My work has taken me to a number of different states and towns within those states, much as a road trip when you go on vacation does. I've been accused of being part gypsy because I've moved around so frequently, and in many ways my life has been a big road trip - a few yrs here, then a few years in the next place and so on. I've enjoyed all of it (well, maybe not the 70-80 mph winds in the winter time in Wyoming) and have been privileged to make some good friends along the way.
One stop of my life's road trip was spent teaching pre-engineering at a vocational school in a very small town in Wyoming. While I didn't stay there for long because of circumstances, I was fortunate to make several very good friends at the school where I taught. One of them, Barb (in the middle of the pic), is always on the go doing something - she is a nurse and works at the hospital, and she also teaches the CNA classes at the vocational school in where I taught engineering for 10 months. The last several years her students have decorated the hallway leading to their classroom with garland that is shaped into the output of an EKG. It was this display that the design for this block came from.
This is a shot of one of the sample blocks I made while testing the pattern.
I use red, white and blue fabrics to test my block patterns because then the blocks will always go together in quilts for injured veterans.
I've just set the blocks together, but with coloring reversed on alternate blocks so that the color bands flow across the quilt. This quilt layout reminds me of the large cities where I've lived over the last 40 years of my road-tripping life - Phoenix, Boston, and the Dallas area. All are busy cities with lots of buildings and traffic and the 'heartbeat' of the cities is very active and busy.
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Next up is a layout showing what can be done with the block when you play around with which sections of the block that you use. This layout was designed to use a large scale print as the background and allows the maker to feature large sections in the solid white squares.
This layout reminds me of the slower pace of life in the towns of Lafayette and Fort Wayne. Both are smaller than the big cities where I've spent so many years of my life, but I've made some really good friends in both of them. And Lafayette is where I went to grad school at Purdue for my degree in education. Both towns are unforgettable stops along the road trip of my life.
For this layout of a table runner, I played around with the sections of the block so that only one band of the color goes across the layout for a table runner or bed runner. This simple layout reminds me of the time I spent in Wyoming and of living in the small town of Rawlins out in the middle of nowhere in I-80. Again another unforgettable stop along the way of my road trip in life.
And finally, by once again using only part of the sections of the block, along with a few additional blocks made this 36" square table topper. The additional blocks used in the setting were the 4 corner blocks (small green squares, small pink triangles, and large background squares), the green square in the middle of the quilt, and the pink/green rail fence blocks. Fabrics for this all came from my stash. I've named this one, "Heartbeat of a Friend" and it is in honor of all those that I've been privileged to call my friend over the course of my life's "road trip".
I hope you've been inspired by the sample layouts that this block allows you to make. And I hope that the different layouts inspire you to experiment with the block and come up with a layout that makes you think of your "road trip" and friends.
And now for the giveaways to celebrate my 5th block published, the first giveaway is for a copy of the magazine QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks, volume 16. This will be mailed out from QuiltMaker. To enter use the rafflecopter widget below.
And the second giveaway will have two winners - One person will win a lovely assortment including a 1 yard piece of a rose print, a FQ of the same print and three coordinates. A second person will win a 4-FQ set of green prints from Benartex. Enter through the rafflecopter widget below.
Gratitudes:
1. For all those that keep me inspired to keep on designing.
2. For the inspiration that comes from friends and all that I see and do along this road-trip we call life.
Lots of sewing went on over the Thanksgiving weekend. Gotta love having 4 days in a row off. =)
Next up was making the three remaining hat box blocks I needed to finish this quilt (the diagonal ones from lower left to upper right). And then putting the top together. Current size is approx. 48" by 66". I'm debating about putting a border on it or just calling it good and quilting it as is. this will most likely be sold, but might donate it.
Well, there aren't a lot of challenges that I shy away from, and as it happened I had a few Moda precuts (alright, more than a few) that I hadn't done anything with since getting them one or another. So I decided to challenge myself. Well in looking at what I had, I realized why I hadn't done anything with them - most of them are not fabrics that I'd normally work with. 
I decided to make 4 sawtooth stars blocks to form my quilt. I used 5 different blues for the stars - the center for all four blockswas from on charm, and each block used another charm square to make the star points. Two different fabrics were used to make the background of the blocks. 13 charm squares were used for the top.
I've been able to get some quilting time in before work the last couple of days and have been making progress on getting flying geese units made. 
The next biggest scrappy project on my to-do list is this quilt. Thankfully it is only 25 blocks that are 15" finished. But then there is that pieced border.....lol...... This will be for my niece and her fiance and will be their wedding present. It should finish out at 85" square.
This is the first block of 25. 15" finished size and uses 24 different fabrics in it. There are three basic blocks in the quilt, all variations of this one (number of outer flying geese sections varies between them).
One stop of my life's road trip was spent teaching pre-engineering at a vocational school in a very small town in Wyoming. While I didn't stay there for long because of circumstances, I was fortunate to make several very good friends at the school where I taught. One of them, Barb (in the middle of the pic), is always on the go doing something - she is a nurse and works at the hospital, and she also teaches the CNA classes at the vocational school in where I taught engineering for 10 months. The last several years her students have decorated the hallway leading to their classroom with garland that is shaped into the output of an EKG. It was this display that the design for this block came from.
And the second giveaway will have two winners - One person will win a lovely assortment including a 1 yard piece of a rose print, a FQ of the same print and three coordinates. A second person will win a 4-FQ set of green prints from Benartex. Enter through the rafflecopter widget below.
My version will be in blues, aquas, teals, purples with a touch of orange. I plan to do scrappy for the stars and pinwheels, and have a single fabric for the background (I know shock of shocks).
With the blog hop coming for the release of Volume 16 of QuiltMaker's 100 Blocks coming next week, I decided to make a quick quilt showing just one way that my block can be used. I was able to get half of the pp'd block sections made over the weekend and pressed. Still need to trim them to size though. 8 of the remaining pp'd sections have been sewn as of this morning leaving me with only 12 more to sew. The final 4 sections are pieced 'normally' and I'll make them after piecing the others. I'm hoping to get all of the remaining sections made tonite after I get home from work. Final project will be a table topper that will be approximately 36" square.
The other project I made progress on was the second wall hanging of my triptych of the Christmas story. Angels are now fused down and this one is ready to layer, baste and quilt. Fabrics used for the angels are a silver Fairy Frost for the biggest one and two different prints with gold metallic in them for the smaller ones.
The second design in the planned triptych is taking shape. The design is shown here beside a commissioned version of the first one that I've got up on my design wall.
