I just saw the judges comments

I didn't see that on the back of the tag on the quilt from the county fair that there were judges comments on it!  I was shaking out a quilt top, the note blew onto the floor, and I finally saw the back of it.  Boy, do I feel dumb for not even looking at it.

The comments were:
Colors, points, piecing - all lovely.
Quilting is awesome A+
Absolutely Beautiful.
Borders are beautiful!
Exquisite - nice use of print for framing.
Back is as beautiful as the front.
Lays nicely - tight binding - good job.

Wow, those are all nice comments.  Makes me happy that others like my work.

So, what quilt was I shaking out?  I'm getting my daughter's quilt ready to put onto the LA frame.  I washed and pieced the backing and when will I ever learn to NOT get a directional print for the backing!?!?  What a pain that is, first to line up the pattern when piecing it, then if I want to have the quilt going vertical instead of horizontal I have to put the seam on the backing going the same way.  I do want the quilt going vertically because I don't want to do some of the motifs sideways.

Speaking of washing the backing, I was concerned about washing this one.  It's bright red with bright white apples and I was afraid that the apples would turn pink.  I read about color catchers but never used them so I found some at the store and tried it.  Wow, it did a great job!  The only thing that turned pink was the two color catchers. 

IRR Round 4 is done

Finally finished!!  I like this one, but I guess I say that about all of them.  :-)

I really hope the owner likes it!

Two sides done today

It's 8:00 PM and I am DONE for the day.  I didn't get to anything other than the IRR quilt, so much for big plans.  There was a lot of adjustments to do on this round.  When I decided on doing the boxes I knew they had to be 7 1/2" square because that is how wide the row needs to be.  I figured that the quilt would be about 52" (center 24", first round 3", second round 5", third round 6" = 52") so I would do 8 blocks on each side (7" finished x 8 = 56) and that I could adjust it as needed by sewing the seam allowance a 1/4" larger when I needed to.  It wouldn't really be noticable that way.

Well, somehow I messed up when I made the blocks and they were 7" UNFINISHED size!  I had to add a half inch so along came the thin strip.  I actually think it looks better than it would have without it.  It puts a border around the previous row, gives it a definate end.

Another adjustment I had to do is that I had to add some strips onto the ends of the strips of sewn blocks because now the whole thing was larger than I had planned.  I discovered that the previous round was 7" instead of 6" finished size, plus my additional strip.

Anyway, after the sides were sewn on it seems to have settled the rest of it down.  It's not as flat as I would like it but I've done what I can to get it straight.  I like how the colors in the outer blocks tie in with the center.

Weekend sewing time again

I got all of the blocks done for the latest IRR round a couple of days ago.  I had briefly measured the quilt so far to get an idea of the size but when I measured more closely I found that across the center of the quilt it measured 54 1/4 and along the edges it measured as much as 55 3/4".  Today I layed it out and squared it up to 54 1/4"... as best as I could.  I'll probably need to do some trimming of the corners since it doesn't look like it's going to shrink up very well.  Will wait and see.

While this sits today I can work on some other things.  I need to wash and piece the backing for my daughters quilt.  I received the Bottom Line bobbin thread in bright red yesterday to match the backing so I can get it quilted.  I haven't fully decided how to quilt it but it's going to be pretty basic. 

Maybe I can finish the first 24 blocks of the CW fabric quilt in the meantime.  I need to accomplish something after finding out that I can't do the IRR one yet.  Get something done! :)

Late night after a long day

I worked on the IRR round tonight and just have two sides left to do on half of the blocks.  I should have them done tomorrow night and will need to sew the brown strip onto the quilt first.  I measured the quilt and it's basically 54 1/2" square.  There might be some fudging to do with that measurement but it's so close that I am not going to block and square it first.  I will cut my strips the size it needs to be and make the center meet that measurement and THEN lay it out and starch if needed, it will be square at that point to sew the blocks on.

