still stinky pinky

are you "tired of pink?" if so, you'll want to skip this post! "pinky stinky edna" got a lot of work done on her this week. getting the pieces up on the design wall last week was quite useful and made assembly easy, at least until i made my slew of mistakes, but it made knowing where to put everything easy and was so helpful.

with the top row complete, i started working on the horizontal sashing pieces next. they needed the side star points added first. i got reacquainted with how to get the directional prints on the way i wanted them to be oriented, then added the 16-patch blocks.

i'm still making bonus mini hsts out of the little corner cut-offs. i'm still unsure what i'm doing with them, but i'm not wasting them! if i don't add them to the back of the quilt somewhere, i'll either make a feature patch out of them for a hazel-style improv quilt or make a small bean bag for the grans to play with. either way, i'm making them and putting them aside as i go.

i had an early walk with my seester, katee, who lives in the neighborhood, so the house was really quiet when i got home. i didn't want to do anything noisy (dishes) and didn't feel like starting house design work just yet, so i decided to put a few pieces together. once i had these two done, i decided to work on the rest of the row.

i'm having a little trouble with the V at the intersection of the star points, and i don't know why. this one turned out pretty well, but it's also puffy. i just don't know what i'm doing wrong, but i'm keeping at it and not worrying about little things like this too much.

there were some other problems with lining up of seams when i added the vertical sashings to the 16-patches that i did unpick and re-do. those were too glaringly off and did not align with my intergrity-but-not-perfectionist mentality, so i fixed them. 

 by the time the rest of the household was up and moving, i had the sashings complete and the first two rows of 16-patches attached together. it felt really good! the only "stinky" i had in that whole process was one set of misaligned seams i redid and my thread was being tricky. but overall, it was smooth sailing. 

after breakfast and a few other chores, i decided it was going to be a quilting day after all. i went back to the sewing room to proceed with the next set of sashings and row. that's when i realized i didn't put the star points on the bottoms of the vertical sashing pieces. oh, shoot. that definitely needed to be done. 

so i unpicked the rows a few inched past where the points needed to be added and got to work making star points on all the corners. it was more difficult wrangling the whole row around for each of those small seams than it was doing each block individually, but i managed.

i was quite relieved to have that done! i soothed myself with a mini strawberry ice cream cone from trader joe's. that was nice pick-me-up before i moved on the the next set of hotizontal sashings. 

i haven' t looked at the pattern in months. at this point, i just know how everything is supposed to go together and am making my way through it based on my guesses and experience. there might be a much more efficient way outlined in the pattern, but i haven't taken the time to look it up.

things just got stinkier from there: i put the wrong star points on a sashing set, i nicked the center of a star with my snips when cutting a stray thread, i had one sashing set cut too long and didn't realize it until after i put the points on, which then had to be redone also, and i had another block not line up with the 16-patches with had to be unpicked and corrected. 

i took deep breaths, kept calm and carried on: never give up, never surrender, keep making that quilt.

on sunday, i was on the phone with d3, who is out of state at university currently, for 3.5 hours, and part of that time i worked on "pinky stinky" to keep my hands busy while we chatted. i got row three assembled and row four's star points added to the pieces and some of it attached, but i'm waiting for d5 to finish the 16 patches before i can progress any further. she wants me to take her shopping, but i think she's going to have to do a few blocks for me first.

(the photo looks confusing because row three is layered over row two so i could fit more on the board, and that's hard to see in the photo.)

tip: directional prints on flip-and-stitch corners

there are lots of times when i want a directional print to be facing a certain direction when i'm making quilt blocks or components: hsts, flying geese, chevron blocks, economy block corners, snowball corners, diamond block corners (like wensleydale), and more. in the star cornerstones for "pinky stinky edna" i want the pieces in the star points to be going the same direction as the center block. this is completely personal preference in this case, but it's an effect i'm aiming for.

these corner triangles are made with the flip-and-stitch method where a smaller square is placed right sides together on the corner of the base, a diagonal seam is sewn to create a corner triangle, the excess of both fabrics is cut off 1/4" away from the seam, the new corner is flipped out to replace the part cut off, right side up, and is then pressed into place.

