Wonky Blocks

I’m going to have to come out and say it: I find making Wonky Blocks challenging! This week, I’ve made two Wonky Blocks as my contribution to the do.Good Stitches circle I belong to. (do.Good Stitches is a charitable activity organised by quilter Rachel Hauser of Stitched in Color. This month, the quilter organising the blocks in my circle asked for two Wonky Blocks in aquas and greens, including one striped fabric in teach block.

Block one

These are the fabrics I cut out for the first block.

Fabrics cut on for a Wonky Block for do.Good Stitches

These are the pieces at the beginning of the process. Then, I cut slivers of fabric off each shape to make them irregular. I then began to stitch the block together. Once these pieces were all stitched, I trimmed the block to ten and a half inches and cut it in four.

stitched Wonky Block for do.Good Stitches, now trimmed and cut into four

As you can see, I had to swop the green strip at the top; my original piece was too narrow. How tricky it is to know exactly how much you can trim at each stage!

Next, I sewed a wonky cross shape in to the middle.

The final block was eleven and a half inches. I had to make a further change to make this work. A new spotted green fabric is at the bottom! Clearly, I need more practice…

Block two

Here is the second block.

This time, the measurements were much better and I finished the block with the fabrics I chose and cut at the beginning. However, the block does not look as wonky as the first!

My two blocks will now go in the post to Switzerland. Stef (the quilter for this project) will put all the blocks from our group together and make them up into a quilt. The finished quilts are donated to a charity called Mini-Decki. The charity distributes each quilt to a child in need.

Do you enjoy making Wonky Blocks?

Make Modern

The Australian online magazine Make Modern publishes its 50th issue this month.

There are lots of great projects inside, including two which I particularly like, partly because they are photographed in snow! (See last week’s post here for more about my love of a snowy scene.)

This is Villager Quilt by Brooke Shankland

This is Illusion Quilt by Leanne Parsons

Make Modern says:

 Each magazine is 100+ pages long, jam-packed with modern quilt patterns suitable for beginner quilters to advanced, and articles about modern quilting guaranteed to make you smile, inspire you to quilt outside your comfort zone, and start making modern quilts today. Our beautiful patchwork magazine is published independently by a team of quilters and delivered as a digital PDF to read on your computer, tablet or phone, easy to take when you go fabric shopping, with the option to print if you prefer a paper copy.

I am pleased to be associated with Make Modern. Two of my quilts appeared in the magazine last year and there are two more scheduled for 2023. You can see the 2022 quilts below:

This is Happy Scrappy Squares.

'Happy Scrappy Squares' quilt pattern by Amanda Jane Ogden in 'Make Modern' magazine issue 47 page 13

This is Onwards and Upwards

If you are interested in making Modern quilts and want to buy a copy of Make Modern or take out an annual subscription (or even a lifetime access subscription), click the link here for the details. (Please note that this is an affiliate link – if you make a purchase, a modest commission helps support my work providing free content on this website and in my monthly newsletters. It is the ONLY affiliate marketing I do!)

Snow again

This is not the first time I have written a blog post about snow. Over the eight and a half years I have been writing this blog, the topic of snow has come up from time to time. Readers, I am a fan. So in today’s post I am sharing some recent snowy delights and showing you snow-inspired fabrics.

I have recently been in Canada. One of my sons lives in Vancouver and no less than seven members of the family in the UK travelled to see him in December. Although it is possible to ski on at least two mountains close to Vancouver, generally speaking there is not a lot of snow in the city. This year was the exception. A beautiful outdoor exhibition of coloured lights in the Van Dusen botanical gardens was magical due to the reflections on deep snow.

In the town of Squamish, it is possible to catch a cable-car up a distance of 1,000 metres and go from sea-level to mountain top. No snow at the bottom, but deep snow on the various trails for walkers. First, you had to cross this suspension bridge.

In Sasquatch, where we all went for a day’s skiing, there was lots of snow. The temperature was minus 18 degrees centigrade and it continued to snow lightly, but we were not deterred.

On the following day, when we had to leave, the sky was blue and the mountains beautiful.

Snow and mountains inspired this New Year themed fabric ‘Fireworks in the Alps’ available here.

This is ‘Little Chalet’, a pretty, small-scale print on a white background. It is available here

The two ski-ers in my ‘Kisses in the Snow’ design are clearly not deterred by the cold weather! This fabric is available here

You can choose to print the designs onto any of the 24 different fabrics available from Spoonflower. There is information about the fabric types here.

To see all the 113 designs in my online studio, click here

STOP PRESS – there is 20% off Petal Signature Cotton until midnight on 13 January 2023. This fabric is perfect for quilting

Here is the small print:

This offer of 20% off Petal Signature Cotton® is valid from 12:00am ET on January 10, 2023 through 11:59pm ET on January 13, 2023. Promo is not valid on other fabric types, wallpaper, home decor or any other products. Promo offer can be combined with 10% Everyday Designer Discount, but cannot be combined with any other promotional offers. Offer is applied to your cart automatically. No code necessary. This offer applies worldwide with exclusions. Previous purchases are not eligible for adjustments. Offer is available on Spoonflower.com only.

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