Design Wall Monday 6-30-2014

Good Morning All! 

Here's what is residing on my design wall today.  Yes, it's something new!  Amazing. 

These were last year's Brown Bag Blocks.  I put the precut strips of fabric for the baskets in the brown bag along with a cute little dresden plate ruler and the background fabric.  Each person who got the bag was asked to make a half dresden plate and then baste it to the background using a large machine stitch. I had 10 blocks which included my sample block.  It's going on the back with the names of the block makers on it...or at least that is my plan! 

Black handle with small rick rack.

The Country Piecemaker guild saves August for the time to return the Brown Bags to the owners and for members to bring in finished BB projects to share.  I decided it was time to get hopping on these blocks.  I am hand appliquéing them to the background and putting the center circle on them. Then I'll be machine stitching the rick rack down to make the handle.  Do you agree with me?  The purple is way too big!  The black is just some rick rack I had hanging around the studio.  I think it looks pretty good.  What do you think? 

Large purple rick rack handle

Hum, I may need to hit JoAnns to see if there is a bigger size than the black but smaller than the purple.  I can do that sometime this week before I need to sew the blocks together.

On to the weekly goals... 

Week of June 23, 2014

Quilt Rail Fence Stars currently loaded on Ruthie√

Pull out last year’s brown bag and figure out what to do√

Finish the embroidery on the A Tisket, A Tasket blocks√ (ok, I need one tail to finish them…)

Keep working on pieced border for Carolina Christmas√

Begin to finish all the blocks for the Mystery of Powhatan√

Plan next BOM for Country Piecemakers√ it’s planned but I still need to make a sample and write the directions

Yep, it looks like every item is marked off.  I actually finished the Rail Fence Stars quilt.  Photos to come soon. Now what's up for this week? Not as much as we are having some neighbors over for a Fourth of July barbecue.  We'll need to spend some time on that this week.  

Week of June 30, 2014

Finish quilting fish quilt

Bind fish quilt

Keep sewing Dresden plates to background

Make star blocks for Mystery of Powhatan

Make sample block and write direction for BOM

Clean house for a neighborhood July 4^th party

I'm linking up with Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.  Come on over to visit a lot of design walls.  You might want to get your coffee or tea first so you can enjoy the journey. 

Happy Quilting All! 

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!