Hey everyone! Today I’m sharing my version of the Road to Oklahomaquilt block. This is a free quilt block pattern provided by Fat Quarter Shop! They’re also offering a quilt kit to make a 65.5″ x 65.5″ quilt or you can purchase a downloadable pdf pattern that has fabric requirements and instructions for both a table runner or a quilt in three different sizes.
The Road to Oklahoma quilt block measures 20.5″ x 20.5″, so it’s big enough to make a table topper all by itself. When you sew a bunch of these blocks together, you get a very striking quilt with some strong diagonal lines. This was an easy block to make and if I were making an entire quilt, I would probably use half-square triangle paper to make those HST’s more fast and efficient.
My version was made using mostly scraps. The gold print is Honey Blossom in Indigo by The Tiny Garden for Felicity Fabrics. I wish I could tell you what the other fabrics are, but I don’t have enough selvage left to figure it out. (I know I wrote it down somewhere, but you know how that goes!) I love the late summer/fall feel of these fabrics, so I think I had better get this quilted and bound so I can have my own little table topper.
If you follow Fat Quarter Shop on Instagram, you’ll see the Road to Oklahoma quilt blocks made by the other participants. And you can use the hashtag #RoadtoOklahomaQuilt and #classicandvintage to see more versions! Thanks for visiting today and happy quilting!
{I love the idea of “paying it forward”. I think the world would be a better place if we could spread some joy and acknowledgement of good deeds done by others. I try to do that once a month for my Sew Thankful Sunday posts. I highlight some great content that I’ve found on other people’s blogs that I hope will inspire you and reward the originator by bringing traffic to their site. If your blog has been mentioned without your consent, please let me know and I will take you off the current list of featured bloggers.}
Sew Thankful Sunday for August brings us to the second half of the year which means summer is winding down, school is starting soon and the holidays are around the corner. That gives us lots of reasons to keep sewing, quilting and making projects! Today’s list for Sew Thankful Sunday has some great ideas to get your started.
Note: If you use Pinterest, please pin from the original source and not this blog post. Remember, you can click on any of the images in this post and it will open up a new tab to the associated link.
The Aurifil blog’s latest Five for Friday is all about Back to School Projects. That’s right, August means school will be starting soon for many, and these projects will be a great way to get some of those supplies made in style.
The last part of the quilting process is sometimes the hardest. Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts has some great suggestions for How to Quilt Big Quilts on a Domestic Sewing Machine. I’m a fan of the “smoosh” method myself!
Did you know that July 25 was Thread the Needle Day? Fat Quarter Shop sure did and their blog, The Jolly Jabber, shared Needles: The Need to Know! which was full of the history and facts about needles and which ones are best for specific crafts.
Afton Warrick at Quilting Mod shared some great Strategies for Selecting Long-arm Quilting Designs. These are highlights from a meeting of a group of long-arm quilters, which is a great resource for the rest of us!
I hope this list for Sew Thankful Sunday in August has given you some ideas and tips for your creative journey. I always enjoy learning from others and there is so much information and inspiration to go around! Thanks for joining me today and have a wonderful month!
I love pre-cuts, from mini-charm packs to fat quarter bundles. They contain a snapshot of the entire collection of a fabric line in one tiny package. Like Cheryl, my favorite of those pre-cuts is the charm pack. Those 5″ squares are not so small that they’re unusable, but just big enough to play with and make a small project. Plus, the price is just right and you get a good picture of what each fabric looks like in the collection. Charm packs are my weakness!
This book, Just One Charm Pack Quilts, gives you plenty of ideas to use just one charm pack to make quilts in a variety of sizes. Each quilt requires one extra fabric and a background fabric. You’ll find projects that are perfect for a baby or child and also great for home décor such as table toppers and wall hangings.
Bowtie Quilt
The project I chose to make from the book is the Bowtie Quilt. It measures 40″ x 48″ and it’s the perfect size for a small child or toddler. I love designs that have a strong diagonal element that can be rotated and played with to create a whole new look. The Bowtie Quilt is perfectly suited for this, and I had so many options to explore.
