Monday, April 6, 2026

March Shamrocks and Irish Chains Completed

In my previous post I compared a kit option versus using my own fabric selection coupled with a pdf pattern. Loss of flexibility in design freedom is offset by the convenience of a kit. Once the top is assembled, however, this distinction vanishes when it comes to the FMQ. Here is how I FMQ'd the featured blocks and the sashing and borders that surround them on the Shabby Fabrics Pieceful Patchwork banner for March.

SHAMROCKS
I did nested hearts internal on each of the three leaves using the 5" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 2 Set of 3  and the 2½" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 1 Set of 3. I put scallops along the stem, using my HandiQuilter Mini Scallop Ruler. The leaves still looked a bit naked so I added scallops also along their perimeter. I struggled with what to do with the background and decided on stippling. I do not so well with stippling, so I guess that means I could use the practice. The areas surrounding the shamrock were small enough, so I gave it a try in those triangular spaces, and it worked out OK.


IRISH CHAINS
I used the 3" heart from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Heart 2 Set of 3 template for the four lobes of the diamond. To echo the concept of Irish Chains, I used the outer diameter of the 4"circle from Amanda Murphy's Good Measure Every Circle Set of 5 templates to make the arcs of my chain smooth on the two diagonals. In the background area I did parallel lines to echo the shape of the diamond using my Angela Walters Slim straight ruler.

BORDERS and SASHING
Initially I was going to put scallops in the border as I had in the shamrock blocks but scallops seemed on too small a scale for the space. Instead, I stitched two rows of half circles with the 1.5" side of my HandiQuilter Multi-Clamshell ruler, the smallest side. Collecting rulers from different brands, I appreciate that Angela Walters and Amanda Murphy rulers have both white and black markings. I do wish HandiQuilter would adopt this design. It really does promote better visibility.  



In the sashing, I really wanted those leprechaun eyes to peek out, so I free-hand stitched straight lines under each pair of eyes and no where else in the sashing. For the horizontal sashing I waved the lines a bit to look like an undulated water surface in case the little green guys were hiding in a pond, or wavy like mild hilly terrain, in case the leprechauns were tucked behind mounds of dirt.

BACKING
For the backing I had one yard of a bold lime green and white stripe that I had been saving to use in some clever diagonally mitered situation ... an opportunity that never seemed to arise. I repurposed the stripe for a happy backing. even cutting is crosswise for the hanging sleeve. I used my domestic Pfaff to  machine embroider my usual labels on grosgrain ribbon. This time, however, the unimaginative —  but accurate — name was so long, I needed to use two length of ribbon to make it. In retrospect, I should have named the banner something shorter and more clever, like Leprechaun Levity for example. But staying with the custom of the other banners, it stayed at Shamrocks and Irish Chains. The label with my initials, the year, and intended month for the banner is in one lower corner. The label with the quilt name is in the the lower corner.

COMPLETED BANNER
I have a spot right next to the entrance to my sewing room where I can easily trade out a banner each month. Here is the March banner Shamrocks and Irish Chains displayed. I am going to keep it up for a while since the April banner stole some of its time in March. I am all set to be in sync for May and June, though, since those banners are already completed.

Here are my completions thus far for this series from Shabby Fabrics.

  • JAN    Snowmen and Snowflakes (2/10/26)
  • MAR  Shamrocks and Irish Chains (4/6/26 this post)
  • APR   Bunnies and Carrots (3/6/26)
  • MAY   Roses and Pansies (9/11/25)
  • JUN    Strawberries (9/6/25)
  • AUG    Bees and Sunflowers (9/21/25)
I still have six yet to start: February (a pdf not a kit), July, September, October, November, December. I may not do them in month order, but rather in the order of which colors I am in the mood for. Sometimes, with my quilting, I am more productive if I listen to my heart, rather than my mind.

Monday, March 30, 2026

March Shamrocks and Irish Chains

Instead of a kit from Shabby Fabrics' Pieceful Patchwork Banner for March, I bought a pdf for the pattern. "I have plenty of greens," I told myself. "I can pull and use up some of my own fabrics." Well that I did, and what chaos I created in my sewing room trying to get nine different greens as called for in the pattern. Yes, I did have that many greens, but none were the correct "emerald" green illustrated in the pattern cover and associated with St. Patrick's Day. Some were too olive, and some were too yellow, and some had non-subtle prints that did not read like a solid. I did cave and pick up three fat quarters from my local quilt shop In Between Stitches to fill in my "emerald" green gap. 



This is the set of colors I was trying to imitate followed by a photo of the nine greens I did decide upon. I decided that a pure green hue, my shamrocks (colors 1 thru 5) could have a dash of yellow and be more lime and the Irish chain blocks (colors 6 thru 9) could have a dash of blue and be more teal.



I had to choose my background fabric and, although I could have chosen white, I wanted something with a bit more interest. I considered a white with tiny navy dots, an ecru subtle stripe with green eyes peeping out, or a soft ecru with subtle same-size-but-random dots. I really like the eyes fabric. I remembering buying it in Cinnamon's Quilt Shoppe in Jacksonville, FL during a Country Heritage Tour in March of 2019 as one selection in a fat quarter bundle with an alligator theme. Put in an Irish banner they would become leprechaun eyes in my imagination. I decided against them as the background because with the flipped corner triangles, the orientation would be in different directions and pretty hard to control. To be logical and make it easy on myself, I chose the subtle dots as the background. I still "eyed" those green eyes with longing though.


After sewing three four patches for each of the two shamrocks, I "rounded" each leaf with corner flip triangles of my background subtle ecru dots. A completed shamrock is the last in the following trio of photos.



I took no in-progress photos of the Irish Chain block, but here a closeup of an assembled one is shown in the second of the following pair of photos. The Irish chain block is made up of five four-patch blocks and four two-tone blocks that look like picket fence posts.



There was still some fussy cutting in this banner's future. I decided that the sashing between the blocks could still be the eyes of the leprechauns hiding amidst the shamrocks. I cut the sashing on the straight of grain or across the grain so all eyes faced the same way. I did cut all the tile-like print outer border on the straight of grain, and I centered each  petal image along the border strip. 


My fabric selection for the binding was a solid teal, referencing back to the solid teal of the Irish chain blocks, but I did not have enough of it. I seamed it lengthwise with the second color hidden within the binding and made it work. To make the binding 2½" wide I joined a 1¾" strip of teal with a 1¼" strip of another green. Calculation: 1¾" + 1¼" - ¼" - ¼" = 2½". In the following photo the upper image of the seamed binding is shown from the inside, before folding in half. In the middle image, the folded binding is shown from the back, which will be concealed inside the binding when attached to the quilt. In the bottom image the teal binding is shown as it will look before sewing to the quilt.


All these decisions took time. When I mull things over I am not very speedy about it. After March's experience with a pdf pattern using my own fabric selections, I appreciate even more the convenience of a kit. Also, kits generate fewer scraps. I now have quite a few partial fat quarters in the green family because I used only a fraction of each one. Do these go in my fat quarter drawers to frustrate me in the future when I think I have a fat quarter but a chunk is cut out of it? Or do these go into oblivion in my scrap bins? Ah, more decisions even once the top is constructed!

Next up is sandwiching, quilting, labeling, binding, and adding a hanging sleeve. Stay tuned for the completion blog post.