Getting Closer

Oh happy day! I finished the four Block B's that I need for my smaller version of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street quilt.

Yes, I purposely used the same green plaid in the center of each of these blocks. I like how the lighter green fabric looks inside the star.

In the quilt, they won't be side by side like the above photo. They will be set on point, in between all those Block A's I finished last month, like this:

Now I need to start making the setting triangles. I kind of did things backwards from Bonnie's directions. I wanted to see how the blocks look, so I made those before the setting triangles.

Happy stitching!

Crawling down Easy Street

Where has the weekend gone? It feels like all I had time for at home was sleeping and eating until last night!

Last week, I was able to drive out to the quilt shop that is hosting the  Fibonacci's Challenge to show them my progress on border #2 and to get the instructions for the March border. While I'm thinking of different possibilities for my 3rd border, I worked a bit on Easy Street.

I've got the sub-units sewn together for block B. Since I'm making a smaller version of Easy Street than Bonnie Hunter's, I only need a total of four of block B.

Visit Judy at Patchwork Times to see what other quilters are working on.

Happy stitching!

Good news, Bad news

Today was a good news, bad news kind of day. Bad news because my youngest child stayed home sick (but no vomiting, thankfully). Good news because I got to stay home and take care of him, which mainly consisted of pushing fluids. And what did I do on my bonus day off? Housework? Although I probably should have, that's no fun to blog about. So instead, I visited some blogs this morning, including a few new ones. That led me to spending waaayyy too much time on Pinterest. Then I eventually went into my studio and guess what I did?

I finished assembling the nine A blocks for Easy Street!!!!!! Here they are just side by side.

This is kind of what they will look like when they're set on point. I am so glad to be done with this step. Now I need to work on block B, but since I'm making my quilt smaller than Bonnie Hunter's, I only need to make 4 of B.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday - Easy Street progress

 

Not too much on my design wall this week. Last week, I stopped at the quilt shop to pick up my directions for the second border of my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. Over the weekend, while I let some border ideas simmer in my brain, I worked a bit more on Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street. I've got all the rows assembled for all my block A's.

When I first started the Easy Street mystery, I decided to make three-fourths of the units Bonnie was making, since I did not want to make mine as large as hers. After the final reveal, I decided to make 9 block A's, 4 block B's, 8 setting triangles, and 4 corner triangles. If my calculations are correct, that will make the center a 63 inch square. Borders will enlarge it to a good lap-quilt size.

Go see some more design walls at Judy's.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday February 4, 2013

This weekend, I whipped up 5 blocks for Alycia's block drive. All the blocks that are collected will be made into quilts for Quilts of Valor, which donates quilts to members of the military who have been touched by war. Alycia has supplied the directions for this block drive. It's a log cabin variation...easy peasy! I set up a temporary design wall to photograph the blocks by putting a piece of batting over my ancient cardboard cutting board and standing it up. The batting is only big enough for one row of blocks, so here are three of them.

Here are the other 2 blocks for the block drive. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the outer ring of fabric on the right block has a white background with "USA" repeated in lines. For the center of each block, I used some fabrics from an old Moda Charm Pack called "red white and bold."

It's not too late to make some blocks for Alycia's block drive. For every 5 that you send to her by March 8th, your name gets put into a drawing for a beautiful fat quarter pack. And QOV is definitely a good cause!

I also got some more units sewn together for block A of Easy Street. Since I'm using these as my leaders/enders, the units come together pretty quickly, in between other projects.

Go visit Judy to see lots of other design walls.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday ~ MLK Day

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I've got a few things on my "design wall" this week.

First, I finished my top for Quilts of Valor. It's so long that you can just barely see my husband's toe peeking under the border! I used the free pattern that Judy gave out on her blog, but I eliminated the middle 1" border. Although I had plenty of scraps for the main part of the quilt, I did go buy some yardage for the two borders. And I had some leftover to add to my patriotic fabric bin :) I've had such a fun time making this quilt. Red, white, and blue is one of my favorite color combinations, and it was a joy to use many different patriotic fabrics. I know this isn't much, but I hope this quilt will help a soldier to know that we do care; we appreciate what they are doing for us; their sacrifices do not go unnoticed.

