Tennesee, 2025 Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt

My 2025 Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt, designed by Edyta Sitar and now called Tennesee, has come home from Calico Point where the long arm quilting happened.

I really like this quilt, the house border is so cute!

It measures 97" square.

I had said that the binding would be a light blue stripe but it's not a true stripe. It is the difference in the floral print. 

The backing fabric is a dark gray fabric.

I don't remember the name of the quilting design. It shows on the light fabric on the front of the quilt and all of the backing fabric.

This was a fun quilt to piece, maybe someday I may make a second one from this pattern. 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, I Quilted This!, TGIFF!, March Favorite Finish, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

First Flimsy Finish of '26

Here is the first flimsy finish of 2026, the 2025 Laundry Basket Mystery quilt which has been renamed Tennessee by the designer, Edyta Sitar.

If you remember, I had made a start with this quilt in September and kept up for several rounds until I decided I didn't like the fabrics I was using.

I started over again in late November using other fabrics that had also been purchased for another quilt that didn't happen. I showed you that in another post.

Now the flimsy is completely finished and has been delivered to the long arm quilter.

Here are multiple picture in various displays for you to peruse. 

This was a fun quilt to make, it actually sewed together fairly quickly. The blocks all finish at 6" and there are a lot of them but making a round at a time didn't seem to take that long.

The outside gray border is the same background fabric used in the chain 'round'. The binding is a striped light blue fabric. I had thought about using it for the outside border but didn't think it would look right so I went with the gray.

Here is a picture on the display floor in the sewing studio. 

And another picture with the flimsy displayed on our king sized bed.

I made a change to the pattern. The outside pieced border has a light background triangle in the block. You are supposed to use the same block in the corner but I didn't think the light triangle looked right, at least I didn't like it.

Anyway this is what I came up with.

The lighter blue square doesn't look quite right since it's not centered in the corner but I didn't want to spend the time figuring out how to make that change. I still think this is better than having a light triangle in the corner. Here is a link to the Tennessee pattern, look at the corner and see the light triangle, what do you think?

My flimsy measures 98" square. In the online sew-along, Edyta had an option to add applique to the outside border. The appliques she had were coordinated to match the fabrics she is selling. I already have an applique project in progress and I was ready to be finished with this quilt.

After finishing the flimsy, there are all the scraps left from cutting the pieces. I was so tempted to just set those aside and start on the next quilt but we all know what happens when we do that. Instead I sorted them into piles and cut the smaller pieces into usable sizes and put larger pieces into their appropriate box. It really didn't take very long to cut into smaller pieces and now the cutting table is clean! Hopefully I'll keep that practice up throughout 2026.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, January Favorite Finish

What's Under the Needle?

Blocks 63, 64, 65 and 68 of Stonefields are foundation paper-pieced blocks. I don't think Susan intended them to be completed that way but that is how I decided to make them.

Blocks 63 & 64 are called Perfection Syndrome.

Block 65 was supposed to be the same as blocks 63 & 64 but I decided to make it the same as block 68 which is called Halfway House.

The rest of the blocks in section 6 are appliqued, you can read about those blocks on my Sunday posts. Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith.

The 2025 Laundry Basket Mystery quilt, which Edyta has now named Tennesee, has been started over. Again I'm using fabric I purchased several years ago for another quilt that didn't happen. For those of you who are interested in fabric lines, the fabric is named Pointe Pleasant and designed by Nancy Rink for Marcus Fabrics. The first 6 'rounds' have been completed.

I made a change to the flying geese 'round'. The geese are supposed to go around in the same direction but I didn't like how that looked against the corner block. I like my setting better.

The background fabric for the star blocks came from my stash. I didn't have a background cream that quite matched the other light fabrics but it was close. However the next round background fabric is a light gray and I think it will tone down the brightness of the cream fabric. The gray fabric used in between the stars is the same background fabric in the zig-zag round.

The dark blue of the stars makes a nice contrast to the softer blues and brightens up the whole quilt!

The light gray fabric is displayed at the bottom and is a part of the fabric line. As of now, the flimsy is a scant 54.5".

