Debating on what to add to this.............

I was given this block as part of a bunch of UFO blocks.   And am planning to make it into a tablerunner.   But as it it isn't quite long enough for what the approximate length I want.   I need to add about 10-12 inches for that.  

To get that length I'm debating just add a border around the whole thing with wider ones on the ends.   Or adding blocks of some sort on each end.   I don't want to make a whole new panel like this because then the runner would be too long and I'd have to draw up the patterns for it.  

Any ideas on what might look good on both ends?

Gratitudes:
1. Appointment with the ENT to get this 5 month old infection taken care of.

2. Drivers Ed Instructor training class going ok even with all the technology issues that the school has had with the collaboration software we have to use.

Finishes..........

Have finished up two of three belated Christmas gifts, and the second of the bible / Alphabet blocks that I said I'd make.  

The skirts are for my niece.   And are from a pinstriped denim and a herringbone tweeded suiting.    Here's hoping that they fit!





The biblical block was made to represent the letter "R".  And Moses crossing the Red Sea is  what was wanted.   I made lined flaps that can be opened to allow Moses to walk across the dry land.  

I added shiny tulle att eh bottom of the water with itty-bitty shells in it to give added texture to the block.     And the stash had the sand, water and sky prints that I used for the block.  Moses is made from two colors of felt and attached to a piece of ribbon so that kids can play with him.

2015 Mystery Quilt, Step 2 Clarification

I had a friend ask me about the fabrics used for this step.  The entire quilt is set up to use 2 "neutrals" and 6 different coordinating fabrics.  

The dark green I used in step 1 for the block borders was one of my neutrals (I have a dk green and a dk pink for them). 

For this step I used one of the floral prints (one of my coordinates) for the addition to be made second step.

In the future, I'll just tell you to choose one or more of the coordinates w/o telling what "number" coordinate to pic.   However, all six will be used but I'll let you decide what order to put them in.

 

Following steps will be using multiple of the coordinates and/or the neutrals to complete it.  

 

But above all things, you can always truly decide what colors you want to use and differ from my instructions.  =)

2015 Mystery Quilt, Step 2

Step 2 of the mystery will have you working on the actual quilt top and start adding to it.

********************

5. Layout your blocks in a 2 square wide by 3 square long setting.  Play with the layout until you have them laid out in a pleasing to you pattern.

6. Sew your blocks together as you have them laid out and then press the seams flat.

7. Using your choice of technique, Place a large circle made from one of your coordinating fabrics (note....not meant to be one of the neutrals) onto the quilt top so that it spans 2 of the blocks.  Stitch the circle onto the quilt top using your chosen technique.

NOTE: I used one of my bowls to trace the circle I placed on my quilt top.   The resulting circle was 6.5" in diameter.

Set aside till the 3rd step is released.

Sewing again.....yeah!

Finally some quilting to show, I began to think I'd never managed to get anything done this semester.   And well I've not gotten anything done on the commissioned sewing that I have to do but that's another story altogether.   Hmmm, maybe that's what I should multi-task with during my online class......lol.

First thing completed was a block for a friend who moved.   The pattern was out of an earlier volume of 100 Blocks by Top Designers and is a chicken.   All who made blocks and the recipient are part of a list called "QuiltChicks" hence the chicken block.

Second block completed was a 20" block that is destined for a quilt for Down's Syndrome kids at the church my friend attends in the Indy area.

The quilt squares are  going into a quilted book I think.....but maybe in a quilt.  Not real sure about that.    They are representing scenes from the Bible that relate to the letter of the alphabet.   I volunteered to make two of the blocks - "M" and "R".   The pic to the left shows the completed "M" block.   The manger is brown velveteen, the baby Jesus is felt and is on a ribbon so it can be removed and put back into the manger.   The angels at the top have felt bodies and faces and gold lame wings.   The star is also felt.  

The "R" block will be of the Red Sea opening up for Moses.   I've got some ideas for it just need to find one more fabric so that I can work on it.

The next pic shows the quilt top I put together from brown and cream tonal strings.  At this point it is 40" square.   I still need to add a border to the quilt top.   It will be donated to Sunshine Quilts.

The next quilt top I finished up in the last week started life as a set of four pillow panels.   I've had them more than 10 years now and struggle to know what to do with them.   Finally realized that the colored strings that were with the brown ones above where the perfect colors to go with the panels.  A cream-on-cream and navy Kona round out the fabrics in this quilt top.   It is about 49" square and will be donated to Sunshine.



The top I finished up this morning started life as a small stack of scraps of the bunny fabric given to my be a friend.  I added a white-on-white fabric for the sashing, and the pink and turquoise fabrics.    This finished out at 40" square and will be donated to Sunshine.

Gratitudes:

1. A house that doesn't have too many cold spots in it.

2. For the insurance that is available to me through my job.

London Tea Towel Quilt Progress....

And the quilt has finally decided to start cooperating again with me.  

I've cut the scenes in the towel apart and fused them to a cream tone-on-tone fabric.  Squares are based on a 3" finished grid to help make things easier to put together in the end.   I then satin-stitched around the edges of the scenes with a matching thread.

Now to figure out what to use to fill in the empty spaces.  I know I'll be adding some fabrics that I received from a reader of my blog in England.   Just not sure how I'm going to feature them.

Gratitudes:

1. 2-hr delay today and a 'snow' day yesterday meant that I could get some quilting done.

2. Yet another med has been prescribed to try to lick the sinus infection.   Thankful it is one that hasn't caused side effects so far.

Step 1 - picture

Here are how my blocks look like after the first step has been completed.

Quilting in the New Year.....

