Design Wall Monday

Progress is being made already with my July UFO, which is a quilt-as-you-go project. This is a close up photo of the problem that each block join resulted in. The sashing lines did not match up at all. 

Here is the solution that my friends came up with. They suggested to applique a square of brown fabric on top of the offending mismatch. And so I did and I like it much more now. If you don't like the way the seams join, cover it up! Brilliant!


Here's the quilt on the design wall. The sashing looks a little wobbly, but it's not terrible. I can live with that.

So now the next step is to measure, cut and machine quilt some border pieces to make the quilt a bit larger.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

There has not been much change on my design wall project since last Monday's post. I'm still working away on putting together my Quilt Square Quilt Along blocks that I machine quilted last month. I have worked on the horizontal sashings but don't have much to show for that effort yet.
Maybe next week!?!
To see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

My March UFO blocks are still on the design wall this week. 

I am attempting to join them together in a quilt-as-you-go style. I have the vertical sashings pinned on, and am having a dickens of a time getting the sashings centered. For a while I really tried hard to fix it. I gave it my best effort, sewing and unsewing several times, by machine and by hand. But not a single one would agree to be centered. How is that possible?!?  There is no logical explanation for why this is happening. I have done this many times before without any problem. (Click here to see my favorite scrappy QAYG quilt from 3 years ago)
Sometimes circumstances defy logic. 
Or tasks defy ability?
Finally the quilt and I had a little

chat about the options. 
Choice A - quilt goes back in the UFO closet again, or 
Choice B - quilter learns to be satisfied with consistently uncentered sashing.
We agreed on choice B, and I will be hand stitching the sashing this week. It is an interesting experience to carry on, while trying not focus on the glaring problem. There must be a life lesson in there somewhere?!
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

March UFO goal reached!

The 12 Quilt Square Quilt Along blocks that I sewed 2 years ago are now quilted! This photo was taken before they were all quilted, but you get the idea of how it's going to look. 
To read more about the process of quilting the blocks, click here and here.  
It was quite a job to sash all these blocks, get the batting and backings prepared, baste them and quilt them... but it sure feels great to meet my goal this month.
This is the last block that I machine quilted, and that brown stripe really made it hard for my eyes to focus when quilting. There are a few wobbly parts so don't look too closely! But DONE is way better than perfect!
To see more finishes this month, hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes link up.

UFO Report

It's already the last week of March, so I have to get all 12 of my QSQA blocks machine quilted by the end of the week. (You can see all the blocks on the design wall on this post.)  It's a "self imposed" deadline with A Lovely Year of Finishes, but it really works for me to get some UFO's finished. This is my most recently quilted block. 

I have used a limited number of shapes for the quilting- either arcs or wavy lines with the free motion foot, or straight lines with the walking foot. 
I have heard people say they don't like to change the feet on their machines, but I do like it. I have been changing the feet several times on each block, depending on what kind of quilting I want to do, which I make up as I go along.

I will show you on this block. 
I started with stitching the straight lines through the block's center using the walking foot. Then I changed to the free motion foot, and stitched the arcs in the bear paw blocks.



Then changed back to the walking foot to stitch around the narrow teal sashing to stabilize the block.


Then switched back to the free motion foot to make the arcs around each HST block, stitching only in the white halves. Then I free motioned the curve around the light teal border, and lastly changed back to the walking foot to go all around the block before the brown sashing strips.
And this is the finished block!

The colours and contrast on the photo have been altered to highlight the quilting lines, so you can hopefully see them better. 
I should be able to meet my goal of finishing all 12, barring any disasters between now and then!

Two Birds With One Stone

This month I am combining my participation for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with my UFO for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I am going to work on a teal (more blueish than greenish) and brown UFO.

A few years ago I bought some yardage of the Sweetwater Pure line of fabrics, which are mostly soft teals and browns.
I made a full size mystery quilt from that fabric (see the quilt here) and from the scraps I made 12 blocks for the block sampler quilt-along that Jo hosted two years ago. Here are some of the blocks on the design wall auditioning some sashing and border choices. I loved these blocks but never got around to putting them together.  

