Design Wall Monday

I’ve have been busy and not all of it sewing related. I have been line dancing at work during lunch for 2 months. Last week I realized that my recreational center also holds line dancing on Mondays and Wednesdays. I attended both days; had a lot of fun and even convinced my daughter to go with me on Wednesday. Now, that means I didn’t progress on much sewing and when I did, I started experimenting. And if that isn’t bad enough, I’m having problems with one knee that is slightly swollen (probably from the increased 4 hours of dancing.) I’m working on that but let’s move on to the sewing this week.


I did manage to get the borders on the scrappy bento box and now have a flimsy. I still need to get back pieced and make the binding.  It's folded in half though so use your imagination.  It's about twin size.

The batik bento box is still on my design wall. However, I did sew two bottom rows together. I was able to sew these together without the use of sashing. I haven’t had time to decide what border fabric I’ll use.

 I now have 152 4-patches made of the 305 needed. As you can see in the photo, I have more strips sewn and additional fabrics pressed for cutting strips. It’s going faster than I expected and now need to pick my other fabrics for the quilt. The pattern my scrap quilting club is using is Cathedral Stars. We are breaking down the steps in hopes that by the end of the year we will all have tops made.

I have progressing nicely on the Mountain Top blocks. I now have 9 of these pieced. This is my chaining project. It’s amazing what a little extra sewing can produce.

I also made block 9 of the Quilted Fox’s BOM. We make the same block every month using different fabrics. We meet on the 3rd Saturdays. So, when I do that, I can add it to the setting I’ve already started which is different than what the quilt shop is recommending. I’ve decided I don’t want to make a quilt like the other 200 or so participants.  (Pardon the messy photo.  The block was pinned on point to a quilt I use as a curtain with other projects and documentation on it as well.)

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and found some interesting project possibilities. I found this exploding pineapple block that just look like a fun technique. Of course I tried it. I’ll use this pattern when cutting scraps (you know, the box that is overflowing very badly) instead of cutting any miscellaneous size and storing them.

While in Paducah I purchased a few charm square packs. I found this pattern and thought it would be interesting as well. I used two charm squares to make the test blocks. I like this one too, so I’m setting up a kit with the pattern for sometime down the road.  You get two identical blocks from 2 charm squares, but you twist one to the left and the other to the right.  This is now set up as a kit.

If I’m participating, I need challenge quilts for May and June. Prior to this, I hadn’t started anything and had no particular interest in making anything. I started this triple irish chain using scrappy fabrics. I thought I’d use the floral fabric in the border which lead to the colors I chose. However, after trying to work with the miniature blocks, I gave up as they are so catty wompus (sp), the seams are not matching and I DID NOT like it. Sometimes you just got to throw something in the trash and this was it. What was in my head definitely did not formulate into the end result. I did restart another miniature quilt. The top is hidden under the floral fabric. I now need to get it quilted and then add the binding. This one is due in May. I still have to decide what, if anything, I’ll do for the challenge due next month. That one is for our guild’s 25th anniversary. I have an idea, just not motivated yet to follow through.

To see more design walls, go toe Patchwork Times.

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Type-u-later,

Tea in MO

http://www.teaquilts.com