Design Wall Monday - Strips

This week I'm quilting a couple of tops so they'll be finished and ready to turn in at our next Project Linus group meeting. But I couldn't resist arranging some strips I'd cut for another bargello quilt. So on my design wall are the strips for Life's Ups and Downs #2.

Look what's hiding over on the right edge of my design wall: Cobblestone blocks. There's 11 blocks now; still a long way from being enough for a quilt top, but it's a leader / ender project. I. e., something to stitch when I have to pull my current project from the machine to press, cut, arrange blocks, etc.

Head on over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and many others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Making Friends

That lonely little Cobblestone block from last Monday is still on my design wall, but it's not so lonely now. It has 4 friends.

Our Project Linus meeting yesterday was my only piecing time last week, since I spent the week finishing quilts to turn in. I remembered to take my leader / ender project to the meeting and finished 4 more Cobblestone blocks.

Head on over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and many others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Lonely Block

One lonely Cobblestone block has been on my design wall for nearly 2 weeks. This is from a leader / ender project I started after finishing the Diagonal Puzzle top. I have several more blocks in progress. And yes, my design wall really is that dirty. That flannel sheet used to be white.

After stitching together the Life's Ups and Downs top, I moved into finish-em-up mode. First up, a Scooby Doo quilt top I brought home from our 3rd Sunday Project Linus group.

I don't know who stitched the top, but I'm sure it started as one of Jodie's kits. The design is a slight variation of our September 2012 pattern, In the Stream. Jodie paired it with Warm & Natural batting and a yellow flannel back. Here's a close up of a few of the Scooby Doo squares.

I'm quilting the Diagonal Puzzle top now. I plan to finish that and quilt Life's Ups and Downs so I'll have 3 quilts and probably 3 fleece blankets to turn in at our Project Linus meeting on Sunday. Yes, the 3rd Sunday of February is 6 days away. Time flies when you don't pay attention. And the 3rd Sunday comes early when the 1st is on a Friday.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and many others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Ups and Downs

I'm working on a bargello quilt. Arranging the strips so no seams lined up was a challenge.

The focus fabric is a really cute lizard print.

My sister got me Quilt It with Love: The Project Linus Story for Christmas. The book has a bargello quilt pattern called Life's Ups and Downs that caught my eye.

Some time back, I was given a fabric packet of coordinating 8" to 10" wide strips for a Project Linus quilt and never quite figured out what to do with them. When I saw Life's Ups and Downs, I knew it was a match for that fabric. I added the border fabric and one other fabric from my stash.

I have leftovers from all the solid strips and a whole other strip of the lizards, so I foresee another bargello quilt featuring the lizards.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and many others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Diagonal Puzzle

On my design wall today are my quilt blocks from yesterday's meeting of our 3rd Sunday Project Linus blanket group.

Our Fast & Fun quilt top for January 2013 was Diagonal Puzzle and it proved to be a bit of a challenge. One group member misunderstood the instructions and is creating a totally different design. My seam ripper was my best friend as I kept stitching squares onto the wrong strips and then onto the wrong end of the right strip!

I managed to get all the pieced blocks stitched together and the large solid pieces cut at our meeting yesterday. This morning, I pressed the pieced blocks and arranged it my design wall. If I can keep the pieces turned the right way for the trip from the design wall to the sewing machine, it won't take long to finish stitching it together.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and many others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Almost Finished

There hasn't been a lot of sewing going on here in the last week. It took me until Saturday to figure out just how I wanted to do the 1st and 3rd borders on the wolves. Then I realized that the scraps of purple and the 2 blue prints were too small. At that point, I quickly invented Plan B and cut some fabric.

It won't take long to stitch on the 3rd and final border. Conveniently, there are strips less than 3" wide left of the 2 fat quarters I used for geese and borders, so it's off to the scrap bin for those. No worrying about what I can do with half a fat quarter.

I've already sliced strips of 2 fabrics ready to start stitching the next quilt top as soon as I get the last border on these howling wolves.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times to see what JudyL and others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Geese & Stars

I finished the strips of flying geese and stitched some 5" friendship stars for the corners. The squares in the stars finish at 1 2/3" which caused some interesting measuring and cutting.

Now the challenge is to decide how to turn some of this fabric into

1. a border between the center panel and the geese,

   and

2. a border around the outside of the geese and stars to finish the quilt top.

There will definitely be some piecing in these borders, but I want to keep them pretty simple.

Click either picture to see a bigger version.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork times to see what JudyL and others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Geese Attack!

The howling wolves have been joined by some flying geese. This UFO is back on the active project list.

Saturday morning, I spread the wolves on my cutting table to measure the length and width. I grabbed a pencil and some paper, did a few calculations and decided to make flying geese that finish at 2½" by 5".

Most of my geese are laying on the cutting table waiting for the corners to be trimmed.

Some are at the sewing machine patiently waiting for the second sky triangle to be stitched on.

The geese will be the middle of 3 borders around the center wolf section. My original thought was to use strips of dark blue for the other 2 borders, but I don't have enough dark blue and I'd like to make this from stash. I used fabric from a couple of fat quarters for some of the geese. I may use some of the FQ leftovers to piece border strips, maybe using some of the dark blue, maybe not. As usual, I'm designing as I go.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork times to see what JudyL and others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - It's Empty

My design wall has a big empty space today. I stitched together the blocks I had on my design wall last Monday and added borders to create this Fat Quarters Big Blocks quilt top.

