Design Wall Monday

Actually, this came off the design wall today, as the top is now finished. If I get to sew tomorrow, I will be piecing the back. I looked for one of those wide backs, and found one that would work, but then I saw something on sale, and….well, it made me smile, so I bought that instead. I do hate wrangling those big hunks of fabric, but I grin every time I think of this silly, happy fabric, so I’m glad I made this choice. You’ll have to wait to see the backing till after everything is quilted. 

I showed the blocks for this one about two weeks ago, trying to decide how to set it. they were from an online swap, so all 12 1/2 “ were not equal. I decided to just sash it with background fabric to disguise any size differences.

See the two spots that look a little empty, bottom center?  Someone made her blocks in reverse of everyone else.  I’m good with that, it adds a little character and quirkiness instead of being like a bunch of soldiers all in a row.   Click on photo to enlarge.

Hop over to JudyL’s blog to see what other quilters have on their design walls today. http://www.patchworktimes.com/2011/05/16/design-wall-monday-may-16-2011

UFO challenge

I’m way behind in the UFO challenge, but this is the one that I finished in April.

These are the dimensional (origami?) type of bow tie block that were received in a swap. All the blocks were made on treadle or hand crank machines made prior to 1900 using reproduction fabrics representing the pre-1900 goods. All blocks are signed by the quilter and also contain her location and the type and age of the machine that was used. It was quilted using my robotic quilting machine-quite the contrast in technology.

Meanwhile, another UFO is on the quilting machine, I hope to get the quilting finished today. The backing for another UFO is being pre-washed so that it will be ready to put on the quilt machine as soon as the other comes off. I will catch up, I will catch up, I will, I will…..

Take a look at the amazing work other quilters are doing as part of the UFO Challenge here: http://www.patchworktimes.com/2011/05/04/april-ufo-completions

Design Wall Monday

 

My design wall is doing double duty today. It is serving as a post for Design Wall Monday (See what Judy and others are up to  at http://www.patchworktimes.com/2011/05/02/design-wall-monday-may-2-2011) and it is also the project for this months UFO Challenge.

I participated in a block swap a few years back, and these blocks are the result. Now I have to decide how to put them together. If you have ever tried to assemble a quilt made by a variety of quilters, you know that as much as everyone tries to make the same size block, they are different.  With this set, most of them are pretty close, but there are a few ‘individuals’. Looking at this photo, I noticed that one block is different than all the rest-hadn’t noticed until just now that the jars are placed in the reverse of every other block.  For this reason, I’d prefer to avoid just putting them all together, the seams will never match.

  A gifted designer friend suggested that I offset the blocks slightly, and fill the space with either lime green or turquoise, similar to what is shown in the top two rows of this photo. I’d have to figure out just how much to offset to avoid having some of the jars stack on top of each other.  How do you think it would look with sashing between the blocks? Ordinary, weird???

Anyone have any suggestions? I’d appreciate some ideas.