I've been wanting a cover for my sewing machine for years and I finally made one. Heartland Sewing Center had June Tailor kits on sale so I purchased one. I measured my sewing machine and thought it was the large size but apparently it's not. 

The cover looks baggy but it completely covers the machine. It's made with batting but I wonder if it would have been better to use a stiff interfacing? I would like to make a cover for my retreat machine, I think I'll try interfacing for that cover. I'll let you know how it turns out whenever I get it sewn.

MSQC has the kit on sale but I paid less at Heartland. Misty Doan has a tutorial at MSQC, I watched the tutorial before I cut anything. It really did help in making the cover.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

Stonefields

Section five from Stonefields has been started, there are 6 pieced blocks in this section.

The first 4 blocks are called Strasbourg Station.

Here are all 4 of them together. The blocks with the darker triangle corners look different than the ones with the light corners.

The next 2 blocks are named The Handkerchief.

I like to make a contrast between the blocks. 

The instructions called for 3 of these blocks but I'm going to make two of a different applique block because I like even numbers.

These blocks finish at 6". Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith.

I got way behind on the Laundry Basket Mystery quilt. I redid the corner blocks which was week 5 of the mystery.

Originally I had pieced pink blocks for the corners but changed them to blue. After I returned home from my vacation, I pieced the next round of blocks. After they were all completed, I realized I had made a mistake in cutting, they didn't work. 

I thought about it and decided I just don't like these fabrics, I don't like the faded look, I'm done with this mystery! However I do like the pattern, maybe I'll start again sometime and use fabrics I like. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with another blue & white quilt! 

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

A Variety of Pieced Blocks

Blocks 42 & 43 from the Stonefields quilt are named Mulhouse Magic, they are the only blocks pieced in section four, they were fun blocks to make.

I fussy cut the center fabric in both blocks which is a square in a square block.

Susan doesn't really give you instructions when you make these blocks. For this block, she said to look at the picture for guidelines. I made QST's for the outer corners, half of them had the light blue on the right side while the other half had the light on the left side. That worked out okay, I had enough for both blocks.

Block 45 was also supposed to be the same design but you know me, two of one design is enough. 

Stonefields is designed by Susan Smith. 

Week 3 of the 2025 Laundry Basket Mystery was to make flying geese, 24 of them. They are placed around the center star. I went ahead and sewed the star sections together, Edyta didn't say to do that but I did it anyway. Hopefully there will not be any unstitching happening.

The blue looks too bold for the rest of the fabrics but I'll wait and see how they look when it's finished before I make any changes. I assume next week we'll be making corner blocks.

The kit came for the Designer Mystery BOM, this is the 4th block in the series.

I think this is the prettiest block. 

Those tiny little birds in the brown fabric are so cute!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts

2025 Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt, Weeks 1 & 2

I've been so good this year sticking to my list of projects and not getting side tracked however I got squirreled! I've succumbed to the Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt sew-along. It's weekly so at least I won't have to wait a month for the pattern like I do for the Designer Mystery sew-along and no, I did not order fabric from Edyta even though she has many beautiful fabric collections.

I came across several bags with fabrics that I had purchased for something else while organizing my sewing studio in July but those projects never happened. I pulled one of those bags for this project.

The fabrics are batiks that I purchased years ago. Yoder's had a quilt in display in their store that I thought was cute so I bought the kit. It was cute but I just didn't get it sewn, now it's time to use the fabrics.

Here are week one blocks, 9 square in a square blocks. I've used two different blue fabrics.

The fabrics actually have more of a slate blue appearance in real life. Don't worry, this isn't another blue & white quilt, there are also dark pink, green, brown and yellowish fabrics. The background fabric is a cream color, not white as they look in the blocks.

The blocks for week two have also been pieced.

These hourglass blocks are set with five of the blocks from week 1, they make a star for the center of the quilt.

I hadn't planned to use blue for this week but I didn't think another color would look right. That is what the challenge is about mystery quilts, color placement!

It's nice that Edyta shows us the location of the blocks in the quilt, this way I was able to use another blue fabric to make the star entirely blue.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put Your Foot Down, Free Motion Mavericks, TGIFF!, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts