I Made a Dozen Quilts in a Dozen Weeks

As we were nearing the end of the first quarter at the beginning of last week, I was thinking about how many quilts I had made already an because it was a good number, I made a bigger push to finish even more quilts. I have recorded a show and tell video and am in the process of editing it now. II will publish it on my Quilt and Color YouTube channel when it is finished in a day or two.

I've shown you a lot of finishes here throughout the year, but I haven't shown you all the finishes yet. I will post them here since I always publish my finishes here, but I want to get the video out first.

I finished all four Dresden Plate quilts. 

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 14

After the big rush, I wanted to take a break from quilting, so I didn't quilt on April 1.  Then I remembered that I also want to quilt every day.  With my rules for the 15 Minutes to Quilt challenge, I am allowed to make up the time as long as it is within the same week. So I made up the time, and will say that I have quilted every day. 

The first part of the week was in a finishing frenzy, and the second half of the week was more relaxed, working on a much needed cleaning of the space, and making more sawtooth stars.

• 15 minute days / March = 31 / 31 days
• 15 minute days / April = 4 / 4
• 15 minute days / 2026 = 94 / 94 days
• Success rate = 100%

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15 Minutes to Stitch

Frenzy for 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 13

 It's the last week of the quarter, so I have been working at a frenzy pace to meet my quarter goals.  This year, I made 6 projects for Project Quilting, and one of them, the Dresden Plate, wound up being four quilts. I plan to sew those together, potholder style, so it is one quilt, but for now, it is four quilts. I also made some more Pocket Hugs or a tutorial. Since there are so many little projects, I thought it would be nice to be able to say I made 13 projects in 13 weeks. 

This means I have to finish up the things I have outstanding, like quilting and binding the Dresden Plate quilts, and while I am at it, I have a few small quilts that still need quilting. I am usually good at quilting the small quilts right away, but last year, time just got away from me, and I have a pileup of small quilts. I figure they would be quick enough to finish and add to my finish count for the first quarter.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 13

 

This week, I made more Green Sawtooth Star blocks.  Even though I know this quilt won't be able to be finished in the first quarter, they kept drawing me to them to make just another one. And just like potato chips, I can't make just one.  The fabric combinations are really intriguing to see how each one will add to the quilt. I am making a scrappy quilt, even though it uses my newer fabric.  For some reason, I have been very selective in fabric choices for this quilt, and so far, my older greens don't look like they will fit. The fabric combinations are really intriguing to see how each one will add to the quilt.

  I did make some small progress on Lupine and Laughter blocks, mostly so I can get them finished and off the design wall to make room for the Sawtooth Stars.

• 15 minute days / March = 28 / 28 days
• 15 minute days / 2026 = 87 / 87 days
• Success rate = 100%

It may seem like there is a green tinge in my photos, but no, all of my projects definitely veer in the teal range. I did have to brighten them since it was already dark when I took the photos.  I didn't notice that green projects happening, except that the new projects keep coming from fabric that is already on the table. It doesn't seem like a forbidden new quilt if I am not actually looking for fabric to make a new quilt. The fabric on the table just tells me what kind of quilt it wants to be.

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15 Minutes to Stitch

Project Reveal: Elsie the Elephant

 The theme for the Project Quilting challenge this week is A Happy Handful. We were to make something small, that would fit in your hand.

I tend to have a hard time keeping my projects small and simple, so I thought it would be nice to make a hanging, Something like a row of prosperity hens but maybe something else.  Since I have a bunch of elephants in the house, I figure I could just make those. The picture is a set of elephants I already own, but I wasn't planning on making anything that elaborate. And I am only making one elephant for this challenge, not the whole row.  It can be a bowl filler or a hanging, depending on how it goes with one.

So I dug up some directions and made one.  There are lots of directions; this one had a nice visible pattern that I liked so I printed the template and got to work.  Some of them, like this one, doesn't quite explain everything for someone like me who has trouble sewing straight lines and hasn't made a lot of three dimensional stuff.  I also didn't read the directions as carefully as I should have, because the tail is on the wrong side. I didn't know it at the time I took this photo, but I sewed the other side of the legs wrong.

I fixed the tail and some seams that were too small and turned it right side out.  The curves are really tight and needed to be reinforced.

I stuffed it with batting scraps.  This piece uses a lot of batting, which is a good thing.  Although the supply isn't technically unlimited, it does replenish itself pretty often.  I do have some batting that I cut up in small pieces so it wouldn't be lumpy, I decided this scrap was soft enough that I would just use as is, and it worked out just fine.  At first I didn't want a really fat elephant, so I used less, but eventually I kept adding more.  There is probably room for more, but I didn't want to overstuff it. I don't trust my seams. :)

I hand sewed the opening and since I didn't sew the legs right, I didn't wind up with four separate legs as the pattern indicated and therefore it doesn't stand on its own.

Here are some glamour shots.

The tail is from some packaging and the ribbon was in the room already so I didn't have to hunt for just the right thing.

Here are the two legs.  The extra pieces did leave little pockets that I could add stuffing to, so maybe it helped with that (?).

I thought I would make the ears fancy by using a decorative stitch on my machine, but those curves are hard to manage.

