GAME ON! Month 3

Game On! is the 2026 Block of the Month quilt designed by Becky Goldsmith exclusively for THE QUILT SHOW: find Game On! information here. Join as a Star Member to get all the patterns and all the videos FREE. Membership is just $49/year and provides access to over 18 years of shows and tremendous additional content. Join HERE

This is the BIG month! We will assemble the Center Medallion, the heart of this quilt. 

My SOLIDS center

MY TIPS:

1. WATCH THE VIDEOS: there are 8 of them, less than 35 minutes total. I recommend you watch them ALL first, before you start, as this will show you the process and you will know which videos to return to when you get to that part of the  assembly process. 

2. CUTTING RECOMMENDATION: don't cut the Inner and Outer Sashing strips until the center is complete. If yours is short, you can widen those strips to insure your Center Medallion with seam allowances is 36.5" square. This is VERY IMPORTANT as we move on to the pieced borders next month.

3. I changed a few colors in my Solid Kit. The Corner Circle are not Yellow and White. And outer sashing is not brown. It's your quilt, YOU get to decide.

4. FOLLOW the INSTRUCTIONS: in addition to the videos, the pattern Instructions take you step-by-step through the process with photos. Take time to read them as you work.

4. APPLIQUE: I used vellum to print the two Placement Overlay pages. I could see through it, no need to put marks on the quilt and I didn't have vinyl. Becky's applique technique always uses vinyl, she invented this method, I believe, so if you have it, you can use it. 

5. SETTING the MEDALLION TOGETHER: Step 7 shows how to draw pencil lines on the WRONG side of the corners, right at the edge of the paper pattern. It is important to do this BEFORE REMOVING the PAPER.  (NOTE: for those using Freezer Paper, I wrote on the FORUM last month the need to do this BEFORE removing the Freezer Paper.)

Since I remove the paper before I assemble the center, I drew these lines as soon as the corners were complete. Becky shows doing this AFTER the pointy parts are sewn to the corners.

Mine

In addition, I drew crosshairs 1/4" INSIDE that outer pencil line to show me exactly where the corners are. These lines replace the DOT on the pattern papers--since I removed the papers BEFORE assembling the Center Medallion:

6. TAKE YOUR TIME: the process of adding the 4 points to the 4 corners and then INSERTING the Center Circle takes time, patience, and forgiveness. You might try machine basting as you insert the center block. Go slow, watch the seam allowances you can't see under the needle, take it easy.  BE SURE the center "hole" where the center block is inserted is 6.5" on all 4 sides.

7. HOW TO FIX THE CONNECTIONS: if you are not happy with the "corners" surrounding the center square I have a solution: cover them with a circle.

When I got the Solid version together it wasn't that great. It had been a long day so I stopped. The next day I "fiddled" with all those places, re-doing as necessary, until I was satisfied enough with the result.

BUT laying in bed that night I thought "What am I going to do if I can't get this right?"  The "cover up my mistakes" method was born!

I use Karen K Buckley's Perfect Circle method. This is about the size of a dime. It is the same color as the top circle I used in the outer corners.  I have shown this to many friends and all agreed this is a good solution. It looks like it is part of the original design, in keeping with the other circles in the Center Medallion and no one but you knows what it looks like under there:

Now that I have made two of these Center Medallions, I can tell you it isn't easy to get those corners nice and pretty but it can be done. Becky says inserting the center block into the middle is the most difficult part of this whole quilt--I quite agree. You get to decide how perfect your quilt is. 

8. BE SURE the CENTER MEDALLION IS 32.5" square once assembled. Becky has excellent instructions and a video to help you. Once it is, cut and add the two sashings. If it is short, you can increase the width of one or both of the sashings to get the FINAL size correct--it MUST BE 36.5" SQUARE, including seam allowances when Month 3 is done. 

9. CELEBRATE the completion of MONTH 3! You earned it. Now we move on to the most fun and easy parts--adding borders.

10. PLEASE add your PHOTOS to the FORUM--we want to see all the progress. If the photo doesn't upload, it's too large, resize it smaller and try again. Google taught me how to do that.

My Prints version, through Month 7

Let's quilt.

