Design Wall Monday (Week 22)

This is the first quilt from my Block-a-Days-cool beans. 

I have the 2nd & 3rd borders cut.  When I first started to play with these blocks I was ho-hum about them, but they're growing on me. Check out other walls here.

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And barely got the current bl-a-days done by Sat. evening. I'm up to June 14th! I've started 2 new colorways: Batiks with black background for the next bunch of 12" blocks and 

the one 9" block on the far left is in 'bright' colors.  I have a good bit of those fabrics and there are 20 more 9" blocks in the calendar (yea, I flipped through and tallied them!)

The 2 at the top are 10" blocks that I'm using Astor Manor and coordinating fabrics.

The block on the far right is a 12" in CW fabric. I need one more and I'll have the 32 needed for my quilt layout...woo-woo!

Sea Stars 74 x 90

The binding and label were finished last night.

The hanging sleeve finished this morning.

The pictures are still warm in the camera!

Drop off for the quilt show is next Tuesday...no sweat!

  I did an all-over "Swirly Echo" from 

The Pajama Quilter Reloaded workbook.  I used KingTut #907 in the top and a med. blue vareigated Aurafil in the bobbin. I forgot to take a picture of the backing, it's just a medium blue paisley I already had.

Lest I forget

Jelly Roll Quilt Along Block #7.  Put a fork in it...it's done!!! woo-woo.

Yesterday when I went to the mailbox...

...there was a package in with the bills. 

It was from Kathy!  In celebration of her 500th post she had a give away and I was one of 4 lucky winners. The little mini flag made by Kathy herself!  It is beautiful.  The workmanship is exquisite.  And you really have to see it in person to appreciate it. It is perfect.

I'm so happy to have it to remind me of Kathy and to help decorate my home.  I spent a little while last night trying to decide where it would look best. 

Right now it's here:

The photo is me and our oldest son Paul. At the Marine Corp Birthday ball in 2005.

I've looked at the little flag several times today and it makes me smile and think of Kathy who  I'm happy to have met through blogging and all the rest  of you who I've come to share so much of my days with.  My family knows about you all too since I tell them what's going on from your posts, even if it's just about the weather. Like Jeanne having something like 12 feet of snow in Big Bear Lake this past winter (Paul would like to move there) or Shannon's pictures of Tennessee (ah, Paul wants to live there too) or learning about chickens and the fun of grandkids and the fact that her husband and mine are like almost the same person--it's sorta freaky-- from Judy (Paul would move to Washington state too!-but I couldn't take the rain, sorry Judy!)

So again, thank you to Kathy for the wonderful keepsake that I will cherish forever.

Design Wall Monday (week 21)

My wall has been getting a work out!  I've been playing with the block-a-days blocks. 

Here is what is on the wall now. They are all 12" blocks that I used the same fabrics for.  I think I'm going to let it stay up and think about sashing and borders while I work on other stuff. The smaller block to the right will be a label for the back.  I played with EQ6 last night and made a sample quilt with 3 borders, if I knew how I could import a picture of it, but I haven't gotten that far in the lesson book. 

Honestly, I'm on lesson 6 and that got me to the point where I can put quilts together and make labels and I stopped moving forward in the workbook.  I need to re-focus on that.

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Here are a few pictures of other blocks that were on the wall this weekend too.

Not too sure about some of these blocks.  I wish now I would have been more aware of fabric and block size during the first few months of the bl-a-days.  Some of the blocks, that didn't make it on to the wall will most likely become incorporated into backings I'm sure!

16" + 8+

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And this is the 30 Civil War Repro 12" blocks that I have so far.  I thought I had 32, which is what I need for the on point layout I am thinking of using. It will be queen size and for my bed! I forget the final size something like 86x102. Obviously I've miscounted and still need to make 2 more.  I'm planning on a 1" sashing between the blocks and these are just randomly put up not a finally layout by any means:

I'm pretty happy with it and was bummed to have to take it down for now.

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And since I didn't get to post separately this week (I got side tracked) here are my block-a-days from May 31st through June 7.

Enjoy the other design wall at Judy's.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2010

This will be my 2nd Quilt Festival!  I was a new blogger for last Fall's festival.  It was a blast and took a good couple of days, maybe a week, to visit all the quilts, but I think I saw them all.  I almost didn't enter because I was afraid of "Mr Linky"!!

I've been changing the living room furniture around so that means the quilts get changed too.

I brought this one out for a couple months.

It's a Little Quilts pattern.  It measures 31" x 43".  I made it in 2003.  It is one of the last quilts (if memory serves me correctly) that I hand quilted.  I have an emotional attachment to this quilt that I can't really explain.

All I know is that I l-o-v-e it! 

It could be that many of the fabrics are from when I first started quilting in 1989!  I recognize and remember them...(how is that possible--when I can't remember what I wear to church from week to week?) 

The center block, "bear paw", is one of my all-time favorite blocks, the fabrics are "my kind of colors".  I remember I almost used a plain border  because I didn't want to tackle the set in seams on the bow tie blocks, (I don't think I'd ever done set in seams by machine before). I guess I didn't have trouble with them,  or they wouldn't be there --patience is a virtue that I'm sadly lacking :)

And this is truly a scrap quilt, my favorite kind!  I used blocks leftover from other Little Quilts that I had made and all the fabrics were from my stash.

