A friend's blocks........

My friend Merrill, one of the art quilters, uses a lot of unique fabrics.  Here are her first finished paper pieced log cabin blocks.  I think it is going to be a fantastic quilt.  We had a beautiful warm sunny day yesterday.  We haven't had a frost so everything is still growing.

 I'm going to add this notice to the bottom of every post for a few days.  I realize that cellphone readers don't see my sidebar unless they click on "view web version" so they would miss the opportunity to sign up.


Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog (or click on the link).  I'll be opening a new online store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

Still working..........

I finished cleaning the basement because the art quilters are coming today.  I haven't seen them since the Monday before my pacemaker surgery, 6 weeks ago.

 We are still measuring quilts, stacking them when all of the stats are entered in the new online store.  We're still hoping for a mid-week opening.

 I'm going to add this notice to the bottom of every post for a few days.  I realize that cellphone readers don't see my sidebar unless they click on "view web version" so they would miss the opportunity to sign up.

Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog (or click on the link).  I'll be opening a new online store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

Details, photography..........

My daughter and I have spent hours measuring, photographing, writing descriptions, etc.  This pile is waiting to be photographed.  She is setting up the new website because I don't have a clue how to do that.  





I'm going back over all of the quilts and taking detail shots and making sure there are labels on most things.  I don't usually label baby quilts or table runners.

 A few more days and we hope we are ready to show it to all of you.

 I'm going to add this notice to the bottom of every post for a few days.  I realize that cellphone readers don't see my sidebar unless they click on "view web version" so they would miss the opportunity to sign up.

Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog (or click on the link).  I'll be opening a new online store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

3 ways to make Hunter Star quilts.........

One way to do Hunter Star is in scrappy format with 8 different triangle sections making up each block.  I really like it and probably will continue making blocks like this.





Another way is to have all 8 of the triangles that make a star block of the same 2 fabrics.  This is the first Hunter Star quilt top that I made in 2015.














The third way was the layout of my most recent Hunter Star quilt top.  In this one the quarter square blocks are 2 triangles from the same fabric combination sewn together and placed diagonally across from each other and a second combination is in the other 2 corners.  In this quilt each fabric pair is in 2 blocks rather than all in the same block as in the photo above.  That makes this one look a little more scrappy but not as random as the first photo.
You can see that a little more clearly in the shot of one block.

 I hope this gives you more ideas for playing with the blocks if you make a Hunter Star quilt.




I'm going to add this notice to the bottom of every post for a few days.  I realize that cellphone readers don't see my sidebar unless they click on "view web version" so they would miss the opportunity to sign up.
Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog (or click on the link).  I'll be opening a new online store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

Fabric!.........

I got a wonderful treat in the mail a couple days ago, the new 2017 fall Kaffe collective, some in half yards and some in quarter yards.


Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog (or click on the link).  I'll be opening a new online store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

Top sewn!!...............



Here it the sewn top.  I love the texture that the Australian fabrics have with all of their little dots.  It is close to 59” x 70” and all of the edges are bias so I’m not sure what the finished size will be.  I think I should add a border to stabilize it so I’ll look today to see what I have that would not take away from the pieced blocks.  I have already staystitched but that isn’t enough to keep the edges straight but it will keep them from stretching.

 Take a look at the new sign up form on the right side bar of my blog.  I'll be opening a new store soon and will be offering quilts, quilt tops, fabric kits and more.  I'd love for you to be first in line when the store opens.

And I chose..............

I chose to sew the right side layout.  Thank you for all of the comments and votes yesterday.  24 chose the right side layout, 11 chose the left side (see yesterday's post if you don't know what I'm talking about!). 10 people like both sides equally well or were undecided.  I just turned 2 quarter blocks a half turn on every big star block on the left half to be the same as the right half layout.  Then I noticed the dark squares touched the top and bottom of the quilt but the ends right and left were only half a square.
I took half blocks from the left and placed them on the right edge and now I was really happy with it.  Now it is ready to sew.  Well, not really, there is one quarter block turned the wrong way in both of these photos.  Actually I moved a couple blocks too after the first photo was taken.


Here is a large view and a small view so you can see how different it looks.  In the large view the star points seem more prominent and in the small view the plaid or gingham effect is more visible.

Half and half..........

I finally made it to the design wall yesterday.  I started doing the layout wrong and changed to what I thought was the correct way.  Then I decided to put the other half up the way I thought was wrong and see which way I like it best.

On the layout on the left the star points alternate, light, dark, light dark.  On the layout on the right there are 2 dark, 2 light, 2 dark, 2 light points.  I think I have seen both of these layouts before and never noticed what the difference was.

I know it is an optical illusion but the stars seem closer together in the left layout.

Some of the stars are low contrast because of the busy prints.










With the plainer light prints the contrast is higher. 




Which layout do you like best? (I probably won't answer comments today but would love to hear from you)