How Many Borders?

The middle part as far as the stars is about 32 inches. I tried it with another border and then some strip blocks. I wouldn't use this dot fabric for the second border. It reads as gray from a distance. It would need something darker I think.


Here it is with a narrow border to finish it as a wall hanging.
I'll have to think of it awhile before I decide. Right now I'm leaning toward the smaller wall hanging.

Cooking Again

These are cheese balls made from drained yogurt and rolled in Hazelnut Spice Mix. They tasted very similar to the very expensive Boursin cheese that we love.


Chili Prawns and White Potato Curry. The shrimps may just be the best I ever tasted. Both recipes are from Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Duguid and Alford.

Star Border

I made the rest of the stars for the border this morning. The green one with no contrast hit the garbage. I tried some paint sticks on it but it just looked messy. I might make the pink/black border slightly wider so that the star blocks will fit around it. Then I'll put a wider border, either the pink/black fabric or a black and white. I may then put on the strip blocks I made before the stars. Or I may decide to leave it with the stars and an outer border so that it stays wall hanging size. Right now it's about 30 inches square.

Dancing Stars

Today I spent some time making dancing stars. The only one I don't really like is second from the bottom on the right. There is not enough contrast on it. I am thinking now that the black/pink border may be wide enough. I have a lot more stars to make before I come to a decision though. Strangely, my scrap pile seems to be a big as ever.

Words Assembled

I assembled the words today. At first I had Nietzsche spelled wrong but just had to add a few more letters. I noticed it before I assembled the words. I have noticed now, though, that the H in Nietzsche should be lower case. I did the rest of the words in upper case but thought I'd change for the author's name. I started the H in lower case, had a mental lapse, thought that I was doing upper case and changed it . Now that it's all assembled I see that I was wrong. I'm still debating on whether to change it back to lower case or not.
I'm not sure if I will use the random blocks here or if I'll make a round of wonky stars and then do the random blocks in the next round. They seem a bit too big for this round.
I'm also wondering if the black and pink dotted round is wide enough. It is 1.5 inches right now so it will be very narrow when it's sewn in. I'm thinking that it would be better finishing at about 2 inches.

Quilt Quote

I really liked the quote that PWL left in the comments so here it is, slightly abridged. Can you read it with the zig zag print I used for the letters? I'm not sure if I will keep that star or make a bigger one in the blocks. I could also make another one here and also add more stars hidden in the blocks. The words will be surrounded by the blocks I showed in my last post plus a lot more. I can see this as a sort of medallion quilt with the words surrounded by different liberated style borders.
Do you think I should add the name of the author of the quote?

New Wild and Crazy

I had some blocks left over so I started another crazy quilt. I want to put a large block of words in the middle of this one and then put the crazy blocks around it. I'm not sure what words or phrase to use. Any ideas out there?

Wild and Crazy Quilt Again

This morning I sewed the blocks together and added the black border. The black and white checked border is pieced and ready to attach. I'll bind it with black, much as I dislike hand sewing down a black binding.

Wild and Crazy Quilt

I have decided to call this one Wild and Crazy (with a nod to George and Yortuk Festrunk, aka Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd). If you look closely at the center block you can see the words I pieced together.


I didn't have room for a pieced "and" so I will write it with my machine when I quilt it.
I have been auditioning fabric for borders. I think it needs a couple of borders to contain all that craziness.

Boule

This has to be the best bread ever. This is the third time I've made it. I'd hate to say how much of it I have eaten. It's from Home Baking by Alford and Duguid.

A Few Changes

This started out having the blue in the middle but didn't end up quite like that. I am pretty well satisfied with this one and I'll probably sew it together before I start messing with it again. I may need to mark each piece somehow (sticky notes? chalk?) before I start so they won't get mixed up. Since hand dyed fabric is reversible it's going to be easy to make mistakes.
I added some rick rack to the other one. I think I'll make some more blocks for it. It's a lot of fun and is using up some scraps. I may end up spending a week arranging this one too, since there a multitudes of ways. I already see a brown horizontal line in the middle that I don't like.

Design Wall

My design wall is nothing if not busy these days. I have sewn a bunch more random blocks. The sky quilt has been rearranged umpteen dozen times and I'm still not satisfied.



Here it is completely reversed. Maybe having the red in the middle makes it too much of a target though. I am thinking I'll leave the sashing off if I can get it arranged with no obvious lines where colors contrast too much. Right now I can see a couple of places on the left side. The problem is that when you move one, you have to move half a dozen more. Luckily, I love this part of the process and I'll know when it looks right to me.
What do you think, red in the middle or yellow/orange in the middle?

Random

Every time I look at the one on the left I move a few piecs and then a few more and then a few more...and I still don't know if I want sashing or not. I dyed a piece of dark gray (the piece at the bottom) which might work if I decide to go with sashing.
Meanwhile, for a bit of mindless sewing I made some strip sets and cut them into squares. I find that a very satisfying activity when I'm stalled on a project.

Oh Happy Day!

The Shovel and the Car

Both stuck.

It's Hard to Shovel When...

A Finish and an Audition

I put the binding on this one today. I just sewed it to the back and zigzaged it down on the front. It's quite small but would do for a couch quilt. I may donate this one as well.


A few people suggested doing this one without sashing so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I think I will go with sashing now that I see it without. Putting it up on the design wall this way did help with the block arrangement. I saw a few that looked out of place when they were touching. Right now I am dyeing some fabric, hopefully dark gray. I haven't washed it out yet so I'm not sure how dark it will be. I also tried a dark blue with stars that looked very nice but unfortunately I only had a very small piece of it.

Outer Space?

The Teddy Bears are now ready to quilt. I will put it aside for awhile until I feel like quilting with a lot of thread changes. This one is quite small (about 25x30 inches) so it won't take long to do.


Meanwhile, I took a hand dyed fabric made from all the leftover bits of dye at the end of a session and cut it into 6.5 inch squares. I chose that size because it's the width of my ruler but also it's big enough to show up the patterns. I had it arranged with the red in the middle but I forgot to take a photo before trying this arrangement. I'll do some more playing around before I sew it together. The big question is, what color should the sashing be? I originally thought I'd use white or off white but maybe black or navy blue would be better. Opinions?

Teddy Bears

Since this is only about 25 inches square it will be a wall hanging, not a quilt, so I decided that it should have the houses all facing the same way. I have put the bears in the middle with green around to represent woods. I found a little piece with dragon flies that I really wanted to use but didn't have enough of it. The words will probably say Teddy Bears Picnic unless I come up with something better.

Blue Bear Houses

When I looked closer at my bear fabric, there were, in fact, bears having a picnic on it. If I put it in the middle I could easily call the piece Teddy Bears' Picnic. (BTW, where should the apostrophe go? Is it the picnic of one bear or all of the bears?) I don't know if I like the arrangement though. It is a bit confusing although it could be hung any way, but is that a plus or not?


This piece was kind of boring so I over-dyed it with the leftovers of my last session. I like it much better now.