The Next Quilt

It is wonderful to have a fabric stash! To some it may mean clutter, to others it means money spent... (...spent well, if you are a quilter). To me, it means all of the above, PLUS, the option of pulling fabric out and creating a palette for a new quilt when the desire, or a new pattern, emerges.

And emerge it did this morning.

After leafing through some new magazines the other day, I, of course, found about six new quilts I wanted to make. But practicing self control, I quickly placed a stickee on the appealing pattern pages and firmly closed the magazines.

Moving on to this morning...

I awoke with quilty plans zinging through my brain. But again, practicing self control, I decided to work on a mystery quilt I had pulled fabric for quite awhile ago, rather than begin something new. (And this is where the joys of a stash emerges again.)

Of course, one of the fabrics was not quite right in the light of today. So into the stash I went.

Eventually I emerged with the correct purple for the mystery quilt. But in the process I un-earthed (un-fabric-ed?) another lovely grouping which would work wonderfully with one of those stickeed patterns I mentioned earlier.

Now I have created wonderful plans for today's cutting session and hopefully two new quilts to be sewn someday in the future.

Here are today's fabrics ready to be cut. They play well together, don't they?

April 1 - No Foolin'

Thought I should post what I have been doing today since it is April First. It has been a cutting day. Sitting at the sewing machine is not an option today.

Cutting 12 inch pieces by 1.5, 3.5 and 4.5 inches wide. The strips will be re-combined and sewed together to make a twelve inch block. I have decided that this quilt will be 36 blocks set 6 x 6. Should make a good sized quilt!

Here is a picture of the twelve inch long 1.5 inch wide strips - all 36 pairs. Now on to the other sizes.

National Quilting Day

Has come and gone..what did I do that day? Lots of things, but no quilting.

As a result I am celebrating a bit later this year and in a different way.

I am making my own National Quilting Day by setting aside some time to sew each day. Twenty four one hour sessions will add up to a complete day and will help me celebrate for many days instead of just one. Maybe it is not in the exact spirit of a "day". But it works for me and allows me to justify stitching each afternoon for an hour (not that I really need to justify my stitching time). While some folks may nap, I am spending an hour stitching on bindings.

Since I am seriously behind on that aspect of quilting, this seems to be a win for me.

Here are some current bindings needing to be finished.

Yep, there are five quilts - all queen sized or larger.

Now you can understand why my idea is a good one!

Quilt weekend!

Quilting with about 60 of my closest quilty friends. Having a great weekend. Thanks Mary for saving my life at home!

Totebag, patriotic quilt with rows finally sewn together, 36 quilt blocks finally finished, and the instructions for a string project that many are doing today, but one that will have to wait for me.

Some of the projects done thus far this weekend.

A great way to begin a new month!

Super Bowl Projects

Having signed up for the "Superbowl Craft A Thon sponsored locally by Barbara Chojnacki, of "Six Gables Designs", I knew I had to do something! I finally finished the borders on the quilt shown above. Yes, it is black and white.

My small quilt group, The GQ's, had swapped black and white fabrics some time ago. With the addition of a few fat quarters and a pattern found on line as inspiration, I was on my way. Of course, I had to modify the pattern a bit. What resulted is shown above! I call it simply, "Back and White".