November 2021 Monthly Color Challenge

 November is here and it's time to give thanks here in the US. I am so very thankful for all of you stitching and/or following along with me this year.

I admit it was a bit of a rough year for me, not for any particular reason, but mental health (or lack there of) took it's toll earlier this year. Something else I'm thankful for: family that continues to help me work through the struggle.

Blueberries are our inspiration this month, and I just can't say there is a month they don't fit in. I. Love. Blueberries. That is all.

This is another easy block, because I'm assuming that unlike me, many of you are in gift making mode.

**Don't forget the How To video included in the instructions!**

November Bloggers

Carolyn - Appliques, Quilts and More

Claudia - Quilt with Claudia

Roseanne - Home Sewn by Us

Raylee - Sunflower Stitcheries and Quilting

Andi - True Blue Quilts

Crystal - Daybrook Designs

Ashli - Quilt 2 End Alz

Kate - Katie Mae Quilts

This year two block sizes are offered, you can choose to make the 12" finished blocks or the 6" finished blocks, or both!

Quarter 4  Sponsors

There's a new group of sponsors! The Monthly Color Challenge has a great group of sponsors who have given generously to make this year an amazing year for you. Winners are chosen quarterly; April 1, July 1 (Please note that winners will be chosen July 12 when I return from the lake), Oct 1 and Jan 1, 2022. To enter you simply add your block to the Link Up at the end of each month. One entry per quilter and it needs to be the block from the current month. Finish each month and you will have 3 entries each quarter!

Dragonsfly's Quilting Design Studio - Goodie Bag*

Bea Quilter - PDF pattern

Quilter Chic - PDF pattern

Make Modern Magazine - 6 month subscription

P&B Textiles - FQ bundle of "Fractured"*

Benartex - Fat Quarter Bundle*

Quilters Dream Batting - 60" square of 80/20 batting*

The Warm Co - 1 yard Insulbrite*

The Warm Co - 34 x 45 Warm and Natural Needled Cotton*

Appliques, Quilts and More - $10 store gift certificate

Daybrook Designs - 2 PDF patterns

Patterns By Jen - Deb Tucker's Wing Clipper®*

Tips

Here are a few tips for piecing accuracy.

When pressing your strips set your seams first by going over them with a hot iron.

Finger press first to avoid stretching the fabric and causing it to warp.

After finger pressing come back with a hot iron and press straight down.

Before sub-cutting the units you need give yourself a straight edge to work with. This will make your sub-cut units straight and easy to work with. Line up the lines on your ruler on the sewn seams, not the outside edges.

Flip your strip, cut the units needed, continuing to line up the ruler marks on the sewn seams to keep your units straight.

For those stitching the 6" finsished size blocks I found NOT pinning the seams made it easier to sew them.

I did pin the center seam only when sewing the last seam.

That's it! November is done! 

Ready to get the pattern? Go to Payhip and download it now! The block is free for the month of November!

To have the block sent directly to your email sign up HERE.

It's too late to have the January through November blocks emailed to you but you can download them from Payhip and get ready to have the rest of the year arrive in your email inbox.

Make something Extraordinary!

Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?

Don't forget to sign up for the Bites of PBJ newsletter while you are here for early releases and sales just for subscribers!

Newsletter sign up

2021 Monthly Color Challenge

Against the Grain Quilt Along

Find paper and digital patterns in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring

Join the Quilt and Learn with Patterns By Jen Facebook page.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates.

October 2021 Monthly Color Challenge Link Up

 It's Link Up time!

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I love this block. HST will always by my favorite.

You can follow #2021monthlycolorchallenge and #monthlycolorchallenge on Instagram to see the blocks as well.

Quarter 4  Sponsors

Dragonsfly's Quilting Design Studio - Goodie Bag*

Bea Quilter - PDF pattern

Quilter Chic - PDF pattern

Make Modern Magazine - 6 month subscription

P&B Textiles - FQ bundle of "Fractured"*

Benartex - Fat Quarter Bundle*

Quilters Dream Batting - 60" square of 80/20 batting*

The Warm Co - 1 yard Insulbrite*

The Warm Co - 34 x 45 Warm and Natural Needled Cotton*

Appliques, Quilts and More - $10 store gift certificate

Daybrook Designs - 2 PDF patterns

Patterns By Jen - Deb Tucker's Wing Clipper®*

The Link Up is open through October 31. If you have a problem linking up, please use the "question mark" button next to the log out button. If you are trying from your phone, try it from a laptop/tablet if you have one.