While I added the borders to the QOV, I made some more units for block A of Easy Street as leaders/enders. The 4-patches sewn to the double bricks are rotated from the ones I made last week, since you need some of both for this block.

After finishing my QOV, I got to work on the 1st border for my Fibonacci's Challenge quilt. Here's some information about that quilt. After laying out some fabrics for my border, I decided I didn't like it, so I revamped my plan.

Since this border can only have rectangles, I sewed two 1 1/2" strips of creams and golds together, then cut into 2 1/2" pieces. Then I framed them with green 1 1/2" strips. So the finished width of each piece will be 1" and the finished blocks will be 4" squares. I will be alternating green and red blocks; here are the 8 green blocks I have made.

I'm hoping to finish this border later on today, since I'm off school for Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday.

You can see what's on other quilters' design walls at Judy's blog.

Happy stitching!

QOV and Easy Street Progress

This week, in between going back to work after two weeks off, getting a haircut, going to a parents' meeting for younger son's basketball, and spending 2 1/2  hours in the emergency room with younger son who sprained his ankle at basketball, I was able to sew the seven rows of my quilt for Quilts of Valor (QOV) together. Please ignore my husband's hands at the top of the quilt and his feet at the bottom. When a quilt top gets this big, he is my "design wall" ~ LOL! I just need to cut and piece the borders, then sew them onto the center of the quilt.

While I worked on the QOV quilt, I worked a bit on Easy Street, using it as leaders and enders for the QOV. At first I was going to assemble Easy Street one block at a time, but then I decided I'd rather piece together two units for all the blocks I'm going to make. Here are half of the 4-patches sewn onto half of the double bricks. The pattern calls for half of the 4-patches to be sewn on one way and the other half sewn on with them rotated. I had hoped to have my entire Easy Street quilt top finished by the end of January, but I'm not so sure that's going to happen now. When I have a break from my job at a school, I tend to forget that life gets pretty busy during the school year! I'm just happy to keep this as my leader/ender project for now. I know it will come together soon. I'm not whining, but these last two steps are pretty involved :)

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Clue #8

Since my focus last week was on my quilt for Quilts of Valor (see here for my latest progress), I didn't get real far on Easy Street Clue #8. I did make one of each of the blocks, just to see how they look. Here's block A.

I love how the star looks, made with those house units or squatting turkeys or whatever you want to call them, in block B!

Putting the blocks next to each other. Some of my golds don't have a lot of contrast from the background fabrics, so you can't see some of the pattern as well as you can on Bonnie's quilt. I'm fine with that.

I'm linking up to Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Mystery Clue #5

I hope you had a merry Christmas!!! Sunday we went to the Farm where hubby grew up, about a 6 hour drive from our home, and we came back today. My in-laws do not own a computer, so of course there’s no internet. We had a very relaxing time.

Glory Hallelujah ~ Bonnie said that we’re done making flying geese. Although I don’t mind them, I’ve definitely had enough of them for now!

I’m quite excited…before we left for the Farm I got all caught up with the Easy Street Mystery Quilt. Clue 5 was an easier one: make“sitting turkey” units, as Bonnie calls them. Since I’m only making 75% of the blocks, I had to make 48.

Bonnie suggested having the needle “kiss” the right side of the drawn line on the smaller square, rather than stitch directly on top of the line. This really worked well for me to get my units the right size.

While I had my camera in my studio, I took a photo of my sewing machine. My in-laws gave it to me (used) for Christmas 21 years ago. Based on the photos in the manual, my guess is the machine is from the mid to late 1960’s, or possibly the early 1970’s. This has been a faithful machine for me through the years, as I’ve made Christmas dresses for my daughter when she was younger, Halloween costumes, stockings for the kids, curtains for our first house, and lots of quilts.

