One More Go 'Round with the Western Quilt

As the year finishes up, I'm also finishing up with Block of the Months I've been following on the web.  One of those is Aurifil's "Designer of the Month" Series hosted by Pat Sloan.  The theme for the Series this year is the Color Wheel and each designer made their block according to the color assigned them.  As a viewer, you can participate by making the block offered for a chance to win some Aurifil thread. 

Up to now I had been content to just "ooh and ahh" over the blocks presented but this month's block immediately struck a chord with me.  Designed by Amanda Murphy, I could see plugging fabrics into the block from the Western quilt I recently gifted!  So even though I should be catching up on mystery quilt piecing, I figured why not?  I had a leftover photo transfer square that made a great fussy cut for the center of the block and it'll be that much less scraps to process now that the gift quilt is finished.

This is the what I came up with for the December block design:

 

Interesting thing about this:  It just so happens that the thread I used to quilt the majority of quilt that the fabric came from was Aurifil #2370.  When I had to switch machines in order to keep sewing, I continued to use that thread for my mystery piecing and subsequently for this block too.  Also, Amanda lives in North Carolina  and that's where the gift quilt was sent too!

Let's hope all of this is an omen for a win!

Have To Throw In The Towel......

....on the "Confetti" scrap quilt project!

This is as far as I got and today is the deadline for the Fabrics 'N Quilts Scrap Challenge.  They've been holding these challenges for five years now and the uploads for next year's challenge will begin right after the winners are picked for the current one.  I will be going over to see what is posted and to see the projects submitted by any of the gals from the "Scrap Bags" chat group over on the Connecting Threads site.

In my last post I said that having a deadline usually helps move along a project quicker than if I don't have one.  However, in this case, the sewing went slowly (and sometimes not at all) because as I began putting it together I kept changing my mind about the direction I wanted it to go.  Both of the original patterns I'm working from (and I posted about that here) used white or cream for the background sashing fabric.  I had planned to do that too until I saw this "Dictionary" print that I loved and thought would work well with the scraps of (darker) shaded fabrics I tend to use.  

When I began attaching the accumulated scrappy four-patches and squares to the sashing strips, I went back and forth about if it would still look good with the scrappy braid border originally planned.  At that point I began to think a regular border would go better.  I found this red print that looked good with it all and then a stripe that looked good with the red print.

  However, I still wasn't totally sure I wanted to give up the braid border although using both was totally not an option (that would be a little too much).  I also realized that I haven't used all the four-patches I have and using them with either border option has the potential to make a Very-Big-Quilt and I doubt I now want to go that way either.  At this point, I'm still considering whether or not to add a few more rows to what I already have on the wall and what the final border option will be.  So this definitely won't get finished this month but I am determined to get it done by the end of the year.

The other good news is that I did make progress on my Halloween quilt project.

I did some cutting, both for the project and because I had the perfect fabrics for the fabric swap being conducted at this month's Empire Guild meeting.  You had the option of trading for orange or Halloween fabric and I did both (one set of fabrics I gave and envelopes I received in exchange are on the upper right in the picture above). 

For this quilt project (initiated waaay back here), I've cut large black and orange triangles for the applique block centers and small black and cream/white triangles for the HSTs that go around the blocks in the "Hallowe'en 1904" side of the quilt.  I've also cut orange, a few gold and black background fabrics into squares to make sawtooth star centers, flying geese star points and alternate squares for the "Midnight Silhouette" side.  Leader/ender work has been done sewing up the HST triangle sets in between attaching the "Confetti" sashing.

The rest of the month should be focused on the Halloween quilt because -- you guessed it -- that's another deadline I had set for myself!  I'm really hoping I do better with this one than the last one!!

Updates and A Quilt Contest Entry

The design boards are empty....

...because the Month Four Chronicles blocks are done!  Woo Hoo!

Next up is prepping the Month Five triangle sheets.

 There are sixteen blocks to do but they are corner blocks (a pieced triangle like half of a triangle square).  By the time I am done with this quilt (and the more blocks I do, the more I realize that this one is going to be a real beauty!!), I will be sooo over making quilts with a lot of HSTs!

I am hoping to get the Month Five blocks done either today or definitely by the end of the weekend because I need to continue clearing the cutting table by getting back to working on the Merrimac blocks and top (talked about here).  Then when that's done it's on to starting the Blackbird Designs Halloween quilt (that I'd like to get done by the end of October, of course) and possibly getting my sons back to piecing strips for their (winter) "Denim Blue Lagoon" quilts.

Big News!  I am Entered In a Contest!

I've entered my "Flying For Cover" quilt in this week's Quilting Gallery Weekly Theme Quilt Contest.  The theme for this week is "Flying Geese Quilts".  I've wanted to enter one of their contests for a long time but never had a quilt for the current theme ready.  Here's the quilt I entered:

If you'd like to vote for the quilt (or any of the others posted on the site) you can do so here from today until Sunday.  If you want to know more about the quilt, click back to this post.

One thing I realized is that this is one of two finished quilts that I have not put a label on!  I had designed a rather elaborate one back when I finished the quilt but it is text and picture heavy and needs to be printed on prepared fabric sheets and then hand sewn onto the back of the quilt.  At the time I had too many other projects going to want to focus on that and thought I still had details of the label design to work out.  But I took a look at my files and realize that it's all ready to go so I better prepare some fabric with Bubble Jet Set and get 'er done!  This is why I prefer piecing the label or a blank piece of fabric into the back of the quilt.  When I do that I can write the label information in as soon as the quilting is done.  In the case of the two quilts without labels, both need to have their labels attached after the fact.  But label I must, no anonymous quilts for me!

Have a good weekend!