The eye was another piece of scrap fabric. It was a long rectangle so I just folded it in thirds to cover the raw edges and sewed it on. I really couldn't see since everything was underneath the presser foot so I just blindly sewed to secure the eye in place. I didn't want to do any more hand sewing than necessary on this piece.  

And here is the finished piece. I am calling it a quilt because it has a front and a back and batting in between.

It is reversible. The other side is similar. This is the last Project Quilting Project of the year.  Even though I didn't follow the pattern exactly, I am happy with this. I was debating whether to make a 2-D one and just thought I should try to make a 3-D one.

Here it is in my hand so you can see the size. The pattern had three sizes and I chose to make the largest one. I don't think I would have had much success with a smaller one. She's a handful!

Wait, there is more. There are plenty of other quilts left to see and make.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 12

 

Besides making Elsie, I have continued to make progress on other quilts.  

I started a green Sawtooth Star quilt on Saint Patrick's Day. Ever since I wanted more green on the Lupine and Laughter Quilt , I've been wanting to make a green quilt, and a simple Sawtooth Star quilt has been on my mind. The plan was to start after L&L was turned into a top, but I couldn't wait.  So it is now crowding out the L&L quilt and maybe urging it to get finished faster.

I have three blocks done. Elsie is made from the scraps from one of them.  They look like they would fit right in with the L&L blocks, maybe with some help of some sashing.

I also worked on quilting the Dresden blocks and have started binding them.

• 15 minute days / March = 21 / 21 days
• 15 minute days / 2026 = 80 / 80 days
• Success rate = 100%

15 Minutes to Stitch and 100 Days of Index Cards

 

Continuing more of the same may sound boring, but it has been a fun and exciting quilting week.  I have continued making little pieces of art on index cards.

I have chosen background fabrics and finished sewing down the Dresden Plates. I've chosen the backings and bindings for each of the plates, which I needed to piece. 

I still need to decide whether I want to use the sashing fabrics. I thought about appliquing the sashing to the quilts, but that might be a lot of work, so maybe I should just sash two blocks, which will be a similar look. I still need to think about it.

The Project Quilting challenge theme was announced and I found a short quick project to meet the theme, so hopefully this theme won't carry onto future weeks. The Dresden plate was done in a week, but since I decided to make more plates, it is crowding into my free weeks and slowing down the progress on the Lupine and Laughter mystery quilt. I did take a day and sewed some of the pieces so it wouldn't feel abandoned.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 9

Besides the aforementioned projects, I also made these little things. I saw a Facebook post where they made some Pocket Hugs.  They are made by hand. I figure they would be good to use up small bits of fabric. I will probably make some more of these little things because they are fun.

• 15 minute days / Feb = 28 / 28 days
• 15 minute days / 2026 = 59 / 59 days
• Success rate = 100%

Linked with 15 Minutes to Stitch 2026.

#100 Days, Dresden Plate Reveal, 15 Minutes to Stitch

100 days

Today marks the first day of the #the100days challenge on Instagram. My plan is to decorate index cards. I already have a box, and this will give me a tangible way to show the results for 100 days. I was initially thinking of incorporating the 100 days to the 15 minutes to stitch, but since I work on different projects which are in varying states of completion, the results aren't as easy to identify.

Also, an index card is quick to do, even on days when there isn't much time and energy. It also doesn't require perfection or a pretty result.

Project Quilting

Today is also the deadline for the Project Quilting challenge. The theme was "Another Era". I don't know why I put that in quotes, I don't know if that is the exact wording. 

I decided to make a Dresden Plate because it makes me think of the Art Deco movement.  I have a template and I had been planning on making one for a long time.

I decided to make these with stripped pieces. I made different sizes of strips so that the green would look like it is whirling around. When you cut these, you wind up with two different sets -   one with a peach tip, and one with a green tip. Which meant I could either alternate, which wasn't my plan, so I needed to make two plates, but two plates doesn't make a size of quilt that I use, so I made four plates.

I decided to go ahead and bind these individually and make a potholder quilt with four Dresdens. This works well for the challenge, since I only needed to complete one plate to have a finished quilt. 

I managed to finish it yesterday. The narrow single fold binding is a challenge for me, since I am not used to machine stitching the binding down. 

I think it wound up okay though, and I have a sashing fabric that I might applique over the inside bindings. I really like the fabric and was tempted to make it all one quilt, but I also knew that this four block quilt would be a great way to try out a potholder approach.  

I probably will add the sashing fabric because I like it so much.  I used decorative stitch to sew down the center.

These are a lot of fun to make. Even though I finished this yesterday, I wanted to wait until today to take pictures in the daylight and didn't do that by the deadline. Oh well, since this is technically part of a bigger quilt, we'll just say it doesn't qualify as finished.

15 Minutes to Stitch Week 8

Every day this week, I have been working on the Dresden Plates.  I was highly motivated to make progress so it was exciting to see how much more progress I could make.  I haven't made a Dresden Plate quilt, and the pieced wedges with the many different fabric combinations did add some mystery to the project.  I haven't made a potholder quilt, which is also a fun challenge. 

• 15 minute days / Feb = 21 / 21days
• 15 minute days / 2026 = 52 / 52 days
• Success rate = 100%

Linked with 15 Minutes to Stitch 2026.