Design Wall Monday for Sept 26

First, let me start off by dealing with the most important thing today—HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, my darlin’ MOTH! The past 41 years with you have brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined, and I would never made it through the tough times without your strength,wisdom and love. Love you, dar.

Now, for the design wall –

only 5 little blocks. I had to do a few test blocks of the Cheddar Bow Tie challenge (Bonnie Hunter) because….well, I wanted to see how they look and how they go together, I wanted to start something new even though I ‘m not ‘supposed’ to until I finish some more UFOs….basically, I just wanted to. As you can see from the samples,and after seeking MOTH’s  sage opinion,  I think I will be working with the cheddar/red color families instead of going scrappy for the ties.

I have made a very little progress on the Buck a Block. I have to say, I have begun to really dislike it. I loved the fabrics, still do. It is one of the Thangles promotional patterns, so of course, their purpose it to get you to do lots of HSTs using their product. Since starting this I have learned that I favor repeated/similar blocks over sampler/different blocks in a quilt-don’t know why, just do. This is a sampler type, each block using many HSTs in different combinations and placement. Some blocks are nice, the stars worked well (or maybe I like stars more, dunno) but some blocks…….lets just say that just because you can put HSTs in certain arrangements doesn’t mean that you should, some just are not attractive.

However, I will use self-discipline and finish it.

Meanwhile, check out some fantastic work by truly gifted quilters over at JudyL’s .

Weekend getaway

We just returned from a weekend of camping with our friend Patricia. Didn’t do anything special, just reveled in superb weather, relaxing with no time constraints or to-do lists,  and enjoyed being in the company of friends. I think Mac enjoyed it most of all-lots of walks and plenty of attention from everyone present!

We had a nice pull-through site, very private. The first picture is of MOTH and Mac on our site. Patricia was a few sites away, she had great view overlooking the lake.  As you can see, the lakes in our area are down quite a bit. Did I mention incredibly wonderful weather? Perfect temperatures…..no rain, no humidity, no bugs. Terrific!!

Design wall Monday

The only thing on my wall are some fabrics that I am auditioning for future quilts.

First up, I have been wanting to do something ‘cheddar’, and Bonnie Hunter came up with a cheddar bowtie project. Here are the candidates for that one:

I think that second down is too yellow to be cheddar. I’m thinking the bowties may all be in different shades of red. What do you think, Reds n Cheddars or would a variety of colors (like the one Bonnie shows) be better?

Secondly,  my newlywed son came home fretting a while back. They had painted a couple of rooms, and he was ‘dismayed’ that their bedroom was now ‘little girl purple’!  Oh, the humanity!! The affront to his machismo!  In an effort to gain some sympathy -  instead of guffaws  - from me, he topped the whole thing with “and now the quilt you made me doesn’t go, we need a new quilt!!”. Weeelllll. Let me see….the adjoining  master bathroom was done in a green……so how about good old mom find a rather graphic (and therefore masculine) pattern and do it in a darker value of the purple (also more masculine) and green. Fons & Porter had one in their magazine a few months ago. (oh-according to his bride, he picked out the color,had a choice between two ….and this one was on sale! LOL)

So, here are the first round of contestants for that quilt.

Of these, I think I will discard the second down in each purple row as too ‘pink’.  I need to dig out some more purples from my purple heavy stash and see which I am willing to cut into and use.

I’m trying to work my way out of the summer doldrums here. I have a quilt on the frame and did two rows of that today, as well. I’m not sure I’m ever going to be happy with this one. I like the pattern and the fabrics, but I can’t come up with something I really like for the thread. The quilting design looks great on paper, but I’m not sure about it on the quilt.  This is the same quilt that I had FINISHED quilting a few months ago and decided it just wasn’t right….so… I ripped every last machine quilted stitch out…..any idea how much ripping that entailed? Not going to happen again, this time will have to be it.  I have actually accomplished something this summer, see my previous post about my August finishes.  Then click on over to JudyL’s site to see what a lot of other quilters have on their design walls.

August finishes

I did get a few things finished in August, not as many as I would have liked, but I ran out of steam and haven’t gotten my ‘mojo’ back. End of summer, sick of the 95+ degree heat blahs have struck.

First, this pair of socks

This quilt, which is a JudyL design. These 1930’s fabrics came to me via the guild, someone had precut a bunch of pieces and strips and then decided not to continue with the quilt-I received the fabric,but not the pattern for which the pieces were intended. I further cut the wedge shaped pieces for the nine patches, and then finished off using the strips for the binding. There was only one strip of each fabric, but I like the use-it-up, depression era sensibilities of it.

You may remember this one, the blocks were from a swap.

I love the backing, it makes me smile each time I look at it.  Sometimes I tell myself stories about it. Maybe someone spilled some Jolly Ranchers on the playground, and they melted before anyone picked up. But the one I like best (and could have easily happened at my house) is that the Quilter of the family was out one day while the kids and dad had a project to do. Dad saw some black fabric and decided it would make a great drop cloth while they painted.  Quilter comes home and sees her precious Kona black splattered with paints. She starts to steam, to cry….and then…..wow! I can make lemonade out of this lemon, those paint drips are colors in one of my UFOs, I can use this in my quilt!!  I just love a happy ending *sigh* 

Speaking  of stories….take a closer look at the bottom of this photo. It reminds me of that scene from The Wizard of Oz, where  Toto goes behind the curtain to investigate, and the  Wizard’s voice tells Dorothy and company to ‘ignore the man behind the curtain’. (you may have to click on the photo to enlarge it)