Red

It's not the first Monday of the new month, it's the last Monday of the current month. Be that as it may, I'm going to show you now what I did with A Creative Dreamer's Creativity Challenge for November.

The challenge this month was "Red." Just "red." Talk about a world of possibilities! Of course I thought of all kinds of things I could do. What's interesting to me is that of all those possibilities it was something I hadn't thought of that moved me to action.

I was innocently reading blogs and visiting quilters I hadn't met before when I came upon Love, Laugh, Quilt. Beth has a ton of followers but I hadn't discovered her yet. She's hosting a house block give-away to celebrate the friendly neighborhood of bloggers. I've always had a weakness for house blocks. It only took a nano second for me to decide not only to participate in the give-away but to make my house Red!

I tried, I really tried, to make a free style, liberated house. This is what I ended up with. Still straight up but at least I had fun with it. I started with the computer image with the message that "You have mail." Had to add my Reilly-dog in the other window. Then it was a matter of landscaping. I happen to love Jay McCarroll's leaning trees, and evergreens of that general shape are predominant in this area. I had a strip of the print I used on the border of the Harry Potter quilt that was just the thing to flesh out my immediate neighborhood. The hardest part was stopping with just this one block! If I hadn't made other commitments I would surely have made several more by now. There's a very good chance that I still will ;-)

Sunshine on a Snowy Day

I hope all my readers in the United States had a warm and tasty Thanksgiving Day. Because of the snow and icy roads in this region DH and I had an intimate turkey dinner, just the two of us.

There was new snowfall here Thanksgiving morning. It made for a very pretty holiday. By Friday it had all melted away. At least it stuck around long enough for me to get the baby quilt top finished. When last you saw it I'd made points for maybe six of the 20 stars. The next day I had all the stars in place.

It was at that point that Jan Mullen stopped with her Starz and Stripez quilt. I felt mine needed more.

I am absolutely thrilled with how this turned out.

Poor DH went to JoAnn's yesterday to try to procure batting for this project. When he saw the length of the line he turned on his heels and left the store. So we'll wait to quilt this up until I either piece together some leftover bits of batting or someone else can go to the store for me. In the meantime I need to get back to those projects I told Finn I would finish up before New Year's Day!

From Green to White

I lied. I didn't cut the green patches for the baby quilt over the weekend. I got distracted by an opportunity created by Beth over at Love, Laugh, Quilt. I'll show you what I made a little later.

Sunday our world outside went from green to white. There's something about falling snow that makes me want to warm myself by the heat of my iron and cuddle with my sewing machine. ;- )

I took down all the Churn Dash blocks that were on my design wall so I could put up the background patches for the baby quilt. I used a variety of yellow prints and I wanted to get them distributed as evenly as possible across the surface of the quilt. Mz. Mullen used a lot of prints in the background of her Starz and Stripez quilt; that's part of what drew me to it in the first place.

Really, one could stop at this point and sew the patches together for a simple, happy quilt. Lots of fun quilting would make a top like that sing. (The big squares are only 5.5" and the rectangles are 3" x 5.5".) Since I'm not that proficient a quilter I pulled out a lot of greens from my stash to make the starz.

I was wondering how I would get the greens distributed evenly across the quilt when suddenly it dawned on me that I could work on one star at a time and just keep the points all the same for that star. Mz. Mullen has mixed her star points all up from what I can see. I also suspect she did all the sashes in one go and then arranged them to make up the starz. Guess I'm not feeling that random right now. Ya gotta do what works for you (I know that because Gwen Marston said so in her recent books!) and this is what works for me.

Since daytime temperatures are not going to be climbing above freezing for another day or two I may even get this top together before Thanksgiving. :- )

Monkeyshines

So naturally, since I have committed myself to four projects between now and New Year's Eve, a new project has come to the table. I'm happy to take on this new project but this is exactly why I am so reluctant to make major commitments!

My elder son's long time friend married earlier in the year. Now the couple has a new baby boy and my son asked if I would make a quilt for him. Of course I will! He'd like them to receive it for Christmas. Hoo boy. While we've known this young man for many years we never really got to know him. DS gave me a list of potential jumping off points but nothing specific.

I went to my favorite quilting books and spent time looking at pictures of baby quilts on Flickr.com. At bedtime that night I was looking through Jan Mullen's Cut Loose Quilts and came across this little quilt:


I've never made one like this, where you don't make blocks per se. The stars are created from what you do to the sashing. One of the suggestions DS gave me was that his friend's mother is from Jamaica and that I could incorporate the colors of the Jamaican flag in the quilt. I looked at this quilt pattern and thought it would be lovely done up with yellows in the background and green for the star points/sashing. The center squares will be assorted black and white prints like it is in Jan's version. This color palette was sealed when I found this delightful print:

I can put a border around the stars to make the quilt just that much bigger and therefore it will be useful that much longer. Hurray!

So far I have the background patches cut.

It's going to be a very green weekend. :- )

What's Next?

We're having another blustery day today. These normally staid shrubs are doing quite the happy dance.

I only hope the river stays within her banks with all the rain we're getting. It's a wild time of year around here. As long as the power stays on I'm happy. :- )

I shipped these two quilts off to Margaret's Hope Chest on Monday.

They were warm and soft coming out of the dryer. Especially this one, with a flannel back.

Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to pack that fresh-from-the-dryer warmth in with the quilts?

Now I'm looking forward, trying to figure out what's next. I need to clean up from these last several projects. That may entail taking the Churn Dash blocks off the design wall so I can throw leftover scraps and strips on it and see what develops. I really don't want to put that stuff away again. I want it used up and gone. At the same time, however, I don't want to start a brand new project. As this year draws to a close I want to do some closing of my own.

I've been a fan of Finn's ever since I started reading blogs. She's hosted a New Year's Eve UFO challenge for the last three years and a lot of quilters and crafters have finished a lot of projects that had been laying dormant in their homes and studios. I've resisted the urge to commit to that particular challenge, preferring to work at my own pace and as my muse dictated. I think the time has finally come for me to play along.

Long-time readers may remember this top:

It was built from blocks I received from members of my local quilt guild. I spent a lot of time putting those blocks together in the summer of '09. So much so that by the time I finally had them together I couldn't see what to do about a border. I bought several pieces of yardage as possibilities but nothing really spoke to me. So it got put away.

Recently I received this piece of yardage from a new friend.

I'm not sure it will work on the front, as a border, but it could be prominently featured on the back. The point is that it has brought this unfinished top to mind again and has awakened the muse. As a gift to myself I want to have this top and a back for it done by New Year's Eve. I also want to have my Sketchbook Project nearly complete at that point (or maybe even done!). And to top it all off, I want to have "Cookies & Lemonade" quilted and bound and ready to ship. The beauty of Finn's challenge is that no-one will come to my door to beat or berate me if I fail in any one of these commitments. But it's going to feel great to get them all done!