Design Wall Monday

It's been a long time since I posted, not because I haven't been working on anything quilty but because I have been too busy and distracted. I do have exciting news: the quilt I submitted to the Sonoma County Fair was awarded a blue ribbon!

 

Sorry for the poor quality photo. They hang the quilts from the rafters making photos difficult. The same quilt was also awarded a blue ribbon at the Sonoma Marin Fair last month. I also received an offer to purchase it but I'm not sure I'm ready to part with it. On the other hand, I could always make another!

This is on my design wall today. The upper left is the center medallion of my Star of Istanbul project I have been working on for three years. It's all hand sewn using the English paper piecing method. I had made almost 100 rosettes and realized I needed work out the details of the center before continuing. The orange hexagons are one inch along the edge.

The lower right is a sample block from a pattern called Log Cabin Cutouts by Judy Niemeyer. It's designed to use the leftovers from another pattern called Cabin Fever. The outer circle is the leftover part. I'm thinking of saving this project for the Ranch Hand's Retreat in October.

Design Wall Monday

I accomplished a lot of quilt related work the last 12 days I was on vacation. I quilted nine charity quilts, two of my own, put binding on six quilts and made one baby quilt top, pictured below.

This is a block called Star Cluster, from Judy Martin's website. I super sized it so each star is 16 inches across. The whole top is about 38 inches square. I know two women about to become grandmothers and three women about to have babies so I ran out of small quilts to give away and had to whip this one up.

Design Wall Monday

I meant to write this post Friday. Where did the last three days go? In my defense, I did get a lot done over the weekend. I prepped quilts for the actual quilting. This is one of them:

I whipped this up from the leftovers of the next quilt. I didn't want to make enough blocks to make the other quilt larger but I didn't want to throw them away either. A lot of work went into making those circles! I only had to make two more blocks and the setting triangles to finish. I made the back from leftovers too and now it's ready to quilt.

This is ready to quilt as soon as I purchase fabric for the back. I started working on this five years ago. It feels good to be finished! I was surprised to see my dog, Roxy, in the photo. She's afraid of the camera. I think it's the noise that bothers her. Now that she's an old lady and loosing her hearing she isn't so sensitive.

Design Wall Monday

I accomplished quite a bit of quilting being on vacation the last 5 days. I finished all 12 of the drunkard's path blocks and discovered I don't have enough quite fabric to finish. I put it away until I have time to see if I can find more and I took out this old project. It's a drunkard's path variation called Millwheel. The first time I posted about it was September 2010.

Cross the Drunkard's Path Quilt Along

I work for the local school district and we take Wednesday as a holiday, too. I sewed ALL day and was able to finish all the blocks!

Then I did some calculations and I don't have enough fabric left to finish this quilt the way I originally planned. I have two choices: Find more fabric or change my plan. I bought the fabric at Dharma Trading so I will see if I can find the same PFD fabric or an acceptable replacement. Back in the box this goes until I have time for that. In the meantime, I have another similar project that has been languishing in a box. This is a drunkard's path variation called Millwheel.

I looked over my notes which I could hardly make heads or tales of so I decided to see how large it would be with the blocks I have already made. It looks like it will be lap size.

Design Wall Monday

My friend, Nancy, was visiting today. After we had brunch we sewed all afternoon, walked dogs, had dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant and sewed late into the night. She has to drive home to Oregon tomorrow so we had to squeeze a lot in. I finished three of these blocks today. The other two I did last week.

For more design walls, visit Judy's blog.

Cross the Drunkard's Path Quilt Along

Back in 2009 I collected Drunkard's Path block variations and arranged them as a BOM for a group of quilting friends.

My BOM Plan

I even hand dyed half yards of kona cotton especially for this project.

Then I made two blocks and lost interest. My project has languished in a box for almost 5 years.

When I saw Vicki Welsh's post about her Cross the Drunkard's Path Quilt Along it reminded me about this unfinished project. It took me a few weeks to get back in the mood to work on it. This week I planned my color placement and cut all the pieces.

Design Wall

Last night I sewed a few test units to remind myself how to sew curves.

I keep thinking I should be putting this together in a different way, making it more artsy or sophisticated, therefore more complicated. I am forcing myself to stick with my original plan. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just has to be finished.

What do you do with the leftovers from drunkard's path blocks?

I'll probably work the yardage into the border. I might use the quarter circles in another project........