A Wedding Gift

Good friends Judy and Harold welcomed a new daughter-in-law to the family last month as their son Adam married his sweetheart, Jenna. Occasions like this are exactly why I have a closet full of quilt tops! I shopped and pulled about 5 to show to Judy. She would know best what style and color best suited the happy couple.

Carson's Courtyard won the selection process, and so off it went to Terry's for quilting. (She has done much quilting for me this spring. I will be showing you others in due time!)

Here are the newlyweds with their quilt. I hope they get many years of use out of it, and wear it out! I can see them using it at football games - Adam is a proud graduate of THE Ohio State University, so this might just go a few times to the 'Shoe. That'd be cool.

And, another UFO finished for me, too! That's cool, as well. Even as crazy as things have been around here, I am getting things done! Yay!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Carson's Courtyard

Another item can be checked off the list - well, technically, it can't because I still have to attach the borders - but to me it feels done.

However you want to look at it, I want to show you what I have finished on Carson's Courtyard. This quilt was on the big 2013 Goals list, and I added it to the "Ten Things This Summer" list that I came up with several weeks ago.

Here are a few of the blocks laid out on the bed. I was just so eager to see how they looked! I did quite a bit of adjusting and rearranging after this, but you do see the blocks a bit closer.

Here I have the top sewn together, unpressed. I told you! I was too eager to see how it looked! I couldn't wait for pressing first!

When you look at this, do the gold/yellow blocks scream too much? My eye keeps being drawn to those blocks and I wonder if I oughtn't to tame them down a bit. I was thinking of painting them with strong tea to dye them a bit. Or I could remove them and replace them with something more subdued. If you have an opinion, I sure would love to hear it.

Making new blocks would be no trouble at all. These were fun to make. You start by sewing together 4 blocks cut at 6.5 inches.

Then you measure 4 inches out from the center and cut. Do this on both sides. Flip the two cut-away parts and reattach them.

Next, you cut the same amount from the center, but you cut the other two sides. Flip them, too, and reattach. (Pardon the strange color in the above photo! Must have been the lighting or the flash! Yuk!)

Here is a stack of finished blocks. Easy as pie - a good quilt for a beginner. I used lots of my older fat quarters and enjoyed pairing up a light and a dark. The blocks are 11.5 inches.

So, my little summer list is moving right along. I have been thinking about what to work on next. Narrowed down now to these three: Swoon, the HST quilt from quilt camp, or the thimble/crumbler/tumbler quilt.

Remember when I said I was indecisive??

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Slow To Start

Listless might best describe me lately. Over the weekend, I came down with something, and I've just not been very industrious ever since. A seriously aggravating result of this listlessness is that my work on Carson's Courtyard has been very nearly non-existent.

I began cutting it out while the Frankfort girls were here on Friday morning. When I realized I was not concentrating as I should (too much chit-chat, you know!) I slowed down to avoid making mistakes. It remained spread out on the kitchen counter all weekend.

I finished cutting Monday morning, and took it all back up to the sewing room.  Here is where it still sits today, 24 hours later.

The cutting instructions were not complicated, but it did require counting...to an old English teacher, that requires concentration, and with girlfriends in the house, I knew there would be very little of that! *wink*

You can see that the colors are largely fall-themed, and I've used a lot of my older Thimbleberries and Moda fabrics, with a fair amount of select reproductions thrown in, as well.

That's a pile of 6.5" squares on the right. There needed to be 6 cut from each fat quarter. The strips on the right are the pieces that will be used for the binding. (I wonder how long it will be before I get to that point??) In the upper right corner, I have 4-inch squares that are to be used for the border cornerstones. I held off cutting the last two because I wanted to dig for a suitable fabric.

So now I just need to get busy stitching! It looks like an easy pattern, and should be a whiz using chain-piecing methods.

I did myself a little favor when I was finishing off several of those fat quarters. Instead of folding them back up to stick in the drawer, I went ahead and cut them into usable strips - 1.5"-, 2"-, and 2.5"- widths.

Hope you all are getting more accomplished than I am!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Gettin' Things Straight

Wrong. Yep, I was wrong. Hard to believe, but I have been calling this quilt on my 'To Do" list by the wrong name - for a year!

On both my 2013 Goals and my Ten Things This Summer lists I have incorrectly labeled a quilt. Duh.

The quilt I want to make is called Carson's Courtyard (not Carson's Creek). Daggum'it! I dislike messing up stuff like that.

If you are interested in making this quilt, it is from the Summer 2012 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects.

I promise to refer to it by its proper name from this point on. I guarantee, though, that I will have to stop and think before I type it, and that's a fact.

Okay, so on to other business. I have been working (but  not very hard) on the paper-pieced UFO. It is going to end up being a lap-size quilt. Only 20 blocks. I could make more, but I am ready to be done with this and so lap-quilt it shall be!

I will find a suitable gold/yellow in my stash to use for an inner border. Then I will probably add a tiny black border and then a deep red for the outer border.

Later this morning the Frankfort girls are coming for our regularly scheduled 9-noon get-together. I must get the muffins in the oven!

Happy Quilting, Friends!