A Spot of This...

Spot

It was a lovely, though slightly breezy, day here so I decided to pick up my Spot quilt and do a bit of stitching out on the deck in the shade of the umbrella. It was lovely because we have had long hot stretch of weather lately so it was nice to have it blown out.

I've got nine blocks together now and am really enjoying the look of it as it grows.There are another three blocks ready to be added now. I just LOVE blue & white quilts.

The original pattern doesn't have any borders, but I really like the look of the cherry & gingham print that I am using for the squares with the blue polka dots fabric so I think I might incorporate a border using it, and maybe some white. It will probably use up the last of that gingham. What a great print it has been. I picked it up in Walmart several years ago and it has found its way into a few quilts. So bright and cheerful.



And this is what happens to your photo shoot when a sudden breeze picks up!....M

The Third in a Series

As promised, here are a few pics of Jane's 'Mary Englebright' quilt, the same one that mom and Betty made. And, if you look closely you see a few of Mary's prints scattered throughout.

She started making it after she saw mom's and stitched it around the same time that mom was making hers (I have to admit that I have no recall in that regard - yikes!). Like the other two, it is all hand pieced.

Don't you just love the funky valentine/sweetheart border fabric that she used?














So there you have it - one pattern, three lovely interpretations.

Which reminds me, I still have to bind mom's....M

Heading In The Wrong Direction

I've been dithering as to whether or not I still like the pinwheels for the Spring Garden border and finally decided to take the pile that I had sewn and string them together to get a better feel for how things would look. And that was fine for a while, until I realized that this one was backwards...

...all of the others spun in the opposite direction. Or so I thought.

There are actually three blocks that are backwards to what I need. Guess I wasn't paying attention at one point! I toyed with taking them apart and redoing them but will give them to Betty instead as she is collecting orphan blocks, so now she will have a few more to work with.

And, because I have only so much of a few of the blue prints I want to be certain that they are distributed throughout the border, so I started working on two border panels at the same time. I think that I will start all 4 so that I can ensure that each of the prints is scattered all the way around. The panels go together quite quickly once the blocks are all ready so you get a great sense of accomplishment. And it's such a happy block it's hard not to have fun with them, even if a few are backwards.

The pinwheels look really sweet beside the centre panel of the top but I still need to incorporate a strip or two of other prints and probably one or two white borders as well to tie it all together. I had been leaning towards using a narrow bit of green but now that I see everything together I'm thinking that either a pink or cherry red would work too - maybe both. Time to audition a few options.

So now that I've settled on the pinwheels I'll get back to cutting.

But there are still plenty more HSTs lined up and ready to go so I'll put those together first. And hopefully I'll get everyone going in the same direction this time!...M

I'm Seeing Spots

Look what arrived in yesterday's mail...lots and lots and lots of dots! A short while back Ann Babillis from Orange Crumpled Napkin had a giveaway for this lovely selection on her blog, all you had to do was leave a comment as to what you felt was important in creating an effective blog. I don't normally enter giveaways but, you know me, if anyone ask for my opinion I am more than happy to oblige. So I left a comment and it turns out that my name was picked from the hat, so this was my reward. Aren't they great? There's also a wide two-tone striped piece included but it missed getting into the photo. I'll need to see what I can whip up with these. Thanks so much, Ann, and for your lovely note.

In addition to checking the mailbox for goodies I have done a bit more on my Christmas Flying Geese quilt.

More geese are now together which means lots of corners to trim...

I couldn't resist starting to string a few together. SO nice! At the risk of repeating myself, I'm really going to like this one. I love the scrappy nature of it and want to see if I can find a few more greens to mix things up a bit more. To move things along I'm doing all of the geese for one piece of red or green at at time rather than randomly putting them together. That way I know that I am using my light colours only once with each colour and not creating duplicates. Anal, I know, but it will give me a good variety...M