Progress Report

Clue #1: four-patches: 144 of 144

Clue #2: flying geese: 96 of 96

2 X 3 ½”bricks of white background fabric: 48 of 48

Clue #3: Shaded 4-patches: 48 of 48 (see this post)

                 Green 3” squares cut in half diagonally: 2 of 2

 Clue #4: Stacked geese: 48 of 48

                 Green 3 ½” squares: 110 of 110

 

Clue #5: Sitting turkeys: 48 of 48

I’m linking up to Bonnie’s Easy Street Part 5 post. Tomorrow, clue #6 will go up…can’t wait!!!

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Mystery Clue #4

This has been such a sad weekend for our country! It is just unfathomable that someone would go into an elementary school and kill innocent children. As I've worked on Bonnie's 4th clue, I've been thinking about and praying for the people affected by this tragedy. May God comfort them all.

We had a busy weekend, so I didn't get real far on clue 4. We took the kids to see "The Hobbit" in 3D on Saturday afternoon ~ excellent movie ~ and we went to a Christmas party Saturday night. Then besides going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night hubby and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary. I've made 31 of the new flying geese. (I'm using golds in place of Bonnie's purples and reds in place of her turquoises.)

I just had to make one stacked flying geese unit to see how it looks. Bad photo, I know. The white fabric was hard to capture. With the flash on, it was all washed out. With it off, it looks muddy. And it doesn't look like I'll be getting much natural sunlight for a few days. Oh well, at least you get the idea :)

Progress Report
I'm making 75% of each unit, because Bonnie's finished quilt sounds too big for a lap quilt, and half of that seems too small.

Clue #1, 4-patches: 71 out of 144 completed

Clue #2, Flying Geese: 14 out of 96 completed (I haven't made any more since last Monday). Click here to see the latest photo.

Clue #3, Shaded 4-patches: 48 out of 48 completed last week. Click here to see them.

Clue #4, Flying geese: 31 out of 48 completed
              Stacked geese: 1 out of 48 completed

I'm linking up to Quiltville's Easy Street and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Mystery Part 3

I'm happy to tell you that I've finished my Shaded 4-patches for clue #3 of Easy Street. I'm still behind on my first two steps, but I've made some more progress this week; more on that in a bit.

I pulled out 13 different reds from my stash to use in place of Bonnie's turquoise. I have more red fabric than these, but some had too much white, some were too dark, and some I just plain didn't like anymore (what possessed me to buy that one?).

I don't think that I've mentioned before that I'm not doing the full quilt as Bonnie Hunter has designed it. Hers will finish at 84 X 84 (or 96 X 96 with the optional border). I want to make this a lap quilt, so that's too big. Her suggestion was to make half the blocks if you want a smaller quilt, but that sounds too small to me. So I'm making 75% of the blocks. I think that will be a better size for my purposes, but I can always make more if I need to.

I made 48 Shaded 4-patches. I absolutely LOVE how the colors in the block look together. Of course, add red to anything and I'll probably love it :)

After making my first flying geese block last week, I decided to use the same background fabric for both of the "wing" triangles in each block. I did the same for these blocks.

I apologize for the quality of these photos. It was already getting dark outside when I got home from work today, so I couldn't use natural sunlight for the pictures.

Progress Report

Clue #1, 4-patches: 64 out of 144 completed

I'm using these as my leaders/enders, so I'm slowly accumulating a big pile of these.

Clue #2, Flying Geese: 14 out of 96 completed

I will be using different fabrics for the "wings," but I've only had time to use the green polka-dots. I'm following Bonnie's suggestion: if you're not done with the current step on Friday, stop that and do the new step. That way you've at least started each step and you know what's going on. I'm hoping to get at least a few more flying geese made this week before Friday.

