It's About Time!

That I showed you the final arrangement of the hexagon charm blocks I was working with back in August. This is where it was back then...

This is how it looks now:

I've passed it on to my son to see what quilting design he'll come up with using his long arm skills. In the meantime, I've made a second version of the quilt.

My goal this time was to use up some of the leftovers from the wedding quilt I made earlier this year. (You can see bits of that quilt here.) So I cut 5" squares from those prints and then went down to my LQS to see what there was to use for the alternate squares. Of course there wasn't anything in my stash that I liked with the greens or had enough of for this project!

Once again I began with this layout:

Now that I see it in the photo I like it better than I did when it was on the design wall. Still, it was pretty staid so I moved the values around a bit. I left the hexagons all pointing in the same direction this time though.

A simple two inch border all the way around finishes it off at 40" x 45". I may quilt this one myself. If I do, it will most likely be with simple straight lines going diagonally through the charm squares and the alternate squares - to create a hanging diamond effect. I find it interesting that I'm not, never have been, much of a doodler and now that I'm a quilt maker I also find it challenging to come up with quilting designs. Seems like the same skill set is involved and I still need to develop in that area!

Whoosh!

That's the sound of time flying by. ;- )

My surgery went smoothly, nothing ugly was discovered, and as far as that procedure is concerned all is well. There have been other events that have conspired to keep me from the computer and blogging. Nothing truly serious, just annoying and debilitating.

Meanwhile, the weather has turned up here in our corner of the world. The first sign was to be seen in our shrubs:

Not the greatest picture, I know, but those are spider webs decorating the hedges. Here's a closer look:

Puts me in mind of fairy clouds or something. :- )

My local quilt guild does a monthly block lottery. I don't always participate (in fact, in the past couple of years I have rarely participated) but this time around I couldn't help myself. The assignment was to make a 10 or 12 inch Halloween block. Yippeee!

For a couple of days I debated whether to just plug some Halloween prints into a pieced block pattern. Then the idea struck me to make a haunted house. hehehe. This is what I came up with:

This particular house block has been in my notebook ever since the early days of my quilt making. Some of the very first blocks I made were houses. I can't tell whether this was one I designed myself or something I drafted from a picture somewhere. At the time I didn't have the skills to make it without using templates so I don't think it ever got made. After this first effort I decided to try again...

I have the most fun finding things to put in the windows and doorways! The first house was turned in at the last guild meeting but the drawing won't be until the next meeting. I'm keeping the second house.

This morning I decided to make another block for the drawing. There's a block called Buzzard's Roost in my block bible (Maggie Malone's 1001 Patchwork Designs) that I've always wanted to try. Halloween seemed an appropriate theme for such a block. Here is what I created:

I'm very happy with it. The witch is from an Alexander Henry print. She's on a true red background though it looks a little off in the photo.

And just for grins I made this little star (6") out of scraps I had laying around.

Hopefully it won't be such a long time between posts from now on. And I have a lot of catching up to do among my Blog Land friends...

Charming New Project

Hello Friends. :- ) I'm feeling reasonably well this morning so I figured I'd better take advantage of it. I even have a brand new project to share with you!

I was surprised and delighted to find an unexpected gift in my mailbox one day recently. Timeless Treasures sent one of their mini treat charm packs to express their appreciation for the quilt I'd made for a victim of Hurricane Sandy. Timeless Treasures used their warehouse space to collect and store the quilts until they could be distributed. Many of their employees and family members live and work in the affected areas.

I received the Lemon-Poppy set of charm squares:

While the yellows in the pack made me happy the other colors weren't necessarily the hues I would choose to work with. Time for some stretching exercises!

My criteria for this project were to use all the charm squares (if possible) and avoid buying additional fabric. I browsed through my collection of patterns and ideas, and did some online research into patterns for charm squares. There are a couple of tempting patterns in the Moda Bake Shop. One of them was the inspiration for my project; I may yet go back and try out the others someday.

I soon discovered that with only one charm pack it was going to be a challenge to make something more than a wall hanging, no matter how many patches I cut from the charm squares themselves. The wide range of values in this pack created another challenge: how to incorporate both the light, bright charms and the very dark charms?

Because my physical and mental energies are so limited these days I was looking for a simple plan. Minimal cutting and piecing, minimal room for errors!