Good luck and thank you for stitching along with me!

Missed the block? Find it here!

Make something Extraordinary!

Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?

Don't forget to sign up for the Bites of PBJ newsletter while you are here!

Newsletter sign up

2021 Monthly Color Challenge

Against the Grain Quilt Along

Find paper and digital patterns in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring

Join the Quilt and Learn with Patterns By Jen Facebook page.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

October 2021 Monthly Color Challenge

It's one of my favorite months of the year here in the northern hemisphere, October.

Crunchy, colorful leaves, cooler weather, comfy sweatshirts (if the hot flashes stay away). There's just something about this month that speaks to my soul.

Why then did I pick grapefruit as our inspiration this month? Just to switch things up and keep it fresh. Plus, while I love the month, in the back of my mind I know we are about to enter dark times; snow, freeze your lungs cold and less daylight. So bright pink it is!

Another simple block using simple HST units so I can get back outside to the crisp fall air.

*How To Videos are included in each set of instructions.**

October Bloggers

Jen - Faith and Fabric Design

Roseanne - Home Sewn by Us

Brenda - Songbird Designs

Raylee - Sunflower Stitcheries and Quilting

Andi - True Blue Quilts

Anne - Said with Love

Ashli - Quilt 2 End Alz

This year two block sizes are offered, you can choose to make the 12" finished blocks or the 6" finished blocks, or both!

 

Quarter 4  Sponsors

There's a new group of sponsors! The Monthly Color Challenge has a great group of sponsors who have given generously to make this year an amazing year for you. Winners are chosen quarterly; April 1, July 1 (Please note that winners will be chosen July 12 when I return from the lake), Oct 1 and Jan 1, 2022. To enter you simply add your block to the Link Up at the end of each month. One entry per quilter and it needs to be the block from the current month. Finish each month and you will have 3 entries each quarter!

Dragonsfly's Quilting Design Studio - Goodie Bag*

Bea Quilter - PDF pattern

Quilter Chic - PDF pattern

Make Modern Magazine - 6 month subscription

P&B Textiles - FQ bundle of "Fractured"*

Benartex - Fat Quarter Bundle*

Quilters Dream Batting - 60" square of 80/20 batting*

The Warm Co - 1 yard Insulbrite*

The Warm Co - 34 x 45 Warm and Natural Needled Cotton*

Appliques, Quilts and More - $10 store gift certificate

Daybrook Designs - 2 PDF patterns

Patterns By Jen - Deb Tucker's Wing Clipper®*

Tips

Here are a few tips for piecing accuracy.

Sew a "scant" inch, I sew with the quarter inch guide just along side the line, not right on it.

Chain stitch HST units.

Pin from right to left.

Spin the seam on the center pinwheel.

That's it! October is done! 

Ready to get the pattern? Go to Payhip and download it now! The block is free for the month of October!

To have the block sent directly to your email sign up HERE.

It's too late to have the January through October blocks emailed to you but you can download them from Payhip and get ready to have the rest of the year arrive in your email inbox.

Make something Extraordinary!

Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?

Don't forget to sign up for the Bites of PBJ newsletter while you are here for early releases and sales just for subscribers!

Newsletter sign up

2021 Monthly Color Challenge

Against the Grain Quilt Along

Find paper and digital patterns in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring

Join the Quilt and Learn with Patterns By Jen Facebook page.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates. 

Pieced backings - Using strips tutorial

 I love the pieced backing on the new Pinwheel Pivot quilt. It was super easy to do and I'm going to show you how I made it.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains Affiliate Links. When purchases are made through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your purchases help support my small business and keep my husband's head from exploding every time a new quilting notion arrives in our mailbox. Thank you for that. Find out more about Affiliate Links Here.

I used part of a fat eighth bundle of All Hallows Eve fabric for the front of Pinwheel Pivot.

As a quilter that doesn't like to have a lot of fabric sitting that meant finding something to use the rest of the fat eighths for.

Since every quilt needs a back, that was my answer. However I didn't want to sew squares together, I wanted something with a little more oomph.

What that meant was cutting each fat eighth into strips.

I folded the fat eighth the long way, trimmed the top just a bit to make it straight and then gave myself another straight edge to work with by trimming off just a smidge from the side. For the least amount of waste I cut my strips 1 7/8" wide.

Once all the fat eighths were cut down to strips I began sewing them end to end. I didn't go in any particular order, just grabbed one from a stack and another from a different stack and stitched.

