As Promised...a QAL Update

Not only do I have the four blocks done and am anxious to get started on today's lesson, but I have EIGHT blocks done. Yep, that's right. E-I-G-H-T! I'm making two quilts.

This one will be custom quilted (hope I can afford it--LOL)

And this one will be an all-over pattern of some sort. (I have to take a better pic of the block in the upper right...but you get the idea)

I love my virtual design wall! One of the other quilters, Becca, did a tute on how to create one. Makes it fun to see how the quilt will look when its completed. The one above will have cream, rather than dark brown, background color. I'm going to attempt to make it more realistic. We'll see how that turns out.

Its not too late--many ladies are just starting. Come join the fun at Quilting Galleries' Aiming for Accuracy Quilt-along!

Isn't This One Pretty???

Maryann brought this quilt by just the other day. It was our first meeting and her first quilt. I was amazed; the piecing is perfect. Turns out the center block was done by hand in a class she took initially intending to do the whole thing by hand. That first block was enough to make her realize that life is too short for hand piecing, so she improvised. I love what she came up with!

And then the back. When I was first quilting, I would have never thought to piece my back, but she did and even the back turned out great. I had no issues loading this quilt at all.

I really wanted the center block to be the main feature, so after a little SID and a few pebbles in the center, I left it alone to pop.

 I did a curling vine design around the center and then did a different design in each colored geometric area. The large rectangles and squares all received an orange peel treatment. The light colored long vertical and horizontal rectangles had alternating "c's" and the darker purple had a design I call "heatwave." I used a soft gray thread everywhere except the bolder blue and green areas where I matched the thread to the fabric.

This is the back of the center block. (If you click on it, the detail is more easily seen)

This is a larger pic of the back. I have no idea what happened to the color in this photo...the color above is more accurate.

I'm still plugging away on my Quilt-Along; however,  I had to put it aside for a bit to get the bindings and sleeves put on the quilts I entered in the show this weekend. Next post will show EIGHT blocks...yes EIGHT. I'm doing TWO quilts. One is Christmas and one is the fabric shown here.

Roll, Roll Cotton Boll

Do you guys remember Bonnie Hunter's Roll, Roll Cotton Boll mystery quilt from a couple of years ago? It was a fun one with all the string piecing using old phone books and lots of scraps. I actually finished my string blocks and perhaps a few of the others before getting so far behind that I was totally discouraged. There were just too many different bits for me *sigh*

This is Joyce's RRCB quilt, sent to me from North Carolina via a friend of hers that lives in Sequim. It was a circuitous route, but it made it.

Bonnie (Quiltville) usually tells you what colors to use, but even with that, I can never come up with good choices. Joyce obviously didn't have the same issue--her colors are great! This was a fun quilt to work on and I'm so glad I got the chance to quilt one of these. It was fun seeing her fabrics, too, as we seem to have several that are the same.

I did some line work in what I looked at as the focus block, with cc's around the triangles to frame it. I did a meander in the cream string blocks to push them back and make the others stand out. Joyce chose wool batting (my personal fave), so it quilted nicely. I love how my needle goes through wool batt like a knife through butter!!

This is the outside border. I wanted to do something a little different with all those tiny little squares, so I alternated loops and cc's. Made the outside fun and added a little "something."

And, finally, two shots of the back. Of course, the back was busy, so its not easy to see--but I had to include them. (try clicking on them...they get big enough for the detail to show) In person, it looked pretty neat!

Thanks for stopping by--and thanks, Joyce, for letting me have so much fun!

Quilt-Along: First Block Finished

Amazing...I finished the first block on time!! (Colors are so much prettier in person)

I got so excited that I tried to find the next block today. New patterns are published on Thursdays--I got a little ahead of myself.