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 Good Morning Quilters!

Happy 4th of July to all of our United States bloggers.  It is hard to believe it is now July!  The year is quickly happening.  My design wall again has my shirting and indigo Jane Stickle quilt on it, and again, I made some progress.  

Here is a picture of the blocks I made in the past two weeks:

 Good Morning Quilters!

This week I have been binding quilts that are recently back from the longarm machine quilter.  The hourglass quilt is now bound and ready for a label.  I thought I’d put the number of pieces in it on the label, so I calculated the number.  It’s 40 blocks by 40 blocks square, and the blocks are two inches each.  With the combination on hourglasses and half-square triangles, the total number of pieces in all the squares:  4,624.  

Here is the quilt with the binding on it:

 Good Morning Quilters!

It has been a busy week here.  The backs of all nine strips have the middle parts pressed open, and the outer edges trimmed. 

Here is the back of one strip, so you can see how nice and flat the centers are.  I snipped one seam on either side of the center seam to enable it to lie flat.  See from this picture how it worked out:

This week the plan is to sew all nine pieced strips to their bordering strips.  I think that was what I had planned for last week……but as I said ...

Good Morning Quilters!

Progress is being made on the quilt on the design wall.  All columns done:

Next I have to trim the dog ears and sew the columns to each other.  18 long seams.  

Here are some current issues:

Pressing the blocks.  By pressing the seam toward the solid fabric triangles (solid meaning unpieced fabrics) leaves a lumpy center cluster of fabric that any long arm quilter will not like.   I do not want to press the whole seam open, as there is so much piecing in the little blocks and….also, it’s a pain to do.  I ...

 Good Morning Quilters!

The quilt on the design wall is coming along slowly.  There are now five columns sewn into long strips of 23 blocks, and the sixth column is on the carpet next to the sewing machine.   I sew five together four times, and the extra three, and then sew them all into one long column.  

Next strip to be sewn:

Well, making a list last Monday helped me a little bit.  I did get the cutting mat area cleaned ...

 Good Morning Quilters!

Here is a picture of my design wall today.   I think it looks about the same as it did last week.  But life happens, and it will be there when I get back to it, right?

I am on vacation this week and will be doing no quilting.  Children and Grandchildren will be here and my days will be busy.  The quilting projects shall have to wait until everyone goes home, and that’s ok.  

I hope to be spending a lot of time in the water.  Here is a picture taken a couple of years ago ...

Good Morning Quilters!

Here is a current picture of my Design Wall:

Good Morning Quilters!

There are nine columns of blocks to be assembled, and I am also working on sewing the dark strips to either side of the light print strips.   There are eight of these to be made, and I have three on the design wall. .  The fourth one is on the ironing board:

Good morning Quilters!  

Good Morning Quilters!

I made a great find in my stash yesterday.  Remember that I am trying to put 210 small intricate blocks into a quilt where they can be seen individually. 

 The colors/design of this vintage quilt is what I am using to guide me:

I found a neutral in my stash to use with my blocks last week, and have that sewn to my little blocks.  I thought I'd have to buy a brown fabric for the narrow vertical stripes.....but yesterday, I found a fabric in my stash that I think will work!  I am ...

Good Morning Quilters!

Well I think I have my quilting mojo back.  It was quite a dry spell but now I am eager to get rolling again.  I finally made a decision to pick a background for the small brown/pink squares that are on the design wall. 

Here is a picture of some of the triangles to show you how it will look:

Good Morning Quilters!

The month of June has been so beautiful, and the flowers in Michigan have been spectacular.  Last Saturday we visited our son and his family in Lansing, MI.  They have a lot of beautiful peonies and I came home with such amazing bouquets.  Look at these pictures:

The four inch blocks are still on the design wall, and I am still thinking about how to make them shine.  Someone suggested they could be even more separated, and I am thinking about removing every other block, to give each block more space to shine on its own ...

Good Morning Quilters!  

 Good Morning Quilters!

Well, I took the Benjamin Biggs Quilt down from the design wall, and decided to work on another quilt for a while.

This UFO was a free online 365 blocks (one for each day) project from Kathryn Kerr in 2016.  The website is (Here)  I think the blocks are repeated every year for new quilt makers, with a few changes.  When I finished the blocks, I put them up on the design wall, and there was so much going on that I didn't like the quilt. It was way to busy for me to appreciate the ...