This is not a drill. I was able to work on a quilt top I started making for myself back in 2017.

About a month ago, I was invited to a quilting retreat at Stitch Supply Co. in Altoona, Wisconsin. I had the best time! It really supercharged my desire for patchwork again. Now I want to finish WIPs and start new projects with the fabulous fabric I bought there.

For this project, the quilt pattern I used is called Mini Modern Heart. It's actually a foundation paper piecing block I designed to use up small scraps of fabric. It certainly is a good pattern for doing just that!

My original intention was to make one block per day for a year—but, you know—life happened and I came up WAYYYY short of my goal.

At the retreat, I decided to wrap-up the project once and for all. I abandoned my original plan (365 blocks) when I realized that I had enough blocks to make a nicely sized lap quilt.

And guess what?! I ended up with 11 columns of 13 blocks each, which is drumrolllllllll... 143 ...

Quilty friends, naming designs is hard work. I was struggling to come up with a name for this design so I texted my mom and sister a photo of the finished sample, asking them for help. My sister's first response was Beleaf It Or Not and I laughed out loud so much that I had to go for it. 

Seinfeld—because of the huge influence in our lives—has become part of our shared language. 'Beleaf It or Not' immediately reminded me of the episode that features George's outgoing answering machine message where he changed the words to the song "Believe It or Not". 

THAT is what makes me giggle every time I think of it.

When I design edge to edge pantographs, my number one goal is to create interesting textures. I really love the repeated round shapes of the "leaves"—or as quilters would call them, feathers.

 
Here are my specifics using a baby-sized sample in the photos (45" x 45" quilt size):
Row height: 5.94"
Gap: -4.86"*
Pattern height: 10.8"
Offset: none
Backtracking: none

*Gap refe...

Want an easy solution to quilting that looks like you spent HOURS on back-breaking ruler work?

Paradoxical is the design for such a time as this!

This hexagonal-shaped series of straight lines would look amazing on a modern quilt top.

With this edge-to-edge design, you get the look of complexity with the ease of set-up and use.

As for set-up, you'll want to offset every other row at 50% and close the gap between rows until the amount of spacing between the rows looks the same as the distance between the lines with the motif at the scale you choose.

When I'm testing out a new design, I stitch it out to make sure everything is sequenced property and quilting smoothly. I usually only do one sample, but after the first attempt, I found ways to drastically improve the stitch path without changing the design. For the second time around, I decided to make the scale much smaller. In the next photo, you can see the original sample on the left and the updated sample on the rig...