I am excited to share a WIP/block finish with you today! I am participating in Pile O’Fabric’s Skillbuilder Block of the Month series where we sew and quilt two blocks a month using quilt-as-you go techniques. I’ve never made a quilt like this before, and it’s “sew” fun!
Here are my finished blocks from January, called Magnum and Sound Wave. Click each picture to enlarge so that you can see closeups of the quilting detail.
I chose fat quarters of Kona Cotton Solids in shades of red, orange and yellow, with a complement of turquoise thrown in, just for fun. I used cotton threads (Aurifil and Superior) to match all the colors of the fabrics with thin grey polyester thread for the background.
I stitched in the ditch through all of the seams first to stabilize them, then filled in each color with a fun design, changing thread colors as I went. I used a quarter to mark the circles.
Here are the backs of the blocks. I love how the thread colors stand out!
Now I’m off to catch up on February’s Blocks!
Christa Quilts 
I love the idea of QAYG but I’m confused…once you get them all done up, how do you sew them to each other? Most of the tutorials I’ve seen have you add the backing later, then stitching in the ditch. I like the way you are showing better, but can’t wrap my brain around it.
I don’t know how they’ll go together yet, LOL!! That’s why I’m doing Pile O’Fabric’s skillbuilder quilt along so I can learn for myself 🙂
That looks like a lot of fun. Your FMQ looks amazing and I love the bright colours.
I’m so impressed! Those circles are amazingly perfect looking. You did a great job choosing the designs and thread colors.
Gorgeous colors and quilting! I was wondering how you got such perfect circles. Great idea!
Love the colors!!! Your quilting is beautiful! 🙂
Love you Skill Builder BOM. Your fabric choices and FMQ work well together.
Wow your blocks look spectacular! Mine barely got quilted. I have to do this months quilting yet but put off till the last minute. I need practice. Love the bright colors and the matching threads.
your quilting is awesome!!
So cool! Great idea for marking the circles, must remember that.
Wow! Your quilting is amazing. Your bobbin assortment is beautiful.
These are gorgeous! Love the colors!!
Beautiful. The colours chosen work together so well and I’m mightily impressed by the quilting. Gorgeous effects!
Wow, those are fantastic! I’m doing the same BOM and I love seeing how different the “same” blocks turn out depending on who’s making them!
Great job on the blocks and the quilting! I look forward to seeing the completed quilt!
I so love your quilting on the Skill Builder BOM. I am yet to quilt mine as we are away, so can’t wait to get into it when we return.
This looks fantastic! My circles turn out more like lopsided ovals – how do you ever keep them round? lol….
Thanks Jan! When quilting individual circles I will mark them and slowly sew around the lines. When quilting a group of pebbles, I don’t mark them but I practice drawing with paper and pen first so I get the motion down. Then I quilt a lot of them really closely together so the mistakes are hidden!
And lopsided ovals are ok too – as long at they provide lots of yummy texture 🙂
Beautiful blocks and your threads…….love them! Thanks for sharing.
Freemotion by the River Linky Party Tuesday
Had to come back, the colors of the spools stayed in my head.. are they the regular size ones you buy at Joann;s? I love grey quilts, but I also like a hint of black on my quilts with my colors.. I really need to catch p on my BOMs. I just got this new machine and its a learning process. You have been putting out alot lately, new vitamins? LOL Thanks again for stopping by.
Ha ha! I get a lot done because I don’t watch TV and the kids do most of the chores 😉 The cottons are from Aurifil and Superior. You can find sources for them online. I may carry Aurifil eventually but haven’t gotten there yet.
Love the colours you’ve used – especially paired with the darker grey. Your quilting looks fantastic!!
Thank you so much! Just saw this site yesterday and have only picked out my fabrics so far. So excited to begin!
I am loving this Skill Builder quilt. I am a beginner & never did FMQ before and after doing Jan.’s blocks I was confident enough to FMQ an entire big quilt that I made for a wedding gift and it turned out well enough that I’m not embarrassed to give the quilt as a gift. Alyssa is a wonderful teacher and I’m so glad you featured her here on your blog or I never would have found her.
Your quilting has inspired me to keep practising as mine looks NOTHING like yours lol. Some long arm bloggers quilting is so intricate that it takes the wind out of your sails. You & Alyssa are both so down to earth that you inspire us regular people. A big thanks to both of you!!
That’s fantastic Claire! That’s what it’s all about I think 🙂
please share this.. at the TIPS,TRICKS OR TUTORIAL PARTY today !!! I love all that thread color, I need some Aurfil for my new machine..
Love this sampler, and I would like to try again this quilt as you go method, so I will cruise over to PileO’Fabric… I did a log cabin one a LONG time ago, prior to free motion quilting – in fact it was polyfil and came out rather puffy:-) The benefit then was the ability to make something large and still handle it under the machine, Still true, but now I think of the fun doodling that can be done with this method nowadays..
Yes, that’s true – I see lots of potential!
You did an amazing job!!!
I’m doing this one too thanks to you for pointing it out. I haven’t tried the quilting yet, but that is next now that I am back from QuiltCon! I have never done any machine quilting that I liked and hope these small blocks will turn out satisfactory.
Laura, just relax and have fun with it. Practice on a few scraps first until you get the rhythm of it and like what you see 🙂
Very nice job!
Your blocks look great and love the quilting!
really love the colours and the quarter idea was a good one.
Gill in Canada
Great Job! I am having a tom of fun with the skill builder:)
hi Christa
what did you use to mark the circles on the quilt? and what thread are you using?
thanks
Meredith
Meredith, I used a washout pen and a quarter to mark the row of even circles. For the random sized “pebbles” I just quilted those free-hand. I used a combination of Aurifil cotton, Superior Masterpiece, and Superior Sew Fine polyester threads for the quilting.