so how do i get the print going the same direction from each side of the star?

this is the square of the strawberry print i want to add to the bottom left corner of this two-strip sashing piece. the piece is vertical and i want the strawberries to run in the direction shown in the photo.

first, i identify the direction the piece should be facing and then the part i want to show in the corner. for this one, the part i want showing is turned in the bottom left as shown above.

if i fold the top right of the square under the bottom left corner, i can see how the shape will appear once sewn together, flipped down, and pressed into place. the bottom left corner my finger is on is the part i'll use to orient myself when putting the right sides of fabrics together for sewing the seam. 

when i turn the square over so right sides of fabrics are together, i want that bottom left corner to now be in the upper right corner. that same corner that was under my finger in the upper photo is now where my finger is pointing in this photo. no matter the orientation of the corner, the thing to remember is:

 the corner of the square that you want to be the finished corner piece of the triangle needs to be placed in the diagonally opposite corner when you have the square flipped for right sides together. 

so again, here that means the lower left corner (when the square is facing up and is in the direction you want the fabric to appear in) becomes the upper right corner when it's flipped over and the fabrics are right sides together.

when fabrics are right sides together, i mark the diagonal line i'm going to sew the seam on. don't forget to mark and sew the seam for the bonus left-over hst from the corner, too. 

once both seams are sewn and the corner cut off, the new corner piece if flipped out and pressed into place. and you can press open your bonus hst as well. 

voila!

i figure out these little tips for myself, often through trial-and-error, then i tend to forget them when i need them again. i'm going to start recording them and gather them together on a tips page for myself so i can remind myself what i've learned when i need it again. maybe it'll help someone else, too.

wip wednesday 2026.5

i've been eyeballs-deep in house design this week, but i took a break one afternoon to put "pinky stinky" edna up on the design wall to get a feel for where we are and to make assemble easy when i get a chance to stitch some.  the available wall space could only fit 4 of 6 rows, the first of which is already assembled but needs a block moved. i was surprised we have enough 16 patch blocks for those rows. there is still a fat stack of 16 patch blocks to be completed, so i didn't think we'd gotten this far along. after seeing everything on the wall, i went over the remaining blocks sets and discovered i have far more than is needed to complete the quilt.

so the good news is d5 only needs to assemble 10 more blocks before i can complete the top. there are an additional 12 sets, which means she can make a small quilt of some sort incorporating them whenever she wants. that resolves our debate about what to name this project. i call it "pinky stinky" edna because i had dozens of problems when starting the quilt (almost all user error, not the pattern). it's pink and it was being stinky: pinky stinky. but d5 likes to call it "tired of pink," a comment i once made after several days of working on nothing but this quilt and i was craving some other colors. she thought that was really funny and a good name for the quilt. but i'm not tired of pink now and i don't think it's a very complimentary name, so i disagree. if she makes her own quilt with the extra blocks, she can call it "tired of pink" and i can call this edna "pinky stinky," which also doesn't necessarily sound complimentary but it's a term of affection used in our household when our girls were little and were being silly or sassy.

i did the handquilting for two more of the interior blocks on "groovy liberty," bringing the total up to 6/42 complete. i'd like to stitch in the sashing, as well, but haven't decided on a color yet. i think something besides white would work better with the creamy/grey grunge fabric, but i haven't decided what yet.

i bought nothing quilt related nor cleaned anything in my sewing room this week, so that sums up my report. i might have some time to get those "samiches" quilted soon, but i'm also hot on the house design front at the moment and might keep focused there.

some backs in detail

 

this older alexander henry print (circa 2010) of mod flowers in warm, deep pastels is a major fabric crush of mine. once i used it for an apron. scraps of it appeared in the original hst block for my gypsy wife quilt and subsequently in the gypsy child hst quilt. a few years ago when i was going at the hst quilt full throttle, i looked to see if i could find yardage of the print for the backing. i got lucky and found an etsy seller who had used it in her custom-order business for household goods and still had some on hand. it's been patiently waiting on my fabric shelves ever since. getting it out and spreading it down the hall to let the folding wrinkles relax a little before i pressed it made me so happy.

