Found the fabric, now to start sewing.

I am excited to make a lap quilt for my husband's Aunt Eva.  I am using a Kaufman La Scala fabric from my stash  for the quilt. I've been saving this fabric for something special.  I  knew what quilt  pattern I wanted to use, unfortunately after two hours of searching every quilt magazine I have, I  could not find the pattern. Instead of fretting, I got creative and discovered what I think is a better choice.  I want a simple pattern where the fabric will be the star. I settled on a version of the square in a square quilt below. It is from Christine Porter's book Viva Venezia! Timeless Quilts Inspired by Italian Mosaic Floors.

These are 4 1/2 inch squares. I made mine 5 1/2 inches.

Sample blocks - Quilt center is 9 x 9 squares.

I am planning a thin tone on tone beige  La Scala fabric for the first border. I have lots of half square triangles remaining from making the square in a square block.

I use one of Bonnie Hunter's tips to make half square triangles at the same time I made the block.

I think I can work them into another border. I plan to finish the quilt with a wide border of this beautiful Paisley from Kaufman's La Scala 5.  I just ordered it, so  I won't know until it arrives if it will do the job.  I think they is just enough purple in this fabric to set off the rest of the quilt.

La Scala 5- Dramatic Garden - Ivory/Gold

I have 6 of the 9 rows for the center completed. I hope to have this ready for my long arm quilter before the end of October.

This weekend I also tied up a few lose ends. I finished  binding the quilt my granddaughter made for her mom. 

Smokey Mountain Majesties-Bonnie Hunter pattern

I completed the fabric selections for Grand Illusions.I'm still not sure about the yellow as it seems much golder in person.  I'll put them aside until it's time for the first clue. I may end up tweaking my selections as we start the quilt.

Added the brown, yellow and a new green.

 
It's getting cooler here in Southwestern Ohio. It's getting dark earlier. All indicators that it's time to wrap up the garden and focus on quilting!. It's hard to believe in a few more week the fall show will be over. Thanks for checking in.

Shopping the stash for Grand Illusion.

Nothing like a day off from work. I plan to shop the stash and audition some fabrics for Bonnie Hunter's winter mystery. In the meantime it's a cool misty morning, and a great day to stroll the garden with a up of coffee, looking for inspiration. These  Sassafras leaves caught my eye. The Sassafras tree has tree types of leaves on each tree. Doesn't it make you want to dig out your fabrics with fall colors?

Reds to deep purple

Orange, brown and reds

All three shapes.

One day - I hope to make a Sassafras wall hanging.

Enough walking, time to pick fabric.  I am auditioning fabrics for Bonnie Hunter's winter mystery Grand Illusion. Check out the link on this blog for the full details.

Bonnie's colors are very vibrant. They are beautiful. I am not sure I'm going to use all of them.  Here are the fabrics I am auditioning. Bonnie is using an aqua. This is my version. You can see that there is a little green in this fabric. It hard to tell, but the darker spots are purple.

Inspiration Fabric.

Taking a  clue from the fabric, I am putting aside the pink and using purple. My green is a little lighter than the fabric, so I may need to search a little more. I also have a good candidate on the way in an order from FabricShack.

Pulling out purple and green.

I am not using black. I think black would be too harsh. I have order a beautiful espresso colored fabric. Hopefully it will look as good as I think.  I also needed to order the yellow/gold as I did not have enough of any one fabric to keep it as a constant.

On to the neutrals!  I have a thing for fabrics with leaves. The fabric with the leaves is a little darker than my other neutrals, so may not give enough contrast for the greens and gold. For now I'm hanging on it it. I have enough to make it a constant in the quilt.

 






So now all there is to do is sit and wait, and wait, and wait...for my fabric order to come, and the sewing to begin. I'm sure to take my fabrics in and out of the bin many times as I made the final decision on fabric. It's not like I don't have other projects. However the fabric inspector is still inspecting the quilt I need to finish binding. Perhaps when his majesty awakes I can complete the last two sides.

Can't you see I'm trying to rest?

A peaceful weekend of piecing.

Last weekend I attended a workshop by Nelly Vileikis. The workshop was sponsored by my northern Ohio Star Quilt Guild, in Port Clinton. I learned how to do curved piecing and we made a small Whirligig quilt. I decided to use some fabrics from my Christmas stash for this project. It does not have the high contrast that the pattern does, but I like it anyway. The lighter gold whirligigs will be densely quilted. I may not quilt the red and gold star. It will end up a table topper for my dining room table during Christmas. I am not sure how I will quilt the border.

I like the technique for making the curve, which I think is similar to the orange peel technique.  I plan on using this technique in the future, but rather than fold the triangle back I am going to fold it under and hand stitch it. I think that will have a nicer finished. So all things consider this will be something useable and at least it is not a waste of fabric. I learned something new and had a great time with friends.

Holiday Whirligig

The quilting begins, who knows how it will end up?

My biggest project this weekend was to finish piecing a quilt for a friend's camper. I changed my mind about some of the borders. I decided against a thin brown border. I added the leaves as corners stones on the green nine patch border. I also selected a different fabric for the thin border. It seemed to bring together the colors in the quilt. Finally the darker four inch outer border carries the colors of the panel out.

Nearly finished camping quilt.

As often happens with me. This quilt grew as it went along. I started with a panel and decided to just wing it border by border. I thought it would be small enough to do on my home machine but I am having seconds thoughts about that. I still need to do one small applique'. A nice surprise was finding the perfect wide backing in my stash. Whoo hoo (I don't even remember buying it!)

I love the details in this quilt. Mostly they are happy accidents, as this was a create as you go quilt.

If there is free time this week I hope to start my applique'. Perhaps there will be time to finish the quilting on the table topper? I'd like to have these projects out of the way before Bonnie Hunter's new Mystery! Thanks for checking in.