Monitor check......

Several people yesterday commented how they liked the red fabrics I showed.  Actually there isn't a red in the bunch.  I put the red/pink group from 2 days ago and a gray strip of fabric hoping the camera could pick up the true colors on the group on the right, rust, gold, fuchsia, purple and a few touches of green.  It still looks a little red in the photo but in real life it is rust and almost brown.  I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  I know computer monitors aren't all alike and some will emphasize colors.  My really old laptop in the basement reads the colors pretty true as it is not as bright as the new computers.

I sewed the last 2 borders on the twin quilts.  I think they really needed a border to contain all of the shapes.

Here is the other one.  They won't get quilted right away because I have about 7 that need to be quilted first.  I had hand basted 2 several months ago and they are laying on my guest bed.  I don't like to fold them after they have been basted because the layer on the inside of the fold gets a big ridge in it and layers shift.  Since I don't have anywhere else to put them if I need the guest bed for a guest, they need to be quilted.  I also have a potential sale on another piece and need to finish it right away.

Twin tops, little flowers...........

I made some changes yesterday morning in the layouts and sewed the tops together before lunch.

The borders and backings are the same fabric.  I got the seams sewn in the backings and all of the borders cut. I started sewing the borders on last night but was too tired to finish them. One more day and they will be ready for quilting.  The question is do they go ahead of the 51 waiting to be quilted or just wait their turn.

I picked a little bouquet from the flowers in the pots and the Coreopsis in the garden.

This little sunflower was in the bouquet but in typical sunflower fashion, it started hanging its head which I guess is a sign that it is time for it to dry up.

Can you believe this month is 1/3 over already?  We had a day in the mid 70s yesterday, down in the 50s at night.  We had July weather in March and April, March weather in May, and now October weather in August.  Of course this nice cool streak isn't going to last, up in the 80s and even close to 90 next week.

24 blocks........

Yesterday I finished sewing the last 10 blocks.  I had to move a third design wall over to be able to get all of the blocks of both quilts up.  I have the identical block designs in the same position on both quilts.

Then I decided to move 2 blue fish blocks to the quilt on the left and 2 gold fish blocks to the quilt on the right.  I'm not sure this is the final layout but at least I have all of the blocks up where I can see them together.

I needed to do something different last night so I trimmed the 50 crooked cobblestone blocks that I have made in the last 2 months.  I think I have over 200 now to play with.

Modular quilts progress..........

On the left are 7 blocks for one of the modular quilts, on the right 4 blocks for the other quilt.  As I mentioned they are for twin boys and I think you can see now how they will tell the quilts apart.  I made more progress yesterday than I thought I would.  This is not necessarily the order the blocks will end up.  I will take them down and when I have all of the blocks done I'll go back to the design wall.

This is the next block to be sewn.  I picked up that fish print in 2 different colorways on sale a couple years ago.  On this quilt unlike the last 3 modular quilts, I am designing each 18" block and sewing and not designing the whole quilt on the design wall before I sew. I hope the blocks will look good next to each other when I am done.  I am designing 2 identical (or close to identical) blocks each time and with the ones with the large fish print one goes in each block. I have the next 5 blocks designed and ready to sew today. 

If you want to see more about modular quilts look on my Label list on the right sidebar and click on Modular quilt tutorial.

A few more stitches......

I stuck with it for 3 hours and finished the hand stitching on the binding but still have to sew the bottom edge of the hanging sleeve.  Now I'm glad I only had one choice that worked for the binding because I'm really happy with it.

Gene asked if that was an oil painting next to the bookcase unit that I just moved.  Yes, this is my art gallery wall.  Back in the  1970s there was a really active art league in this town and I bought several paintings from the artists.  The art has hung in various rooms and now I just enjoy them all in one spot.  The one on the far left is a quilt pattern made of painted wood pieces, very popular in the 1980s. 

I moved my blue and turquoise stash onto the bookcase last night instead of boxes on the bottom shelf.

Time to finish something.....

When I finish quilting a piece with a polyester thread I like to let it relax a few days before I trim it and put on the binding.  This one ended up waiting a few weeks while I decided what to use for binding.  I have very little of any of the fabrics in the top left over and I couldn't find any other piece that looked right.  I finally decided to try the same fabric as the inner border which I had barely enough of.  I had to cut the strips in half and insert a small piece of another green that matches quite well to make the color sequence follow the inner border.  I like it.  I have one side hand finished so maybe I can finish the other 3 sides and the hanging sleeve today.

It is almost impossible to get a true color photo of the cacti.  They are near an east window and too much daylight washes out the colors and not enough makes a dark photo.  I'll try it with a flash next time.  If I move them to a better location for a photo I take a chance of the buds and flowers falling off.  The 2 tone flowers are quite pretty. 

Modular quilt top.......

I sewed the top together last night.  It reminds me of iron gates and manhole covers for some reason.  This quilt top is practice for another quilt I want to make.  I have made a lot of modular quilts in the past, most before the days of digital photos.  Quite a few of them were blue jean quilts and I taught a class about using modular units.

I have shown this one before, made in 2002.  I was in a workshop where we were to work on 2 at a time.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good photo of the other one before I sold it.  This is a variation of the modules using mostly strips.

I shot several photos of this butterfly and this is the best of them.  It just kept moving around too much.  What I didn't see until I got the photo onto the computer was the bee in flight just to the left of the flower.

Sewing a modular quilt.......

Designing a modular quilt is one thing; sewing it is figuring out the puzzle.  There will only be one partial seam to sew on this one to be able to assemble it.  I changed one square from yesterday's photo, the dark red in the left upper module.  It was more blue and green in the piece yesterday so I looked through the stack of pieces and found one that was more red, for better balance of colors.  I also chose a first border from a piece of Vicki's gradation fabric.

I worked on a couple other things from my list too, but I have to admit I spent quite a bit of time reading "The Help".  Quite a few of you said you have already read it and enjoyed it too.  Today I will have to limit my reading time and do more sewing.  Sunday, a day of rest will be a good reading day.