Crown Blocks

When I made my last appearance I had these Crown blocks on the design wall:

My original plan was to make 36 blocks and then add a checkerboard border of the same black and white prints. As I approached the 36th block I stared doing the math for the checkerboard. It rapidly got so complicated that I finally decided to just make more Crowns to get closer to the sixty inches I was shooting for. I had to go out and buy more black and white prints - oh darn! - in order to maintain the variety of prints I wanted.

In the end, making 49 blocks wasn't as tedious as it sounded when I was first considering this project. They go together pretty quickly even though they look a little involved.

The current plan is to frame the blocks with a narrow border of one of the whiter prints and then bind the quilt with black. So far I have the blocks sewn into rows...

And of course I'm cutting patches for my six inch Shoo Fly blocks out of the leftovers!

While this has been going on I have also been working on the challenge for the La Conner Quilt Museum. It's looking a little iffy as to whether I'll make the deadline or not. Even if I miss the deadline I intend to donate the finished product to the Museum for them to sell out of the gift shop.

Oh, and I have sewn the chevron blocks into a top since my last post too. I don't have a picture of it yet however. It was going to be a quilt for Foster Care but now I'm thinking I'll send the top (and maybe fabric for the back if I have something appropriate) to Phoenix Quilts for one of the victims of the recent wildfires in the western states. Do you have a quilt or a top you could send? Or maybe you could make a donation for batting; there's a handy-dandy Paypal button at the top of Phoenix Quilts' blog page. ;- )

Another New Project

I haven't laid out the chevron blocks yet. Nor have I made any progress on the challenge project for the La Conner Quilt Museum. I seem to be suffering from Attention Deficit Quilting Disorder...

I ripped this picture out of a Country Living magazine a couple of years ago because the quilt on the bed really appealed to me.

It's an antique quilt that the homeowner purchased somewhere back east so there was no maker's name and no quilt name given in the accompanying article. I drafted out the block and eventually discovered that it can be called Four Crowns or Sailboat. There may very well be other names for it as well.

I thought of this quilt after seeing a black and white quilt one of the members of my local quilt guild had with her at the meeting last week. The quilt in the photograph was made of indigo blues and shirting prints. I didn't want a reproduction quilt but I did like the high contrast between the dark blue and the white and ivories. I decided to try it in black and white prints.

Or mostly black and white prints! ;- )

According to my 1,001 Patchwork Designs by Maggie Malone four blocks set this way is called Four Crowns.

Four blocks set the way they are in the middle of this layout is called Sailboat.

"Crowns" makes more sense to me. There's no telling what name my final quilt will end up with however!

My plan is to make enough blocks to end up with a roughly sixty inch quilt. These blocks finish at 8.25 inches. I think there's going to be a black and white checkerboard border (made from four patch blocks).

It's interesting to me that I need so much fairly mindless sewing these days. I used to enjoy the challenge of creating completely original work. Now I don't have the mental energy for that sort of thing. I'm content to cut the same shapes over and over, and to chain piece long strings of patches. Maybe this shows personal growth or maturity. All I know is that it feels weird. Based on past experience, this is abnormal behavior for me!

It's Not All Bad

These breaks between posts are getting longer and longer! Not all of it is due to illness at least. Even when I can't be outside, doing the things other folks are doing in the summer, there have been some out of the ordinary events in my world in the last couple of weeks. Good things. :- ) We had family from out of state visit one day. I'm happy to report that I held up better than expected. And then this week I was able to get together with a lot of members of my local quilt guild - woohoo! Since it was an outdoor meeting there wasn't a lot of show and tell but it was gratifying to reconnect in person with old friends and to put faces to names that have appeared on the member roster since I had to quit attending regularly.

I have also been plugging away on the latest batch of chevron log cabin blocks. I'm making them 16.5inches square so that 20 of them will make a twin size quilt top.

Only 12 will fit comfortably on my design wall though. I'll have to move out to the living room to play with block placements.

I've been thinking a lot about that fabric challenge you saw in the last post. I have been looking at this book and getting some ideas. The question is whether I can pull it off before the deadline in two weeks!

One of my quilter friends was trying to unload some scraps at the meeting. I took what I could, and this morning used a few of them to make up these blocks:

 

Fun! (You should be able to get larger pictures by double clicking on them.) I've also acquired a copy of Gwen Marston's Liberated Medallions book recently. I have a strong suspicion that there will be a medallion style quilt made out of scrappy parts and pieces in my near future. ;- )