Design Wall Monday

I haven't posted in a while. July through September is the busiest time of the year at my day job so I haven't been doing much quilting. I did finish this one though. It's a gift for my mother-in-law's sister, who celebrates her 90th birthday this month. I finished the blocks and put them together at the Ranch Hand's quilt retreat two weeks ago. The pattern is called Patches and Pinwheels and is from Bonnie Hunter's website, www.quiltville.com. Here a link to it.

And a closeup, to show the wonderful striped binding fabric I found for it.

I used wool batting and quilted it with Superior Omni thread in a pattern called Verdant. I have fallen in love with wool batting! I don't know how it's processed but it doesn't felt or beard. It's also light and fluffy, much lighter then cotton, which is great for large quilts.

I had a lot of big things happen in my life this summer, some great, some not so great. I cut my finger pretty bad with a rotary cutter, entered a quilt in my local fair and won Best of Show (large quilts), was in a car accident, my daughter got engaged, my dogs got skunked, and I went to Oregon to take a class with Bonnie Hunter! I will post more details later but I'll say now that my finger healed and I wasn't seriously injured in the accident.

Design Wall Monday

So I'm a day late. Better late than never! I didn't get very far on Easy Street at the retreat and it was the only thing I worked on. I do have all the blocks made and I only have to lay it out and sew the rows together. I'm thinking of a narrow orange border and a wider purple border. I will have to buy fabric as I don't have any pieces in my stash that are big enough.

Design Wall Monday...

coming to you from the Ranch Hands Retreat! I almost forgot it was Monday. I'm making Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, Easy Street. I got the centers of all the blocks done, a small pile of four patches and cut up the purple geese. Tomorrow I will work on the piecing the geese and adding the outside edges of the blocks. Then on to the setting triangles and if all goes well, I will have the blocks set together before we leave for home on Thursday. Hopefully I have enough purple yardage at home for the borders.

Recent Finishes

I can't believe how time has flown by. It's been over a month since I last posted. Since then I have returned to work and gone on a quilt retreat. I finished this first quilt at the retreat. I made this same quilt once before only smaller, as a donation. I loved it so much I bought the fabric all over again so I could have one to keep. That was over three years ago. I was looking for a good project to take on the retreat and decided it was time this fabric was made into a quilt.

Here's a closeup of the individual blocks. I was able to find almost all the same fabrics.


After I returned from the retreat I was looking for a mindless project to finish and decided on these Millennium Stars. I originally blogged about them here. I decided to finish them with purple sashing. I used left over strips from the purple quilt I made last fall. The photo is washed out but it's the look I was hoping for. Now to make a back and quilt it.

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.