Now I want to clean out that box of blocks and scraps. Do you have this pile of stuff for your UFOs? Leftover fabric is on the left, smaller scraps in the box, and a block pile on the right. This is a great quilt waiting to happen, and this is the month to do it! 
I am going to quilt the blocks in the "quilt-as-you-go" style. Each week I am going to quilt 3 blocks and by the end of the month, all 12 blocks will be quilted. Hopefully! And as I go along, I'm going to cut up the scraps in the box into useable pieces for my Rainbow Challenge projects. We shall see how things evolve!
To see more Rainbow Challenge projects, visit SoScrappy.
To see more UFO goals, hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes.

November Quilt Square Quilt Along

For November's Quilt Square Quilt Along there was a choice of two blocks. I liked them both, so I made two this month.

This has been a really fun project and I have used almost all the scraps left over from last year's  Quiltmaker mystery. I bought mostly fabrics from the Sweetwater Pure line when I was in Vermont in 2011 (actually that store may have been in New Hampshire?)  I really did have way too much fabric if I could get two quilts from that supply list! Now I am running low on the lights, so I used a couple different fabrics for the outside border on this block (and didn't use the 4 patch border blocks).

And the second block this month was really easy. I changed up the measurements, and skipped the QST's in the border. 

There might be enough fabric to squeak out another block, which will make a perfect quilt layout of 12 blocks - 3 across and 4 down.

What will the last block be? For me, it will have to be one without light fabrics for sure!
Hop over to Jo's Country Junction and see the other blocks that have been sewn this month.

September Quilt Square Quilt Along

Finally finished my September block for the quilt along. It wasn't a hard one to sew, and I have no idea why it required so many re-sews! And after all that effort, it looks a little wonky. Oh well, it's done.  When I put the blocks up on the design wall earlier in the month, I thought I needed to add in more brown, but this block looks darker than the rest, so I might change out that border...we'll see. The brown stripe looks really psychedelic on my computer screen...does it on yours?!?
Check out the other September quilt along blocks over at Jo's Country Junction (for some reason I can't link up to the right post, so you'll have to wade through to find the block parade).

Design Wall Monday #33 - QSQA

I have finally finished my August block for the Quilt Square Quilt Along and here are all my blocks so far on the design wall!

I am delighted with how my project is coming along and think I will try to put a few more touches of the tan and brown fabrics in the last few blocks.

This month's block was a challenge for me because of sewing on a difficult sewing machine, and because when frustrations run high, concentration is low...see what I mean?!?! 
No fault of the machine on this piecing error...do you see the problem??!?

The argyle print is a perfect border for this block and I am very happy with how it turned out.
This has been such a fun quilt along! Thanks to Jo for organizing and keeping us on track, AND motivating us with great prizes! You can see the block parade by clicking here and the prizes by clicking here.
And you can see more design wall blog postings over at Patchwork Times.
***I almost forgot to announce the winner of the giveaway draw from my Bowls with Borders blog hop. The winning blog visitor (as drawn by my daughter) is...
Wendy from Snippets of a Quilter! Congrats to Wendy!***

Quilt Square Quilt Along

It's the end of the month and you know what that means!?! It's time for the Quilt Square Quilt Along Parade! 

I am very happy with how my block turned out this month, even though I ran out of the background fabric and had to mix in a few different light prints. I was also happy to find a couple of fabrics in the sale bin at the Marsh store that I can use for the borders on this quilt.

Get a glass of lemonade and hop over to Jo's to enjoy to the block parade. 

It was interesting that this month's quilt along block is the same kind of star block as I have been sewing for the Temecula Summer Star Sew Along. These are the first 4 blocks posted and I am using up scraps from a finished (kind of!) UFO.

It's been a starry kind of month I guess!?! 

Design Wall Monday #24 - June's Quilt Square Quilt Along

On my design wall today is my block for Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along called "Corn and Beans". It took a while to finish this 12" block...
that's a very big pile of HST's to make, and lots of points to try not to chop off!









These are the last two quilt along blocks I've made (I can't find the other finished ones at the moment!) I just love the Pure Sweetwater  scraps I am using up. You can click here to see the quilt I made last year which generated all these scraps. I might be will be a little sad when I have used up the last scraps (it's a sickness I tell you!!!) 
The fabric reminds me of my wonderful trip to the Vermont Quilt Festival last year when I bought the fabric...sweet memories.
Last month Janet commented that my colour combo was like a "gentle breeze". It reminds me of the sand and the beach...maybe I should call it "Peaceful ocean breezes from Vermont"?!?!
To see the fantastic parade of "Corn and Bean" blocks, hop over to Jo's blog. It's amazing how each one looks so different when they were made from the same pattern.
And to see more design wall postings, hop over to Judy's blog. Enjoy!

