Working on Bleeker Street

I have decided to try and clean up some of my works in progress and my first to tackle is this Bleeker Street quilt I started just before Christmas. I had some half yards of Bleeker Street and decided to do the Zipper Quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop book. My intention is to make more of a blended quilt rather than have the zippers show with too much definition. The quilt is not that exciting to me now and I am struggling a bit to get through it, but I do need to finish some projects! I was also hoping to squeeze out one more row, but I ran out of fabric, so that is one more thing that bothers me while working on this. Hopefully once it's finished I can put some borders on that make me feel better about it...

30's Pinwheel Quilt Finished

Wow! This quilt is Huge(106"x106"), which makes it difficult to photograph. I am so glad that I used the green as I couldn't imagine it in any other color now. Maybe too because I have been looking at it like this for the past few days and I am used to it, but I am pleased how it turned out. I think it looks better in person than in the photos... The book said that this was the "Queen" size but I think it is more like a King--it actually touches the ground on both sides of the bed. Ok! What next now? I love open possibilities...

The Moment of Decision

Wow! Thank you for all your comments and helpful ideas. I actually was quite surprised by your preferences and it made me really think hard again about what I was seeing. My first impression was that I would go with blue because it was the brightest of the three(most contrast) and would be the most likely to add liveliness to the quilt. I loved that so many of you said to use all three! Even my mom emailed me and told me to use all three to make it a happy quilt:) That really surprised me because she is always telling me that she likes simple quilts and very few colors... Just more proof that I really haven't been able to understand "get" her all these years. The most popular color choice was green followed closely by yellow. Blue was the least popular with some strongly opposing blue as a choice. So, blue is now not going to happen, which is not a problem because I have already dreamed up a project to work on with the blue fabric. I am going to follow the popular vote and go with green because I want this quilt to have a true 30's look and a lot of you mentioned that it would be the traditional color used. Also, I have another project in mind for the yellow as well. So, there you have it, all 113 blocks finished this morning and now to begin the sashing...

Trying Out the Background Color

Well, I was good this weekend, I did finish the piecing the border on the Summer in the City quilt and now only am waiting for more brown fabric to finish the outer border. I will post another picture when the top is finished.

I also worked on piecing the last 32 blocks for my 30's quilt. I am about half way through finishing them and happily my background fabrics arrived this morning! I chose three typical 30's colors because I still have a lot of 30's prints to use up and will need backgrounds for those future quilts. This allows me to "try out" what will work for this project. So, I laid them out and you can see in the photo how they might look. I now have a strong feeling for which one I would like to use, but I would like you to vote as well and hopefully you will be confirming my thoughts... I hope. Otherwise, I might have to have a real think about it. Please let me know which one. Thanks!

More of Summer in the City

Well, I managed to sew the Summer in the City quilt blocks together and added the first border of brown as suggested... The brown border holds everything in nicely. I found another charm pack, I must have had 5 all together! I will use that for the next round of border and I ordered
more of the Tiddley Winks fabric off of ebay so that I have some continuity for the outer border and binding...

More fabric for the 30's quilt arrived today to finish the blocks, but still no background color. I guess that's a good thing because I can work on the blocks over the weekend and hopefully the background will arrive just as I finish the blocks???

Summer Progress

I finished the last block for my Summer in the City quilt this morning. Here is a photo of the layout before I sew the blocks together. I always go so slow when it gets to this stage. I still struggle with sewing long pieces together and adding borders. I am doing better as I have started learning why I was having troubles, but I still am so slow!

My 30's quilt fabric is still not here yet, so I have a little bit of time to finish this Summer in the City quilt. What do I do about borders??? I don't have much more chocolate brown left... Hmmm...

Flying Geese Ruler

I've been diligently working on my blocks for my chocolate brown Summer in the City quilt, but yesterday I sidetracked for a little while to test out my No Math Flying Geese ruler. I bought this ruler this past summer when I was in Michigan and was talking with a lady that said that I should get this ruler and what a wonderful and valuable tool it was. Well, it was $20 and I just thought, oh well, she has always given me good advice before, so maybe I should. Well, after trying it out yesterday, I am very thankful she did talk me into buying it! I made this block, (now a heating pad) which is 8inches square for my test. The ruler gives instructions for making 4 flying geese at a time and it is so easy! No waste triangles and all you have to do is cut on the line for the finished size that you want. If you want a closer look at how this works, check out this video link: here

I'm sure that there are many of you that are already on this bandwagon, but I thought I should post in case there are those who aren't!

Plugging Along

So here are 16 blocks of 80 finished and you can see a little of what the layout will look like. I am surprised how strong the brown is in this quilt. I almost wonder if I should have used white instead. Oh well, too late now! I'll just have to see how it all comes out. That is the fun part about quilting--that the quilt can change its look so much from start to finish. On the positive side this is a very fun block to make so 64 more to go should go quick!

Summer in The Country

Well, Summer in the City actually -- by Moda of course! I made this block today as I thought I should have a project while I wait for fabric to arrive to finish the 30's quilt... Yes, I probably could be working on UFO's but no I'm having too much fun doing this. I got this pattern out of the same book Nickel Quilts and plan to make this into a twin size. I can't remember where, but I found some charm squares of the Summer in the City for half off and I bought four at the time thinking I would sew them into simple squares with sashing. I bought this brown fabric Tiddley Winks by Moda to go as the sashing color. So, after studying the book yesterday I realized that 80 Charm squares and 3.5 yards background fabric was just enough to make the twin size if I shorten it just one row. So, there you go, much more interesting to make than just plain squares! I am finding that my piecing skills are slowly improving so I find myself wanting to work a bit more intricately than before. It's hard to believe that I just learned to sew three years ago last month! I don't know how I lived without sewing and being around fabric before!

30's Quilt Progress

So, today I finished 81 blocks of 113, but I am now at a stand still as I wait for my 30's fats and background color to arrive. I thought I would take a photo of all the blocks smooshed together to see how it would look as Kay suggested. Not a bad idea as I am generally not a fan of sashing, but the color is not quite enough for me to give it a go. I'm excited to get the next 32 blocks done, but it will probably take a couple weeks. It's ok, anticipation is half the excitement.

In case you are wondering where I got this pattern from, it came from the book Nickel Quilts by That Patchwork Place. I am actually very excited about this book in general as it gives me some ideas for things I can do with charm squares as all the patterns require 5 inch square scraps. Also, the directions in this book are very very good and there are plenty of inspirational quilts within which make it a great quilting book to add to the library.

Happy New Year!

I just thought I would post with a picture of my progress with my latest quilt project. I am really enjoying piecing again after a long run of other type of sewing. I think I am now back in the quilting groove for a little while at least.

I managed to finish about 30 blocks as pictured here, but I still have a long way to go yet. The plan is to make a queen size quilt which requires 113 blocks. I've also decided to use each fabric only once--so with only 80 different fats I decided to take advantage of those sales going on right now. I ordered Story Book V and some Kona Cottons in different colors so I will be able to make a few more thirties quilts. I like the fabrics for their softness, but I find that the quilts that use a solid color with them really makes them outstanding--they seem to need something to brighten them up. I had a look at Darlene Zimmerman's site to get some ideas of colors that I should order...

At the moment I have 50 more blocks in various stages of completion. I love to work a little bit on one step and then move on to another step so that I end up having blocks in all stages at once. I think it helps me take my time so that I don't rush through any one step just to finish it. Also, it helps me not to get too stiff from being in the same position for a period of time. Does anyone else do this or do you usually complete one step at a time?