AQS Blog of the Week!

I'm a little late posting this, but last week this blog was the AQS Blog of the Week winner and I got this nifty logo to add to my blog!

In other news, I finished the Dancing Stars baby quilt top.

So now I have to find time to quilt it.  Hopefully before the baby starts walking.  Or finishes college...

I hope all who celebrate Thanksgiving this weekend had a wonderful holiday and all those who don't had a good weekend anyway.  We spent ours with some great friends and I have this lovely photo to share, courtesy of my friend, Kristina.

I just love a holiday that celebrates with food.

Stars and Stuff

My design wall hasn't changed much since last week because I haven't had time to sew together the stars (although I do like the arrangement).  I was hoping to have the borders finished, but last week just flew past and then the weekend evaporated.

It does sport some pretty fabrics on the sides of the stars -- they are the result of playing around with transperse dyes.  You can read all about it in my post here at ...And Then We Set it on Fire.

To check out more design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Dancing Stars

Today's design wall is full of dancing stars.

They're eight inch blocks that will be a baby quilt ---soon, I hope.

And those stars in exile on the upper right? They're over there because I cut them wrong and they're out of step.  Marching to the wrong tune.


To check out other design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.  

BOM Stars for September

Yesterday was the meeting for my 2011 BOM group.  This month we did the Lucky Star -- which I didn't do.

And the Morning Star.  Which I did do.  That's mine at the lower right.  This was a paper pieced block.  I fussy cut the center pieces with templates.  

The trouble is, I didn't allow for the fact that paper piecing is done backwards.  So when I cut out my little pieces, they were going the wrong way.  And then I had to paper piece it from the wrong side.  Sheesh!

So my star spins in a different direction than the others  (It's a lot like me, I suppose).

The little one in the group picture also spins backward, but I think that's because she did hers in EQ7 so that she could print it out in the smaller size.  I don't know how she got it reversed though.  Maybe she just liked it better that way.

Also yesterday, I packed up my "Pieceful Tigers" and the pelican quilt and shipped them off for the AQS show in Des Moines.  The tiger quilt is here and the pelican quilt is here.

Oh -- and it wasn't the Saints playing the Packers last night -- that's the season opener next week.  Last night, they beat played the Chiefs.  

More Goofing Off With Spinning Stars

 In the previous post I shared a small star quilt created in EQ7 that had some mistakes in the block, so the patches had color where I didn't intend color.  I have fixed that block and made a couple more virtual quilts.

I love the way that they seem to glow with the lightest colors in the centers.  Well, that's enough fun.  Back to work.

Goofing Off with Spinning Stars

Yesterday, I saw a beautiful "Spinning Stars" quilt at "Musings from the Deep South" which is here.

So I just had to figure it out in EQ7.  It took less time than I thought it would.  But I had help from here and here.

It was trickier than I thought it would be and I made a couple of mistakes coloring it because I didn't close off my patches properly.  I might go back and do that when I have more time.  Turns out -- when you set the blocks in the quilt, you have to rotate every other row to get it to come out right.  So here is a small sample.

And it took way less time to do it in EQ than it would have for real.  

A Whole Lotta Stuff

Last week was incredibly busy.  In addition to all the usual stuff I had to do, I helped take down two quilt shows, helped tie the community quilt, attended  the piecing group thing on Thursday (2011 BOM), and drove to Monroe on Friday to be part of a quilt workshop.  Phew...and that was just the quilty stuff.  Consequently, my design wall looks the same today as it did last week except for the addition of the star I didn't finish on Friday.

These are some more of the Lemoyne-based blocks from my February presentation for the 2011 BOM group.

These are the blocks for this month.  Mine is the one with the navy background.  This block is called "Enigma Star."

This is the fabric we used for the sashing and the perle cotton we used to tie the community quilt (you can read more about that here)

Here we are working on the quilt.  That's me behind the camera. :~D

We finished tying the quilt and Susan Young is going to do the binding.  She promised to let me photograph it when it's finished.

And this weekend, spring seems to have sprung (finally) here in Wisconsin.  These are some tulips that came with the house when we bought it.  They're always the first thing to bloom.




