Popsicles

Today I finished a small project that had been hanging in my closet for three years. In 2020 I co-chaired a Block of the Month committee for my quilt guild. In July, all the block kits for a popsicle theme had not sold, so I purchased the eight remaining, pieced them myself, and assembled them to be a table topper or wall hanging. A closeup of the quilting shows my experimentation. I got practice with a wavy ruler with a ± 0.75 inch amplitude that nicely filled in the 1.5" wide vertical sashing. I practiced my horizontal undulating FMQ to look like water beneath each popsicle to represent the drips as each melts. Small projects require less bravery to try something new and mean less to quilt.

The backing was a patriotic stripe and, even though it was a small project, I made my customary grosgrain ribbon labels for the back corners.

My co-chair and I had picked a color scheme that reminded us of the rocket pops sold on the roving ice cream trucks of the summer days of our youth. Each popsicle had a sashing added to the top or bottom so when joined together they sat at varying angles as if they were dancing across the quilt.

Reluctant to hand stitch the binding onto the back, I used a flange binding that I could attach on the back, bring to the front, and stitch in the ditch of the ⅛" wide white flange, all on my Pfaff.

The joined blocks had hung on a hanger in my closet paired with a length of fabric to be used as a backing. This project took a little over two days to complete after cluttering up a rod in my closet for close to ~1000 days. Popsicles is nearly square, measuring 19" wide by 18" tall. Completing it was fun and satisfying. Although I have made no progress so far this year on several large bed-size quilts, listed in my goals for 2023, small victories, like this one, do make me happy.

Here are the instruction that went out with the block kits in case any of you readers want to share a bit of the joy and satisfaction that accompanies a small project quickly made.