Finished Tiny Town block two For May

I finished block number two of the Tiny Town.  This is the bottom half of the block.  Finished it the night before class.  I like the background on this one, especially.  There are cute quilting lines on it.

This is the whole block trimmed and pieces together.  If I want to I can put blocks one and two together now, but I think I will wait until I have block number three done.  I can put the whole top row together.

 
Here is a picture of the pattern and the fabric they used.  It is amazing what the different fabrics will do to the looks of the block.

I even took a picture at class of some of the other completed blocks.  Some of the students brought in what they had so far.  All the different varieties.

Maybe this month I can try and get the block done ahead of schedule instead of last minute.

Drunkards path quilt

On the Monday of the May long weekend I was working on finishing the 3D pinwheel quilt.  I had all the borders picked out.  As I worked on it, I was using my Drunkards path quilt pieces as my leader/enders.

The drunkards path quilt I am embarrassed to say was started back on September of 2004.  This was 1 1/2 years after I started to quilt.  The reason that it got put aside was, at that time my experience level was not up for this one.  Curves are a bit challenging.  I did take it out about a year later and tried again, but I just didn't have the patience for the the small curves.

Now many years later I decide that I want this quilt done.  I like this pattern and the soft type fabrics I am using.  It feels like a summer or spring quilt.  I took the pieces out again and thought to myself that, I can do this, I can!

So, in between attaching the borders to the 3D pinwheel quilt, I worked on these pieces.  Just in doing the borders I was able to get 12 more small blocks done.  That's not bad.  And because it was done between other sewing I didn't even notice how quickly they were getting done.

I think I am going to keep the pieces beside my machine all the time and see how far I can get on this.  

So far, I only have two full blocks completed, but I do have enough small blocks to make approximately another 4-5 blocks.  The above picture is the block layout.  This block makes a diagonal chain going across the quilt, which ends up looking like a grid, only wonky.  The wonky part is the name of the layout the Drunkards path.

The top of the 3D pinwheels quilt is done

The top of the 3D pinwheels quilt is done!!!  Move it on up the list!  My little man did a good job holding up the quilt even with the wind blowing.

I finally committed to an outer border.  I think the colours are a little brighter than they really are in real life.  It was very bright outside when I took the picture.  Maybe that had something to do with it. After I quilt it I will take the pictures inside to see if it makes a difference.

Up close it looks great with the little striped border and the greens are bit brighter.  This was my first 3D pinwheel quilt.  The 3D affect is achieved by making prairie points and sewing them to a block, and attach the blocks together to make the pinwheels.  They are a little more involved but soooooo cute.

I would make this quilt again.  I can see it done up in pretty girl colours or even in primary colours.

You will have to stay tuned for the final picture, quilted and bound when I get that done.  Should be too long as her baby shower is in July and I don't want to leave this for the last minute.

My layout of the Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine quilt

As I mentioned in my last post, there are endless options for layouts.  You just have to use your imagination.  A lot of people did a simple sashing and borders and let their blocks stand up on their own.  Others did different things.  I thought they were all very nice, in all their variations.

This is my layout of the Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine quilt.  The quilt is king size.  As I have also mentioned in previous posts, that I like stars.  I wanted to incorporate a star in the quilt to tie all the blocks together.  The star turned out to be a plus, because it allowed me to put some blocks on point and others straight.

When I tried to put the blocks together this way I realized that the on point blocks would be too small for the corners to match the straight blocks, so I had to come up with a solution for this.  My solution was to frame them on two sides to make them big enough.  This created a secondary pattern by creating a border, also on point, that framed the whole thing.  It really made things stand out.

The colours I used for the quilt were selected because I had my nephew in mind for this quilt.  His favourite colour is orange, which is why I did the star in that colour and also why I chose the blue background.  Unfortunately, I was told later that I can't give it to my nephew, because the block fabrics have flowers.  They are thought to be too feminine.

So, I have had this quilt top done for a long time.  It just sits there waiting to be quilted.  I even have the backing and batting waiting with it.  Two things are stopping me from getting this quilt done.  One is that now the quilt does not have a purpose, no one to appreciate it.  Secondly, I wanted to quilt this with numerous small fill in quilting and I never felt my experience in this technic was ever good enough.

I am slowly building my confidence in my quilting using this technic, but I still feel the quilt needs to have a purpose.  So, it sits and waits....for someday.

Block #9 - Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine BOM quilt

Block #9.  This is the final block.  After completing all the blocks, you will have enough to make a fair size quilt. With each block measuring 12" square, even if sewn together, side by side, the quilt would be 36" square.  Once you start adding sashing and borders it would be somewhere around 60" square.  Or you could do the squares on a diagonal.

There is always the alternating plain square, where you lay it out in one block, plain, block, the next row one plain, block, plain and repeat once more and end with the first sequence.  This will leave you an extra block that you could use for a pillow.

The options of layouts are endless. Let your imagination wonder.

So this is the last block, what are you going to do with it?  This block as you will see from the one I made, will look very different depending on the placement of your colours or where you put your lights and darks.

As I've told you before, I like stars.  With the colour placement that I used, I was able to emphasize the second outer star, more than is apparent from the black and white draft above.  I like my version of colours because it also emphasizes the diagonal lines.  These diagonal lines are great for making quilts because they usually create a secondary pattern that runs diagonally through the whole quilt. Somewhat of a grid and this grid adds to the texture and keeps your eyes moving across a quilt.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my blocks and hopefully have joined in to make your own.  Stay tuned for tomorrow for the reveal of my Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine BOM quilt top.

Not quilt related, I thought I would share with you what I have been up to these past two weekends.  Over time the grade of your house needs to be fixed. For my home the walkways had all sunk in and tilted toward the house.  The grade next to the house actually sunk in a little over 4".  That is big when you think of all the water that is directed to the house and looks for a place to go.

What I did to fix this is install the 6" cement curbs along the property line along the garage side.  I added the landscape fabric and limestone to level things off, on a slight tilt away from the house.  For now there is a 1 1/2" gap to the top of the curb, but later we will be laying interlocking stones to complete the walkways.  It may be difficult to see but the curb even goes behind the garden.

By doing the walkways I am also creating the shapes of my flower gardens.  In the forefront of the picture is one garden that was created to stop the view from the street (once the bushes grow and fill in), and create a sense of walking through a garden before entering into the backyard.

What I will be working on today is trying to clean up the other side of this path.  The garden here is going to be on a diagonal to turn the pathway back in the direction of the yard.  This I have decided is going to be my butterfly garden, with butterfly bushes and different butterfly loving flowers. It doesn't look very big, but it is 6' x 6' along the house and will be big enough to plant.

I quite for a bit.  I need to still finalize what kind of stone I want to use to retain the gardens from the walkways.  At least for now it will be cleaned up some.  When I do decide what type of stone, I will pull out the temporary bricks and finish it off.

Block #8 - Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine BOM quilt

Block number 8.  This block reminds me of a bears paw block, but a bit fancier.  I like blocks that look like stars. The strip that runs through the block, depending on how you layout the block, can become a secondary pattern.  This block on its own can make a striking quilt when the block is repeated.

This is what I did with the block.  The light around the perimeter I left it as light by using my yellow fabric.  The lights within the block I filled them with colour.  I like the strip that runs through the block, so I wanted it to stand out a bit and decided to use my dark portions of my orange/yellow fabric.

This block only has a touch of the purple, right in the centre.  If I were to choose to make a quilt with just this block, I would take that purple centre and use the same colour to do the cornerstones of the sashing that I would put around the block and get that secondary pattern going.

As I said earlier I like blocks that have stars in them.  To make the star portion stand out I decided to use the main fabric, the black fabric. Though doing the second set of points in the blue helped to make that stand out a bit too.

Block #7 - Stashbuster's Ugly Sunshine BOM quilt

Bock #7.  This block is really four identical blocks put together to make a larger block.  The blocks are all the same, and the layout is every other block is rotated a half turn.  I've even seen this one block made up into a full size quilt.  The quilt I did see of this block was all red and white.  It was beautiful.  The person made each quarter, one red and one white/cream colour, and made many different blocks each with their own white and reds.

For me because there were so many choices of colour placement, I found this block the hardest.  Even now when I look at it I still think at the ways I could have done it.  In the end I did settle for this layout.  I feel in this layout that I short changed the black main fabric, but it is what it is.

Guess what?  After this block is done there are only two more to go.  Amazing how quickly it goes.