"Family Forever"

In 2012 I met up with a group of friends for some shopping at Hancock's of Paducah.  My friend Rose Mary and I thought it would be fun to work on projects together at our upcoming retreat that summer, so we each bought a "Tropical Breeze" pattern by Fat Quarters Anonymous.  We were both drawn to the same fabric line so we bought everything we needed and started on our quilts that summer five years ago.  This is all I got done --

I set it aside for a long time.  (Hmmm, I seem to do that a lot, don't I?)  Finally, last year I decided it had been a UFO long enough and I needed to finish it.  I wasn't really loving the fabrics I had planned to use for it.  It really needed some more color.  (I do that a lot, too!)  Color definitely helped.

I wanted to use some of the fabrics I had originally bought for the borders, especially since I had so much of it.

The first one looked pretty good ....

..... the second one, not so much.

That was okay, though, because I have quite a selection of batiks  Surely, I had something that would work.  Hmmmm......

With help from Hubby I auditioned border fabrics until I finally found one that would work.  At first, I wasn't sure the binding fabric, which I matched to the backing, would work either.  

Once it was finished I decided it was perfect, and I love it!

I mailed it last week to my former sister-in-law who I still consider to be family, and I always will.  That's why I named this quilt "Family Forever."  We share many precious memories.  I hope they come to mind whenever she snuggles up in her quilt.

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Craving Color!

As much as I have been enjoying working on the Old Wedding Quilt I find myself hungry for color lately so I've set it aside to play a little bit.  I had just enough fabric left over from Eloise's baby quilt last year to cut out seven squares.  Some time ago I started playing with them, pulling coordinating fabrics, and making the squares into log cabin style blocks.  Then I got frustrated because I didn't have enough pink to add strips to all the blocks, and I put it away.  

In the meantime I cleaned up my sewing room and found a lot of this same pink in a bag I had never unpacked after getting home from a retreat.  Oops!  So the other day I started playing again.  I thought the block was looking pretty good.

When I laid them out on my design wall I wasn't exactly thrilled.  I don't like working with an odd number of blocks, it's hard to get a decent layout.

I found this beautiful batik in my stash and decided it would be the perfect alternate block.

But, as seems to be the norm lately when working from my stash, I didn't have quite enough.  Time to play some more.  Winging it not only pushes you to be creative, it ends up changing the whole look of the quilt.  Now my blocks look like this.

Since I don't have enough of that cool dotted batik to use AS an alternate block I decided to use it IN an alternate block.  I came up with this one.

Guess what, though?  I'm pretty sure that I don't have enough of the yellow either.   Aarrgghh!   This batik might make a nice alternate block.

Well, that was enough color therapy for this week.  (Actually, I just had other things in my life that had to be done, and that was all the TIME I had for color therapy this week!)   We'll see what happens when I get a little time to play some more.  This may turn into something yet.

A Close Call

I was all packed and ready to leave for Retreat on Monday morning.  I hadn't really taken as much time to plan projects as I normally do, but I was satisfied with the main idea -- a baby quilt made with really bright solids and a bright white background.  

I had this stack of half yards of Marcus Fabrics which I had purchased at a quilt show.......

.......and this stack of brights that my friend Rose Mary had given me when she was my Secret Quilter.

What gorgeous colors!  I was a happy girl!!

But not for long.  I am normally not a pre-washer, but I got to thinking about how this quilt would be totally ruined if these colors happen to bleed onto that white background.  I had to leave the house pretty soon so I didn't have enough time to properly test the fabrics.  I just chose one from each line, wet the ends with hot water, and laid them out on a paper towel.  

YIKES!

The aqua didn't bleed as badly as the pink, but it did bleed, and there was no time left to set the colors.  

I needed to leave the house in just a few minutes and I only had three pillowcases packed to work on.

I ran into my sewing room, grabbed a Moda Jelly Roll, a stack of muslin, and a box of 2" squares, then threw them into my tote bag with no plan whatsoever and hit the road!

Whew! 

(.......to be continued.......)