Long-Suffering Lone Star

Lurking in my UFO pile for the last two years is a partially completed Lone Star, in eight big pieces. This project is at the very top of the list of projects that WILL be completed this year.

This Lone Star WILL be on my bed at Christmastime. It WILL happen. Yes.

Part of the reason for the long delay on this one was the dilemma of what to do with the inset squares and triangles. Each inset square is 21"--way, way too much real estate to leave blank IMHO. What to do? Well, I spent some months under the delusion that the inset pieces would be appliqued. My friends all laughed at this idea. They know how I feel about applique. They'd smirk, "How's the applique project coming, Kathie??"

I actually began appliqueing one square. I hate it when my friends are right...

And I hated IT. It all felt awkward and un-fun to me... This has been taking up space in my house, sitting on top of a 24.5" square ruler, atop a bed, being moved between spare bedrooms, for two years now. It's time to throw in the towel on this thing. I need to sign up for a beginning applique class and learn the basics, I guess. This is just not my cup of tea. And this square times 8 inset pieces? Nope, it was not going to happen.

And so the alternative is piecing. I've launched into block-making for the inset pieces.

And look at all the bonus HSTs, that may well make their way into the final design.

Along the way, I decided to enlarge the quilt by making all the insets square, and then adding an outer ring of eight more Lone Star diamond pieces.

This necessitated a frenzied multi-store search for more of the original fabrics. Happy to say that I've found all but the black fabric, and there's a decent substitute for that one in my stash. So I'm on my way...

And so, here's the design wall as of today:

It's happening!

Wordless Wednesday

Baby Quilt(s)

Of COURSE, I made a baby quilt. Actually, there are two baby quilts so far because measuring and figuring yardage needed is just so darned tiresome..... My lazy method, to just start chopping up fabric and let the chips fall where they may, got a little out of hand on this project.

The nursery theme is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I found a Hungry Caterpillar line of fabric, which would do nicely for nursery curtains and the quilt backing. But I wanted to be a bit more imaginative for the quilt top. I had seen this zoomy and wonderful quilt online. It's from Red Pepper Quilts, and if you like your quilts bright and happy, you should click right over there and see what else is up. Visiting that blog is always like a breath of fresh air.

The plan was to use the Rail Fence layout, but with colors from the Hungry Caterpillar book.

And so I started cutting strips...and cutting, and cutting. My rationale is that I wanted lots of variety among the bright prints, but I need to tell you that I ended up making enough blocks for THREE of these quilts.

#2 has gone to a friend with a new baby; #3 is still in pieces, waiting in the wings.

And here's #2, in progress (I know it's #2 because that's where the purple blocks landed):

Simple, simple sewing, but thank goodness for a design wall when it came time to put it all together. I had to recite a little mantra as I placed the blocks, in order to have everything facing the correct way. Just a little confusing...

When it came time to quilt, I dusted off my walking foot and did something I haven't done in a long time--quilted a grid, which seemed to suit the contemporary look of this quilt.

The quilt looks cute, cute, cute in Miss Cora's nursery!

The Details:

Inspiration: Red Pepper Quilts' Zig Zag Rail Fence Quilt.

Dimensions: Quilt #1: 42" X 51"; quilt #2: 45" X 45".

Fabrics: 100% cottons

Batting: Warm and Natural--80/20 cotton/poly.

Quilting thread: Top: 40 wt. rayon; bobbin: Mettler 60 wt. cotton.

Visitors from the East

The last two weeks have been a nonstop whirl--my daughter C brought sweet baby Cora to visit. It was Cora's first glimpse of Wisconsin and C's first air travel as a mom, with all the organizing and baby gear that entails.

As always, C had a detailed itinerary planned for us which was fun but allowed for very little downtime--people to see, places to go, restaurants to visit, shopping to accomplish. I think we managed to address just about everything on the list.

Would you believe three trips to a mall 40 minutes away, in order to achieve sizing perfection in a couple of $5 Old Navy hoodies? Yes, we did that.

Baby Cora accompanied us everywhere and was patience, charm, and perfection itself. Tiny babies like that are so portable; now is the time to travel. A few months down the road she may assert herself just a bit. Ya think?

Meeting Aunt Lucy:

Lucy behaved like a three year old, making sure to position herself between Cora and anyone interacting with Cora.

We had a lot of fun watching Cora try to find her thumb. Lesson #1: you have to get the thumb outside the fist in order to suck on it. I can laugh--I won't have to pay for the orthodontia a few years down the road...

One of the highlights of the visit was C's inviting half a dozen of her high school buddies, along with their kids, for a mini reunion. Happy chaos--three of the kids were under six months of age, and the bigger kids all had LOTS of energy.

C and Cora are back in Washington, DC now, and my life has settled down a bit. Back to quilting! I have a couple more finished quilts to share in the next post or two, and then, only a month late, we will talk New Year's resolutions. Because I have some...