Cspoonquilt

Here's another mess of Orphan blocks from that large stash that I was given in June.  In the search for UNITY in any design there has to be something that pulls everything together.  All the parts need to have some commonality.  It can be achieved in a variety of ways: color, tone, theme etc. I've always maitained that you can mix any BRIGHTS with any other BRIGHTS.  One Bright in a bunch of soft colors shouts; but, throw it in with a whole bunch of it's own kind and you have a loud party.  Well that's the idea behind this grouping. Now I just have to figure out the geometry of it all, how can I get them to fit together?!   Stay tuned. While the above grouping presents a big challenge some blocks just say "put me together fool!" These six blocks came with a little extra fabric to make the corner stones and I had the yellow for the sashing in my stash and Debbie D. gave me the batik for the border and ta da, instant top! It could be a cake mix?!...

Lynn over at Klein Meisje Quilts finished her Sail Boats quilt which was started after she saw my post on the 2015 June BOM.  It's a fabulous quilt check it out at this link: http://kleinmeisjequilts.blogspot.com/2016/07/and-all-ships-at-sea-quilt-completed.html?m=1 I have finish the top to my Sail Boats quilt but it's not quilted yet.  It is such a Cheerful quilt! I call this block a Scrap Eater!  You can take the ugliest fabric and put a bright solid fab boat in front of it and you hardly notice the ugly fabric!  I used a lot of ugy fabric. It's a good block for random scraps too because it does not take a lot of fab to make the background.  I really like the half drop set of the blocks too. That was the set in the original quilt that inspired me to use this block for the BOM.You can find the link to my original post in the BOM tab at the top of this page. Have a great week! cheers, Claire W.

My Friend Ann Gavin used several of my BOM instructionals to create this original design / layout!  Ann picked 4 of the 8 block designs that I posted in 2016.  The sail boats from June, the squares framed in green HST from Oct, the 16 patches from August and the 9 patch variations from Feb. Instructions for all these blocks can be found in the "PVQA BOM" tab at the top of the page.  By repeating these 4 blocks she made enough blocks for a bed size quilt!  Ann very cleverly dealt with the fact that the blocks were not all the same size by organising them into rows and colums.  The 10" blocks went into the 1st , 3rd and 5th colums and the 16 patches went into the 2nd and 4th colums with a sashing strip at the top to make them 10" in height..  Then the colums were set apart by 3 rows of the red and white 9 patch variation blocks. Ann made the 9 patch blocks positive and negative (red in the center and then cream in the center) so that they create a ...

I've been working pretty steadily on these orphan Blocks.  The top row seemed pretty solid from the beginning and so I sewed that first hoping that the next row would become clear once that first row was done.  And that went pretty smoothly too. Below is my first arrangement for comparison.  I decided I needed a little more yellow on the left side for balance so I cut the scrappy puss- in- the- corner block into four pieces and stacked them on the left.  Another trick I use to make things work is deconstruct blocks.  Four of the blue pinwheel blocks were  actually one block which I took apart so I could spread them around.  This block is probably at least 30 years old, based on the fabric, but also you can see it's hand pieced! But now I'm kind of stuck in the middle?!  I think I may have to make a block to fill the empty space.  I've run out of blocks with Aqua or blue so I think I'll just make something that goes with... ...

Here's just a sampling of the General exhibit at the show.  The quilts are hung on the outsides of building all over town. It's really fun to wander around and see the amazing variety of quilts! I've been really interested in Kalidescope blocks lately.  The corners were (I think) intentionally imperfect.  I liked that about it.  What to do with all those old jeans? I'm not sure what the point of this was,  but it was kind of humorous?! I'm collecting fabs for a yellow, grey, black and white quilt.  there were several quilts with those colors, a real winning color combo!  The quilting on this quilt was amazing! It turned out to be a beautiful day and we were rewarded with a gorgeous view on the way home!                        Next up?  What I finished while at our retreat, or should I call it a sew-athone?!          ...

 More quilts from the side of the Stitching Post featuring their employees work . More pix from the teachers tent. You can see I really liked Sujata Shah's work.  I took pix of all three of her quilts, very fun and free and colorful! This quilt was dificult to photograph because of the back lighting.  The big dots are actually on the back. There are close to 1000 quilts at the Sister's Show.  I'll post some pix of the general exhibit in a couple of days. cheers, CW

 It rained the night before but by morning it was clearing up!! Yahoo, here's my Crew in front of the Stitching Post display!  Only at the Sister's Out door show would you get such an exotic display On to the teacher's tent...  More later.  right now I gotta hang out with my Crew, Cause tomorrow it's back home to reality.   Cheers, CW