Sharon's Batik Wall Hanging

I have a new spring in my step today, dear readers. I have finished off the grading for spring semester! In totally uncharacteristic fashion, I submitted my grades a full week before they are due - this is an accomplishment of such monumental proportions that I really ought to be celebrating in some way, shape or form.

For the 30 years I taught at the high school level, never once did I finish my grades early. This same habit has carried over to my teaching at the university level, as well. Until now, that is. This is a mighty fine feeling, and I hope I can repeat it in the fall when I will again go back to OUC to teach two composition classes.

Enough school talk - let's get to quilty talk!

On Tuesday Sharon was here to sew and I wanted to take a quick post to show you her project. She bought a group of batik fabrics from the sale table at Old Town Fabric Shop and created a wall hanging for her daughter's house. She spent the day doing some machine quilting on it. I took a couple of pictures, and while the lighting does them absolutely no justice whatsoever, you can still get a feel for what the quilt will look like.

This puts me in mind of the Floral Columns quilts we made last June on a sewing day when Frienzie Kay joined us. Click here to review that fun project. And a follow up is here. Anyway, these long strips will be turned on the horizontal, and they vary in widths, two major differences from our Floral Columns quilts. I love the colors of these batiks, something Sharon is very skilled at - color selection and color combinations. She has a very good eye.

Perhaps we can persuade Sharon to take a picture of this when it is hanging in her daughter's house. We will share it here, if so!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Stash-Busting Batiks

A year ago, as DD Emma was about to graduate high school, I began a purple and gold quilt for her out of batiks called Bento Box.  The 2.5" strips used were from several packs of batiks, which I picked through for all the right colors. This left me with a lot of strips that had been gathering dust over the past year. A week ago Monday, when I was quilting with Sharon at her house, I just grabbed all the strips and my machine. I had no clue what I would make but since I had no other immediately available project ready for transport, this was my grab-and-go decision. How's that for spontaneity??

I recently shared a quilt by Terry of the Frankfort quilty girls that used 2.5" strips, so I used one of those as inspiration. I'll show you Terry's quilt again.

Now, I'll give you a glimpse of the blocks I've done so far.

The pile of strips.

The pattern, courtesy of Terry.

Progress.

A partial block.

And another.

Terry's quilt is well-planned and orderly, whereas mine is as random as can be. In assessing the look so far, I'm thinking I will try to be a bit more calculated in my placement for the last row around each block.

This started out being a very fun way to use up a pile of fabric. I had no intentions of using these strips or making these blocks, but I am very glad I did. Being spontaneous resulted in my feeling pretty darn good about this project.

Now I do have a potential unintended consequence. In order for the blocks to be more "planned" in the last row, I am considering buying just one more pack of batik strips. So much for stash-busting, huh?