Making an old project new.....

Years ago, back in 2012, I started a quilt called Aunt Lucy’s Medallion. I love sampler quilts, and at first glance, this one was perfect. However, it turned out that the blocks and the finished size of the quilt were smaller than I wanted. Once finished it would measure 55 inches square, not a great size for doing anything useful. So this quilt has sat for the last four years, waiting for an idea on how to make it bigger so that it could be used to keep somebody warm. Fast forward 4 years, and there is a new project on the Barbara Brackman blog called Westering Women. I love her stuff, and I’d wanted to do it, but I’ve put myself on a no starting new projects until some old ones are finished mandate. So I looked at it, sighed and went on. Then yesterday, after seeing the new block for February it suddenly occurred to me that I just might be able to mix the two, Aunt Lucy and Barbara Brackman. So I did a little playing around in Electric quilt this evening to get an idea of what size it would end up if I added these 12 inch blocks to Aunt Lucy. The result will be a lovely 87 inches square, meaning a perfect sized bed quilt. Here’s the January block all finished. I still have 14 of the 6 inch blocks to do as well. One of those along with the Westering Women block each month should be more than manageable, and it gets another old UFO back into production. It’s a win-win, I think. I have a large amount of civil war type fabrics still in my stash, more than enough to finish this, I think, which means more stash reduction..... another win-win.
Tomorrow, I’ll play some more with this, along with the blog sampler for the guild. I loaded my Disappearing Four Patch onto the machine today, so I’ll be playing a bit with it as well.

Design wall Monday Sept. 24, 2012

There isn't a whole lot more up on my wall than there was last week. All I manged to get done were 5 more boxes, with green outsides. But it did dawn on me yesterday as I walked by the wall for the umpteenth time, that the boxes weren't arranged on the wall correctly, so I fixed that. It helped give me an idea of how big it will be, and how many more boxes I need to make. I'm figuring 6 wide, by 7 long, with borders to make it to a twin bed size, which means I need 13 more boxes. I think I will have enough of the novelty fabrics to do some sort of a pieced border for it, maybe piano keys, or maybe bigger 60 degree triangles, if I had enough to do alternates of lights and darks so the each fabric would show up and not blend into each other.
I'm pondering what colour to use for the setting areas that are currently showing as my design wall showing through. Could it be as simple as a beige muslin? This will be a boy's quilt, so it can't be anything pink, or girly. White would show dirt and wear too easily. I have a lot of muslin, so maybe......
And then there is poor neglected Aunt Lucy. I had hoped to get one or two blocks a week done for her, but it didn't happen. Maybe this week.....

I have 2 blocks for her all cut and ready to go, but I never seemed to find the minutes it would take to get them done. There were bigger priorities, like customer quilts to be done, and a quilt of mine to be done for the upcoming quilt show at the end of October. I suspect that is what will be occupying a lot of my time for the next few weeks, and I LOVE it. I have the quilting design for Heartland Star all figured out, except for the borders, so that is part of today's to-do list. There just may be a sneak peak of that quilt a little later today, depending on how long it takes me to find something I like for the borders, feathers of some sort is all I know right now. I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times  Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday, Sept 17, 2012

This is going to have to be a fast one. I have to work this afternoon, and it took me a lot longer to get the "Think Inside the Box" pieces up on the wall that I thought it would.
This is what I have so far. There are a lot more to come, and once all the coloured boxes are done, I'll start to mix them all up. But I am REALLY liking it.
The other thing I got some work done on was my Aunt Lucy's Medallion. Three more of the outer 6 inch squares were finished over the weekend.
Five 6 inch squares done, 15 to go. I'm thinking of doing one or 2 a week. I'm linking up to Judy's Design wall monday.

Design Wall Monday April 9, 2012

 I have a few things that I've been working on up on the wall today. First off are the New York Beauties from last week, using the colours for the April Colour Challenge Palette. There is a new block posted today, and I hope to get a couple of them done this week.

 Then there are the Dresden Plates that I've been working on for the last couple of months. I'm doing 20 of the, and all but 2 of them are stitched down to their backgrounds. Originally, I was going to use invisible thread to sew them down, But then I started thinking about how a lot of vintage Dresdens were stitched down using a blanket stitch in a contrasting colour, often black.

I have a wall full of very pretty variegated threads that I use for quilting, so I thought "what would it look like if I used the fancy threads to stitch them down?" Answer, quite lovely. I hope to get the last 2 of these stitched to their backgrounds this week, and maybe even get a start on putting it together.

 And last, their is my Aunt Lucy's Medallion quilt, designed by Lori Smith. I'm using the collection of fabrics from Moda called Wildflower Serenade in this one, plus a few extras from my stash. I'm ready to start the next set of sampler blocks to go into the next border. According to the pattern, this finishes at 55 inches square. I generally Like my quilts bigger than this, so I might be adding something to it, although I'm not sure just what, at this point. It would make a good wall hanging, at the size the pattern gives, but I don't have any walls that size to put it on. I'll have to let this one simmer.

I'm linking up to Judy Laquidara's Design Wall Monday. Lots and lots of fun stuff to see over there.

Design Wall Monday March 12, 2012

I've been a busy little girl the last few days. I finished quilting the 30's broken pinwheel quilt for Christine. I finished the 4 New York Beauty blocks, And I finished the center of the new sampler quilt I started. And then, I got 2 out of 4 borders onto the Gratitude quilt, designed by Judy Laquidara. WOOHOO!!!
This is the center square for  Aunt Lucy's Medallion, a pattern designed by Lori Smith. When I first saw the pattern, i had no idea that it was smaller than I thought. The whole quilt finished at 55 inches square. This center section is 18 inches square. The pieces are small. But, the instructions with the pattern are quite good, and it went together quite smoothly. I'm using some of the fabric that came in the mail last week for this one, plus a few from stash as well. The next round of square for this finish at 3 inches, and are fairly basic shapes. so they should go together fairly quickly. And, since it isn't going to be big enough at 55 inches square for the bed quilts I like to make, I can use the opportunity to put Judy's Borders book to work.
These are the finished New York Beauty  blocks, from the sew along, using the March colour challenge palette.  I'm not going to sew them together until they are all done. I think I want to mix them all up, once the complete set of blocks is finished.
 And this is the quilt "Gratitude" from Judy Laquidara's book Weekend Quilts. It needs 2 more borders on it, and then I can call it done. I have 2 quilts for customers that need to be finished before the beginning of April, as well as my March UFO, so those are going to be my focus for the rest of the week. But since I usually need to sit after a couple of hours standing at the long arm, I can use that time to maybe get the last 2 borders sewn on. Also, I am going to try to get some of the squares for the sampler done each week, for the next little while, plus the New York Beauties that come out each week. Lots of fun fabric fun to be had here at my house. I'll post some progress reports as I go through the week, and hopefully have something that I can call finished by the end of the week.
I'm linking up to the design wall Monday posts at Judy's Patchwork Times. Judy has a lovely quilt up on her wall using the March colour palette. Go take a peek, if you have a few minutes, and browse through the other design walls, as well.