Category Archives: 9 patch pizzazz

Quilt Finishes While Computer is Down

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I have been disconnected from the computer world for the past week. My computer crashed on May 4 while I was on line talking to a friend on line. Thanks to my daughter sharing her laptop with me throughout the week, I was able to keep limited contact with my on-line friends. Thanks to the computer talents of my son, my computer is now back up and running and I have rejoined the blogging world and I am back “connected” to all of you.

While I did not have my computer, I did manage to make good use of my time and finished off some quilts.
This is my dryer sheet diamond quilt. This quilt was completed to the flimsy stage on May 27, 2007 and was long arm machine quilted using the Baptist Fan template on January 6, 2008.

This is my Hibiscus Convergence quilt. We made this quilt on a FAB Saturday in March. Although it is hard to see in this picture, this quilt was long arm machine quilted with the clam sheet template.


This quilt is the product of a couple of challenges and a FAB Saturday. LindaJ‘s quilting group challenged themselves to use the feature fabric in this quilt, the merrkittys in a quilt. Pam challenged the FABs to use the yellow star fabric in a quilt using the 9 Patch Pizzazz pattern. The FABs are donating their finished 9PP quilts to Pam’s M2M project. Tada…presenting IIWII (It Is What It Is), my Merkitty 9 Patch for Mexico quilt! Now don’t say that three times in a row! LOL

9 Patch Pizzazz Progress

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These are all my 9 Patch Pizzazz pieces cut and ready to go. The FABs have been having lengthy discussions about block layouts. I am prepared to go with the layout in the book and have cut the following:

From my focus fabric – Merkitties – two 12 1/2″ squares, four 6 1/2″ squares, one 2 1/2″ strip.

From my wave fabric (I believe the author of the book calls this one your companion fabric) – I only had 1/2 yard piece of the merkitties and so I am using the wave fabric to substitute for merkitties. I should have had one yard of merkitties if I was going to follow the pattern exactly – cut one horizontal rectangle 6 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ and two 2 1/2″ strips

From the yellow challenge fabric – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips, one vertical rectangle 12 1/2″ x 6 1/2″, four 6 1/2″ squares

From the green and pink fabrics – I cut three 2 1/2″ strips of each colour

I managed to finish putting together the top (less the borders) by 1:00 pm (that’s starting at 8:00 am). I only managed to make one mistake — I reversed two of the nine patch blocks. I am not going to change it–as Pam says, IIWII (it is what it is). I made another quick switch and unless you really knew what this pattern layout was supposed to look like, you would never notice my mistake. It is now part of the charm of this quilt.

I am not sure whether I am going to go with the border treatment in the book or if I am going to make up my own border design. sometimes these things have to age a bit and you have to consider options before making a decision.

This was a great way to spend the morning–quilting with Internet friends!

9-Patch Pizzazz FABs Weekend

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This is the quilt pattern book that the FABs are going to use this weekend during our Quilt-In. We won’t be making the quilt on the cover of the book (this one is on point). The quilt that we are going to make is called, Lily Pond. Each of us is going to make our own version of Lily Pond or some version very close to this depending on what we come up with on our design walls when we lay the blocks out.

These are my fabrics. The merkitty fabric at the top came from LindaJ. I believe it was LindaJ’s quilt group, the Belles, that were making quilts for one of the charities they support as a challenge project. LindaJ supplied me with some of the challenge fabric so I could play along. I never got to making my quilt, so I am going to use this fabric this weekend. The yellow fabric with the blue stars and white dots on the far right was supplied by Pam. Pam sent all of the FABs a piece of this fabric to use in our quilts this weekend. By coincidence, this fabric matches my merkitties, so I am able to use both challenge fabrics — from different challenges — in my quilt. Once our quilts are finished, we will be donating them to Pam’s M2M project.
There are a few rules for this weekend that we agreed to already:
– It is ok to cut out your quilt pieces and it is ok to sew the strips for the 9 patches…but you may not cut the strips into sets.

– Sewing will start at 8 a.m Saturday. You can choose between central time and pacific time…since we are in 2 time zones

We have sewn together as a group. We use e-mail, digital cameras, and IM to let one another know what we are up to, where we are in the pattern, to answer each other’s questions, and to cheer each other on to the finish line.

A couple members of the group are “keeners” and have already drafted their quilts using their quilt software. My quilt layout is still in my head and will not likely get drafted in a formal way. I plan on cutting out the pieces and using a design wall to decide on final placement.

A Cure for Quilter’s Block

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I belong to a small group of on-line friends that have been discussing our next quilting project. We are all planning to make Ricky Tims‘ Convergence quilt.

I had been to a quilt show once where someone made a Convergence quilt using a Michael Miller chicken/rooster print. I thought this would be the opportunity to make that quilt myself, after all, I do own a meter of that wonderful print!

While I was at the quilt shop yesterday looking for coordinate prints, another quilter asked me what I had planned for the gorgeous chicken fabric. I told her I was making a Convergence quilt. She had never heard of the pattern so I explained how you use four prints and cut them into strips and sew them back together. (Obviously simplified instructions.) She was horrified and couldn’t believe that I would consider cutting up these beautiful chickens. At that moment, I realized that I couldn’t go through with cutting this gorgeous fabric up–I couldn’t see these chickens “in jail” behind bars of contrasting fabric!

I went ahead and purchased two coordinates but I vowed to find a different way to display my beloved chickens. (The red fabric was already in my stash.)

When I got home, I remembered that I had previously purchased a copy of Judy Sisneros‘ book, 9-Patch Pizzazz. This is a more appropriate use of my chicken fabric as this book makes excellent use of large scale prints by leaving them intact, in large chunks–6 1/2″, 12 1/2″, 18 1/2″, etc. As long as each side is divisible by 6 and add 1/2″ you can make use of the square or rectangle in this pattern.
Now that I have a pattern to use the chickens appropriately, I turned my attention back to selecting fabrics from my stash for my Convergence quilt. This is the first combination I put together. I have decided that the fabrics may be too “matchy” and there isn’t enough contrast between all pieces so I discarded this selection and went back to searching.

Then I came across a bright floral FQ in my stash. I started to pull fabrics from the floral and came up with this combination. Unless I come up with another combination before we start cutting into our fabrics, this is what I am going with for my Convergence quilt!

Thanks to the FABs and on-line discussions about this new project, I am officially curred of Quilter’s Block…….at least for now!