too closely at all the points! There are a bunch of them, and they are not all perfect. I’m now at 40” x 40”, and I will need to decide at some point if I want to add something to the top and bottom to make it more rectangular. It has the potential to turn out pretty large, but that’s okay.

I’m linking this to Brenda@Songbird Designs.

A BOM

In 2025, I didn’t do the BOM from A Quilting Life, but Betty did. She printed out all the clues and saved them for me in case I get a sudden need to make it! She is an enabler! Here’s a picture of her finished top: 

I probably should have ironed it before I took the picture! She is busy stashbusting and used all scraps. The border fabric doesn’t show up well in my pic, but it’s a print we both fell in love with when we were out shopping one day. We each bought 2 yards so we could use it for borders. I haven’t used mine yet. 

I was able to get the borders on my 8 happy blocks.

I will try to get them in the mail as soon as this weather breaks. The deadline on these is the end of February, so I finished with time to spare. Here’s a link to the post if you want to participate. They are fun to make. 

Did I mention it’s cold here? Thirty degrees as I’m typing this. I stayed home most of the day yesterday and got a lot of sewing done. I thought about making some cookies, but I managed to talk myself out of it. Being cooped up indoors is not good for my diet, and if I had homemade cookies here, I wouldn’t have any restraint! 

I’ll see if I can get some projects completed this afternoon. Round 1 of my Stay at Home round Robin is closed to finished, and I have a scrappy charm pack quilt I want to work on.