Design Wall Monday

Last Wednesday, I had my friend, Linda come over so she could cut some 2 1/2" strips on the AccuQuilt Die cutter.  The cutting was quick and we enjoyed the day, chatting.

The next day, I decided to cut out a quilt top using a recently purchased  6 1/2" Tumbler die.  I picked  several pieces out of my stash and in less than an hour, everything was cut and ready.  However, after an hour of placing different colors randomly across the bed, I discovered I wanted the colors to look orderly.  So, I went looking on the internet for ideas.  One was to use "Trip Around the World", which I liked but more planning would be involved and I wanted to get going on the quilt.  Then, I found this pattern...

Fall Tumbler Quilt Top  48" x 65"

I'm very happy with how it turned out.  However, I quickly discovered that the pattern pieces can easily be turned around and sewn before realizing that the colors will not match up with the pattern.  I have a nice little pile of tumblers that were sewn in the opposite direction.  These can be used in another scrappy quilt, after I unsew them all.  LOL

Be sure to check out the designs of other quilters at:  Patchwork Times.com

Design Wall Monday

Just finished the top a few minutes ago.  I had a small piece of Jinny Beyer fabric, which I cut up into 1.75" strips for the inner border. I'm happy with how the borders turned out.  The top will finish at 40" x 60", so the back will not need to be pieced.  This will be donated to Project Linus.  This was a unique way to use up scraps.

DWM 07212014

   Be sure to visit patchworktimes.com to see what
   is being created by many other quilters....

TVQA Assembly Day 2014

Last Saturday, over 500 quilters gathered for our annual Assembly Day of Quilt Guilds. Lots of fabric vendors from around middle Tennessee arrived to entice us with all the latest fabric lines. This is always a favorite Saturday each summer that we look forward to attending. We had two speakers.

Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilting was our Guest Speaker in the morning. Check out her website at: 

 Missouri Quilt Co

I have spent the morning, viewing several different tutorials that she presented to us on Saturday.

Her husband kindly held up each quilt for us to see and for photos. The presentation was fast paced, so I have enjoyed watching her “YouTube” tutorials this morning, trying to decide which one I want to make first. They are all so tempting.

Jim Gatling of Crazy Creative Life in Arkansas was our Guest Speaker in the afternoon.

Here is his website: http://jimgatling.wordpress.com/

Jim showed over 100 Quilt Tops where he had added fabrics, details, borders to the tops, putting new life back into them. Of course, he told many wonderful stories about the quilts and their makers and why they had given the quilt tops or blocks to him. Many of the tops shown on his website, were tops he had with him to show to us. Jim gave us many ideas as to what can be done to give spark to a group of blocks that do not go together. One group of blocks, he added circles to every block to create a common detail among them all. It worked beautifully.

Design Wall Monday

I finished the 4-patch rows and added a solid fabric in a "dogwood" or "wine" color depending on what color chart you find on-line.  Now to decide what narrow border to use.  I pre-cut several strips of lavender but now I'm not really liking that combination.  I found a dark blue with green and purple, which I think may look striking in a narrow border.  What is hanging on the wall is all I have and since this is a project to use up little bits and pieces of fabric stash, I don't plan to buy "just the right fabric".

Be sure to jump over to  Patchwork Times.com and check out all the Design Walls.

Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Monday

Several years ago, I won a huge stack of Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazines at my Guild's annual auction.  The quilt design I found was shown on pg. 112 of the July 2003 issue.  It is very simple using 4-patch blocks and strips.  Here is what I have pieced so far.  The design had 6 rows of 4-patch blocks and 5 strips of fabric for the quilt.  A narrow border was added and next a larger border.  

Be sure to stop by Judy's Blog  to see what others are creating.

New Discovery about Accuquilt Dies

Accuquilt was making all sorts of cute Dies for Go cutters.  I spotted (2) Dies I wanted that were designed by Edyta Sitar but they were for the Go Die and then I discovered Accuquilt made a Die Adapter for the Studio cutter, so I ordered the adapter and the 2 Dies last week.  One was the Dancing Umbrella and the other has flowers, leaves and a bird.  I'm looking forward to using those too.  I really like how large the umbrella turns out.

Go Die Umbrella by Edyta Sitar

  

Week-end Projects

Several months ago, I brought home too many pre-printed panels that I thought looked cute.  The panels were part of the donated fabric from R.J.'s.  It was time to create a couple of tops.  The first one up was the cats.  I added the blue strips.  The red checks top and bottom were donated along with the panel.  It made a nice size top, great for a teenager.

Project Linus Cats panel



The next panel I chose to work on was a bunch of flowers on a green background.
To bring out the color of the flowers, I added four different strips around the flowers and then
added a 7 1/2" purple border to increase the size of the quilt top.

The top needed a little extra something...

so, I appliqued an umbrella on either side of the panel and here is what it looks like.

Quilt top with umbrellas  July 6, 2014