Boxy Stars done!

Well except for the binding!  I love the way this one turned out!  Since I had decided to keep this one for my studio prior to quilting it, I used wool batting (Quilters Dream).  It’s rare that a quilt stays here at our house, but those that do, always have wool batting, it’s my absolute favorite.

I don’t know how well you can see those, the light in our living room is terrible unless I rig up the stand beneath the recessed lighting, but I’ve gotten rather tired of doing that and may never have a decent quilt photo again!

The panto is called “Tropical” by Anne Bright, and I used Isacord thread.

Studio or land... hmmmm...

I did my first customer quilt on the IQ… thank heavens it was a nice easy one!  I’ve stitched this design before, and it was a real pleasure to let the computer do it for me instead!  While it’s a nice easy open one, the face details are tedious to do… no more!

I’m not sure how well you can see these, it’s the “Monkey Business” panto on Moda’s sock monkey fabrics, way too cute!  But it’s a very busy quilt and the design gets a bit lost.  Do you think she’d make me one of these?  I adore sock monkeys!

This next quilt is one I pieced this summer, using up more of the bali pop strips I had.  Honestly, when I get through all my purchased jelly rolls I swear I will never buy anymore!  They are never cut evenly, and it makes it impossible to piece accurately.  I didn’t really have any plans for this one when I made it, but I think I’ll use it as another studio sample.  I might change my mind after I quilt it, it’s next!

Jim and I hiked all over a piece of property on Monday, and fell in love with it. It’s listed as a 40 acre piece, but the seller owns 1500 acres of adjoining land, and two sides of it are bordered by national forest.  The 40 acre section is very steep, it’s not farm ground by any stretch of the imagination but we don’t want a farm, we want privacy and a gorgeous view.  It has both in abundance, but access as is, is terrible.  We’d need to buy a bit more in order to have a section that a road could be put in, which would still be quite steep but doable.  But once at the top, the view is to die for in all directions.

Of course there would go my studio savings.  And we probably wouldn’t build on it for another 5 years or so, which means I’m stuck in the garage.

We’re going to have to give it some serious thought!

Design wall Monday

I’m nearly finished with the Boxy Star quilt top, I’m working on adding the borders now.  I’ll have this one wrapped up in the next day or two.  If you missed my earlier post, this pattern was a free one posted over on Quiltville.

The original pattern is 3 x 4 (blocks), mine is 4 x 5 but I was hoping for 4 x 6.  My goal was using up all these blue and green Bali strips, but I didn’t have quite enough for one more row. I’ve added a one inch white border, and as you can see, one section of a blue-gray two inch border.  This afternoon I’ll be playing in EQ and seeing if I can extend the two short sides a bit with another border to add some length, if not, I’ll simply be adding one more one inch white border followed by a final two inch blue-gray border. 

I haven’t quilted the purple and green quilt yet because my Bliss system for the Millennium will be arriving sometime this week, and I’ve decided to wait on these two tops so I can play.

I hope it’s cooler everywhere else, yesterday hit 110 degrees in the shade at our house.  Even with two industrial fans and a mister system, we lost all the baby rabbits but two.  I’m afraid today might be just as hot if not a tad warmer.  I am so grateful to have and be able to afford to run an air conditioner!

This morning I’m joining a new group of girls for a sewing class, where one of them will be demonstrating how to use the ruffler foot on your sewing machine.  I know how to use my ruffler and adore it, but I thought the class might be fun anyway!  Besides, I might pick up something new!

Head over to Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is up to this design wall Monday!

Update on Monday, July 11, 2011 at 5:08PM by Created by CJ

Borders on, this one is ready to be quilted!

Next to pick a thread, quilting design… and find the right home for this one. It finished out at 71 x 85 inches.

Quarter sections all done

Man!  This seemed to take forever, and the blocks aren’t even complete yet, I just have all the quarter sections for each block done, finally.

Now that they’re done, I had enough for all the blocks, but not for the sashing or borders, so I’ll pull either a batik or a marble from my stash and make the cornerstone blocks in the sashing the same as a border, to tie it together.