Working on quilts.

Good day everyone,

It is another windy March day here, but it is 61* right now. Our snow storm on Saturday did not amount to much. If you lived out in Kansas you probably got dumped on, like 18-24 inches of snow, but most of it went south of us. We had a little bit of snow, but most of the precipitation that we received was in the form of sleet and freezing drizzle. The roads were pretty slick for a couple of hours, then the sun came out and melted it away. So hopefully that is the last winter storm for the season. Now I get to wait again for the garden to dry out enough to work.

We had a good weekend. Dh spent most of it piddling on the computer or watching movies. I spent it sewing and quilting. Not much else we could do, so we both did what we enjoy doing. We were in the same area, so we could talk to each other. I found this cute little baby quilt, all cut out. I think I cut it out about 1 1/2 years ago but never sewed it together. So as of yesterday afternoon, it is a flimsy.

This went together really good. In fact I thought I would get the whole thing done without even having to rip out anything. Nope, not to be. I just could not believe that I cut the border one inch short. (sigh) I have my own way of doing borders. Usually it turns out great, but not yesterday. I sewed the star block on one end of the border, then sewed up to about 10 inches shy of the other end. Then I laid out my other star block, measured, added 1/4" and cut. The thing I did wrong, was I went by the inner dark blue border seam instead of the outer. So I was about 1 inch short. (another sigh) What to do...I had enough fabric to cut another border strip. but it would mean a lot of ripping out. Did I really want to do that? Nope. So I ripped the star block off the end of the border, sewed another small piece of border fabric on the border, then added the star block back. Here is how it turned out. If you are right on top of it, you can tell, but it isn't very noticeable from a distance.

I thought about putting some applique animals in the big white blocks, but I have decided not to do that. I think I will do a lot of quilting in them. I have a beautiful feathered circle quilting template. What do you think? This is intended for a little boy. Will the feathered circle be too girlish? Another thought is to do a cross hatch in 1/2 to 1 inch squares. I supposed that would look better for a little boy. I am in the baby quilt making mode. LOL Lots of babies due this year in our family. My brother has 6 sons, no daughters. Two of them are expecting babies. I figured there is a good chance of at least one boy. I plan to make a couple of pink quilts to have on hand too. It never hurts to have baby quilts ready. I am down to three blocks and the borders on my Peter Rabbit Challenge baby quilt. I haven't done alot of work lately on the Savannah Star, so no progress on it. I did start another quilt this morning. This is a Froggy quilt. I had bought the fabric for this several years ago. I was planning on making it for Ashton. He will be 6 this summer. LOL (Shows how long ago I started it.) Anyway, I had one block put together in a double nine patch design. It was before I was 'into' quilting. I didn't even have a rotary cutter and mat. I used cardboard templates, drew around them on the back of the fabric and cut them out with scissors. LOL I am thankful that I didn't cut up all of the fabric. Now I know why I never finished the original. It was blah! Not enough contrast. See what I mean. I have been stewing and thinking about this quilt for a week or so. The frog fabric is too cute to just discard (Like I would do that to fabric anyway!LOL) I also have a piece of fabric with larger frogs in it. I believe I intended it for the back. Now I just piece the backs if I don't have a big enough piece. (grin) Anyway, since I enjoyed putting the above quilt together this weekend, I decided to use the same pattern for this. Here is what I came up with. I made up one each of the two blocks to see how they would play together. I like it. I used the fabric with the larger frogs in it for the center square in a square block on the left. I added some light yellow for the light fabric in the pinwheel in a star block. I'll worry about the borders when I get these all done and put together. LOL What do you think? Isn't this a big improvement over the double nine patch that I started several years ago? So far, just making these 2 blocks has been a blast. I am finally 'feeling' this quilt. LOL I am sewing like a whirlwind. I want to have several projects pieced, sandwiched, and ready to pick up and quilt on during breaks in my day. Spring is here and that means a lot of busy work outside. When I come in from working outside, I am usually too tired to sit at the machine and piece, but I'm very seldom too tired to sit with a quilt in my lap while watching tv. LOL

I still haven't decided for sure what fabric to use for the disappearing nine patch. I laid it out with different choices.

Since these don't show up very good, I will show you some closeups. Here are choices #1 and #2.
Number one was my original choice, but now that it is together, I think it blends in too much. Here are the next two, #3 and #4. Finally, here is #5.
I asked Kevin which he liked best. He chose #4 and #5. I am leaning towards #4. That fabric is just so pretty in my opinion. What do you think? This is for an almost 18 year old girl. I just want it to be about lap size. I figured I'd cut the borders 5 inches. That should make the quilt about the size I want and also let the pattern in the border show up good.

Well, I guess that is it for today. I sure have been quilt newsy. LOL Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.