Design Wall Tuesday: Fixin’ to Get Ready

Welcome back to Design Wall Tuesday!

The editors who make McCall’s Quilting and Quiltmaker magazines did some fun stitching this weekend, and we hope you did, too. Here’s what a few of our team members are working on in their home sewing spaces:

From Content Director, Carolyn Beam:

I’m at the “fixin’ to get ready” stage with the quilt I’m working on for a future issue of Quiltmaker.

I’m working with a lovely collection of Bella Solids from Moda Fabrics and got a couple more quilt blocks cut out. I hope to start sewing them together soon!

From Administrative Editor, Deb McDonald:

Deb McDonald

With our rainy Colorado weather this past weekend, I stayed inside at my sewing machine. I spent a cool and rainy Saturday sewing together the patches from my post last week.

Once the center of the quilt was finished, I added a white border and a print border. The print border really ties all the colors together.

Immediately following that finish, I jumped right in on quilt #2 for Quiltmaker’s Reader Favorites. This quilt uses soft, pretty batiks from Jinny Beyer’s Water and Mist collections by RJR Fabrics. Strip piecing made assembly super quick and easy. I’m loving how this quilt is coming together.

White and print borders

Batiks from Jinny Beyer’s Water and Mist collections

From Associate Editor, Erin Russek:

Erin Russek

It’s border time for my Chocolate Bonbons quilt. I’m adding a pieced and an appliquéd border to this quilt. What can I say? I really like to make intricate quilts. I like having a little piecing and a little appliqué. That way when I get bored with one, I can switch to the other.

Chocolate Bonbons

Border preparation

From Associate Editor, Gigi Khalsa:

Gigi Khalsa

This weekend I made some progress on quilting my remake of Nuts and Bolts by Sandy Klop. Regular readers of the blog may remember when I wrote about making it in I Love This Quilt! Nuts and Bolts, Part 1 and Part 2!

Spiderweb motif in the bullseye

I’ve been quilting spiderweb motifs in each of the bullseyes and a leaf motif in the remaining areas. I like how it’s coming out so far and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished quilt on the blog soon!

I’m doing spiderwebs in the border too!

Here’s the leaf motif as seen from the back of the quilt

From Acquisitions Editor, Lori Baker:

Lori Baker

I’m piecing a back for my version of Stephanie Sheridan’s Changing Lanes quilt in the Quick Quilts April/May 2017 issue.

I had enough large pieces of fabric to make disappearing 4-patch blocks. But now I’ve used all the fabric left from the step-outs and have to add about another 20″ to make the quilt back large enough. I’ll have to spend some time going through my Fabric Inventory this week to find coordinating fabrics for that.

Mary Kate Karr-Petras

From Associate Editor, Mary Kate Karr-Petras:

This weekend I finished a quilted shamrock pillow sham that I started sketching the design for just a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not much of a postage stamp quilt person, but because I make all my pillow shams these days to fit a 16″ pillow form, and because the framework of my design was 12 units by 12 units, I decided to make a 15″ shamrock quilt block and ended up cutting a bunch of squares at 1-3/4″ x 1-3/4″ (as well as a few at 1-1/8″ x 1-1/8″ for eensy quick corners).

Shamrock pillow sham

Taking inspiration from how the Irish landscape seems to glow even more under overcast skies, I paired my scrappy greens with a gray background to make the colors pop. Because of all that cutting and piecing, and because we had a houseguest for a week (meaning I didn’t have access to my sewing space), I got the pillow finished just in time for the beginning of April. That’s OK — when your name is Mary Kate, you can claim the right to celebrate all things Irish year-round. Erin go Bragh!

Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing what we’re working on. Be sure to stop by next week. In the meantime, Happy Sewing!