Quilted Jonquil

Judy from Patchwork Times sponsors Design Wall Mondays where you can link to lots of other blogs to check out projects other quilters have on their walls……be sure to click the link and check them out

My wall has the half hexagon quilt I cut a while back.   I’m sewing it via leader/enders right now.  I played with different layouts and ended up liking this one which reminds me of the plastic pop beads for toddlers.  Never ceases to amaze me how much “shrinkage” happens when you sew the pieces together!

I sewed the Pinwheel Party block 11 for both the navy and orange PP quilts.  Only one more block then the sashing, yea!!

My mom agreed to work on a quilt with me.  Actually we’ll be doing two quilts one for her that she will start and one for me that I start.  There aren’t many rules…..we’re just going to add a row with fabric from our stash each time we receive it.    I finally got my first row finished!!  I’ll send it along with some extra fabric from my stash in case my mom wants to use it and I’ll wait to receive my mom’s first row.

I also sewed the borders on the Downy Touch of Comfort quilt so it’s ready to be quilted.

And I paper pieced a couple of the blocks for our guild’s fundraising quilt.  I’m not a paper piecing fan.  The problem lies in the fact that it wastes a lot of fabric so to minimize the waste, I cut my pieces too small and then have trouble getting them to cover the area they are supposed to cover.   The kits put together by the quilt committee are excellent, the pieces are plenty big and I had no trouble.  I used the tip from Bonnie Hunter (at Quiltville) to put a dab of washable glue stick for the first piece to keep it in place when you turn the whole thing fabric side down to sew.  Worked like a charm…thanks Bonnie!

Stash Report

• Added:  0      Cumulative Added:  97 yds
• Used:  1  (for the mini 9-patch)       Cumulative Used:  16 yds
• Net Out/(In):   (81 yds)   Not much change but I’m getting close to several finishes so watch out!
  

I made 36 half square triangles last night for block 11 (D-2) of the Pinwheel Party quilts.  Over the weekend I managed to get all the pieces cut for the remainder of the PP quilts AND mark the sewing lines for the half square triangles.

Dawn-Marie commented on Monday’s post about my perfect points.  They aren’t perfect but they are pretty good   I used to -hate- squaring up my half square triangles and always had less than satisfactory points which I blamed on everything except not squaring up.  Once I finally gave in and started squaring them up, my points have improved a lot!  It takes less time to square up than to fiddle with the blocks, unsewing and resewing to get them within my tolerance for point-i-ness.

I was lucky with the orange background fabric I used for the second, spur-of-the-moment, Pinwheel Party quilt.  I knew I’d have enough fabric for the blocks but probably not for the sashing and borders……as it turned out I had enough for the sashing but not the outside border (I’m okay with this) with only this much to spare.   Not bad, huh?

I sewed the last two seams on the center of the Downy Touch of Comfort quilt, too.  I have a couple of the 4-patches left over so I’m thinking about piecing them into the backing but maybe I’ll just want to hurry up and get it quilted………

It’s DWM and here’s my design wall……and a design board   Only two more pinwheel blocks to go, yippeee!   Check out Judy’s DWM post for more design wall fun.

Here’s the design board…..some of this has been sewn but nothing has been ironed so that’s why it’s lookin’ a little rough.

I wasn’t happy with the 9-patch mini I had on my wall a while back (picture below).  The last fabric I added to my stash, bought specifically for the 9-patches, has been cut and I’m loving it.  I also changed up the blocks, going with all black 9-patches which meant it had to be smaller.  So maybe this isn’t even the same project as this one I had on my wall.  No matter, the new one is great

Today is the last day to bid on the AAQI Priority Quilts so check back to see if one of them is calling to you

First, be sure to check out the May AAQI auction which ends tomorrow night (May 10th) at 10 EDT.  My quilt hasn’t raised as much money as I’d hoped but maybe there will be a last minute bidder

Here are the next blocks of the Pinwheel Party quilt!  Block #10….only two more blocks to go

Woo Hoo!!  I’m all caught up on the Pinwheel Party blocks.  Here are blocks #8.  Block 9 is posted and it’s a cute one.

I usually use Picnik to edit my photos but for some reason it’s not loading today so my pictures are worse than normal! Edited:  Pictures have been improved slightly now that Picnik is back up. Here’s my design wall.  Are you getting tired of the Pinwheel Party blocks yet???  This is such a fun quilt (in my case it’s quilts).  I’m only behind by one block and I have the half square triangles sewn for them already so there’s a chance I can catch up   Only 5 more weeks to go!  I had to remove the orange background set from the wall as there isn’t enough room for them all.

Here’s the latest orange background pinwheel block:

And how wonderful to pop over to the AAQI Priority Quilt auction and see that my quilt made the front page!!!

Here are my traveling companions at Paducah   We had a great trip, thanks Darlene & Darlene!

A couple of folks spotted us in a local TV news bit which was fun to hear about…..and we spotted Quilter Man on his Segway!  Notice the tape measure and rotary cutter hanging from his tool belt?!?!

I completed block 6 for the Pinwheel Party quilt for both the navy and orange versions and block 7 in orange.

I also finally finished another of the Folk Art Sampler blocks from Australian Patchwork & Quilting Vol 12 No12 & 13 from 2007.   I now have 5 of the 9 blocks completed……mmmm started in 2007, half way done in 2010, blocks should be finished sometime in 2013.

Yep, still the same stuff on the design wall.  Check out the progress other quilters have made at Judy’s Design Wall Monday post.  I have made progress on the Pinwheel Party blocks:

The pieces are cut and marked for the next two blocks for both the navy and orange quilts

We took a visit up north to Rockford, the land of all-you-can-stuff-scrap-bags, and I finished the binding on the second Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt (pattern via Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville website) on the way.

At the Quilter’s General Store my SIL worked her magic, filling two scrap bags with all these wonderful, yummy fabrics.  She is amazing, rolling and folding all the pieces I give her and getting the bags tight as sausages, woo hoo!   The majority of them are Jo Morton’s!!

I also picked up several other pieces of Jo Morton fabrics and a spool of hand quilting thread…..sweet!

While leads us to the stash report which I HAVE to post as my SIL and Lori will be watching for it and reporting any discrepancies ;(

Stash Report

• Added:  ~5     Cumulative Added:  61.5 yds
• Used:  0         Cumulative Used:  15 yds
• Net Out/(In):   (46.5 yds)  
  

I finished block 5 of the Pinwheel Party last night.  The Orange pinwheels must have grown overnight   After I sewed the three together, the unit was too big.  I even squared up my half square triangles…grrrrrr.

You can see what other quilts have on their design walls by checking out Judy’s DWM post.  My wall hasn’t changed since last week:

I did accomplish a few sewing related things however.  I got the pinwheel parts for the 5th Pinwheel Party block,

added the rest of the cherries and started the leaves on the 5th Vicksburg block

and bought a new book that is fabulous…..oh, and bought a couple of Fox Tails

Stash Report

• Added:  .5     Cumulative Added:  56.5 yds
• Used:  0         Cumulative Used:  15 yds
• Net Out/(In):   (41.5 yds)