Design Wall Monday - so close to having the top done!!

Oh I was so close to finishing the top  for my husband's quilt and then, I ran out of green.  All I needed was 13 1.5 x 8.25 inch logs to get that baby done!!  But fell short and the quilt store was closed.  So  what did I do with the rest of my day?  It was certainly too cold here to go out and work in the yard.  You know the days are getting longer which is nice, but it's just not warming up here in the Midwest.  We need some Spring....Since it was so cold and I just needed some easy sewing, I cut the panels for a beautiful Bargello quilt. Ahhh, nice long straight lines.  And when the easy stuff was done I stopped.  I thought I had a pretty good sewing week.

Thanks to all who had suggestions for the border, most of you were with my husband.  He liked option 1and that's what I went with. He loved the comment about being majestic, he now wants me to refer to him as "his highness".  He's wonderful but that's not gonna happen!!

This is the first quilt that I actually want to name and label.  But I have no idea how to name it, and I really need to call it something besides "my husband's quilt".   I want something in the name to be about the compass because he is the greatest influence in the direction of my life and makes it so wonderful.   But then I draw a blank - my whole brain goes white.  Help!!!  Any suggestions for names??

Stop by Judy's  to see what everyone else has on their design wall.

Borders - which one do you think is best?

Option 1

I'm to the last border and once I got it on the design wall, I really wasn't very pleased.  I'm going with the the log cabins, at this point it's really not an option to change, not enough material for a different border.   So what do you think Option 1, 2, 3 or something entirely different (utilizing the log cabin blocks of course).    In the house we are pretty much divided.   I think I know which way I'm going but just wondering if anyone had any thoughts or suggestions.  The quilt is very angular and curvy until you get to the log cabins, then it's right angles   and they some how seem out of place to me.  Hmmm going to have to think about this one for a while.

Option 2 

Option 3

Ok, it's started!!! Updated Again

Oh I'm so excited.  I started on my husbands' quilt.  Ok I started working on those little tiny 2 inch diamond in a square blocks and made a little design change.  I think I like the new version better.

It's getting bigger.  Next are the radiant beauties, that may take a while for me!

UPDATE:  Ok so I made my first radiant beauty ever.  Which wasn't all that bad for a first try.  But I may have another design change.  It's a 5.5 inch finished block and that little red curved  seam down in the corner is a bit more that I can handle.  I tried, and I may try it a couple more times.  But I'm thinking if it stays it's a good candidate for applique.   I think I can handle the other curves, but that little tiny one....I'll give it two more tries and then may have to re-think that one.  If anyone has any suggestions for small curved seams I would LOVE to hear them!

One last update before I start a new post - I finished half of the radiant beauties.  The little red curved seams were just too much for me.  I tried applique but then when sewing them together, matching the red semi circle, the orange semi circle and the blue at the top became too much.  I could everything to match except the red semi circle.  So I improvised and added a .25 inch strip of bias strip.  Nothing a little bias strip can't fix!  I swear its like duct tape, fixes everything!  It's not perfect, but I'm not a perfectionist and good enough is ok with me.  And hey I have half of them so I think that deserves a partial Whoop! So what do you think? Does the bias strip look too funny?

Head over to Sarah's to see what everyone is whooping about http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2011/03/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-when-life-hands.html

Finished the Pastel String Quilt

Ok, I'm not sure I can still call this a string quilt.  The alternating blocks are string QSTs but that's it.  It's done, I"m not thrilled, but pleased that I did finish my first ever pastel quilt.  Now I'm going to start working on something with color, my husbands quilt. I finally got the center correct so I can paper piece and print out with EQ7.  So hopefully I can make some progress on  this one this week end.

Design wall Monday - it's all about QST's this weekend.

Wow, what a sewing weekend - no machine quilting at all!!  It was wonderful and quite productive I think.  I've a picture of my husbands quilt to be on my blog to inspire me.  I really need to get started on that.  Enough of the fun with the baby quilts, it's time to get serious. Well maybe for a weekend or two.

Baby Girl quilts, I just couldn't wait for someone to have a baby girl and I wanted to finish up what I had left of the Hoopla fat quarter bundle.  I saw Summer Breeze in Quilters World magazine and just had to make that one and the Hoopla fabrics were great for that patter.  I made 2 of these, one for my baby shower stash and one for project linus.  The pattern actually has a lovely scalloped border, but I'm just going to finish it off with a bright scrappy binding.  It's already a nice size for a baby quilt and one more border might make it a bit big.  That and I'm all out of the Hoopla fabric and don't want to buy more!!  Don't the lady bugs just make the quilt?  I absolutely love them!  I think I'm going to put a few flowers and lady bugs on the back as well.

I also made progress on a UFO.  It started out as a string quilt.  This is made from 1.5 inch strips.  I was make the string blocks which were QSTs but after 10 got tired of making them (the thrill just left me).  Cyber quilters has project this month for HST/QST, so I decided to incorporate some QSTs rather than making more string blocks.  Four QSTs with a 1.5 inch around those, puts it at a 10 inch block like the string blocks.  I had enough for the center and then ran really low on strips that I had left.  I had some left over scraps from the string blocks so I was able to get a border all the way around it.  But after I kept looking at it, it needed more.  It's pastel, but still not really good for a baby quilt so it needed to be larger.  I went out and got a few fat quarters and will put a few more borders on it to make a size good enough to take to soccer games this Spring.  That dark pink strip is killing me though!! I may just applique over it.  I should have taken it out of the bunch, but thought, hey Moda knows a little more about this than I do.  We'll see if it grows on me, but I'm thinking it's not gonna.

Finally a UFO done!! I'm all feathered out!

Finally Christmas lights without the Christmas is done.  All the pink and orange have feathers quilted and the purples and jewel tones in the center have grids.  The purple border is feathers as well.  I really need to do some piecing, that took way longer than it should have, especially for a quilt that I don't particularly like. But hey, I no longer have those hot pink and orange scraps!  And my daughter is thrilled with it.  I was going to donate it but she asked for it, go figure.



Now I'm going to take a break from machine quilting and the hot flaming colors.  I have two QST projects that I'm going to work on all day tomorrow.  Finally I get to devote a day to sewing and we lose an hour for DST.  I'll just have to get up a little earlier.  Here's the pastel project, still working on putting the blocks together.  These were made with honeybuns (1.5 inch strips - can never remember all those different bakery goodies).  And I still have some of the Hoopla fabric left so I'll be working on a second QST project from Quilters World, Summer Breeze.  Little baby girl blanket, I just know someone will have one sooner or later!  Three boys so far this year and March isn't even over!!

Nothing on the design wall today - it's all about the quiting right now

I finished Baby boy quilt #3.  Another with a scrappy binding and pieced back.

I'm about half way done with the quilting on Christmas lights without the Christmas.  I'm not a big fan of this quilt but my daughter is and that's what matters.  I'm using this quilt as a practice quilt for feathers and grids (preparing for the quilting on the Baltimore Album quilt).   It's one of those quilts that you start and think "oh that's nice I like that".  Then when you're half way done, you think "oh man what was I thinking".  There's a lot of quilting on this one.  All the pink and orange have feathers and all the purple has a half inch grid.  Feathers are all done and grids are almost 1/3 done.

I did pick out my project for the HST/QST bucket project.  Can't wait to get that started.    I'm really feeling the need to do some piecing, but also want to get at least one UFO out of the way.