Project Update: 18.11.2025

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

I hope you've all come with treats, because today is Meara's fourth birthday!

At this point in her life, she's a fully matured adult dog, but still shows off her puppy enthusiasm when she gets excited!

While she's always happy to play a silly game, Meara spends most of her time napping, watching the road through the front window, and always keeps an ear open for the sound of car doors so she can be the first to greet any visitors!

Here's to another year of car rides, play dates, and everyday adventures!

And, in addition to that exciting announcement, I've also been making a lot of progress on several ongoing projects over the last month! I can't wait to share what I've been working on!

Ice Cream Soda Quilt

Throughout the month of October, I put a lot of new stitches into my Ice Cream Soda quilt!

When I last shared progress, the quilt top was in five pieces; the left and rightmost thirds, with the middle third in three smaller chunks. Rather than piecing those smaller chunks into a completed central third, I decided it would be more fun to piece them onto the rest of the quilt as they were, so I got started!

The quilt top came together really quickly, and I even had a nice day to do some stitching at the park while we had an interested party touring the house!

Unfortunately, after that the weather turned rainy, so when I finished assembling my blocks, I was only able to take awkward and cramped photos of the quilt top in my living room.

I might have been able to get some better pictures if I waited, but I was excited to start adding borders to Ice Cream Soda right away!

The weather is much improved since then and I'm excited to be able to show off my progress on the borders!

These stitched on really quickly, but as I came up to the last corner, I ran out of amber background fabric ... again!

I only need another 6" or so by width of fabric, so I was pretty close in my fabric estimate the last time I bought more! Of course, that doesn't help me right now.

It's been about two weeks since discovering my fabric shortage, and though I've visited two stores, neither has had a solid that's quite the right colour. One was an all purpose sewing store with a quilting section, and the other was a quilt store that mostly carries prints with a few basic solids, so it's not surprising that they didn't have this particular colour.

But I do have a plan to do some fabric shopping with Mom later this week, and both of the stores near her have a good selection of solids, so I should be able to finish my Ice Cream Soda quilt top soon!

My Ice Cream Soda quilt is based on a design by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth.

Midnight Circus Sample Quilt

Next is a quilt that hasn't gotten quite as much attention as it should have; my Midnight Circus sample!

I couldn't tell you which of these is the one I've quilted more recently, but I've now finished quilting the copper sashing areas on this section of the quilt!

While I'm really happy with the quilting in the sashing areas, I think the reason I stalled on my quilting progress is that I wasn't very happy with the design I'd initially chosen for the background areas.

I picked that design before putting any thought into the rest of the quilting, so as all the elements came together, I started to feel like it was too busy, detailed, and finicky.

I've ripped out the quilting in the two small triangles of background that I'd previously stitched and am now thinking of doing something different!

The whole time I've been thinking about my quilting motif, I've wanted fairly dense quilting for the background to flatten it and make the piecing stand out more in contrast. My original design over complicated that idea, so I've decided to switch to a crosshatched, matchstick design!

Now that I've figured that out, I'm really excited to get back to quilting Midnight Circus and can't wait to see how it will turn out!

Midnight Circus is my own original design, by Valerie Anne of the Fibre Arts blog.

Potato Chip Challenge Quilt

After stalling my progress on Midnight Circus, I set to work on another project; my Potato Chip quilt!

In my last update, I shared a 3x3 block quilt centre, plus two additional blocks. But after a few more days of piecing, I have assembled the full 5x5 block quilt top!

I'm really happy to see that all the planning I put into colour and value placement worked out so well!

And with the quilt top in one piece, and my backing fabric already purchased, I was able to jump right into quilting!

Since this is a fairly small quilt, I decided it wouldn't be too difficult to quilt as one piece.

And with the piecing being so busy, I decided to quilt the quilt with an all over, edge to edge design!

The design I chose on was inspired by a motif from Melissa Marginet's "Edge-to-Edge Walking Foot Quilting Designs" book. Specifically, I use a combination of crimp and hourglass shapes, which I've been quilting both vertically and horizontally, and plan to overlap with a diagonal cross hatch!

This motif stitches really quickly and I've already finished all of the vertical rows of quilting and started on the horizontal ones!

Since the piecing is so busy, the design is pretty tough to see from the front, but you can see it really well on the back!

The bottom half of the quilt is where I've started quilting horizontally, and you can really see how criss crossing the quilting completely changes the design! I can't wait to add more quilting!

And seeing how close I am to finishing this quilt, I'll have to remember to check my fabric bins for something to use for the label while I'm visiting my Mom later this week!

My Potato Chip quilt is based on a design by Brenda Logan of Conquering Mount Scrapmore.

Friends, I'm so excited to see so many projects drawing closer to completion!

It's been a really long time since I've actually finished a quilt completely, and with my new label stencils, I have all the tools I need to get there!

Of course, I would love to hear about all of your recent projects and accomplishments as well! Please share stories and photos in the comments below, by sending me an email, or by tagging me on Instagram!

I'm always so inspired by the work of other creators and can't wait to see what you've been up to!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA