Ginger Blossoms... Black & White... and Being Behind

I went to my favorite LQS this week... Quilt Arts... http://www.quiltartsonline.com/ I love this shop! It opened last November and is already a hub of activity among quilters. You walk in and are just wowed by color and texture and pattern. When I walked in the door last week I was greeted with the Ginger Blossom line by Sandi Henderson (http://www.portabellopixie.typepad.com/) WOW! I love this line! I bought 6 lovely fat quarters... but alas they are now packaged up ready to be mailed off next week to a friend. Sigh! I think I must return and buy some for my very own! They are just to wonderful to do without!

I also bought a few black and white prints. I have some in my stash... received some from an online friend... and had bought some online. I am going to make my nephew a quilt for his High School graduation. I am using the Turn Twenty Again pattern and have been cutting fabric this weekend. I plan to start sewing tomorrow. I think I may add a small border of a single bright color for a pop.

Bonnie at Quiltville has posted step 5 of her current mystery quilt... Orange Crush... I am woefully behind! I have step 1 and 2 done... did a bit of step 3 and got frustrated... haven't even started step 4 must less 5! Oh well... I will press on (as well as cut on... sew on... LOL! sorry bad joke!) and get caught up one day!

I have been terribly unmotivated in the area of quilting the past few weeks, so I am thrilled to be back in the land of fabric, thread, rulers, rotary cutters etc. The slump has passed and I am ready to get going again!

Step 3 Woes....

Bonnie is challenging me to death with this mystery! LOL! I absolutely abhor working with triangles! Love the way they look... but hate cutting them and lining things up and sewing them.. and these are sooo small! I survived Step 2 by coming up with my own method.. but Step 3 stumped me. PTL Merete came up with a neat way... http://mreteveian.blogspot.com/2008/04/del-3-kjapt-part-3-fast.html

So off I went to give it a try... and it worked! Sort of... they look good, but they are measuring what I think they should measure. From the chatter on the list, the short sides should line up with the sides of the blocks created in step 1 and 2. Mine are too long. Ugh!

So I am setting this aside and waiting for future steps to see how these are used... how they line up. It may be that I can shave a tiny tad off (they are just barely too big) or it may be that they are just the right size and I don't realize it. Either way, I am going to step back and wait a bit to see where Bonnie is going with this.

In the meantime, I need to whip up a couple of new walker bags for my mom, pull out a UFO or 2, start my nephew's quilt... plenty of quilty things to work on here!

Step 2 done... just under the wire!

Step 2 was a bit daunting to me... at first. I didn't purchase the Easy Angle ruler, so I had to work with the regular method. I love the look of triangles, but absolutely hate sewing them! And this block has 3 triangles and 2 are tiny! So I did a bit of playing around and tweaking and came up with my own method. It still took a long time to make them all, but I think they turned out great. I really like this little block, especially paired up with four-patches. I played around with several layout ideas last night. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I use this in another quilt some day down the line.

So now I wait patiently for step 3. Of course I have a "zillion" other projects to work on in the meantime, but this one is more fun!

Step 1 Done!

Aren't little four patches cute? I just love them! They went together a lot quickly than you might think from the time I started until the time I finished. I got interrupted and had several days with no sewing time at all! (Tragic, I know!) I am still fairly new to the quilting game (4 years) and I haven't made a lot of four patches in my day, but I think I will be using them more in the future. I have all sorts of ideas bubbling around!

So step 1 is done... PTL! Now I just have to be patient and wait for step 2! Barb

Step 1 started.....

Bonnie posted step 1 of her newest mystery Quilt - Orange Crush - yesterday... and I wasted no time gather up my strips and heading to the sewing machine. Unfortunately I keep having detours and haven't gotten as much done as I wanted. I am piecing together a dark strips with light strips as Bonnie instructed. I even have some pressed open and ready to cut into small 2 patches (which will be sewn together into 150 4 -patch units!) I have 2 weeks to get these done before Step 2 is posted. Which should be plenty of time. After all I only have those to piece, a quilt for a 4/26 wedding to finish (the blocks are done), a Round Robin center to create, house to clean, family to feed, work, laundry..... no big deal! Lots of "free" time!

Off to move clothes from washer to dryer... towels from floor to washer... and then fabric strips through the sewing machine!

"Belle"

Of course I have time for another project!

I have several tops waiting for me to quilt them... I have a mystery quilt from a few weeks ago begging me to and the final borders and then finish it up... I am in the midst of a quilt for a couple getting married in April... I desperately need to start a quilt for my nephew who is graduating in May... so what did I do this week? Signed up for yet another project! But wait.. it is Bonnie at Quiltville's (www.quiltville.com) newest mystery - Orange Crush. Who could resist that???

Mine will be an Orangeless Crush. I was determined to use only stash fabrics (and I sort of did... I was short on one of my main fabrics and ordered a bit more). I like orange and would have used it in my quilt, just didn't have enough.

I really wanted a different feel... I wanted to get away from wild and bright and do something different, but guess what I found out? I am a wild and bright person and most of my fabrics prove it! So I am determined to start adding things to my stash that don't fit my norm.... browns, gold, burgundy, forest greens, pastels (for when I need some light!).... things like that.

I am pleased with my choices. I have lots of dark and light scraps (as per Bonnie's instructions). The darks are mostly reds, greens, purples, a few browns, pink and golds. The lights are mainly white on white, white on cream and a super pale pink and green that are both almost white. My 3 yardage colors are a dark peacoat navy Moda marble (looks black in the photo), a Jinny Beyer print that is a magenta marble with black accents (that's the one I needed a bit more of), and a wonderful teal by Northcott (I love their fabrics!). For the accent color, I am going with a mixture of lemony yellows that read the same. Bonnie has said this quilt will not have a lot of light fabrics in it, so I am hoping these yellows lighten things up and add a punch of bright sunshine to the quilt.

Time to iron and get everything ready for step 1.. which should be coming next week!

"Belle"

Mystery Revealed!

I finally had time to finish up my Mystery Quilt this weekend. Well, technically the mystery part is done. I still want to add a border of some sort and then quilt and bind it. It is a 56" x 56" right now. I am thinking of adding a small white border and then a larger border (4" I think) of the heart print material. This quilt is going to be a charity quilt for a little girl.

I like how the pattern came together. I really love the smaller blocks and think they would be cute alone in a quilt.

I love how putting simple things together... 4 patches and HSTs in this case... can create a pattern that looks complicated. I need to try my hand at making up smaller elements and laying them out in different ways to create unique looks.

I am very visual which has kept me from participating in Mystery Quilts. I like to see what the end result should look like... most time. I also love to just jump in and do this and that and create a pattern-less quilt. After the fun I had with this Mystery Quilt, I am sure I will participate in more.

"Belle"