Charming Dresden

I finished a quilt! It's a small quilt but still--it's all done! If you haven't tried Darlene Zimmerman's Easy Dresden Ruler, you're missing something! This block goes together so easily and you can use a Charm Pack--thus the name, Charming Dresden!

When I made a table runner out of a Kaffe Facett Charm Pack with 4 of these blocks here, I loved it so much, I developed a class out of it and scheduled to teach it at my local quilt shop. I really wanted to make another one so I made another 4 blocks with Moda's colorful line, "Ladies Sewing Society" which I've fallen in love with. But these 4 blocks were made into a 36" x 36" wall hanging so the ladies who took the class could chose which they wanted to make.

In getting ready to teach the class, wanting to have plenty of sample parts and pieces for demonstration purposes, I started yet another 4 blocks in autumn colors. I received a call from my cousin the other day and found out I've been "chosen" to host Thanksgiving this year! I'll have to get this finished fast!   ;-)

Thanks to Judy Laquadara for giving us all the opportunity to show off our design walls!

October Color Palette

I'm so glad Judy decided to give us this great challenge! I'm learning a lot about color and having fun scouring my stash for matches every month. This block, like all the rest I've made, has this month's colors in it. When we're all through, I'll make a quilt out of them all (see this post).

 If you have any suggestions as to how I should orient them within a quilt or if you thing I should put sashing (and if so what sort?), please let me know.

Another Finish

I'm on a roll! I finished my dresden plate table runner last week and a quilt this week! I won these blocks at a quilting retreat in June and plan to donate it to the next non-profit that asked me if I'd agree to "donate one of your pretty quits" for a silent auction, something that's quite popular in the community-oriented town I live in in northern California. All those who came to the retreat were asked to make a 10-inch "batik and white block" for a drawing and 25 people participated. Two winners got 12 blocks each and I was one of them!

Since I didn't have to make all the blocks, I thought I'd take the time to do some nice quilting on it and really like how it turned out.




 I do my quilting on a domestic machine, a Janome 6600. I bought it 4 years ago because I wanted a machine with more space at the 'neck' to quilting on larger quilts. For those of you who don't quilt your own quilts, I really urge you to try. Take a class in machine quilting and practice. And practice some more--it takes a long time to get really good at it but, like your momma always told you, whether it's a musical instrument or a dance routine or anything else, you'll never get really good if you don't practice. If I can do it, you can too. It's so rewarding to be able to make your own quilt from start to finish--then, it's all YOURS!  
Take a look on Judy's Design Wall Monday to see what everyone else have been accomplishing!

Almost Finished!

I love to start projects. I'll see a something fun in a magazine, find a great pattern in a local quilt shop, get inspired at a quilt show and *POOF* will run into my sewing room with its gargantuan stash and dig in. I didn't count but I'll bet I started 5 projects in the last 2 weeks--I'm hopeless.

But this week--I almost finished this quilt!! I only have the binding to sew on! The blocks in this quilt are those I won when I attended Linda Ballard's McCloud, CA retreat in June. All attendees were urged to make a 10" "batik and white" block and 25 of us complied. Since there were so many, Linda pulled 2 tickets and I won half of the blocks, plenty to create a nice quilt to donate the next time someone asks for "one of your pretty quilts for our silent auction".

Since I figured I got the blocks with very little effort, I spent a lot of time on the quilting of this quilt and I really love the way it turned out! I just quilt on my domestic Janome 6600 which I bought 4 years ago because it had a nice, large 'neck' so I could quilt larger quilts. LOVE IT!

I worked on a couple of other projects too:  made a cute little case for the new camera I bought last week! Bobo is our kitty who knows I'll be using said camera to take lots of photos of HIM. Can you blame me--he's so adorable!

See, I just can't stop starting new projects!

See what everyone else has started on Judy's great blog--

August Color Palette Challenge

I'll tell you, I'm really enjoying this Color Palette Challenge that Judy has invented for us. I knew I couldn't make a whole quilt or even a big project each month so I chose a fun block from the great book "Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts" by Judy Martin. The blocks in this book are really original and it's fun to make this block each month out of my stash with the palette colors. I plan to make them into a quilt at the end of the year.

I have to say, I was not thoroughly fond of this month's colors as they read "muddy" to me and I tend to like clear, bright colors. But along with all the other blocks, they totally work--and, I learn a lot about my preconceived notions about what I THINK I like. August's block is in the lower left in this photo.

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!