Design Wall Monday 4-15-13

I went wild Saturday, really I did.  The back story:  Last week I put "Cut the kitty cat fabric quilt" on my to do list.  The cat fabric was old and I'd tried to use it in a number of quilts but never quite had enough.  I had purchased a Karie Patch Designs pattern called Two's Company because I really liked how it featured a large rectangle that would be perfect to use some of the larger conversation prints I have.  I had already picked fabrics for the quilt.  I decided to cut it out on Saturday afternoon... maybe 3 or 4 pm. And, then I thought I would spend just a few minutes starting to sew the units together.   

5 hours later (well, Sunday afternoon because I helped with dinner Saturday night and didn't get back to it) the top was together.  Yes, 5 (five) hours later give or take 10 minutes.  Yowser!  I have a new favorite charity quilt pattern.  I made a few changes in the top below -- well, one actually.  I had a limited amount of cat fabric left so I divided the amount left by 4 and that is how I came up with my border sizes -- cut 3 5/8" or something like that!  And, every thing has come from stash so far.  I doubt I'll have to buy any fabric for it at all as I've found a big hunk of black and white check fabric that will probably be the main fabric for the back with a couple of extra pieces of something else.  What I really like about this quilt is how efficiently Karen uses the fabric.  The large pieces use nearly the whole width of 42" wide fabric. Karen lives in the  Richmond area and her tops are pieced by Sarah, a member of my guild.  I just looked over her web site and found a couple of more patterns of hers I really like.  Hum, I may be buying some more patterns soon.... 

Hind sight I would have made the inner border a bit smaller -- say 2" cut instead of 2 1/2" which is what was called for.  But I have to admit I am tickled with this super quick quilt!  I'm eyeing my stash to see what other fabric I can try with this pattern.  Made with the smaller borders it meets my criteria of being one fabric width wide to save from having to piece my backings.  Super for a fast, easy charity quilt. 

Here's the brown bag block for April.  (for review -- members of the guild chose a block and/or provided fabrics for folks to make a block for them and every month we get a new one to do.)  This one was a real bear to put together.  Have I mentioned how bad I am at figuring out the size of the fabric needed for paper piecing?  Once I figured that out this was mostly just time consuming.  I used a combination of the supplied fabrics and my own.  I think by the time I was done I had used 1/4 yard of the background fabric.  This is about a 14" block. Hopefully there will be no more paper piecing blocks to do.  For May I'll be making circles.
It was a pretty good week for finishing off items on my goals.  

Week of April 8, 2013

Finish the charity quilt on Ruthie√

Load, quilt and bind my pinwheel charity quilt The back's loaded but I decided it was a bit too small so I added borders yesterday instead of quilting it

Hem the burgundy pants Marked but not finished

Finish the mystery blocks√

Finish the brown bag block√

Cut the kitty cat fabric quilt (yes, something new!)√ oops, got carried away 

Go through pants in my closet and get rid of what I don’t wear√ made it through dark color pants, next on to the beige pants…. 

Week of April 15, 2013

Quilt my pinwheel charity quilt

Hem the burgundy pants

Embroider an apron for the upcoming Lions club auction

Enjoy the weekend at Aimee and Kevin’s – hum maybe Aimee and I could sneak off to a quilt store

Load Jenny’s quilt on Ruthie

Prep the rest of the Orange Peel blocks to take with me
Figure out a backing for the kitty cat quilt

That's more than enough to keep me busy with our visit to K&A for a bit. 

Spend some time visiting design walls across the country by going to Patchwork Times.  Enjoy! 

Happy Quilting All!