On the Design Wall

My Civil War blocks

“RUTH” is still up, but “EMMA” is pin basted and ready for quilting

Second step of Lori’s Midnight Starts Quiltalong - I love these units

The beginnings of a pieced back for my 9-patch/snowball

I'm It!

a photo of my grandmother and a thrift store find on my little northwinds quilt

I’ve been tagged! This is new to me. Apparently its purpose is to spread the word about smaller blogs. LaDonna and Diana, thank you so much! Visit their blog and check out their yummy recipes, quilting tips and family notes.

So now it’s my turn to tag fellow quilt bloggers.

Merumo takes great photos of her cute miniature dachshund and needlework (mostly quilts). Check out her posts from mid-December – such inspiring holiday quilts!

Regan is an enthusiastic quilter for sure. I just adore her spiderweb quilt, but check out her older posts with some fab baby quilts.

Elyte is another quilter who takes fabulous photos (I think I’m drawn to this talent). Check out the basket she just made and while I prefer quilts, quilts, and more quilts (which she has) I also enjoyed her travel photos.

At Mary’s  blog I always learn something new. And her beautifully simple quilts just prove that a striking quilt needn’t be complicated.

So much red and white out there – I want one! I’d best get busy!

 Now for the rules - If you choose to participate:

1) Tell your readers who tagged you.

2) Add a link to their blog.

3) Award 3-5 bloggers who you think deserve this award.

 Inform them and post directions to your blogspot. Please don't tag people who already have 300 followers. The goal of this award is to get more publicity to blogs that are good, but not so well known.

I hope you enjoy visiting these creative blogs. I know I did. As a matter of fact, my blog reading has really cut into my book reading, but I’m enjoying it so much. Each blog gives me a peek into the life of a fellow quilter. 

Backing Troubles

I realized this morning that the 6 yards of fabric I have for the back of my snowball/9-patch isn’t quite wide enough. I briefly thought about just cutting strips of the many brown and pink fabrics I acquired while making this quilt, but I think I will do a strip of 9-patches and piece them into the center of the backing. When I started this quilt my plan was to do a lap size. I just started making blocks and when I put them on the design wall I realized there was way too much bright pink. I needed to tone it down and the result is full size – 76”x94”! BTW, why is the back often called “backing”, but the top isn’t the “topping”? Oh, and on a couple of blogs I’ve noticed a top (at least that is what I think they were referring to) being called a “flimsy”. Is that something new or regional?

My post time is 3 hours earlier than when I actually post. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Yesterday was pretty productive quiltwise. I finished the two 16-patch tops for my nieces and cut the fabric for the backs. I completed one fan on my hand quilting project. And fun, fun fun – I did the first step of Lori’s quiltalong. I love stay-at-home days!

Tonya Ricucci's Word Play Quilts

I purchased Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci from Amazon the day it was released in December. This is a very fun and useful book – different from the usual pattern book. The instructions and illustrations are very well done. My thought was to include these name blocks on the front of the two quilts I’m making for my grand nieces, but it was clear after I made RUTH that it wouldn’t fit. I knew EMMA would turn out even larger so I decided to put them on the back of the quilt. I could have made them smaller by using smaller strips of fabric, but I didn’t want to redo, better to rethink my plan for this one. I’m piecing the back so it should almost be as pretty as the front - especially with these blocks. Tonya’s letters are typically “Unruly” in her quilts, but cutting the fabric as she instructs and using a consistent seam allowance yields “tame” blocks like mine. Soon, I hope to make some unruly blocks using my stash of strings.

Took my shower and put on some flannel pants and other comfy clothes. Today is a “stay at home” day. YEAH!!! I will have to put jeans on later and walk the dogs, but for now I’m stayin’ in! I’ve already done a few chores and will do more in between quilting – plan to piece those quilt backs and do some hand quilting midday when sunlight is streaming into my living room.

Have a great day!

Civil War Block?

Hmmm...I think this red it too red and I don’t think it is a CW repro. This is the first block of Barbara Brackman’s Civil War Project. She will post a new block every Saturday this year. I’m not sure about the other fabrics either. I think I will just continue on using fabrics that look like repros of that general era. I can always remake blocks that don’t work in the final quilt. I had been thinking of starting a sampler quilt and this came along. That is one less step for me if I let Barbara choose the blocks.

