Delightful Dresden

Several months ago on the Bunny Hill site, Anne Sutton shared her method of using Darlene Zimmerman's fun and easy Dresden Ruler to make these wonderful blocks. I looked for this ruler for months (I like to buy at quilt shops if I can) and finally found one. These blocks were so fun and easy to make with charm packs (of which I have more than I want to admit--it's a sickness). Each charm square makes 2 'blades' and you need 20 blades for each block. I used 40 charms from a Kaffe Facett charm pack and it went really fast.

Those circles in the center cover up the 'raw edges' of the blades and aren't sewn down yet as I'm auditioning colors, so they look a little crooked.

I might make this could be made into a long table runner for our new dining room table or a 2 X 2 configuration for a cute wall hanging (I'm kind of liking that interesting design in the 'negative space' in the center).  Either way, I'm going to title it "Dresden Kaffe". I auditioned several backgrounds and liked dark shades best.

--OK, it's Sunday night and I've made some great progress on this project--officially a tablerunner.

 What do you think about the background I chose? I wanted every piece to be Kaffe's fabric and I wanted it to be really "busy" and sort of "muddled".

I chose a purple binding (it isn't sewn down yet so looks a little wonky) but when I do, it will look great on our new dining room table!

You just have to try these Dresden Plates! Also try the other creative blogs on Judy's Design Wall Monday!

It's MY Favorite Star Too!

On my design wall right now is this star block. Isn't it wonderful?! I found it on this great blog that I've been reading for many, many months--

http://anyonecanquilt.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/how-to-make-my-favorite-star.html

When I read this blog post and it mentioned "my favorite star" I thought, "yeah, right. . . there are so many beautiful star blocks". But I took a look and, Oh MY! I was totally smitten and HAD to make this block! The blog had a really good, easy to understand tutorial for cutting and sewing the block. There are 49 pieces, people, but I think it's pretty enough that I might make a whole quilt out of it.

I drafted it on EQ7 and colored it several different ways but in the end, had to do it just like I saw it on the blog--well, maybe mine has a little more raspberry than true red in it.

I pinned it to my Pinterest wall so I'd always be able to find it and finally collected all the fabrics I needed to start on it. In fact, I made a few more. . .  I think I need to put sashing between the blocks, don't you? (The red fabric--maybe 2 1/2 or 3 inches? Each block is 14").

Take a look at all the other design walls on Judy's blog today!

Too Many Tops!

What's your favorite part of making a quilt? What's your least favorite? Is there a place where you come to a dead stop and find yourself with another pile of blocks or unfinished tops?

I woke up this morning and before I got out of bed, thought about what I was going to work on in my sewing room on this, a totally free, nothing-on-my-calendar day: The table runner? The last mystery retreat quilt?






The group quilt due in December? The last Bonnie Hunter mystery? That online BOM of Anne Sutton's? Oh, and there's that new Dresden Plate ruler I bought to use with all those charm squares I have and that beautiful star block pattern I saw on the AnyoneCanQuilt blog!

Wait a minute . . . let's get real. . . I decided to take stock. Within 5 feet of my sewing machine table, I found 8 completed TOPS! Two more in the closet (from over 5 years ago) brought my tops total to 10 and I stopped looking.

Do I have a problem? It's ovbious I love to piece blocks and tops and I do enjoy machine quilting my own quilts---I just hate to pin quilts!

Since I feel a quit is 50% finished when the top is done, I'm going to redo my "UFO" list on the left-hand side of my blog to include some of these 10 tops half finished. I'll force myself to pin a couple of quilts and get them quilted and hope to finish many of them before I start anything else.

                                        I'll keep you posted. . .


P.S. I wrote the above last Friday. Since then I pinned quilts # 2 and 4 above, played around with the Dresden Plate ruler and, yes, started on the Dresden Plate blocks. I may have made progress on UFOs but I'm pretty much hopeless!!

Polka Dot

My wonderful Spring Chicks group met last Tuesday night at my house. We eat goodies, do show-and-tell, talk about quilty things then reveal our projects. Several months ago, we decided to do a Row Robin. Out of 9 of us, 6 committed to do all 6 rounds. Tonight was out 4th round. We follow the color and style of the original row with the fabric provided or using our stash then the owner will put their quilt together and reveal it. Here's just a couple of them:

We also have an ongoing "word" challenge. This month's word was "Polka Dot". I didn't have any idea what I was going to make and decided last Friday that I just wouldn't make one this month which is OK. But I went to  the Long Beach CA quilt show last weekend and was so inspired by the "12 by 12" quilts (http://www.twelveby12.org/) that I decided to go for it. This is my 25" x 18" "Polka Dot" quilt.




I hope you will go to their website and read about this creative group! After years of following them and buying their wonderful book, seeing the quilts in person was amazing! There were 2 years worth of them, 144 for each year, and I spent two hours of my 6 hours at the quilt show marveling at their diversity and techniques.

Hope you'll also check out Judy's design wall for other inspiring projects! Happy quilting!!

July Color Palette

I'll say it again, I'm LOVING this color palette challenge on Judy's blog.

Above is my block for July to go with the other month's blocks (right) which I'll be making into a quilt when it's all over.

Happy quilting, everyone!

Vintage to Wearable

Although I have a lot of quilts in progress, I made a garment this week. Lately I've been trying something new--making garments out of old tablecloths and such. I took a stamped, 60s California tablecloth and made this blouse/jacket out of it. Because the cloth was only 36" X 42", it was quite a puzzle to make the top big enough to fit me while getting the images on to the pattern to form a pleasing design. I scoured the fabric stores to find modern fabric similar enough to the vintage fabric of the tablecloth to make the transition and include facings.


Fusible web was used on cut-outs of the small amount of leftover tablecloth fabric and sewn on, raw-edged, to the back. I couple this top with light blue crop pants for a vintage, summary outfit.

I can see this becoming an obsession! I've bid on and won several interesting vintage linens from eBay to try some more garment-making.

Look for more traditional quilting than this on Design Wall Monday on Judy's new and improved blog!

Productive Week!

I made all sorts of things this week. The one on the right is a 16 X 20 wall hanging I'll be bringing to a friend who's invited us to the "Tiki Hut" in his backyard. I thought this funny saying would add to the ambiance of all the kitchy stuff hanging in there.

 These rows of flying geese are the start of the "Blooming Tale" pattern below right. It's an all paper-pieced pattern that is one of those epic projects that will be on-going for a long, long time!




Below are the 4 placemats I made Friday to bring to friends who've just moved into their new house. We don't know them very well and wondered if this would be a gift they'd use. They invited us for dinner tonight (Saturday) and after some nice conversation, the husband offered to set the table. "Do we have any placemats?" he asked his wife of only 2 years? Umm, not really. It was then I suggested they open the gift I'd brought. They were thrilled with them--and I was tickled that I'd picked something they could really use!

Check out all the other great projects on Judy's Design Wall Monday! (Isn't her newly remodeled blog great?!)

Have a great quilting week!