when i'm preparing to use large pieces of yardage, usually for a backing, i tend to spread them out to full length while i'm working my way up to them. this particular weekend i was hoping to back a couple of quilts, so there were several pieces laying about in the afternoon sun as i worked.

although the hst top was the first completed of the grouping, it ended up being the last one i basted together. it was well past midnight by the time i got it done, but i pushed through and saw it to completion. i knew i wouldn't have another chance for a while to do this and had no where to store all the big pieces, so it felt necessary. 

this backing might have taken the longest because i decided to do one of my "large strip down one side and pieces along the other" backing, and had to hunt out and cut several pieces of fabric used in the top for the small side pieces. that took quite a while. the results are worth it, so no regrets. i included several selvages in the pieces and was pleased they showed up so well.

the first quilt i backed of this bunch was "fairytale meadow." after that, i went the easy(ish) route and backed "frosted forest star" because the top was already complete and was sitting on top of the gypsy child, making it more easily accessible. i had a few pieces of yardage i was considering for backing but was still unsatisfied with my picks. that large open-pane white-and-dark green plaid woven was going to be my biggest piece of the backing, but it needed some supporting pieces to round it out. it's not a wideback, so i had to supplement it somehow. the colors in the snowflake fabric went really well with the top except that the background color was a warm, creamy ivory color and this quilt is definitely crisp and cool. it just didn't work. the aqua print matched really well, but there was only half a yard. the ginghams felt woodsy, but the color tones were off. i pulled several more fabrics from stash and finally found the perfect pieces.

this random green from my stash, recently purchased as part of a christmas stashing buy, was just the right color. in that same christmas order i found a pinecone and sprig print that coordinated really well and fit the theme of the quilt. it felt so good to have these finally come together! i decided to do a 3-strip-striped backing, another go-to formation of mine. the strips had to be a lot thicker because of how much space i needed them to take.

because i was piecing the strips to be the length of the back (over 72" long), i decided to flip the outer two fabrics at the seam for a little interest. then i decided to make one more cut and do it again for even more fun in that party-on-the-quilt-back. which i later regretted because it started to feel patchwork-y and this quilt top has a very clean, crisp, modern look to it. ah, well. it's on the back and won't matter much.

why i felt the need to take this crummy night photo of me basting the quilt, i don't know. but there you have it - quilt number two for the night, three for the weekend, is a "samich."

"bright forest" took some more thinking and scheming. fortunately, i picked out two of the fabrics in advance in december while working on the top. the ruby star society bears and trees print was basically perfect for the blocky, modern tree top. the colors were just right, too. i have a fat quarter set of the "flurry" line from 2020 that the print comes from, which is how i knew it was just right for my trees. what was wrong was the perfect fabric was out of print, impossible to find in quantity, and too pricey. but i found just enough of it, bit the bullet and paid the cost, knowing i would supplement with something else when the time came. i found less of the "spark" multi-bright snowflake/star print from the same line, which also coordinated really well, but there was enough of it to work into the backing. 

the trees for the top were made in pairs, but my 7x7 top used only 49 blocks, so i had one extra tree for the back. i included the tree in a strip with the "spark" print, and sandwiched that in between the bear print and the perfectly colored deep teal green small checked print i found in my stash. 

whew! done. and i'm very happy with it. i think this backing levels the whole quilt up a few notches.

this post is all out of order for how i did this batch, but there is one more quilt i backed and basted (the day before these three): fairytale meadow.

the top is composed of orange, green, and low-volume heather ross prints. these were the components i decided to echo on the back. ages ago i knew i wanted the green floral print from the "trixie" line for the backing and got several yards, so i had that covered. for the orange, i had one print in enough yardage to make a strip across the width of the back, so that was an easy decision. same with the strawberry print for the low-volume. this one was probably the easiest to decide on and to put together. i was able to include the fun selvages from two of the prints, which i always like to do.

i think the "trixie" mouse detail is one of my favorites of the bunch. 

it was pretty exhausting to get these quilts processed in two days, and my body hurt for a few days after, too. but i'm so glad it's done.