What A Difference A Day Makes!

Last night I fell asleep ruminating on those awful borders that were too busy on the little star quilt top. Before I slept, I asked God for guidance in the matter. When I awoke, I was determined to fix the design problem rather than just to leave it. I could have copped out and just said, "Oh well, it is only a comfort quilt!" But it would have bothered me. Here is the "before:"

I was thinking this morning of using a large piece of medium dark purple that I had hanging around from a purchase at the guild table of the quilt show a couple of years ago. I folded it and held it up against the quilt to audition it. It was much better, but not quite dark enough. So I began to dig through the purple pile of my stash and found a couple more darks. One of them was perfect! It was an ancient P & B in a tiny mini print in an eggplant purple. Here is the "after:"

Now I love the quilt top! It looks really classy instead of confused. Here is a close up:

And I've decided to just call it, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

Just for the record, it took me half an hour to remove the border that wasn't working, and an hour and a half to audition, select, measure, cut, sew, and photograph the new borders. So for a total of a two hour investment of my time, I got a whole lot of mental satisfaction. It sure was worth it!

The top was nine blocks set 3X3, with a 2 1/2" inner border and a 5 1/2" outer border, so it measures 52" square now before quilting.

Pardon My Design Efforts

Some times my design sense makes a mis-step and I think that this might be one. I was working on the last three picket fence blocks to make a total of nine. Got up powerfully early for me, 5:30am, raring to go!

I've been sprinkling my corn fabric strip judiciously throughout the blocks and I'm considering naming the quilt, "Corny Stars." What do you think of that for the name of the quilt?

I also am entertaining the idea of calling the quilt, "Eat Your Vegetables." You can see the green peas and the broccoli and the apples in the photo above.

After I got the last block sewed together, I sewed the blocks into rows, three across and joined up the rows.
Then I quickly put two borders on to it, but when I showed it to Felix, he did not like the borders. Sigh. I was crushed. But both borders are very busy and the quilt is very busy. So it's all way too busy!

The inner border is a black and white checkerboard pattern and the outer border is red cherries with green leaves on a white background.

Tomorrow night is my guild meeting. This is meant to be turned in for a comfort quilt and I want to give it to the longarmer there at the meeting so that she can get it back to me to bind for the Laconia Christmas charity baskets. It will have to do!

Meanwhile, Felix has been harvesting fresh Redhaven peaches. They did not get sprayed this year due to so much early Spring rain. I guess that makes them "accidentally organic!" LOL!

In spite of the many blemishes on the surface of the skins, they are sweet, juicy, and delicious. Just ask Raven.
 I know, I know. A dog that eats peaches is really weird. She loves watermelon, too!

Good Grooming!

A few days ago,  in the ultra warm days of summer, I was able to convince Matthew to take Raven out onto the deck for a bath. She loves getting all clean and the dog shampoo is a no tears variety.

She got a good scrubbing!

Look at all those suds!

Later, after a towel rub-down to dry her off a bit, she was welcome back up on the futon.

As for me, I had gotten pretty shaggy myself as you can see here in this "before" picture.

But I was so inspired by Raven's example, that I got a haircut!

Felt great, and cooler, too!

I mailed out the last of the Curious Quilter's Postage Stamp two inch squares today, and those sweet little Civil War HST's too.

The set of ten different Half Square Triangles was so pretty laid out that I was tempted to keep some for myself. But I decided that I HAVE all these fabrics so I can always make more. So I'd rather swap 'em.

The swap is open for any HST's, not just CW, but I hope we get some folks who will put in Civil War stuff.

Doing The Needful

Very hot and humid here, so I've been hiding indoors where the house is cool with the AC. Yesterday afternoon I received my eleven partner assignments for the Curious Quilter's Postage Stamp Swap. My 1200 two-inch squares were already cut, bagged, tagged, and ready to rock and roll! One extra set I am keeping for myself.

I immediately sent out multiple emails with my postal address and a plea for my partners to send me theirs. Very soon, I had heard from seven of the eleven and spent some time addressing, stuffing, and taping envelopes closed. Then first thing this morning, I drove down to my neat tiny little post office and mailed them out.

Then I spent all afternoon filling out the paperwork to register my quilts for the Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild show. Although my guild's show is not until September 29th & 30th, the deadline to register and be listed in the printed program is Wednesday, August 8th. It was all little details like measuring the size of each quilt, taking a photo and printing it and then labeling it, filling out the form for each quilt and then stapling them together. There is only one quilt of the six that I'm submitting that is not quite finished yet, but I plan to get on that one tomorrow.

Each one of these seven stacks of Half Square Triangles has ten units, so I only need three more to make my 100, or ten sets.
 I hope I don't get too sidetracked doing these rather than trimming and applying binding to my last quilt for the show. Maybe I'll cheat and take a picture of it without its binding just for the show registration. After all, those pictures are just for insurance identification purposes anyway.