Barbara

QUILTS ALL OVER THE HOUSE

This past week I gave a Zoom lecture to the Valley Forge Homestead Quilters, in Pennsylvania. Meeting virtually with them was fun and hearing that Philadelphia accent I think I have lost but can recognize instantly was even more fun. They chose the lecture "THE HARD STUFF" and I hope I inspired them to rise to a challenge. Thanks, ladies, it was good to be "with" you.

The Heritage Quilters of Huntsville had our bi-annual quilt show and I will do a long blog about it next week with lots of photos. The guild always presents a great show and this was no exception.

Since I am working diligently on a super secret project I cannot show you, here are some of the many quilts around my house, in no particular order:

The extra guest room, also where the overflow quilts are stored

An Archeological Dig, some completed, some waiting for quilting 

The most commonly used teaching quilts in easy reach

Many tops waiting to be quilted

The Living Room, an art quilt above the mantel, a small one on the chair waiting for the binding to be hand sewn. The small quilt on the sofa is for the cat

More Living Room--time for the Christmas quilt to come down. My Quilt of Valor is on my chair

A small piece from my "artsy" period, with LOTS of beads and a 3D lace dragonfly

Our bedroom with a few of my favorites and my husband's Quilt of Valor is at the foot

Even have quilts in the bathrooms--this was an early teaching sample: Quiltmaking 201, more challenging blocks and hand quilting

Another in my bathroom--Batiky Log Cabins--made for and featured in McCall's Quilting magazine years ago

The main guest room, always ready for guests

Oriental One of a Kind--from my artsy/Asian period, lots of beading, some hand quilting, some machine quilting

A lovely Round Robin quilt I made with the Sunday Sew and Sews

Hand marbled fabric I made and used for a Signature Quilt at a wonderful retreat with the Virginia Consortium of Quilters, 1989

Color Play 2, made in 2010, a scaled down version of a quilt in a magazine

My introduction to paper piecing 1994. Those kimono blocks are 2.5". Lots of hand quilting, back when I hand quilted everything

So there you have a little tour. How do you display your quilts?

Let's quilt.

Barbara 

FREE MOTION MACHINE QUILTING

 While I enjoy hand quilting and learned to do it many years ago, it is slow. Now most of my quilts are finished by machine quilting.

While some are "quilted by checkbook", meaning I pay a longarm quilter to quilt them, most I quilt myself on my Bernina Q20 sit down longarm machine. Like with most things, the more you practice, the better you become.

2012, that's 14 years ago, I started planning and making a quilt for my 60th birthday, my "Diamond Jubilee". It is almost finished! I have written about this quilt a lot during those years, find one of them HERE.

This is the top before I started quilting it:

Some photos of the quilting:

As I worked on the various stars, I wondered what I could do in the wide paisley border. It needed a good bit of quilting but nothing would show up except for the "texture" given by the stitches. And there was nothing I could mark on this fabric that I would be able to see for quilting. 

By dumb luck at just the right time, I learned of Geraldine Wilkins' new ruler: Stitchline 3-in-1 Ruler Quilting Tool. I met Geraldine when we both taught at the Virginia Consortium of Quilters a few years ago. She knows her stuff and is an excellent machine quilting teacher. And she knows what makes a tool really great. The price was right, shipping was reasonable, so I ordered it. Timing was perfect, it arrived the day before I was ready to tackle those borders.

I wanted something curvy, fairly open, and the ruler had excellent markings to require no marking on the quilt itself. I was very pleased with how well it works and how the border looked finished:

Back showing the border quilting, a wavy cross hatch

Straight Line 1 Ruler--in addition to the curvy edge there is a channel for stitch in the ditch, and a straight edge with needle stops at both ends

The first pass--all curvy lines done in only one direction. After that was done, I decided it needed to be done in the other direction too.

Detail of quilting in the blocks--all done with rulers

Once this was quilted, the binding went on and I'm just about done hand sewing that in place.

On to the next one. The bins of four patches I make as leader/enders was overflowing so I looked for a block pattern to use some. I thought I liked this enough to make a large quilt but when 12 blocks were done I knew that was enough. I just didn't love it that much--this baby size was plenty:

The body of the quilt is quilted with a simple straight line cross hatch grid, using Geraldine's ruler. 