Clue #3, Shaded 4-patches: 48 out of 48 completed

I'm linking up to Quiltville's Easy Street and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Happy stitching!

Two Mystery Quilts

This week I've been working on two different mystery quilts:

American Patchwork & Quilting Mystery Quilt

This weekend, my husband took our two sons to a city about 5 hours away to go to an NFL game. His parents, his brother, and brother's wife and two sons met them there. They had a great time, and my daughter and I, who don't really like football, shared a quiet weekend at home (no football games on TV, no arguing over who gets to use the family computer...) While they were gone, I sewed the middle and outer border onto this quilt. (The patterns for all the blocks, the setting, and the borders have been featured in all the 2012 issues of the AP&Q magazine.)

With a blog called "Crazy for Red," I'm sure you're not surprised that I pulled more red into this quilt with the outer border! I had my hubby hold up the quilt for this photo; you can just barely see a bit of his white sock under the quilt top.

I'm very excited to have this quilt top finished! I will probably wait until Christmas Break to do the quilting.


 Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt

Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville is on week 2 of her mystery quilt, Easy Street. Instead of Bonnie's purple, I'm using gold fabrics. These are most of the golds I'm using for this quilt. The top three in the photo all have stars, although they're different sizes.

Saturday, I realized that I don't have any green-on-white fabrics, so I headed off to a nearby quilt shop. Lucky me, they were having an anniversary sale, and all Christmas fabrics were 20% off. I probably didn't need any more gold fabrics, but I couldn't resist the gold snowflakes. The green polka-dot fabric wasn't Christmas, but it totally works for me. The multi-colored polka-dot fabric was another Christmas one. That bottom fabric is actually for Saint Patrick's Day!

Here's a larger photo of the St. Patrick's Day fabric. I couldn't resist this green and gold on white. I figured that, after I cut the fabric into 2" strips, and then the smaller units, I should be able to use most of it in my Christmas-themed Easy Street quilt. Some of the smaller shamrocks may need to be set aside for another project.

 I've got 30 four-patches sewn so far. I'm using these for my leaders-enders.

I've only got this one flying goose patch sewn so far. (I had trouble getting a good shot without a shadow, so it looks quite wonky. But trust me, it is a good rectangle in real life!!!)

And that's all I've got so far. Be sure to go check out some of the great projects at Patchwork Times and see other quilters' versions of Easy Street at Quiltville.

Happy stitching!

Easy Street Mystery #1

Apparently I'm the last quilter on earth who hasn't heard of Bonnie K. Hunter's mystery quilts over at Quiltville! I just saw some posts about it on Monday, when I was looking at linky parties. After looking at the Quiltville blog, I decided to jump in, even though the mystery started last Friday. (Because I need another project like I need a hole in my head...LOL).

Although I love the colors Bonnie is using, I really don't have a lot of fabrics in those colors in my stash. What I do have a lot of is Christmas, Christmas, and more Christmas fabrics! So I'm going to make my Easy Street quilt with those. In place of Bonnie's lime, teal, and purple, I'll be using red, green, and gold fabrics. (I haven't had a chance to pull those out yet for a picture.)

Instead of Bonnie's gray, I'll be using several white-on-white fabrics.You can see some of them here. There are snowflakes, Santas, angels, Christmas trees, etc. A few of these are not Christmas-specific white-on-whites.

For my "background" fabrics, instead of using black on white, I'm using red on white, red and green on white, and green on white (well, I still need to go buy some green on white fabric...). I know these choices will change the overall look of the quilt, but that's part of the fun of making a mystery quilt, right?

Last night I cut several strips of fabric for step one, so now I've got lots of sewing to do. I hope to get caught up, but I don't know if that's realistic for this time of year, especially since I'll also be doing "December Daily" again with Ali Edwards. It's a daily scrapbooking project that I've done for the past three years.

I'm linking up to Quiltville's Easy Street Link Up #1.

Happy stitching!