Think Inside the Box finished

It's Friday, and I have another finish.
"Think Inside the Box" is finished. It is from the book Geometric Gems by Cathy Wierzbicki. This one was a lot of fun to put together, choosing all the fun fabrics for the boxes, and the colours for the edges of the boxes, as well.
The binding is done with a really bright diagonal stripe, with a narrow piping fabric of a yellow, with red dots. This one is for our grandson Lucas for Christmas. I hope he has fun looking at all the fun things in the boxes. He's 2, so he can learn all kinds of words and colours as he grows, and learns to play the game I Spy.
I'm linking this finish to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Design Wall Monday, Oct. 29, 2012

It is dark and gloomy and cold and wet here today. We are currently feeling the outer bands of the hurricane. We've been out today and stocked up on water, candles, lamp oil and firewood, just in case something in the infrastructure around us goes down. One of the things they have been predicting is extra high waves on the south side of the Great Lakes. Our water supply for this city comes from a pumping station at the south end of Lake Huron, so we thought stocking up on some water would be a good idea. It is definitely a good day for staying indoors.

I have a finish on my design wall today. Think Inside the Box is finished. I really wanted to make this bigger. It's measuring 56x72 at the moment, and I had hoped to get it more into the twin bed size. But no matter what I tried to do, the quilt wouldn't let me. It is quite loudly shouting that it is finished and that adding anything else would ruin it. So, I'm listening

to it.
I've also finished the backing for it. I had 8 of the grass or seaweed in water type fat quarters in my stash, and have never been able to quite figure out what to do with them. I decided to combine them with some water with bubbles fabric and came up with this as a backing. This makes 2 grandson quilts done, 2 to go, before Christmas.
I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday post. There is lots of fun stuff to see there.

Design Wall Monday, October 15, 2012

Think Inside the Box is still up on my wall, but it is making progress. The first 3 rows are completely sewn together, and the fourth is all sewn and ready to be added. The 5th row has its plain muslin top and bottom triangles on, and ready to sew into a row. The 6th still has to be done.
I think this quilt is going to go to one of our, new to us, grandsons. A long time ago, for reasons I can't go into here, Scott lost contact with his daughter from his first marriage. Our daughter, Becca has looked for her on Facebook, pretty much ever since Facebook came into existence. Well, last year around Christmas time, she found her. To make a long and complex story short, Lisa, Scott's daughter, and he have reunited. She is happily married, and has 3 sons, ages 5, 4 and 2. It has been a wonderful and exhilarating experience, the answer to many many years of prayer. Both Lisa and Scott glow with joy when they are together. I am hoping to make each of them a quilt for Christmas this year.
Here's a close up of some of the fun fabrics. I think this is going to get a border of the muslin to frame the whole thing, and then another border of the novelty fabrics, maybe in 3 inch squares, as a final border. Life is so good, and God is so faithful to answer prayer. Our hearts are filled with such joy, my eyes fill with tears every time I think about it, or talk about it.
I'm linking up to Judys Patchwork Times Design wall Monday. I've already been over there to look, and there is lots of fun stuff to see.

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, Sept. 10, 2012

Not much sewing going on this past week, and not much happening today, either. I don't know what I did, or how, but I was reaching to put one of my little triangles onto the wall earlier this afternoon, and suddenly had a great big "OOOWWW" right in between my shoulder blades. One of those - I can't move I have to lie down on a heating pad please don't make me breathe - moments. Scott kindly went out to the drug store and picked up some of that Robax stuff, and I promptly downed a couple. It feels better now, but now I'm a bit spaced out, and using a machine with sharp parts that move at high speeds might not be too smart at this precise moment in time. I've added 5 purple boxes in the last week to my Think Inside the Box quilt. I'm not sure how many of these I need to do, but they are fun to do. I'm linking up to Judy's Design wall monday, and then I'm going to watch War and Peace with Anthony Hopkins, and work on block #2 of Promises and Borders.

Think Inside the Box Layout

After my design wall Monday post, when I showed this picture of the current project I'm working on, called Think Inside the Box, there were a couple of comments asking about Y seams.

 There are NO "Y" seams in this quilt. I've separated the individual triangles out a bit on the picture to the left so you can see how they go together. The big blank triangles of design wall you see there will eventually be solid triangles of the background fabric. It will visually separate out the individual boxes. The individual triangles are sewn into vertical rows, the narrow space where the design wall fabric shows through between each of the 60 degree units in this picture shows where the seams are. After all the individual units are sewn into rows, the vertical rows, shown by the wider area of design wall showing through, are sewn together. There will be spacer 60 degree triangle units sewn onto the top and bottom of the rows that will be squared off to make the straight edges. So, you see, fairly easy construction, and nothing to make anyone afraid to tackle a project like this. The hardest part is making sure that the appropriate triangles are placed in the correct place in each row, and that nothing gets turned topsy turvey. Looking at this now, I can see that I can sew the one light and two medium triangles together, and them sew the one light and the two dark triangles together, which might make the final assembly a little easier.

Design wall Monday, Sept. 3, 2012

I have a new project up today. It's from a book called Geometric Gems by Cathy Wierzbicki. The pattern itself is called "Think Inside The Box". These are using those novelty fabrics that I picked up in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago. So far, I have a box of Christmas candies, beach toys, firemen equipment, rocks and shells and the last full of umbrellas. As the quilt grows, the outside of the boxes will be different colours, but I thought it would be easier to do one colour of box at a time. This way I can cut a few, then sew a few, then go and cut some more. I have been eying this pattern in this book ever since I bought the book to do the Nine Patch Pineapple quilt as a quilt along back in 2010. It is actually turning out to be a fairly quick one to do, so far, at least. The challenge is going to come when laying it out and sewing the rows together without something getting twisted or misplaced, But that is going to be a while from now, yet.
I'm working this afternoon at the hospital, so this is going to be a short, quickie post. I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times design wall Monday linky party. There is lots of inspirational stuff to see over there.