Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on the wall today:

I started these blocks about 18 months ago and posted about them here. Then I just couldn't figure out a pleasing way to lay them out so, I put them away for a while. I took them out Christmas eve and started playing. I removed the darkest blocks and I was much happier with how it looked. Then Christmas morning I woke up at 3:00, tossed and turned until 4:00, then got up and sewed them together. On Sunday I bought fabric for the back at the LQS yesr-end sale. Now it's in the "to be quilted" pile.

UFO Progress

Here's Completely Dotty, quilted and bound. I only need to add a label and give it as a gift, possibly tonight. I finished another quilt but I can't show it as it is also a gift.

This next one is a sample for a class Tamara is teaching at the LQS. I'm including photos here because I'm delivering it to the store and Tamara won't see it right away. I also included a closeup of the quilting.

Design Wall Monday 12-20-10

Here's what's up today: two UFOs I dug up while getting ready for the UFO Challenge. The top is an african animal print. Once I got started, the colors were so boring I lost interest. I'm going to finish three or six more blocks to make a baby quilt. The bottom looks like puzzle pieces. I love this quilt, I just have to finish the border and it will be ready to quilt. I noticed that most of my projects stall at the borders. Hmmm...I'll have to work on that.

UFO Challenge 2011

I'll be participating in Judy Laquidara's UFO Challenge 2011 over at her blog, Patchwork Times. Here's all my projects that aren't finished, in one big pile. Wow! It's a lot more than I thought. In "my quilting world", finishing projects is done in two parts: part one: making the quilt top; part two: quilting and binding. I have 27 UFOs (part one) and 24 tops ready to be quilting (part two). Some of these projects will be donations to the Valley of the Moon Children's Home or the San Antonio Childcare Center. No customer quilts are included in the above, these are only my personal projects. UFOs and Ready to be Quilted are listed in the right-hand sidebar along with Finished Quilts. I'll take photos of the individual projects and post as I complete them. I'm going to try to finish one project from each category every month. Wish me luck!

Completely Dotty finished!

Here's the final product. I really slammed this one out. Interesting considering it sat around for at least four years. Since reading an article on revising a UFO, I have felt inspired to dig out my languishing projects and see what I might change in order to get them finished. And I have plenty of dotty fabric left over to make the back and binding.

Completely Dotty

After years of ignoring this project I am suddenly compelled to finish it. It started with reading Pat Sloan's tips about finishing UFOs. I took these blocks out and dicovered I had enough completed to make a small quilt. The pattern called for paper piecing the sashing and borders but I decided not to do that since I don't like paper piecing. I have plenty of dotty fabric to make setting triangles, backing and binding. I stayed up really late working on this; note the time on this post!

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on today:

This is a UFO that has been hanging around a long time. The circles are paper pieced in quarters. After starting this I realized that I don't really like paper piecing. Last week I read Pat Sloan's blog about tips for dealing with UFOs. So I decided to pull this one out and see how much I had done. I had enough quarters to make these five blocks. There were supposed to be 9 total. I'm going to figure out a way to make a baby quilt with just these. I looked through Sharon Craig's books and I'm going to let a few ideas percolate this week.

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on the wall today:

These are the leftovers from the purple quilt last week. I did finish that one but I forgot to take a picture while it was on the design wall at the retreat. I cut way too much fabric and I wanted to make this pattern for a while.

Design Wall Monday

I am at the quilt retreat today and here's what's on the design wall:

These are the first blocks of my purple quilt. I need 42 total. 21 like this and 21 with white centers and alternating purple and white stripes. I hope to get all of the blocks finished before we leave on thursday afternoon.

Design Wall Monday

Nothing new on the wall today so here's a pic of the fabric I'm cutting up to work on at the retreat next week. Yes, I'm finally going to make a purple quilt. Purple is my favorite color and green is a close second, obviously. Next Monday I will post the blocks I have completed.

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on my wall, although it's finished. A friend gave me the blocks and I put them together Saturday, quilted and bound it Sunday. It's a gift for my uncle who has terminal cancer. I'll be visiting him later this week. This is a block of the month from 2006 or 2007 called Galaxy Quest.

Design Wall Monday

Happy Labor Day! To celebrate I have been working on quilting. Here's what's on my wall today:

Yes, another green quilt. I'm not sure what I'm going to call it yet. It will be #7 in the green series. It's made with fabric I purchased at the Sisters Quilt Show last July.

Asian Two Step

I meant to post this Monday, but life happened. This pattern is called Texas Two Step and is from the third Nickel Quilt book. I am madly trying to finish it so I can take it to a quilt retreat in a week. This photo doesn't show it but I have all the blocks finished (18) and now I am working on the alternate blocks (17 shoo fly blocks). I am making this out of two sweet treats I bought when the owner of Pincushion Boutique visited our guild a couple of years ago. The colors are purple and green asian prints, though the greens look very gray in this photo.

Design Wall Monday

For the first time in weeks and weeks I have something new on my design wall. This pattern I saw in a magazine a few years ago. It's is simply 1" finished squares arranged in diamonds. None of the squares are sewn together in this photo so this is going to shrink a lot. I don't have enough room to lay this out completely so late last night I started sewing it together. The instructions call for sewing it together row by row but I've decided to do it by 9 patches so I can sew as I go. Hopefully this will end up bed size but that depends on if I have enough of the red squares.

2010 BOM

Here is The February block of our 2010 BOM, King Tut's Crown.

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on my design wall today. I started this quilt last March (yikes!). The only thing left to do is the borders and quilting. I put it aside for a while because I couldn't decide on green or purple for the sashing. Since I chose purple I will put green on the back.

This is a scrappy Irish Chain quilt I just finished quilting. I used a ruler to quilt diagonal lines on my longarm for the first time. The beginning is a mess but by the end I could see a definite improvement in my quilting.

The last time I showed this quilt it was just a top. I quilted it with an all-over butterfly pattern from Willow Tree Studio. I even hand-sewed the binding. I usually do binding all by machine but I felt this quilt deserved something special.

Design Wall Monday

Here's my progress on my Tamara's 2009 BOM. This is the lower right corner. I am almost finished but I had to dye more fabric yesterday afternoon. I ran out of yellow, pink and light green for the sashing. I would have finished without those colors but then this whole corner would have been orange, teal and blue only. Not very random, which is the look I am going for.

Ruby

For those who haven't seen her, this is my "new" longarm. New to me, that is. She is about 5 years old. Becca named her Ruby Rhod, after the Chris Tucker character in the Fifth Element. She is "super green". Follow this link to a photo of the quilt I am working on.

Happy New Year!

Here's the first block of our 2010 BOM using Drunkard's Path variations. This block finished at 16". I will be using fabric I dyed myself on Christmas day. Joann suggested that I use some leftover hand dyed faric but I didn't have enough so I made some more. I dyed 1/2 yards in a rainbow of 12 colors. I have 4 yards of PFD fabric left for the white background. I was planning on creating pastels but I miscalculated the amount of dye to use. I think this is better as the more vibrant color stands out better against the white. Each block will be a different color and I'll have enough leftover for sashing or borders. The colored portions of each block use 1/4 yard or less.