I continued to grab strips and sew them until they were all sewn into pairs. Then I pressed, it doesn't matter which way you press.

That's me, waaaay at the end.

Once pressed I continued to sew strips together end to end.

I made the 42" square of Pinwheel Pivot so I needed 50" wide backing. Once I had stitched all of the strips together I began to sub-cut them into 50" strips. I did it this way so that I wouldn't have to worry about the seams lining up.

You don't have to worry if you get a piece that is really small as you sub-cut because these will be trimmed off when you square up to put the binding on. Note the little pink sticky. I put that there so that I could measure the strips quickly.

*Tip* When pressing the length of the strips, finger press the seams before using the iron to help keep them from getting stretched out.

Once I had sewn all of the strips I had together I knew I wouldn't have enough for the length of the quilt. I added yardage to top and bottom because strips can get warped and pulled and this gave me a strong base for the top edges. Notice I wasn't too worried about the strips ending perfectly together because this is made larger than needed and would be trimmed down.

For this quilt I ended up spray basting instead of pinning, but to line up the strips and to top it doesn't matter which you do.

Once I had the backing and batting basted together I laid out the top. I simply lined up the seam of the pieced rows with a seam of the pieced back, and counted to make sure both sides followed the same number of rows. Easy peasy. If you wanted to make sure your quilt didn't shift you could put a pin in at the end of each row to make sure it stays with the back seam it is supposed to be aligned with.

Strip pieced backing done, minimal left over fabric. One happy quilter.

Find Pinwheel Pivot in my Etsy shop!

Make something Extraordinary!

Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?

Don't forget to sign up for the Bites of PBJ newsletter while you are here for early releases and sales just for subscribers!

Newsletter sign up

2021 Monthly Color Challenge

Against the Grain Quilt Along

Find paper and digital patterns in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring

Join the Quilt and Learn with Patterns By Jen Facebook page.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates. 

Introducing Pinwheel Pivot!

 What's this? A new pattern?!

It's true, there's a new pattern from PBJ! The first one since March.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains Affiliate Links. When purchases are made through these links I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Your purchases help support my small business and keep my husband's head from exploding every time a new quilting notion arrives in our mailbox. Thank you for that. Find out more about Affiliate Links Here.

You may recognize this pattern from earlier this year in All People Quilt magazine. Now reimagined with more sizes and choices!

This big block quilt is great for the new quilter and beyond. It's fat quarter friendly and makes a great holiday (any holiday) quilt.

This quilt is beautiful as a two color quilt, but I LOVE it using the All Hallows Eve fabric from Fig Tree and Co. I used a fat eighth bundle, using two fabrics for each block, and it's love.

Did I say love? I think it may be adoration.

As a quilter who doesn't like to have a lot of fabric laying around unused, I decided to use the rest of the All Hallows Eve fat eighth bundle to make a pieced backing. Check back tomorrow for the how to!

Find the fabric used for the Halloween version at The Fat Quarter Shop.

Lets see what the testers did with this pattern!

We will start with Melva's table topper. A striking piece to set in the center of any table.

 Beverly liked the look of the table topper so much she made two! It really is a quick sew and statement piece. I'm going to be making one for my daughter for her new place. As soon as marching band season is done. 😉

Fawn tested the table runner and I love how it shows that larger prints work well in this pattern as well.

Sherry also made the table runner and if you like batiks, this pattern works well with those, too!

How fun is this little quilt that Amber made? She wishes the grey was darker so it stood out more, but I think it's the perfect softness for that fun background print.

Sheila's gold quilt is the perfect accent quilt for this room! I love that gold.

Janice chose to swap light and dark and what a difference that makes in the quilt.

Find Pinwheel Pivot here, on sale for one week:

Etsy PDF

Etsy Printed (preorder now)

Payhip PDF

The pattern is available for wholesale orders. Email wholesale(at)patternsbyjen(dot)com

Or ask your distributor to carry Pattern By Jen patterns!

I can't wait to see what you make!

Make something Extraordinary!

Jen

New to Patterns By Jen?

Don't forget to sign up for the Bites of PBJ newsletter while you are here!

Newsletter sign up

2021 Monthly Color Challenge

Against the Grain Quilt Along

Find paper and digital patterns in my Etsy shop.

Find fun PBJ merchandise at Teespring

Join the Quilt and Learn with Patterns By Jen Facebook page.

Follow me on Instagram and Facebook for daily sneak peeks and updates.