Becky's quilt obsession

Alternating blocks! Who said they have to be boring? These are 3 choices I've come up with. Please realize the pieces are just sitting there, not sewn. The other blocks have a lot of the white with black and red and white in them. The first one here is the recommended one. DH calls it “somber”. #2 would use up some alternated centers I tried but decided not to use. The third one would be pointed stars, not the blunted pieces you see. I know you don’t know how the other block will look, but which one appeals to you? I’d show you the other block, but it is a scrap squad secret project. Last Friday Aunt Marti’s Majestic Garden was posted on the Quilty Pleasures Blog. Please visit!! Hers is different from everyone else’s. Today I have been married 7 whole years. Life is good! Happy Quilting , Becky

Note: The striped fabric was added to the corner blocks because of a cutting mistake. These directions do not include it. 1. Prepare embroidery blocks. Trim 4 of the to 8” square. These will be the center blocks. Trim 4 of them to 8-1/2” square. These will be the corner blocks. 2. Cutting: Flip-and-Sew method: ** see below for cutting regular flying geese Background – cut 4  16-1/2” x 8-1/2” rectangles Starpoints – Cut 8  8-1/2” squares. Center trim (Stripes) cut 2  1” x 8”, 3  1” x 16”, and 2  16-1/2” Borders are cut 6” wide on the lengthwise grain. Cut after finishing center of quilt, using Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville tutorial. 3. Make a Sawtooth Star Center: Sew a 1” x 8” striped strip between two embroidered Blocks (EMB). Repeat, making sure the EMB are in correct alignment. Sew the resulting 2 sets together with a 16” strip in the center, taking care to align center strips. Sew a 16” strip to the top, then bottom of the square. Finish wit...

A bit of misdirection from Scrap Squad, so I finished cutting out all the pieces to this project, and will put it away for a bit while I make the next one. Were you one of the thousands of people who thought this fabric that appeared on the front of the Connecting Threads catalog was wonderful? I kept trying to tell myself I didn't need any, but it had Circles! By the time I gave in to ordering some, there wasn't any yardage left, not even any fat quarters left, so I had to order a kit to get some of it. Actually, I ordered both of these kits. I took them apart last night, and started pulling for the next Scrap Squad project, one that has NO points to match! Yeah!! The reds on the left were in the kit – very little texture in them. I pulled the ones on the right to add more texture. There was only one red on black other than the circle fabric in the kit (bottom fabric). I pulled these others, two batiks and a regular fabric, to go with it. I l...

I’ve mentioned before that one of my first classes was with Alex Anderson making all the stars in her book, Simply Stars. The first day included Sawtooth Stars. She said that they were the best stars to make up quickly to do a lot of filling. The header quilt was made from her class and subsequent classes that I taught on star-making. This was my first big star quilt. The idea for it was in a quilting book that was a compilation of quilts in magazines. I was asked by the LQS to develop and teach it as a class. I did, and did, and did. If you are like me and it makes you crazy to cut homespuns not on square, the most time spent on this quilt is pressing fabric for cutting, pulling on the bias until it lays square in both directions. I made a cutting diagram for this one so you could cut it all from fat quarters, 8 light and 8 dark. Only the border requires yardage. Even the binding is made from scraps from the fat quarters. You really can make this quilt in a day, even the cutting. ...

We’ve received our next project, and I am having a bit of trouble deciding on colors. I’m enlarging the project enough to make a quilt of valor if it doesn’t morph to something else. Blues: Since I used a lot of shaded blues last time, I’ve picked, according to Joen Wolfrom’s Color Guide, pure blues this time. The bottom, lightest, slightly greyed blue will be a consistent background this time. The bright blue with the grey stars is actually the center of a border print, which I won’t be using. This is about 15+ years old, one of the first fabrics I bought, and have yet to use. Whoever heard of frogs leaping for freedom? I have a great niece who was into frogs, and I thought (wrongly) that she would like this fabric for a pillowcase. NO! Reds: I pulled orange reds this time. The red in the first one on the right isn't very orange, but the gold stars in it make you think it is. This is a nice, safe group of reds. A little too safe, known as boring. I decided to pull s...