Bowtie Quilt from Just One Charm Pack Quilts, made by Julie Cefalu, designed by Cheryl Brickey
For my version, I used a charm pack of On The Go by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda Fabrics, Moda Grunge (30150-101) for the background and Kona solid in gray for the accent. The On The Go fabric line includes a playmat panel that is laid out like a play city for little cars and trucks to travel on. The bold primary colors and cute transportation graphics are perfects for any young child who loves to play with cars, trucks and airplanes.
You might notice that my quilt does not have binding on it – yet. Time constraints were such that I didn’t get to the binding by the time I needed to take photos. For that same reason, I chose to quilt straight lines that followed the diagonal pattern of the blocks. It’s simple but effective, and sometimes that’s all you need.
The original Bowtie pattern from the book places the blocks so the diagonal chain squares are running parallel to each other. This is a very classic and easy way to lay out the blocks. I also love that Cheryl shows each quilt made in two different color ways.
Just One Charm Pack Quilts by Cheryl Brickey, C&T Publishing
I used EQ8 to mock-up several layout options for the blocks. It’s always fun to see the how the quilt changes just by a simple rotation of blocks. Below, you’ll see a few of the quilt layouts that I came up with (there are four more). A few of them have an extra column of blocks to complete the pattern I was trying to achieve. I used just three colors in the pinwheel version to make the pinwheels really stand out.
You can purchase a signed copy of Just One Charm Pack Quilts at Cheryl’s website here. Make sure to visit Meadow Mist Designs to see the other book hop participants and be inspired by more versions of these beautiful quilt designs.
As you can see, there are so many possibilities with the Bowtie Quilt. I really loved making it, and I hope you enjoyed my stop on the Just One Charm Pack Quilts Book Hop! If this is your first time here, you might want to check out my free tutorials page and subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out on future tips and tutorials. Thanks for visiting!
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Bowtie Quilt made by Julie Cefalu, from Just One Charm Pack Quilts by Cheryl Brickey
Sometimes finding a title for a blog post takes longer than writing the thing. Well, not really, but it’s a roadblock for sure. I have been all over the place with life lately and not as focused on the quilting world as I’d like to be. So here’s a little update on what’s happening in my world this summer.
We’ve been enjoying a lot of time at home and taking short trips here and there. We’ll be going to Austin next weekend to celebrate our granddaughter’s 6th birthday. We’ll be watching her t-ball games and babysitting one night while mom and dad get some alone time. Aside from the Texas heat, we’re exciting for the visit!
I’ve also been spending time at my parent’s house helping my mom recover from a hemorrhagic stroke. She’s now at home with my Dad, and my siblings and I are tag teaming with home-care. They live 2 1/2 hours from me and they don’t have internet, so I’m limited with any work I can accomplish while there. I’m in that stage of life where my parents are aging and they can often require much more personal care. It’s a mixed blessing and I’m happy that they’re still here to see their 13 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren grow and flourish.
Our vegetable garden is in full swing and I’m harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and greens. I love the summer produce! Farmer’s markets are a Saturday ritual so we can get all of the fresh fruit while it’s in season. I made triple berry jam last week and I’ll be cooking up some apricot cobbler this weekend. I’m eating lots of fresh salads and cooked veggies to balance things out!
Our backyard is also playing hosts to some beautiful monarch butterflies and their caterpillars. I planted milkweed several years ago and it’s been paying off finally. We rescued one chrysalis from a poorly positioned spot and brought it inside. It was so fun to watch it morph and finally emerge into a gorgeous monarch.
Currently we have a caterpillar that we brought indoors to rescue it from some suspicious wasps. It has now become a chrysalis and we’ll wait for it to emerge in another week or so.
In Austin, Texas, our granddaughters found some big caterpillars in their backyard which turned out to be black swallowtails. They also constructed a butterfly house and brought the caterpillars inside to watch them change into their chrysalis and then butterfly form. What a beautiful lesson to witness in your own backyard!