And there's a bud in the only hyacinth I could find in the garden.  I did find a lot of dandelions, though.

To see more design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Blue (and Green) Monday

My design wall for today holds those star blocks I've been fretting about.  I'm trying to create a zigzag frame for the feathered star.  It's going well -- but I worry that it will be too "heavy" for this delicate looking block.

Then I need to figure out how to sew them all together.  I have three or four more blocks I want to make for this and I'm thinking that I want to create four more frames.  Hmmm... having the blocks on point may make a quilt that's too big for me to quilt myself.  But I was really looking forward to piecing something cool in the setting triangles.

If you want to see what's on other design walls this Monday, click here to go to Judy's blog.

This is Rosie helping.  She's not crazy about Mondays either.  And now for something completely different...




Ahoy me Beauties!  So yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  And I missed it!  AAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I been awritin' me post in me 'ead fer nigh onto a yar now and I missed it!  Arrrrggggghhhhhh... now I will have to be awaitin' on next yar.  Arrrggghhh!

Stars With Pizazz

I have been working my way through the blocks in the pattern my First Thursday Piecers group has been doing, but I was getting bored with the blocks.  Part of that is my usual reluctance to do "someone else's work" and part is due to my desire to be challenged.  So I got out my EQ7 program (which doesn't need the internet to work once it's set up) and created some new stars.

This block was inspired by a quilt I saw at Quilt Expo last week.  Of course, I had to make it different for me.

This block is one I saw in the latest issue of Quilter's Newsletter called "Double Windmill."  I recreated it in EQ because then I could play with it in my virtual quilts.  Also, I wanted to do different colors and values than they did.  That was easy to do once I had it in my virtual sketchbook.

You can get directions for it here.  Apparently it's in the block library, but I didn't really look for it -- I was having too much fun trying to create it in Patch Draw.

This feathered star was in the block library, but I added the little rays in the background areas.  I'm not afraid of set-in or partial seams, but this was a nightmare to sew together.    I pretty much used the directions in this book (click here), but Marsha McCloskey must not be a smarty pants.  All of her stars have half-square triangles here where the little green squares are, which makes piecing them much easier.  Oh well, I wanted a challenge.

This was the first of the virtual quilts I made.  I put the feathered star in the middle to showcase it, but I think it's too, um, feathery.  It's too light for the middle --it looks insubstantial there.  I haven't made the star that's in the four corners yet.  It's next on my agenda.

Once I had them created in EQ, it was easy to make up a bunch of quilts.  I would never make these in real life because I would never want to make more than one of a block.  But it's fun to play.  I really like the secondary pattern the rays create here.

This is more of a sampler -- but it still has four of each of the new stars.  I like the way that EQ allowed me to use part of the star in the triangles on the edges.  I think I still need to add a couple of borders on this one.

Chubby Stars, EQ7, and a Couple of Rhinos

While blog-hopping, I discovered these really cool stars: Chubby Stars!  They are part of a "Chubby Stars Quilt Along" by Tracy at Tracyjay Quilts.  She has a button you can add to your blog:

And all kinds of information about it on her blog.  Tracey kindly gave me permission to feature it here on my blog.

I don't have time to join -- although it's tempting.  But I love this block.  OK, I pretty much love all stars.  But this one is unusual and, depending on the fabrics and values one chooses,  it could have some pretty cool secondary patterns in a really beautiful quilt.

In my Third Thursday EQ class, we were assigned homework.  Pick a quilt and figure it out in EQ.  Easy peasy, huh?  Well, that all depends on the quilt.  And the blocks.  And because my EQ skills are, um, shall we say, developing?  Not so easy.  So I drew the block in "patchdraw."  It took me several tries before I got it right.  I finally figured out the correct grid values, and, VOILA!  It was easy!

Then I played with the cornerstones.

After I figured out the blocks,  I could play with values and colors.

I like 'em all.  Thanks, Tracey!

Beth wanted to know which of the fiberglass animals at the zoo yesterday was my favorite.  I liked a lot of them -- and took pictures of most of them.  This rhino was my favorite.








The backbone and tail were a snake!  So cool.




And just for reference, here is the real thing.