Design Wall

I'm making a quilt based on some of the quilts in Sizzlin Sixties by Heather Mulder Peterson/Anka's Treasue (http://www.ankastreasures.com/item_212/Sizzlin-Sixties--ANK292.htm). I bought the book and a table runner kit last summer during vacation in northern Minnesota. The table runner is all pieced and ready to be quilted. I love the patterns as they are hexagons that don't require set in seams.

Anyway, my idea was to make a quilt using the 6 different layouts. I started making quilts with a jelly roll of Fresh Flowers (Moda) and a jelly roll of white (Robert Kaufman) fabrics. The two together ensure some great bright colors and lots of white. Anyway, I was having problems laying out the blocks... when I thought about the hangers and dowel I had bought to hang my Grand Canyon quilt. One of the only walls I have in my living room that is blank and easy to get to is the entry way (yep, you enter the front door into the entryway and the living room is immediately to the left). Anyway, I was hanging up the rod and my DH wasn't too thrilled with what I was doing...until later in the day when I had blocks on the batting. He was ok with my placement after that.

When we had company last weekend, I put my Grand Canyon quilt on the dowel as I didn't want the blocks to fall down. So here's a picture of the dowl with my Grand Canyon quilt:

(yeah, a little too high for this quilt... but than again not too bad) My front door is on the right, the bookcase on the right is at the edge of the living room. Everything else is the entry...
Here's a picture of the "design wall":

The batting is a lot wider than the dowel. Last weekend, I let it fall off both ends. This time, I scrunched it up on the right...It's a little hard to see the white batting on the white wall...
I'll take a picture later today/this week when I put my 1/2 blocks back up for designing purposes... This has really helped me to layout this quilt! I actually laid out the quilt blocks three different times. I remade a couple of them and streamlined the amount of blocks I'm going to use. Today, I'm making more blocks as the quilt was getting long but still pretty narrow... I'm confident the quilt will be great.

String Clean Finish

I finished this quilt on August 4th. I was going to blog about it last weekend, but we had other plans. Here's String Clean:

This quilt is about 60" square - a little too big for my table at work and a little too square for other uses. I think it's a decorating type of quilt. I've got another similar pattern to make - maybe with smaller blocks? The quilting is custom and is wavy lines following the stings. Here's a close up on one of the blocks:

The  quilting gives the front lots of great texture and here's the back:

Cool huh?

I also finished my Sparkle Stars. I loved it so much I took that one to work and it's on my table. When I bring it home (after Labor Day, most likely...), I'll take pictures and post them. I still have 3 more quilts at the LAQ - almost brought another one home but as we were looking at it, she noticed a bad run of bobbin thread. She's so cool in that she's going to fix just that little area. Talk about attention to detail!

Granny Squares - Top finished

Way back at the beginning of this month. I pieced together my granny squares into a top. I sashed my nearly 9inch blocks with 2.5 inch black sashing...and added one 2.5 inch border around the entire outside. Its 40something x 50something as it's 20 squares. I love the way it turned out. here it is:

Isn't it pretty? I love how all of the color in the blocks pop so great. All of the fabrics here are scraps that I cut up in 2.5 inch squares and have been using in a variety of projects. Here's three more pictures of this quilt top:

This was a fun and easy quilt to make.

I started on my next project but have been taking it slow. I'm making up my own pattern but following a few hexagon blocks made in Heather Mulder Peterson (of Anka's Treasures) book Sigglin' Sixties. I bought a kit last summer for the Secret Garden Runner from this book and found Heather's methods very easy. I had a thought to use two jelly rolls (one white/Robert Kaufman, one Fresh Flowers by Deb Strain/Moda). I have a bunch of the triangle blocks cut out and some of them pieced in half hexies (Heather's method to sew in strips and not have to sew any set in seams!). I'll post blocks/layout as I work on it. I really wish I had a design wall for this one. I've tried different layouts on paper and so far...yuck. I'm certain the reality will be far better!!

(OK, just figured out spell check in blogger - love it!)

Spiderweb progress - finished top?

I think the spiderweb quilt top is finished. Here it is:

It's wonky in places but I think that adds to it's character. The top is 54" square.I have more of the yellow fabric so after a couple of weeks if I feel it needs to be bigger, I can make it bigger.

2 Finishes - Rainbow Feathered Star & Tropical Dreams @ Night #2

I dropped off these two quilts a few weeks ago. I got them both back a week or so ago - it took me that long to finish the binding. Usually, I get the binding done within a day of a finish... We had a bunch of other stuff going on for the past couple of weeks, so it took longer to get an evening or two to apply the binding.

First - Rainbow Feathered Star:

The rainbow fabrics are all hand dyed. The pattern came free with the fabric bundle. I added in the flying geese and plain black border. Then it sat waiting for another border. I finally gave up making it bigger and decided it's a good size for a table top.  The quilting by my LAQ is fab-u-lous! Here's a close up:

I love the quilting!!! It's a really great green color. The binding took me about 3 hours total.

The second quilt finish is called Tropical Dreams at Night #2. It's the second time I've made this quilt. I loved the first one so much I needed to make another one. The first one was donated for a fundrasier auction. Here's the 2nd version:

Isn't it great??!! I love the quilting on this one too! It's a great gold thread color. Here's a close up:

So maybe it doesn't photograph as well...but it's spectacular!!! The binding took me about 4 hours total.

I love finishing quilts!!

Drop Off x4

I dropped off four quilts to my favorite LAQ today. Here's what they were:

Big Green star - top made in March. Quilt is 40" square.

Pink and Purple Hearts - top made in February/March and is 40" square or so...

Red/White/Blue Sparkle Stars - top done in April? I love this top!! It's about 40" square - I can't wait to see how it'll be quilted.

String Clean - ok, I didn't take a picture of the completed top. Imagine this block x4. The top is about 60" square. It's so cool! Foundation pieced on muslin and all seams ironed open to reduce bulk.

Later in the weekend, I hope to post two new finishes! Just got them back from the LAQ today so I'm going to try and whip on the binding before the end of the weekend! The quilting is fantastic on them so I can't wait for them to be complete!

Spiderweb progress

Here they are - the 18 blocks I have to date:

Isn't it great? I'm planning on finishing the 1/2 row and then adding one more for a 5x5 layout. I still have 1/4 bucket of scraps...and a lot of strings. It'll be interesting to see what happens after 7 more blocks!!

I'm really starting to dig the yellow too - I'm so happy I found more so that it'll be the same exact farbic throughout.