Here's a view of one corner that shows all 7 fabrics in the quilt top. I really like how these fabrics work together. The top looks so great, I hated to take it down to layer it with a back and batting. But I did take it down, so I can get it quilted and ready to turn in at our 3rd Sunday Project Linus group meeting next weekend.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork times to see what JudyL and others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Big Blocks

The late news was on when I came upstairs last night and got ready to start a new project. I removed the paisley blocks from my design wall and started looking for fabrics that coordinate with the howling wolves pillow panel that I adopted nearly 4 years ago and haven't touched in almost that long.

I found several fabrics that should work for the design I have in mind. But I need to sit down and do some drawing and measuring and calculating before I cut any of that fabric and I wanted to start cutting fabric to sew.

So I went to my collection of fat quarters given to me by a fellow Project Linus blanketeer a couple of years ago and selected 6 for a Big Blocks quilt. Fat Quarter Big Blocks is the pattern from our 3rd Sunday Project Linus group's April meeting and it is a good one to reduce that fat quarter collection a bit. (I still plan a report on our April meeting, so check back once in a while.) I cut pieces for the big blocks and headed for bed.

This morning, I started by finishing the quilting on my Squares Afloat quilt top from our March Project Linus group meeting. I quilted the floating squares in the ditch and then stitched diagonal lines in the border and sashing areas creating some diamond shapes.

After a break for breakfast and a walk, I started stitching Big Blocks. I quickly had my 12 units stitched and ready to arrange on my design wall.

I'll experiment with the layout a bit before stitching the 12 units into 6 big blocks and stitching the top together. You can't tell from this picture, but the green accent strip is the green print that I auditioned with the paisley blocks. It was perfect for these fat quarters.

What's on your design wall? Visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork times to see what JudyL and others are working on and add your own Design Wall Monday post to the Linky list.

Design Wall Monday - Playing with Blocks

In the 4 weeks since I last reported anything here, my best friend, Wanda, was here, I finished watching those Wiseguy DVDs and I mailed my tax returns. Among other things.

While Wanda was here, I grabbed some blocks her mom gave me last spring and started playing with them on the design wall. Settling on the idea of the center blocks surrounded by a border of blocks set on point, I started grabbing fabric out of my stash of fabric I use for Project Linus quilts. Did I have anything to use for sashing and setting triangles or did we need to shop for fabric while we were out yarn shop hopping?

We found 2 possibilities, a very dark green print and a lighter, brighter blue print. Wanda prefers the green, but I'm leaning toward the blue. The blue is livelier and this will be a Project Linus quilt. The blue adds more interest and I think will appeal more to a child.

That was 3 weeks ago and it's all still on my design wall. Wanda suggested making more blocks to make a rectangular quilt, which is an excellent idea. Her mom has more of the block fabric and it may be coming my way.

I have a few more blocks and patches here. I'll fix the block in the upper left and I have enough paisley patches to make 2 more of those blocks and 2 nine-patches.

Before Wanda left, she snapped pictures of the design wall and my pegboard storage rack. Her hubby Roger made the storage rack during one of my visits to Albuquerque. I screwed things together and added my pegboard when I got it home.

Currently, I'm piecing a back for the top I made at our 3rd Sunday Project Linus meeting on the 15th. I want to layer my tops from our March and April meetings with batting and backing and get the quilts finished. I have the batting cut for the March top; I just need to iron everything and get it layered and start stitching. First, I'll stitch the back together for the April top, so I can iron both quilt tops and backs in one session.

I'll try to be a little more productive this week and write about some of the things I've been working on. Visit Patchwork Times to see what Judy L. and a bunch of other people have on their design wall today.

Hugs and Kisses - Design Wall Monday

Wow! It's been a week since I last shared anything here. The only sewing I did in the last 6 days, was cutting the outer border for the bow tie quilt I showed last Monday and stitching the strips together so they were long enough. This morning I decided it was time to dig in and sew the borders on.

Ta-da! A complete quilt top. I call this design "Hugs and Kisses."

One reason I did almost no sewing in the last week is I've been uncovering some of the horizontal surfaces in my house; company's coming. Another reason is I'm avidly watching my way through the entire 4-season boxed DVD set of the old Wiseguy TV series from the late 1980s.

While uncovering horizontal surfaces in my sewing/quilting area, I keep finding leftover bits and pieces of old projects. Some orphan blocks, but lots of leftover strip pieces and ends of strip sets.

I found some scrappy heart blocks left from this quilt top in 2008 and some leftover bits of the 2" strips. So I pieced together 2 more scrappy hearts when I finished the borders on "Hugs and Kisses" this morning.

Visit Patchwork Times to see what Judy L. and a bunch of other people have on their design wall today.

Design Wall Monday

This is my first ever Design Wall Monday post. I was stitching these blocks together this morning and said to myself, "You ought to take a picture and write a Design Wall Monday post." So here it is. Dangerous thing is I've turned the computer on hours earlier than normal which could sidetrack me for the rest of the day!

I finished these 3 dimensional Bow Tie blocks about a month ago. I stitched part of them as leaders/enders during another project. Since I finished the Checkerboard Squares quilt Saturday, I decided it was time to get back to these blocks.

Yesterday evening, during commercial breaks in the Harry Potter movie on ABC Family Channel, I stuck the blocks on my design wall, twisting and turning to get as many seam allowances nested together as possible. There are 2 places where I could not find a way to nest the seam allowances and had to stitch through 6 layers of fabric instead of 4.

This morning, with Dr. Who on BBC America, I sat down and stitched the blocks together. I also cut the inner border from the blue background fabric and attached half of those strips. The outer border will be more of the darker print.