Alive and Piecing: 2023

Friday, February 3, 2023

February Free Quilt Pattern - Love Always Wins!

As I phase out this blog host and move on to another, here is the link for the February free quilt pattern and giveaway drawing!

Hope you will jump on over to Alive and Piecing's new home to check it out!

Monday, January 30, 2023

Giveaway extended to Feb. 6th

I am extending the giveaway until Feb. 6th, and, after much frustration with Blogger this month, I am moving back to WordPress. Hope you will join me there for my year of free patterns!

https://andragayle.wordpress.com/

My major goals for 2023 are to focus on growing my blog and getting LOTS of quilting done, using my overgrown stash of fabrics!

So, I have decided that I am going to provide a free quilt pattern, here on my blog, every month this year. It will be a pattern designed to use my stash, help teach beginners how to quilt, and offer ideas and projects that all quilters can use to make their quilting life easier.

I will also TRY to offer a modest giveaway with each pattern.

Look for patterns to be posted by the first Friday of each month.

The January Giveaway:

For some reason, I have ended up with 3 of these lovely polar bear panels. I know that one of them came from my sister when she went to Alaska. She chose just the right one because it was one I had already selected for myself and had in my stash. I think the third one arrived because I found the kit on sale and wanted more of the coordinating fabrics.

I will be giving one of these panels away to go along with this quilt pattern.

How to enter the drawing: You will get one entry for each of the following:

Become a follower of this blog
Share a link to this post on your own blog
Show me a picture of a block you make from this pattern

That is up to 3 chances per quilter to win this lovely panel. I will be adding entries to a numbered list in the order they are received and then will use a random number generator to find our one winner. I will draw for the winner on Tuesday, January 31, 2023.

All entries need to be received by Monday, January 30, 2023.

The January Pattern: Polar Ice

60 X 68 Inches

This quilt was designed to use stash fabrics and a panel you have been holding onto. So, be creative, go with what you have! I can't wait to see...

Yardage required:

1 panel of your choice- see trimming instructions below.

2.5 yards of blue- a variety of scraps is fine as long as you can get two 5 inch squares from each scrap.

1.5 yards of white- again scraps are fine as long as you can get at least two 5 inch squares from each piece.

Binding will require approximately 20 inches by WOF.

Backing will require approximately 3 yards of fabric.

A Cutting Chart is provided at the end of the pattern.

Note: The panel I used had to be trimmed down. I wanted multiples of 8 (8 inch blocks) so I decided I would trim it down to fit an area measuring 24 inches by 32 inches finished. I also wanted a border on my panel so I had to subtract that from my panel size.

Trim panel to 20.5 inches by 28.5 inches. (You can do it. Think about how long you have had that panel...)

Border strips to trim the panel:

Cut into four strips at 2.5 inches wide by width of fabric.

Cut two of these at 28.5 inches for the long sides

Cut two at 24.5 inches long for the top and bottom.

Here is a picture of the trimmed and bordered panel. And, due to my rusty math skills, I had to remove the top border, trim some more off the panel and then reattach the border. But all is well that ends well...

The ice blocks are 8.5 inches unfinished. They are made from half square triangles that measure 4.5 inches unfinished.

Note: any time you want to use this method for half square triangles, you take the measurement that your blocks need to be (in this case, 4.5 inches) and add 3/8ths of an inch. That means your squares will be cut at 4 7/8ths inches.

One Ice Block, made up of four half square triangle blocks, each of them need to measure 4.5 inches square before you sew them together.

For Each block:

Cut two white squares and two blue squares that each measure 4 & 7/8ths inches square.

Note: You need 44 blocks for the Polar Ice Quilt. That means you need to cut 88 blue squares and 88 white squares in pairs of 2 of each color. It takes 2 blue and 2 white squares to make one block. I used 4 different white fabrics and 7 different blue fabrics.

On the wrong side of each white square, draw a diagonal line down the middle as pictured below.

Match a white square with a blue square, right sides together, and sew, using the diagonal line as the edge of your ¼ inch seam.

Sew on each side of the line. Then cut the triangles apart on the line. Press open towards the blue fabric.

