Design Wall Monday~June 24

Boy are we having some unusual weather! And I'm not talking just about Oregon.

I'm so excited! I ordered my first whole roll of cotton batting! And with the special promo from JoAnn's Fabric, I'm only paying .21 in shipping!  I will have to use it up quickly as I really don't have a good place to store all that batting.

On my design wall is a picnic quilt. I saw this posting and thought "I need to make one of my own".
http://ididntsaybanana.blogspot.com/2013/06/potluck.htm  I had baggies and baggies of 3 1/2" squares and I was more than willing to use them up.

I told myself from the beginning that I was not going to plan, other than where the white needed to be. Obviously. I was just going to sew pairs and then sew those pairs and so on. And did this bother me?  Not so much in the beginning. Being" blind" to repeats of color became more and more difficult for me to ignore. But I stuck with the "no plan, plan.". Now that I'm at the end and sewing all the rows together, the top should be finished today, I have to admit it is still difficult! I keep reminding myself," it is a picnic quilt, it is a picnic quilt". So when you see pockets of pink, or groups of green, or heaven forbid, even the same fabric twice in the same quadrant of the quilt, be kind. Know that it bugs me too!

But, once it has been quilted and washed, I'm sure I will be just fine with it!

Don't forget to visit Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork times.
Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~June 17



 

Blame it on my sister! I love my sister Joanne and often ask her advice on my ideas. I wanted to do another scrappy quilt and asked Joanne to look at my "Scrap Attack" board on Pinterest and "vote" on some candidates for my next quilt.  She looked at the board and said "Whoa! I didn't know you had pinned so many." and even tho' it was a task my sister came through with three favorites. One of them was a fan quilt. I've never made a Grandmothers Fan Quilt. So while I had, in the back of my mind, thought I would be using up already cut to size scraps, once I got this quilt in my mind I had to make it. Or am I making two? Sooo, as you imagine, I'm cutting lots of blades.

Why am I considering making two?  I started with the blocks in the first picture. At first I was going to limit the colors to  green, blue, red, yellow and purple. I liked those together, a little darker than I first pictured it but they felt rich.. But I wondered what would happen if I added one more color to each fan? So I took a blade off of each and added one more color to each. After that I found I preferred them without the addition of another color but this is what a design wall is for. (Pssst,originally I did have them on the design wall. I took them outside to try to get truer colors for the purpose of this post.) Then I asked myself if maybe I didn't need something a little lighter/brighter. So I did these four blocks.

And I like these too! To me the first blocks and the second blocks are so dissimilar that I can't see using them in the same quilt. Do you think I should make one with richer, deeper colors and one with the lighter, brighter colors? Or just integrate those darker blocks into a lighter quilt and hope the don't stick out like a sore thumb? Of course I could always use one set as part of the backing, or I could just make two quilt tops. What do you think?

And here is a picture of the top I made last week. I had better get to quilting. This years goal was to reduce the number of flimsys waiting to be quilted but between this month and last, I'm not managing to acccomplish that!

 

 

Don't forget to visit Judys linky Design Wall. http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~June 10

For today, a few pictures a few words

Block Lotto Blocks. This is the pattern for this months Block Lotto. Come join us!

http://www.blocklotto.com/list-of-blocks-made-this-month/

Several people have won as newbies!  And you can enter as little as one block and still win. I already have too many projects in the queue so I am donating my chances this month but it was fun to learn to make eight HST at once. Sophie has prepared a wonderful reference on making HST. All the way from making one at a time up to making eight at a time. You should keep this reference. 

http://www.blocklotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Sophies_HST_Tips_v2.pdf

Raspberry Lemonade. I know there are other colors in there but that name just resonated with me. the top is finished. Now it will go on the to be quilted pile. Whew! That pile keeps growing! I love to play with colors, techniques and blocks. I less like layering the quilt top, batting and backing. At least I have already pieced the backing for this one.

This is a Doll Quilt that I just whipped together. I know it is an unusual layout. If I were to do it again, I still might make just that row of pink but I would put them all the blocks on the design wall and maybe play with better a better arrangement. Oh well! I have had these blocks for YEARS and they were going to go to Beth, who takes orphan blocks for donation quilts, 

http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

but there were some fabrics that I love and no longer have so couldn't give up the blocks. Sorry Beth!

Sneak Peek. Four of seven iterations of the block. Boy I hope that is spelled correctly. My batch of green scraps was overflowing. I decided I wanted to do a scrappy quilt  and use up some of those greens. I found Faiths tutorial. She used pinks, yellows, oranges and white but I think it will work in a green scrappy version. It was so nice that she has the blocks, A through F, with all measurements included. Behind each of these front squares are the other six blocks.  I am anxious to get them all finished and on the design wall.

http://www.freshlemonsquilts.com/?p=561

List for this month? Short and sweet. Get Joel's quilt finished. I now have the backing and new batting I just need to get those layered. This old quilt was tied so I will retie it. His birthday is coming up and I would like to give it back to him then. My only problem is I need to pull the kitchen table into the middle of the room for a day or two. If only hubby would go fishing I could leave the table "in the way" for the length of time it would take me to finish. Keep your fingers crossed that he, the husband, makes it to the beach this week.

Visit Judy's Design Wall Monday for more inspiration

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Enjoy!
Toni