Design Wall Monday

I took vacation time over the holidays and worked on this project. I haven't worked on it for several months. In fact, it had been so long I didn't set my sewing machine up correctly and sewed a bunch of squares with the seam allowance too wide. So I had to rip and begin again. My advice to you all out in blogland is don't leave your project so long you forget what you are doing! So now I'm back on track and I am happy to report that the top part of this photo is the edge of the quilt!

The lower part is actually five sections pinned on top of each other. Next I will sew all the sections together and begin working towards the other edge, on the right. I will make this quilt as wide as I can with the remaining red fabric. I'll have to calculate how many red squares I'll need. Hopefully it will end up 97" x 97".

For more design walls, visit Judy's blog at patchworktimes.com.

Design Wall Monday

This probably doesn't look much different but the slip of paper pinned on the left marks row 4. I had to fold down the finished areas to make more room to work. It's taking me about one hour to put together an 8 x 8 square. The top row in the finished area contains two 8 x 8 squares. I also need to cut more fabric to finish this row. Due to holidays and furlough days I don't have to be back at work until January 3. I should be able to make a lot of progress on this, though I have a lot of longarming to do also.

Christmas day was great. My daughter and I joined our extended family at Dillon Beach. It's the first time we have been able to get everyone all together at the beach house in four years. The photo below is from the porch, although not taken yesterday. It was sunny and the parking lot was packed.

Design Wall Monday

I have made a lot of progress on this in the last week. The lower portion is sewn together in three large rows. Then I folded it down after the photo so I would have room to work. I was having to stand up from my chair to reach the upper squares. Now my workspace in down at a more comfortable level.

Design Wall Monday

I have made a lot of progress this week. Unfortunatly, I have been working on this instead of other important things.

Design Wall Monday

I started working on this quilt last spring. The pattern is from an antique quilt. The squares have to be laid out and carefully sewn together. It's very slow going, however, I find it relaxing and meditative. I will keep going until I run out of the red I am using for the chains between the blocks. The squares are cut at 1 1/2 inches, so 1/3 of this quilt is disappearing into the seam allowances. I'm thinking of using wool batting because the top will be so heavy.

Here's a closeup of some of the blocks.