To border or not to border....that is the question

I  actually have a Wednesday update.  I finished putting the blocks together.  I think I like it better without a border, but the jury is still out.  I love the colors and how they blend together.  Thanks so much Ellen for charging me up with grey and yellow.  Perhaps I will be able to move on to a different color combo soon.

 This was my next dilemma.  My 50 year old state of the art house had an intercom system.  When we replastered the bathroom, my DH asked if I wanted to keep the speaker.  At the time, I still used it occasionally so I said we should leave it.  Fast forward 5 years, we never use it.  I removed it when I was painting the bathroom.  My husband asked me what we should do with the hole, and I said not to worry about it.  I had an idea.  (sorry, I don't know why blogger turned my photo)  I measured the hole and I set to work.


It is all quilted and the binding is ready for hand stitching.  It will look lovely hanging right above the light switch covering the hole that I should have removed when I had the chance.  I made with with the twister template that takes the 3 1/2" squares.  I think this is a nice size for table mats and hole hiders.

This quilt is to hang in my dining room to help control the noise of my children who can't take turns talking.  When they were younger, we had to have a talk stick.  The kids were only allowed to talk if they held the stick.  At this age, they would probably just whack each other with the stick. 

I have been trying to pick the perfect binding color.  I had tried at least 10 colors from my stash, but none of them seemed to fit.  Today when I hung the quilt, it spoke to me.  I have the binding attached to this quilt as well, so I have plenty of hand stitching to do. 

 After a little work, it was time to clean up the scraps.  I had pictures of the "in process", but it was just too embarrassing to post.  Wow is my studio messy.

Design Wall Monday

I spent the weekend doing this, so there wasn't much sewing time.  It was definitely another HOT weekend.  The boys did very well in the first game, but they were a different team for the second game.  This is the end of baseball for the year...unless he does fall league.














I started to put this quilt together and I decided to make it larger.  I am very pleased with how it is turning out.  Don't mind the messiness on the side of the design wall.  It will be 9 X 11 blocks, or 54" X 66" without borders.  It will be nice couch size.  The pattern is from Moda Bake shop.  I love how a picture will show the blocks that need to be moved around or concentrations of colors. 

If you want to see more from my yellow and grey adventure look back through my posts last week.  Thanks for visiting.

Plus Quilt

This was a lap quilt on the Moda Bake Shop.   The designer is April Rosenthal.  I thought it would be a nice pattern to use up some more grey and yellow.  I accidentally cut too many pieces (double), so I will either make one larger quilt with 72 blocks, or 2 baby quilts.  I like this design also.  The solid grey is from Connecting Threads, and the color is Ash. 

Decisions, decisions....2 quilts, or 1.....

Flowers Won

Once I put the big floral up on the design wall, my heart was singing.  I don't normally purchase these kinds of fabrics for my stash, but I was collecting greys and yellows at the time.  I think it really makes the quilt sing.  I plan to use a yellow for the binding.

I am planning one more grey/yellow quilt with these same scraps.  I am sure I can find some baby that would love this quilt. 

Binding Day

I am in the studio again today - Yeah!!  We received just 1" of rain this week.  It was a nice gentle rain, but I hope we can get more.  It is just crazy how I stand outside listen to the thunder, see the lightning, but yet no rain.

I worked on cutting bindings today and getting them attached to quilts.









The blue binding was cut on the bias.  It seemed like it took forever to sew the bias pieces together. This quilt was made from a quilt kit that I purchased from Pohlar Fabrics in Liberty Indiana.  I made the quilt larger by adding some fabrics from my stash.  I was a bit nervous if I would have enough binding.  I admit, I didn't measure the perimeter or look at a chart for bias binding.  I just cut the whole piece of fabric that was in my quilt kit.  It was a perfect binding experience- none of the miters ended up on the corners.  Here I am getting ready to turn the final corner.

This is the view of the floor when I turned the final corner.  Are you kidding me?  No wonder it seemed like I was sewing strips together forever!  I guess the kit had an extra generous amount of fabric included for the binding.  It was labeled bias binding, so I know I made it correctly.  The only thing I can think of is that I made mine 2 1/4" and they could have figured yardage on 2 1/2" binding.  I measured the leftover binding- 346".  This is enough binding for a 75" x 90" quilt.  It is now living in the bias binding container until I have a quilt that needs aqua and pink binding.  These are the finished quilts.  Well, not quite finished, they need the hand sewing done.

A little more sewing

I was running back and forth from the retreat on Sunday going to ball games, so I never turned my machine on.  I did manage to cut up some fabric that was gifted to me along with some matching colors from my stash.  I wanted to make a few baby quilts with it.

I started with a jelly roll race quilt.  Both my girls gave it the thumbs down.  I agreed that the squares didn't occur spaced evenly, but I still like it.  I love the color selection.
















This is made from Lola's Coin Quilt.  It goes together very quickly also.  It is basically the same colors minus the black.  It has a much softer feel.

To complete this, I just need to add borders.

What do you think of these selections?  I think I am leaning toward the charcoal border with the large flowers.    I like the one on the left also.  The dilemma is....if I use this one, it will be gone.  I know you feel the same way!!  Those special pieces of fabric that you don't want to give up.  Which one do you like? 

Finally some sewing

I finally made it back to the studio for a little sewing.  Funny how life gets in the way of sewing.  I hope I am done with painting and house cleaning for a while, but those duties never end.  Perhaps that is why quilting is so rewarding.  When you finish a quilt or a project, it is done forever!  I can clean a room today, and I have to do it again tomorrow.

Most of my sewing was done at the library.  What a great little retreat.  The project this time was the twister block.  It was a lot of fun to see the projects be completed.  One person was inspired (or guilted) into making the miniature version for the FW quilt. 

These are the projects that were hung to admire at the end of the retreat.

The partial quilt on the bottom left is Nancy's.  The funniest part is that I had brought that green to the retreat for my FW quilt, and it worked out perfectly for her twister.  I love it when those kinds of accidents happen.


There were lots of opinions on color choices.

Several people contributed to my scrap bucket which I put on the cutting table.  This is a twister skeleton.  There is a bias square left after the twister blocks are cut.

This is the remains of the skeleton after I have cut 2" squares.  There is not much left.  If you want bias squares, you can get 2 1/2" out of them, but I cut 2" squares on the straight grain. 

This is my finished twister minus the borders.  What do you think?  Do you like the red or the green?  I am not too sure about the larger border either.  Perhaps it is because I only have about 5 floral pieces in my stash.  I have to admit that it looks better in the picture than I thought it did.

Tonights agenda

Today was more painting....but tonight more of this...