Pickle Dish, Starstruck, Aloha

I've finished up the backings for quilt tops from last year. They are now awaiting a call from my LAQ... When I have some finished quilts to bind, I'll bring over that many more for her to complete. I also have a FULL bag of runners and small quilts for me to quilt...I hope to do that in August and September.

For now, I've been working on some NEW quilt tops and I thought I'd share them since 2 of them I just finished...

The first is a Pickle Dish quilt. The pattern is from the book Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance. I like the way these are made into a square block that makes it easier to put together. Here's the top so far:

and a closer view of some of the blocks:

Cool, huh? Almost everything is from my stash...I did have to add some additional white fabric, but all of the colored fans are stash.

Next, here's some of the "Starstruck" blocks. I think that's what I'm calling it - maybe not:

You see the Pickle Dish at the top as I was working on both blocks at the same time. These are the bottom blocks...and they are so much easier that the Pickle Dish! The Pickle Dish is paper pieced and I  learned a couple of things from it. The Star burst (huh maybe that's better?) blocks are just cut using a 15 degree ruler and are very easy... I did a pieced white/pattern/white blade with a pure white blade...cool, huh? I also bought some red/white/blue fabric to do a patriot version. The thing I need to figure out is...when I made these, I cut from the bottom of the ruler and it all came together in the middle...to the point where I trimmed it out and am going to applique a middle back on - too many seams! So, for the red/white/blue version, I'm going to start at either 1 inch or 2 inch line and see what happens.

I went to a couple of shops during a shop hop - didn't do the entire thing as it was 30-40 shops from LA to Palm Springs to Chula Vista. It was too hot and I wasn't in the mood to run for two weeks, so I did a couple of the local shops that I like. One shop, Cozy Quilt Shop in El Cajon, is well known for a few different things... I bought this kit from them:

 The pattern was free with the purchase of the book "Layer 'em Up" by Sharyn Craig. I bought the kit also, so I got a 2nd copy of the pattern for free... The entire top took just a few hours ... it was very, very fast - which is what Cozy specializes in. I'm making this for a Christmas gift for a coworker...I'm going to buttonhole stitch the letters down and then do some very basic quilting to finish this by myself... The kit was great as it had the blocks precut and TONS of fabric for the letters and center - I bet I could make another center panel from the left overs!...

So, that's what I've been working on lately. Of course, I have more potential projects than time - but these have been fun to work on over the past couple of months.

BTW, if you read Quilter's Newsletter Monthly magazine, my LAQ has a quilt showcased as a ribbon winner at Denver International quilt show. She has the samurai quilt...it's so very impressive in person!