May UFO Progress

No finish for me this month by today's deadline for Judy's UFO Challenge, but a good deal of progress on Caramel Blues, which at the beginning of the month was only the center of the top.  I cut and added borders, a pieced backing, made the binding, and I'd say it's got about 1/3 of the quilting completed. 

Slowly more basting pins are being removed.

All the 9 patches have pumpkin seeds in the corner and center blocks.   Some of the rectangular pieced squares have Xs quilted through...

...and I'm liking the Xs through the alternate squares on the 9 patches, but am torn about stippling in the framing triangles.  I don't want to overpower the 9 patches.  In the meantime some stitch in the ditch around all the hourglass blocks is giving me time to ponder.  My DH really likes this quilt and is happy I said it's for us, unlike so many of the quilts I make that fly out the door the second they are completed.  I'll be really pleased to add this, when completed, to my dream goal--a stack of handmade quilts in my home!

Holiday Work

Holidays are sure nice to spend at home, doing whatever one pleases!  I puttered about all morning with some household chores, blogging, and thumbing through magazines for quilting ideas for Caramel Blues.  It was decided the quilt really deserves custom quilting for its traditional bones.  I remembered a recent post by Kathie http://inspiredbyantiquequilts.blogspot.com/2012/05/todays-quilt-to-bind.html.  I really liked those pumpkin seeds and felt they would look good in the 9 patches.

Some 2" squares drawn on a scrap of muslin and attached to the excess batting around the quilt sandwich were my practice piece.  I'm a "no mark" kind of gal so this was all by eyeball.

At first I was twisting the sandwich back and forth to stitch the same side of the pumpkin seed in each square, but then I remembered this post by Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Fransson regarding her orange peel quilting.  However, since I was using a walking foot and working on a diagonal, I decided a serpentine would work better.  And it did.

Some of the pumpkin seeds are nice and fat and others are a bit slimmer, but they turned out pretty well.  Only the center square will have crossed seeds (try to say that three times fast!).  Once all the 9 patches are completed, the framing triangles around each will receive some sort of stippled type design from the Free Motion Quilting book, alternating designs between the caramel and cream sections.  Not sure about the borders yet but that can be decided later.  Can you tell I'm not much of a pre-planner?     

Design Wall Monday--Memorial Day 2012

Happy Memorial Day! 

My design wall is not up yet in my newly rearranged sewing area, so it is a design table this week.  Late last night I pulled out the Cocoa Baskets project box and what was left of the Steam A Seam fusible package and got to tracing baskets.

I like the Steam A Seam because until it is ironed down, it is repositionable.  (Note the nice big scrap I saved myself by lining up the applique on the far edge!)  Although the package directions state it is not required with this fusible, I'll zig zag the edges of the appliques with invisible thread. 

Six yummy baskets ready for stitching.  Laying out all the completed-so-far 9 patch, churn dash and basket blocks will help me determine what colors/fabrics can be repeated in the setting I chose.  I do have some other backgrounds to cut from and am really liking the striped ones.  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times.

TGIAHW

TGIAHW--Thank Goodness It's A Holiday Weekend!  Finally a long weekend with time for some quilty stuff.  Grant helped me set up my tables so I could get Caramel Blues pinned.  The quilt is about 58" square so fit on my two portable tables just fine.

All my sewing room pictures the last year and a half have included either a drum set or amplifiers in the background, so the corner seems a bit empty.  I'll soon remedy that with a design wall using a flannel-backed tablecloth.

My quilt inspector made sure the clamps were fully secured.  Thanks, Mini.

All pinned and ready to go.  Now the hardest question--how to quilt this?  I'm thinking an all over design on the largish side, mostly because I'm lazy but also since a deadline is approaching--this UFO needs to be finished by May 31!

Favicon

Hey, that was really fun yesterday--thanks for all of you who piped up and let me know what your computer was seeing :)  And guess what?  Today, I can see my favicon in both the address bar and the "tab" showing what site I'm on.  It also shows up in my Favorites list for IE.  Wonders never cease! 

I used the site favicon.cc to create my image.  Although you can start from scratch with just blank squares to color in, I uploaded a smallified version of the photo I snapped of the house block.  The image comes up pixelated into squares and you can change the color of the squares, etc to make your image look just as you want.  I saved it to my hard drive, then I went to the Blogger dashboard Layout, and at the top of the layout it says "favicon".  I uploaded my favicon file from my hard drive and it worked!  If I ever want to change my favicon, this one can be removed and I can make another the same way.   

The house block was made for a swap, and I have bunch that sadly are yet to be put into a quilt. They were fun to make, though!