Springtime in the south is so pretty

Sample  just one little branch, at a rest stop on the interstate in Alabama, pretty flowers, lots of pink, lots of bees doing their thing.....

I like this

and I need to remember it..

Design Wall Monday-Feb. 20, 2012

Progress has been made!

The green and purple top has been finished, the backing is snail-mailing its way to me and I am ready to put it on the frame once it gets here. Binding is made.

Orca Bay, which I finished a week or three ago is also waiting, backing is selected and needs to be pieced, binding is ready.

Cheddar bow ties are moving along, I have now cut all the solid cheddar that I have and have also cut the large and small red squares so everything is ready to go when I need them.

While waiting for the postman, I decided to dig into all the PIGS in the closet and pick one to start.  This one should be quick to assemble, it is one of those brick path type designs and it was a kit that I bought at Little Quilts a year (or more) back. I loved the bright colors in the sample. It had a lot of Kaffe Fassett type prints and made you smile just to look at it.This morning I cut the blocks, then started laying them out on my design wall. While cutting I thought that the fabrics were not quite the same as the ones in the sample, so I’m not sure that I’m going to love this. It does, however, meet my need for a simple, almost thought-free project to do when I need a ‘sit down’ break from the midarm.  Now I just have to place them so they ‘look pleasing’.

Check Patchwork Times for the design walls of other quilters.

Design Wall Monday- shades of green and purple

Remember those fabrics I showed in my last post? Well, they are all cut up and the top is moving along.

Funny thing happened on the way to getting this top done…..here I am sailing along, amazed at how quickly everything is coming together (you can see this coming, can’t you?). The center is all put together, now to begin the borders…….lets take a look at this center……..OMG, it is nowhere near as big as I need it to be!!!

Several months ago, when I started planning this quilt I decided to make it for a queen sized bed, the pattern is much smaller. I worked up the enlargement in EQ7 and bought fabric according to the EQ7 calculations.  Time passes, memory lapses, and as I slice and dice, I notice that I have some fabric to spare. That should have been my first warning. Clueless, I proceed. Then I take a look at what I have assembled and realize that it is too small, and start to mentally backtrack……..memory finally returns,  so I spent Saturday doing more cutting to create the extra pieces needed to enlarge.  Fortunately, the pattern is straight forward and does go quickly, so I haven’t lost anything aside from my memory.

Remember when a Senior Moment meant the prom? Sheesh, not so enjoyable these days!

Here it is so far…..

 

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Design Wall Monday-Orca is finished

I finished the Orca Bay top yesterday! So glad all those bits and pieces are completed. I found that keeping everything oriented properly was a challenge-and there is still one that I may or may not correct. I may choose to call it a design element and leave it.  It still needs to be pressed, then it will mellow and age a while as I have another quilt to begin piecing, and, of course, many to put on the frame and quilt.

Looking at the photo, the top appears very ‘light’, the neutrals are more obvious than when I enlarge the photo, or look at the top in person. It gives a whole new perspective. I think I will plug the photo into Photoshop and play around a bit, trying some of the filters that Vicki used in her Color Theory post last week. That post has lots of good information to use when selecting fabrics.  Now that I am on that train of thought, I think I will also use it on the photo below.

This is what I hope to get started on today: Green and purple batiks need to be sliced and diced so that I can begin piecing a very graphic design, the pattern  appeared in  Fons and Porter’s magazine last spring.

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Design Wall Monday, Orca Bay progress

Obviously not the whole quilt-just the units on the wall to give me an idea of how it will look when it all comes together. When I first placed the pieces, I was dismayed that I couldn’t see the overall pattern, neither could MOTH. I took some pictures, thinking I would be ahead of the game for Design Wall Monday, and shared them with a friend. It wasn’t until I was describing the blocks to my non-quilter friend that I saw a mistake-a really big mistake! I had done the stars with the dark background (aqua) wrong, they weren’t stars at all, the way I sewed them.  Spent yesterday frogging and remaking those blocks.

Pay a visit to Patchwork Times to see what others have on their design walls.

A visitor to my sewing room

I’m still working away at my Orca Bay Mystery quilt. As I was trimming the orange string blocks, I was just dropping the scraps into a pile. It formed an amazing orange pyramid on the cutting board. Somewhere along the line, I noticed a tiny scrap moving across a strip of the aqua…what the ?????   A ladybug had decided to visit the sewing room, she blended in beautifully with my orange scraps.  I grabbed MOTH’s camera, but neither of us could remember how to use the macro function before she became tired of posing. Can you see her there on the strip?