Now for some quilting. I finished two more blocks for the Red at Night 2 BOM that I’m co-teaching at The Granary. Both of these blocks contain a “corner beam” unit that requires templates to make. I found a different way to make them (which I’ll share in a future blog post) that eliminated the templates and allowed me to oversize them and trim to the perfect size without using a specialty ruler.
I don’t have a design wall, so I taped the nine blocks (so far) onto my bedroom wall to see how they look together. I’m using a fat quarter bundle of Kismet by Sharon Holland for Art Gallery Fabrics. I love these colors together and the dark background is fun (but challenging). The blocks will eventually be set on-point and there will be 13 of them.
My co-teacher, Dianne Sheppard, is working with a southwestern color palette and I love how hers are looking together. It’s so fun to see the same quilt made in different colors.
I’m also working on a quilt that will be part of a book hop at Meadow Mist Designs. Cheryl has just released her second book titled Just One Charm Pack Quilts, and I absolutely love it! I am a charm pack junkie and I was so glad to be asked to join the book hop. You can find links to all of the blog hop participants here. My turn will be July 27, but I can show you a little sneak peak for now.
As a quilter and the month turns to July, I always think of Christmas in July. This year has thrown me a few curve balls so I haven’t been able to come up with a new project. However, I am going to re-work a quilt block that I used in my free Nordic Mini Wall Hanging Quilt Along into a larger quilt block that can be used to make a quilt or table runner, etc. I call it the Nordic Star block and it will finish at 12″. Hopefully I can get this to you by the end of the month, but we’ll see how it goes.
I hope your summer is going well, and I appreciate you spending some time to read my latest update. Have a great weekend and happy quilting!
{I love the idea of “paying it forward”. I think the world would be a better place if we could spread some joy and acknowledgement of good deeds done by others. I try to do that once a month for my Sew Thankful Sunday posts. I highlight some great content that I’ve found on other people’s blogs that I hope will inspire you and reward the originator by bringing traffic to their site. If your blog has been mentioned without your consent, please let me know and I will take you off the current list of featured bloggers.}
Hello July and happy 4th! This is usually a month of vacations and/or long days of outdoor activities. We don’t have too many plans this summer other than a few weekend getaways. Maybe I’ll catch up on some UFO’s or start something new. I need to make a plan! Today’s list for Sew Thankful Sunday in July might give me some ideas.
Note: If you use Pinterest, please pin from the original source and not this blog post. Remember, you can click on any of the images in this post and it will open up a new tab to the associated link.
Whether you’re cooking indoors or grilling outside, you’ll love this wonderful Oven Mitt Tutorial by Dawn at First Light Designs. These oven mitts are great for using up scraps of fabric and batting, plus they make great hostess gifts!
Oven Mitt Tutorial @ First Light Designs
Riley Blake Designs has just launched a new YouTube series, RBD Building Blocks. If you’re a new quilter or you just want to brush up on your piecing skills, then this is for you! You can start with the Friendship Star block here.
Summer might be the perfect time to get your sewing room organized. If this speaks to you, then join Jennifer at Bee Sew Inspired for an Organize Along! Each week of July and August will focus on a different area of your sewing space. One step at a time!
This beautiful chart of Common or Standard Quilt Sizes from Caroline at Sew Can She is so handy to have around! You can download and print this resource to keep in your sewing room. How nice is that?!
Christmas in July is here and you can participate with Jessica Dayon for her Sleigh Ride Quilt Along. The fun has just started and you can have this lovely 84 1/2″ square quilt finished sometime in August. You’ll be way ahead of the game!
Thanks to the generosity of Amber at Gigi’s Thimble, you can download this New Beginning’s Quilt pattern for free! I love the color combinations she used and the simplicity of the design. It has a nice vintage feel to me.
You might want to try a hand sewing project this summer, and Beth Colletti has recently shared a Getting Started with Sashiko Guide with tips, tools and how she tackled her first project. Great photos and lots of good tips!