Sister's Choice Part I

When I told my sister that I was doing a quilt for her called Sister's Choice, I explained that she would have NO choice in its color, design, etc. She wheedled me into making the quilt as two twins rather than one full sized queen. I told her that it would take me two years and it has been almost that. So here is Sister's Choice Part I finished and bound. It needs a sleeve and a label to go into this year's Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild quilt show on September 29th & 30th.

I did the setting as 6 blocks by 8 blocks and after the two borders, it came out to be a nice sized 74X94 inches. I had tried doing it a little smaller, but it was too skimpy. This is nice!

The inner border is a very forgettable red floral but looks well with the cream and green paisley. For the binding, I used a Jo Morton (of Andover Fabrics) Civil War small stripe in two greens separated by a golden micro dot.

The nine patch blocks are mostly all Civil War reproduction fabrics from a blockswappers swap from way back when...I can't remember it's so long ago.

The creamy neutrals were all just garden variety lights, but the whole project is thanks to Bonnie K. Hunter and her free projects at her website. THANK YOU, Bonnie!!!!  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/sisters-choice.html

The quilting was done by Linda Monasky of The Bear Paw Gallery. http://www.thebearpawgallery.com/machine_quilting.html Linda did a large swirl on the center body of the quilt and then a lovely loop d' loop with ivy leaves on the green borders. Didn't she do a great job?

The pieced flannel backing IS ACTUALLY EVEN, but the quilt dragged down on the grass. It is an apple printed teal green panel in between two chocolate brown solid flannel pieces. The apple print was by Thimbleberries and was sold to me by my dear friend, Nann. Thanks, Nann! Here is the link to her blog:
http://withstringsattached.blogspot.com/
Every time my sister would visit my house, she would walk by the table where the apple print was sitting, and she would touch it and make yummy noises. So I know that she loves that fabric!!!

As for the second quilt? Sister's Choice Part II? Well, I will need an additional 48 blocks for that one to make them as mates. I have 42 extra blocks already made up for the project. Now I need to come up with the last 6. Sigh.

Maybe next year's show Part II will be done!

Picket Lines

Over on Stashbuster's I saw a quilt in this week's album that really inspired me. It was called Picket Fence and I was just itching to try it! After ruminating on it for a day or so, I remembered a gallon baggie that I've hoarded since October 2011. It was a swap of bonus strips that were all 2 1/2" wide, cut half width of fabric, with no particular theme or color. So I had 100 of these!

I sorted out the lights and the mediums and only worked with the darks. I cut the dark strips into 2 1/2" X 4 1/2" bricks. Then, remember those creamy neutrals that I had made into a home made jelly roll for my guild's Penny Sale? Well, I had cut a few extras for myself, too. So I used those as my lights, cutting those also into 2 1/2" X 4 1/2" bricks. Armed with light and dark identical bricks, I was ready to start to play!

You take a light and a dark and lap the ends at a right angle, right sides together, as if you were joining binding strips on the bias.

I sewed through on the diagonal by getting it started at the first corner, then placing my index finger on the end point corner, so that I could see where I was aiming. As Bonnie Hunter would say, "Aim and shoot!"

I finger-pressed the units to the dark side. The large 12 1/2" block is made up of four quadrants that are 6 1/2" unfinished but will finish at 6" in the quilt. For each quadrant, you need two light/dark units, and one dark/dark unit, for a total of three units making up one single quadrant.

It is very important to make the units all the same way.

I had such fun making these and then joining four together to make the center star "pop"!

I got two made, here is the second one:

It doesn't show in these pictures, but as I worked on the singleton units, I DID take the time to sew the extra seam to make bonus triangle squares, a la Bonnie K. Hunter. Someday, Ocean Waves!

Flaxen Strands

Yesterday, I braved the terrible heat and humidity to attend a flax dressing historical demonstration that was held right here in Gilmanton. It was hosted by the Gilmanton Historical Society, and the presenter was Gina Gerhard of 752 Murray Hill Road in the town of Hill, New Hampshire. It was a fun outing and a divergence from all my cotton quilting fabric to learn about colonial processing of flax.

We were lucky that the rain held off until the night.

Everybody gifts me those calendar-printed linen dish towels each Christmas and I never appreciated how much trouble colonial women had to go through to make such an item.

Check out that flaxen wig in the upper photograph! Imagine that.

Sorry the above photo is rather dark, but off to the right were two women spinning flax on spinning wheels. On a third spinning wheel, wool was being spun for linsey-woolsy.

It was a very enjoyable presentation and if you would like your own guild or group to inquire about having Gina Gerhard give her talk at your event, her email address is dyednwool@aol.com.

Raven did not go because she said there were no dog biscuits so it was boring.