.....Has gotten off to a slow start thanks to travels and still being sick.    However, I have been able to get a couple of tops completed for Sunshine.   The tops will eventually be sent off to a quilting angel to be finished up.

 First top started with 5 orphan blocks from a Quilting Friend in WI.  I added the borders .   This quilt finished up at 46 inches square.

The second quilt top finished this weekend was made from blocks made as a result of a challenge that I had made on Sunshine.   These were from Ann D.  The plaid fabric used for the offset blocks was one given to me several years ago by a quilting friend who has since passed away.  

I'm still debating if I want to put a final border onto the quilt using the plaid fabric or not.    Right now it is 41 inches wide by 52 inches long and that  is plenty big for Sunshine quilts, but I can't decide if it looks finished this way or really needs a final border.  

And if I do add a final border then what do I make it out of - more of the plaid fabric or a solid?  

What say you - border or no border?










Gratitudes:
1. Registration for Drivers Education Instructor Training is finally complete

2. Two of the three courses for DE training will be free me because I'm a dual credit instructor - God's provision is always perfect in timing.

2015 Mystery Quilt - Step 1

This first step of the mystery quilt will get your blocks for it prepared.

1. Using your background fabric cut the following:
            3 squares that are 12.5" in size
            3 squares that are 15.5" in size

2. Using a single fabric add a line that goes across at least 4 of the 6 squares in any direction.
      Note: If you decide to piece the fabric int0  a diagonal direction on the 15.5" squares, you may want to cut the background fabric a little larger so that you have room to square the block up afterwards.

3. Using either of the neutral fabrics, add a border to at least 2 of the sides of the 12.5" blocks in order to bring the size to 15.5".

Some possibilities for adding borders include those I've shown below.   How many others can you find to bring your blocks up to 15.5" unfinished?   Remember you can do anything you want with the borders for the blocks, all the same or all different it is your choice.

4. Square all blocks to 15.5" unfinished.

Set aside till the next clue.

2015 Mystery Quilt Fabric Clarification

I had someone ask me by what I meant by "dark neutral" and "Med-Light neutral" fabrics.

The picture to the right shows the basic range of fabrics that I've chosen.   The chevron fabric at the bottom right is focus fabric and is what i used to pull all of the other colors from.

The two fabrics that I'm using as my 'neutrals' are shown in the picture below.   The green is my "Dark Neutral" and the pink is my "Medium Neutral".  

In this quilt, your neutrals can be any colors that you want them to be.   You do not have to limit yourself to something in the cream - brown range unless that is what you really want to use.  Feel free to think outside of the box in terms of color!

In addition, if you don't want to use small scale prints like I am using, feel free to use large scale prints in the mystery.   I wouldn't use extra-large prints, but medium to large prints should work.

And if you want to use a print for the background instead of something like a white-on-white, that could also lend itself to an interesting quilt!

New Mystery Quilt Starting Next Week

Because I don't have my next BOM designed yet, but still am mulling over ideas for it I decided to start this year off with a mystery quilt.   I'll be posting more 

For those that know me really well, they know that my quilt designing/creating normally doesn't fall into a free-form, modern kind of style.  But everyone once in a while I like to challenge myself to do something different.   The mystery quilt came about as a result of research that I was doing on the internet looking for instant challenges that I could use in my engineering classes with the kids as I teach.    The one I found was written for an art class, but it gave me the basis for challenging myself to growing in my freedom of design, especially in a non-geometric type basis.

The Basis of this Mystery Quilt -

1. Each step of the mystery will be given every two weeks.  First steps will be posted on 1/11/15.

2. Each step of the mystery will specify something to be added to the quilt, but it will not specify how it is to be added or what size to be added.  You will be able to use whatever method you want to use - piecing (hand or machine), applique (hand, machine, fusible), etc.   

3. There will be 6 steps in the mystery quilt, not counting the border and finishing of it.

4, The Goal of this mystery quilt is to grow your free-form design skills  without stressing about it,

5. Remember in this mystery there is no "right answer" for what your quilt will end up looking like.  Each quilt is meant to be the creators own personal creation and no two quilts will look alike!

6. I will post pics of what I do before each following step is posted, but I won't post them with the instructions because I want to give everyone a chance to bring their inner designer to the forefront of their process.

Finished Size of Quilt - without borders the quilt will be 30" by 45".  Borders will bring it up lap quilt size.   I will be posting what I do for borders (after I figure that out....lol....) but you'll also be able to do whatever you want to do for the borders as well.

Fabrics required for the quilt - 

Background fabric (a tone-on-tone, solid, small scale print or neutral) - 1 1/2 yards

     Note: You want this to be something that the other fabrics will show up against instead of blending into.

Dark "Neutral" - Should work well with the background fabric - 1/2 yd

Light to Medium "Neutral" - Also needs to work well with the background fabric - 1/2 yard

Coordinating Fabrics - 6 different fabrics or colors, you'll be able to use scraps to FQ's for these.

Border fabric - the border for this has not been decided on yet, so I don't have measurements for this at the current time.

The fabrics that I'm using in the quilt this time are shown to the right.  My color inspiration came from the chevron print that I found out in Arizona at Christmas time.   I still need to pull a darker green as well, but haven't done that yet.  

I will be using my inspiration fabric in the quilt as well, and then most likely in the eventual border as well.

The greens and the two smaller pinks are from my scraps, the other three pinks are yardage.  

My background fabrics are two different white-on-white prints that I had here.    (Surprised?   What can I say, I like multi-fabric quilts....lol.)

So are you game to work the mystery quilt with me?  Leave me a comment and let me know - I'd love to hear from you!

Gratitudes:

1. It's a new year and so far no repeat of last years major snow storm!

2. I have a job to go back to tomorrow as school starts up.   Something I don't take for granted.