Lay out a block before you sew it together so that you can make sure you have it oriented correctly. At this point, I start pressing my seams open so there will be less bulk at the points.

At this step I also start pinning my blocks. Because the seams are pressed open, they are harder to match. They do not nest against each other.

Match these center seams and pin.

The end diagonal seams still nest so they are a little easier to match but I still pin them.

I did not trim my squares at any point after the initial cutting and, as you can see, it measures a perfect 8.5 inches. Just check to make sure the blocks turned out decently uniform and correct.

Lay your blocks out and arrange how you like. I chose to arrange mine from light in the upper left hand corner to dark in the lower right hand corner.

In the diagram below, the blocks are randomly placed.

* To finish the quilt top, I added 2 inch borders. They are cut at 2.5 inches wide. Two strips joined together and trimmed to 64.5 inch lengths for each side. I joined a light strip and a dark strip for the left side, joining them on a 90 degree angel, as you would for binding strips. The right side got a solid dark strip.

* For the top and bottom, cut your borders 60.5 inches long, joining strips to achieve this length. The top strip was again a combination of a light and dark strip joined on a 90 degree angle. The bottom received a dark strip.

Cutting Chart

Piece	Size	Number to cut
Ice blocks- blue squares	4 7/8ths inch squares	88
Ice blocks- white squares	4 7/8ths inch squares	88
Panel	20.5 inches wide by 28.5 inches long	1
Panel border sides	2.5 inches wide by 28.5 inches	2
Panel Border top/Bottom	2.5 inches by 24.5 inches	2
*Outer Border sides	2.5 by 64.5 inches	2
*Outer Border Top/Bottom	2.5 by 60.5 inches	2

*- please see border notes above

If you prefer to have a printable PDF of this pattern, you can find it at my Etsy shop for $2.00 https://www.etsy.com/shop/AndraAndIvy

Thanks so much for following! Happy Quilting to all!

Friday, January 20, 2023

Pink- Project Quilting

The theme this week, for Project Quilting, is PINK. Pink is a color I have very little of because I love it and us it so there is none in my stash! However, I have been hanging on to these tea cups and the flowery pink fabrics, not sure what to do.

However, I have been under the weather for a few days and now that I look at my quilt top, I do not like the neutral fabric. I am thinking of taking it apart and replacing it with white. That will for sure mean I do not get it finished by Sunday's deadline for Project Quilting.

When I do get around to finishing this piece, it will be a table top quilt,

therefore it does not have a top/bottom.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Project Quilting season 14

Here is my entry for PQ with the theme of "one". I call it "One Woman's Heart". It is my first finish of the new year.

Our hearts are so full of EVERYTHING...One woman carries around a lot of stuff in her one heart. And it has been shattered and mended over and over again.

If you look closely you will see the words I embroidered. (Memories, Faith, family, pride, worry, love, hope, gratitude, dreams, and prayer) I could have just kept adding words all night long but want to get a little bit of sleep before I head out to church in the morning so I had to stop.

It was fun.

I started this project at 10 am Saturday. Stopped for 45 minutes to help my husband take down Christmas lights outside. Then stopped for dinner (which my most wonderful husband made) and about 2 hours of comedy shows with my family. Then my son called from Hawaii and I talked to him for about 45 minutes. The rest of the time, I have been working on this. It is now 1:14 am on Sunday.

Here's hoping your heart is full of all the most wonderful things in this new year!

Friday, January 6, 2023

Friday Night With Friends and Rainbow Scrap Challenge

I spent a few minutes playing in my scrap bin tonight. It went together really quickly. I thought I was using scraps of sew-in stabilizer for the foundation but it turns out is was iron on. So, my already deplorable ironing board cover for sure has to be changed now.

This will also be my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the year. I will make each row the new color of the month. This pattern is in the American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine for December 2022 and it is the only reason I purchased the magazine. I love this in all blues so I may have to make an all blue version too!

I will link this post to both Friday Night With Friends and Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Thursday, January 5, 2023

A Year of Stash Busting Quilts- Free Pattern and a Giveaway!