Quilt Square Quilt Along

Here is my May block for Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along. It is a little trip around the world and was lots of fun to sew.

Here are my 6 blocks so far.
After sewing each one, I say "that was my favorite one"!


Can't wait to get started on the next one, which will then become my new favorite!


To see the other blocks from this month, hop over to Jo's Country Junction.

March Quilt Square Quilt Along - cutting

This week I have enjoyed working on another April block for the Quilt Square Quilt Along. The cutting for this anvil block took a surprising chunk of time - that's 207 pieces cut out for a 12" block!!
In the first anvil block I sewed, I couldn't get the background or the brown stripe fabric going in the same direction.


One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes is:  "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."

So I've decided I like it like this!

I am going to try to apply the same strategy to my braces. I got a full set of railroad tracks on my teeth 6 months ago, and it has turned out to be one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I had my braces rewired yesterday and today I can feel my heartbeat in my bottom teeth...oh, how they ache! Well, let's see...how can I change my attitude? I will focus on how much these teeth must be moving for them to hurt the way they are...maybe I will be able to get the braces off earlier with all this pain? I guess that ending this torture earlier might be worth the pain!?! After I brush my teeth (very gently), I am going to sew a few more mini anvil blocks.

Quilt Square Quilt Along

I have completed my third block for Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along. I think it turned out okay and it was really fun to sew. 
I have wondered about changing the outside border to a darker fabric, but am not sure about that. What do you think...would a darker brown or blue be better?

Here are my first three blocks together. For April we have a choice of the other three blocks from pattern set #1. I am 99% certain that I won't be doing the applique block, because I LOVE the other two pieced blocks and intend to sew both of them.
To see the other Quilt Square Quilt Along blocks from this month, visit Jo's Country Junction.

Quilt Square Quilt Along

Here is my February block for Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along. I plan to use up the leftover scraps (most of which are from the Sweetwater Pure fabric line) from this quilt for all my Quilt Along blocks.
I made some "creative revisions" (a.k.a. errors!) but managed to get the block to end up looking similar to the pattern. 
There were quite a few HST's to sew! Initially I rebelled against squaring them up and after trying to get them to fit together unsuccessfully, I gave in and did the required trimming. I really do "know better"! LOL
I just love the inner border fabric and tried to fussy cut my favorite words from the print. Makes me smile and think about my recent quilt retreat!
To see more of the Quilt Square Quilt Along blocks, hop over to Jo's blog and see all the inspiration. I was the lucky winner of the fabric prize for last month's draw, and received it on Valentine's Day...what a lovely treat! Thanks again to Jo for all the fun we are having with this Quilt Along, and for the generous gift!
Now I can't wait to get started on my March block!

Design Wall Monday #5

Today is the last design wall post for January. On my 5 January design wall blog posts, I showed 6 different projects, and none of them are nearing completion. Let's just say I am generating UFO's for next year's UFO list.

I just love what is on my design wall this week!

On the right there are rows of black and white 4 patches for our group quilt. It must get to the quilters asap to be ready in time for this year's quilt auction in May, so I have to stop procrastinating those borders!

On the top left is my 12" block for Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along. I am using up the Sweetwater scraps from my Quiltmaker mystery that I finished in December (click here to see that quilt). 
I just love my first block! There will be 12 blocks made over the year, a new one posted each month, and at the end of the year I plan to make my blocks into a sampler quilt.
To see other blocks, hop over to Jo's blog where she's hosting a linky party.

On the bottom left of my design wall is another 12" block from my 100 blocks magazine (vol. #4). This block is called "Times Nine" by Jo Morton. It was so fun to sew! I love how each block looks different depending on the placement of the light, medium and dark fabrics. Most of the fabrics are civil war reproductions. I don't know what I will do with this block and just made it for fun. For now, I am just admiring it on my design wall!
To see other design walls, hop over to Judy's blog.