I want to get better at feathers and this was the perfect quilt for them--the busy border fabric won't show much and I was free to play with feathers. 

First I used another ruler I have with a curvy edge to quilt the spine of the feather plume. Then I drew lines on paper the finished size of the border, added that same spine, and drew the feathers with a pencil. This helped me see which way to quilt them and served as a reference as I was quilting:

All in all, I was pleased with how the feathers turned out:

From the back so you can see them

The front

Now I am hand sewing the binding in place and this will be done. Waiting for a baby who needs a quilt with a mother who likes old-timey fabrics. And I am still looking for a way to use the hundreds of four patches from bright fabrics:

I am enjoying online classes for free motion and ruler work quilting. Here is a little more from those:

Learning new designs will give me more options as I finish more than a few tops I have made.

Do you quilt your own? What is your favorite method?

Let's quilt.

Barbara

THIS AND THAT

Blissfully at home much of this winter, I am getting a lot done with little concern for cold weather.

Here is what has kept me busy this week:

1. Angela Walter's Arcs, Curves, Points with Rulers Free-Motion Challenge Quilting Along. I bought both the smaller and larger panels, so easy to work with for this class. This is the small one:

A variety of rulers for free motion quilting

My progress for weeks 1 and 2 

2. Natalia Bonner's free class, 99+ Strip Designs. This just started. These are the first 3 designs and one of the added Bonus designs, all to fit 2" finished strips. To start, I am just using scrap fabric with 2" lines drawn in. When I perfect a few of my favorites I will use them on a Quilt of Valor I am making for a specific Marine.  I really want to perfect my Ribbon Candy, so not there yet, but her tip to draw around a penny or dime to get started was a good one. Half way across I switched to no drawn lines as I was getting in the rhythm of the design. Lot more practice is needed:

3. The Sunday Sew and Sews came over, a small group due to illness, a broken hip, family obligations. But look what they brought for Show and Tell:

Susan is on a mission to complete  a lot of UFOs

Susan made this for her husband, a coffee lover

Another from Susan

Susan's Sizzle, the BOM from 2019, designed by Becky Goldsmith

Susan made this throw size from the leftovers of a king size Ocean Waves quilt

Pam finished her Laurel Ridge in William Morris fabrics. She says she has MORE William Morris fabric now than when she started. How does that happen?

Cyndi is making these delicate Log Cabin blocks from a kit, I think that ships monthly. It's pricey because they are Liberty of London lawn fabrics and she added on the "fussy cut centers" package. The blocks feel so good!

Cyndi is very talented with EQ8--she often redesigns Block of the Month patterns to suit herself. This is her version of Game On! She calls it Parchisi. 

These women are very talented, giving and fun to be around. I look forward to their visits.

This week I got a package--the PRINTS KIT for the 2026 Block of the Month for TheQuiltShow.com, Game On! designed by Becky Goldsmith:

It is a beautiful collection of contemporary fabrics, the kinds I don't have a lot of. It is 17.625 yards, mostly fat quarters, and would be an excellent way to freshen up your stash--or call it your "collection".

The BEST phrase I ever heard about your "stash" vs "collection" is this:

"I am the Curator of an extensive personal TEXTILE COLLECTION". Now doesn't that sound impressive?

Available for purchase by anyone, you don't have to be a Star Member to shop in the "Store". See it HERE for a full list of each fabric in this package.  

I cut out Month 1 and 2 so I can make and use them for demos on my LIVE:

Month 2 ready to sew

Month 1 ready to sew

It's been cold and wet here but we have power and no where we have to go most days. I remember the 35 years I worked for H&R Block and HAD to go to work when the weather was awful--I was the office manager and those would be busy days--if people couldn't go to work because of snow they would come to us to get their taxes done. I am so glad those days are behind me! 

Now I can bake bread when the weather is cold. Find the recipe for this and my other favorites up top here in the tab RECIPES:

Cranberry Pecan Artisan Bread

There are a few more things to keep me busy, like working on my own taxes, but there's nothing to show for that.

I hope you are dry and warm and enjoying some good times.

Let's quilt.

Barbara