It was the Road to Tennessee quilt plan in the Moda Bake Shop that caught my eye. Take a moment to click on the link and have a look. I'll wait. ;- )

I had to try out several batiks in my stash to find something that would work with all the charm squares. It helped that I figured I would need at least a yard. That eliminated most of my stash. Of the options I was left with most were printed with patterns that were too bold or busy. They fought with the prints in the charm squares. But I had a generous yard and a half of a wonderful mottled red that has small spatters and squiggles of yellow-to-gold-to-tan and greens. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

By this time I knew I wanted to try alternate squares between the charm squares. I cut 2" and 5" patches from my wonderful red batik. The 2" squares were pieced onto opposite corners of the charm squares to make the hexagonal shapes. This is the first layout I tried after the piecing was done:

Not bad, but I tweaked the placement of a couple of the hexagons.

This layout gives me a quilt top that can be turned into a lap quilt for ADCS and there are only four charm squares that don't get used. But what if I turn the charms in every other row?

Oooo, I like it! But maybe that yellow is too potent in the middle of the quilt...?

What if we do this instead?

What do you think? I'm thinking I like this the best. Unless I take it a step further and mix up the other hexagons more... (Don't forget you can double click on the pictures to see more detail.)

A person could play like this forever and never actually get a quilt made!

What?! REALLY??

My friend C~ was gracious enough to take five of my quilts to the admissions table at our local county fair last week. She also entered one of her quilts. She and her husband went to the fair a few days later and reported that there were ribbons on all of my quilts. Because she was distracted in looking for her quilt she didn't take note of precisely what ribbons were awarded. When my husband brought the quilts and ribbons home I was amazed at the sheer number of ribbons. My jaw dropped when I caught sight of this one:

Can you read it? It says 'Best of Show.' BEST OF SHOW!!!

Granted, it's only a small county fair, but none of my quilts has ever done that well in the past. I've been gobsmacked all week. Turns out I don't even have a full "portrait" picture of the quilt. Or if I do I can't find it.

My black and white Crowns quilt was awarded Best of Class.

My little art quilt for the La Conner Quilt Museum's challenge was awarded Reserve Best of Class.

The Treasure Island baby quilt I made very recently was given a second place ribbon...

As did my friendship quilt that I call Play Group.

We received a copy of the judge's comments with the ribbons. I agreed with about half of her judgments and disagreed with the other half. ;- ) I do appreciate her decision regarding Best in Show however!

I've been suffering from the fatigue that accompanies anemia. I've been sewing too, and have some things I could share with you, but it might take me a while. I'm trying to eat iron rich foods and am taking an iron supplement. We're hoping an outpatient procedure I have scheduled for early in September will take care of the source of this problem. Maybe then I'll only have the chemical sensitivities to cope with!

Recent Finishes

I don't remember whether I posted these first pictures previously. I trust you'll forgive me if you've already seen them. ;- )

My most recent string quilt was built directly onto squares of batting rather than a fabric or paper foundation. I cut the batting squares at six or eight inches, sewed my strings and strips to them, and then trimmed the blocks to 6.5 or 8.5 inches. My thinking was that the quarter-inch seam allowances would fill in the depth between the squares of batting. It was a bit tedious to press them open but overall I think it worked.

Next time I might try leaving a half inch seam allowance around the batting to make pressing easier. Maybe. In the photo above you can also see where the rows of six inch blocks butt up against the rows of eight inch blocks.

Here's the completed top:

The very middle of the quilt is built of six inch blocks, the two ends are comprised of eight inch blocks.

I bought backing fabric from the clearance section of my local quilt shop and made the back. Then it sat in the closet while I pursued other projects. In the last two weeks our quilt guild received a plea for quilts for the children coming into Foster Care this summer so I pulled this out and finished it up right quick. All I had to do was lay the quilted top on the backing fabric and stitch the two layers together. I used one of the utility stitches on my machine that reaches across the seam lines to help stabilize everything. You may be able to see it in the detail shot below.

And in this picture you can see the print I used on the back and for the binding.

My most recent finish is the Treasure Island baby quilt:

Hopefully by double clicking on the picture you'll be able to see it in greater detail. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

One more finish:

You've already seen the top complete but now it's been quilted. Not that you'll be able to see the quilting unless you have the quilt in your hands. :- ) I used a dark thread and mostly just outlined the major elements.

It's honestly going to be a little painful to part with these two small quilts. But better that someone should use and enjoy them than they sit around my house taking up space!