A Prairie Home Quilts

• Machine quilting done.
• Miles of binding being prepared and pressed.
• Also eating many homemade oatmeal butterscotch chip cookies.

The basket of machine quilting was overflowing so I decided it was time to tackle some of it.  The basket is now half empty and I’m in need of a shoulder massage and some dark chocolate.

• Let your mind wander and dream
• Forget the rules and follow your instinct
• Embrace life

More advice found while eating Dove Extra Dark Chocolate Promises.

Quite some time ago, I was on The Quilt Index and saw a quilt that was named moon in 4 phases or seasons or something like that.  The name sparked a connection to the Drunkard’s Path pieces that  I’ve been playing with a lot lately.  It got me thinking about using Drunkard’s Path pieces in a way that would depict the moon’s phases.  [I told you The Quilt Index was a dangerous place for me.] What about the quilt?  I can’t even tell you exactly what pattern it was.  It really didn’t speak to me.  Not the pattern nor the colorway — just the title and I can’t even remember if it was the title of the block layout or just a title the quilt maker gave her quilt.

I played around in EQ6 and came up with a design I liked.  I found some scraps to use in my pile of landscape fabrics.  I wanted to make this up and test my skills at sewing multiple curved seams with the sewing machine.  I felt I needed to get some practice in before I start on my many Drunkard’s Path pattern ideas.  After doing this top and some units for the Rose Basket wall hanging, I can do them fairly quickly & accurately with only 3 pins so I think I’m ready.  Here is the EQ6 design and my finished top.

You can see in the finished top that I ended up changing the position of the colors from my original EQ6 design.  I didn’t like my pink color next to the orange-y, golden brown when I had it all laid out.  The green looks better next to it.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with this top yet.  It may just become another practice piece for my hand quilting.

I’ve been working on my Crooked Path [aka Drunkard's Path] Rose Basket.  It didn’t turn out as I’d envisioned.  The roses came out smaller than I’d imagined and the basket came out larger.

This just wasn’t going to work.  The flower arrangement is suppose to overshadow the container not the other way around.  These roses really underwhelm the basket.  I was using the Clover medium-sized rose maker for the roses and switching to the large size was only going to add about 1/2″ to the rose — still not large enough.  [A side note about the Clover roses. . .  I really do like them. They're quite cute and easy to make. I will have to dream up another project to use them.]

I needed to play around with some different ideas so I hung up the basket on the design wall to percolate.  I wondered if I made a wider, longer tube and twisted and turned it while wrapping it, would it give me larger rose that would still look nice?

It kind of looks like a cabbage rose.  I think.  So there it sits on the design wall.  We’ll see how I feel about it in a few more days, but now things are looking  a bit rosier.  [tee hee]

I didn’t do this week’s Inklingo Sampler block and chose instead to do the bonus block that is posted twice a month.  I have Inklingo Collection #3 which is what is needed for the 6 pointed Star Hexagon.

Because I wanted this block to play nice with my others, I added the bits around the Star Hexagon so the block would measure 6″ square when finished.

The top is done.  It’s quite bright.  Probably because that’s what I’m drawn to.  I was able to add in some fabrics from Sonia’s scrap basket.  When I’m house sitting there, I can go through the scrap basket and take what I want.  She’s a long armer so she has scraps from her own quilts and customer’s quilt backings.  And she doesn’t do a lot of scrappy quilts so the scrap basket is usually overflowing.

I like the way it finished up.  I need to get some backing material and then I’m going to use it to practice a new-to-me hand quilting technique.  I would like to do another one like this with reproduction scraps and perhaps another with batiks.

I’ve whittled a few off my WIP list but added a few more ideas to my “want to do” list.  Sonia has an extensive book, magazine and pattern collection.  She works at the LQS.  I sit and wander through them sketching out more design ideas.  The Quilt Index is a dangerous place for me as well.  I found another quilt with LeMoyne Stars that has an unusual alternate block.  It really caught my eye so I now have it designed in EQ6.  I probably wouldn’t be so tempted to start on it if I didn’t already have 3 yards of fabric that I purchased for Guute’s Antique Quilt Club that I decided not to do.  Let’s see how long I’ll be able to resist the temptation to begin yet another project. . .