Little Applique Quilts

I’ve shared my sewing room for over a week – first, my son was sleeping on the futon (I had my design wall on its side blocking his puppy from getting to my side of the room) and then the boxes of Christmas decorations took over for a couple of days. My son has left and all the boxes are put away. I vacuumed and tidied up a bit and am ready to get busy.

Nothing new to show at this time, but here are a couple of little quilts adorning my dining room.

Sara Masden designed the appliqué blocks in the quilt hanging above the china cabinet. She was the speaker at the first guild meeting I attended (mid-1990’s). People were purchasing a kit to work on that evening under her tutelage. I wasn’t going to do it, but the gals I sat with were so nice. They talked me into it and helped me along. I ended up buying the other kits via post. I hand quilted this one. A better look-

I did the table runner on the buffet at a Pat Sloan workshop. She’s a lot of fun. Her husband helps her with her program and they are very entertaining. So you can actually see the quilt-

I need to find time this week to go thoroughly through notes from previous volunteer coordinators for the Quilters Unlimited quilt show. Ay yi yi, what was I thinking when I volunteered for this job – coordinating over 300 volunteers for a quilt show? It is fun being on the committee and seeing how it all comes together. I love our show. Unlike many big shows, it isn’t judged; you just have to be a member to submit a quilt.

Happy Stitching!

My Quilt Thoughts for 2011

My new background is part of the center of a quilt I made several years ago using the Square in a Square ruler. I liked using it for it’s accuracy, but it left me with a lot of light bonus triangles. I used many of them for the Northwinds quilt and still have a lot more. This is one of the few quilts I didn’t think afterward "I should have done that differently". When I get a good photo of it I'll show you the whole thing. Is it too busy as the background? Let me know if you prefer the plain background. If you don’t want to comment, you can send me an email by clicking on my profile.

My challenge for 2011 is to make significant progress on one of these UFO’s. I know I will always have UFO’s, but I’d like them to be younger!

This Stars and Stepping Stones is the one I think I know what I want to do with – at least to start. It needs some appliqué – I’m thinking a vine and flowers around that light edge. What do you think? This is a square right now (about 50”) and I’d like to make it a rectangle. Do you think it would look odd if I added some piecing to two opposite sides?

These are blocks from a New York Beauty pattern by Karen K. Stone. I started it in a class and never touched it afterward. I really just need to start doing it again, but I’m not a fan of paper piecing though I do like the accuracy of it. Curved seams! I think this is the only time I've ever done them - little nervous about that.

This is from a lone star class taken with Paula Golden. She was a great teacher, but again, I didn’t work on it right away. When I did go back to it, I didn’t know what I was doing and when I put the diamonds together, well, they didn’t go together. I think I will give it another try and if they don’t fit I might just appliqué them to the background. Not sure if that will work either. Was also thinking I could cut the diamonds in half and do something with them as triangles. Any ideas?

I also have some tops that need quilting. Piecing is definitely my favorite part of quilting. I do have a hand quilting project that I started last year using wool batting. It was going very well, but then I got into other things. I started doing it 15 minutes a day and I need to go back to that. In the queue for machine quilting is the Christmas quilt and a string quilt – Bonnie Hunter’s Virginia Bound pattern. I’m scheduled with The Finishing Touch to have a full size pink/brown snowball/9-patch quilted this month. Yippee! I'll only have to do the binding to finish that one.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to the Winterthur quilt exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. We saw an intricately quilted whole cloth quilt that took the quilter only about a year to finish (1815). I said to my daughter that this woman didn't have TV and computer and probably spent hours a day on it.  It is something to think about. We have more things competing for our time, but we want to finish lots and lots of quilts. It's something I struggle with in many aspects of my life - all the quilts I want to make, books I want to read, volunteer activities I want to do, etc. It feels like I'm always thinking of what I should or could be doing instead of enjoying what I am doing. That is something I want to work on this year. While I do want to finish most of the quilts I start, I don’t think I’m going to put a number on how many I want to complete this year like I did last year. That was a good jumpstart, but I think I am now in full quilting mode. LOL This year I want to be more in the moment and work on some of these challenging projects. Thanks to all you bloggers out there who got me thinking about this (especially Lori, at Humble Quilts). BTW, the Winterthur exhibit was very good.