 

So that's my entry.

Enjoy the rest of the quilts in the festival.

Check them out here.

OBW #2

Is off the wall now. 

 I'm playing around (in my mind) with border ideas. I have a couple hexi's left over and would like to put them in the borders. But I don't have enough of the dark brown batik I want to use for the inner border, I need to get to a quilt shop and hoping to go tomorrow.  

Oh as I was writing this I remembered that The Quilt Co. is open until 9 pm on Thursdays....it's only 6 here now and a 35 min drive...c-ya later alligators!!

Design Wall Monday (week 20)

The wall is basically the same.

I'm still sewing the rows of the OBW #2 together.  I do hope to have this together and off the wall by next Monday.

I posted a picture of the original fabric here.

To see other design wall's go to Judy's.

And have a great week!

Block #7

I made the 7th block in Shannon's Blog BOM last week, maybe on Thursday.  I forgot to post a picture. 

Ta-da.

Block a days & Jelly Roll #6

I have been sewing away on my block a days and this bunch is from 5/21-31!  I'm 2 weeks ahead and feel good about this with vacation and shop hop in June.  I'm still using the CW fabrics for 12" blocks. The last 2 blocks in the 2nd row however, are 8" blocks, the star one is a signature block that I will use for the label (yes I made it in place of a dumb one). The spools block I may add strips to and bring it up to 12". The 3 in the bottom row are 10" blocks and I've been trying to remember to use a jelly roll and charm pack of Aster Manor I have when I make a 10" block.

Yesterday was the posting of the 6th block in the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along and I pieced it tonight; so quick and easy it's delightful!

The colors are a bit bright, it's much softer in "real life". 

Design Wall Monday (Week 19)

The One Block Wonder #2 will be on the wall until I have all the rows together. I will do that this week in between all the other stuff that is going on.

Over the weekend I finished the binding on the Many Thanks quilt.

 It needs a label--and I can make one now using EQ6!  woo-woo! 
Check out other design walls here.

One Block Wonder #2

This is the finally arrangement for the OBW quilt, the 2 cubes in the top right stick out more in the photo than in "real life". I played around with having the cubes stick out in the border, but after much back and forth and messing around I really felt it distracted from the body of the quilt.  The colors in the picture are not true and look drab in the photo, they are not and I almost left the cubes out as well.  Now the nerve-wracking part of sewing the rows together without getting any of the hexi's out of order, my technique is slower than what the book says and the class instructor taught, but it works for me (so far).

Playing with cubes

After dinner I made a few cube blocks for the 2nd OBW.  It's slow going as there are a lot more pieces in each hexagon!  But they aren't difficult at all. There are several different variations. I'm going to try them all and see what works/I like best. 

One Block Wonder #2

The first layout. 

I haven't played with them yet and I don't have any left over. 

 I'm going to get the 2nd book One Block Wonder Encore out and look through it again (while watching the Pens game).  I want to put a few cube blocks in this quilt.

I see where I can do some tweeking, but overall I'm "having a heart-attack" happy with it!!

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I did a hand stand today! 

Actually I did 2 pretty good ones after about 7 or 8 crappy ones.  I was out in the yard with the dogs playing around and all of a sudden I thought, "I wonder if I can still do a hand stand?" 

I can. 

I'm feeling muscles now that I forgot were in there but that's about it.

I told Paul when he got home from work and he looked at me kinda funny and said something about wondering what the neighbors would think if they saw me out in the yard- alone doing handstands. 

Cracked me up! 

Block a days

I cut all the pieces last night, this morning I started bright and early. 

5/11-5/18 The top 6 are 12" blocks in CW repro fabric. The bottom 2 are 10".

After the picture I was putting them away and just for fun put up all the 12" CW blocks I have (15 so far)

Design Wall Monday (Week 18)

Here is the wall:

At the top are my 9-patch/snowball "leader-enders", I just love sticking them up there as I make them.

The 4 blue blocks on the left are the first Snowbound BOM (button on the side of page). They are this year's BOM from BunnyHill Designs.  I'm trying to use a Blush charm pack for the appliques plus a few green blender type charms from a different line.

The center 12 blocks are BunnyHill Design's 2009's BOM A Tisket A Tasket.  I used  Civil war repo charm and a few other fabrics.  I am loving this quilt.  The embroidery needs done on all the blocks in both BOM's but that should get done in the evenings watching tv or sitting on the porch. Porch sitting is one of my favorite good weather sports. 

4 lonely crumb blocks, and 2 finished FFF stitchey's that are up there while I decide how I want to finish them and on the cutting table my Bl-a-days, which have pretty much become a regular "habit" and I've thought a couple times about what will I do next year when this project is through...oh yeah, I'll be making a gazillion quilts with all these blocks, silly me.

I do think though that in a day or so everything will be off the design wall because of these:

The last 10 sets of triangles for the 2nd OBW! shivers of excitement...

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And finally, I came up to get the camera to take the pictures for this post and this is what I found.

What is wrong with the 2 matching dog beds right there that they had to walk by to jump up onto the sofa?

They are the best "bad-dogs" I know!

For more design wall fun go here.