I got the publication for the Innovations 2010 show in the mail today.  The show is in September and it is all machine quilting by any means.  I read the quilt show categories and there is one for New Quilter: Any quilt quilted by anyone with less than 1 year of machine quilting experience.  Well, I certainly qualify for that!!

Entries have to be received by July 25th so that's not much time at all.  I am very seriously thinking about getting my eldest daughter's quilt done, which I planned on doing next, so that I can enter it.  It's a simple and fun quilt with all the same blocks so maybe I could do it to my satisfaction, and good enough that I would want to enter it.

Got any ideas or tips about the quilting design?  Something simple, like outlining the baskets and then an all-over fill or stipple in the white area?  A simple design in the sashing and border?

IRR Round

I was working on the next round this evening and I'm just not sure about it. I was totally stuck on what to do after the last row so I just did some boxes.  I didn't think a straight row would look good because of the straight pieces along the edge of the previous row.  I thought about doing triangles but it seemed to be totally at odds with the previous row too.  I tried to tie in the browns, beige, and the grey in the centers has a bluish tint that doesn't show up here very well. The fabric in my blocks is grayer than it looks too.

I messed up too and I need to add a 1/2" strip!  I believe I will use the fabric in the darker center block and frame the previous row before adding my blocks.

What got done this weekend

I worked on this quilt for many hours this weekend, about 4 hours today.  It sure is going slow!!  There are so many steps to getting every little section done that it is taking a long time.  I figured up that there are 45 pieces per block and a total of over 2500 pieces in the entire top.

This is what I started with this morning.  These are the triangles for 11 blocks to complete the first batch of 24 blocks.  Each triangle is sewn to an ivory square then that section is sewn to an ivory rectangle.  The strips of fabric at the top are for the last 24 triangle sections.

The completed triangle sections are sewn to one side of the corner and center sections, pressed, then the other side is sewn on.  Right now, half of the blocks are sewn into the three rows and ready to be sewn together.

I keep plugging away but still have so much to do on it.  I think I will get my oldest daughter's quilt in the frame and get that done for her.  I should have finished it for her birthday, which is tomorrow, but I didn't think of that.  I WILL get her's totally done before I start on my son's and his girlfriend's that I have the fabric for.  It will give me a break from the endless cutting and sewing for awhile.

I'm liking this!!

I love it when a pattern starts coming together and you get a glimpse of what it will look like.  The two blocks on the left aren't sewn together, just stuck to the flannel.  I'm still working on the triangle sections, got half of them sewn and worked on more prep last night.  I ran out of ivory and needed to cut more off the bolt and I washed, starched, ironed, and cut strips of the last 12 CW fabric pieces.  The green squares are all cut out too.

Just need to get strips of the ivory cut and I can complete all the parts!

Ordered some plastic template material yesterday that says you can iron on it.  If that works it will be great to just make one template for the 3 sizes of hearts to turn under and iron the 1/4" seam allowance.  I'll post about how that goes.

More of the latest quilt done

I'm finally back to working on this and made some good progress yesterday.  All of the 9-patch centers and the corner sections are done.  I used 48 different fabrics for those parts, two of each, and seperated the sections into two sets.  I layed out the first set and played with the pairings for the blocks.  I'm pretty satisfied with this except for a couple that stand out as being too close in color or value that I need to change.   The second completed block came out a lot better than the first after adjusting the seam allowance, it doesn't need to be trimmed, stretched, or squared up. 

I got 12 different fabrics ready for the triangle sections and cut two strips of each, that will make 24 blocks.  I hadn't decided at the time whether I was going to use ANOTHER 12 fabrics for the rest of the blocks but I believe I will.  Might as well stay consistent with two blocks of each fabric.

Half of the triangle sections have been sewn and ready to cut apart and press.  It would be great to get all of them done today so I can start doing an assembly line on the blocks and knock those out.

Best of Show!!

I went to the county fair tonight, walked into the exhibition, and first thing I see is my quilt... with ribbons on it!!!

First Place, Best of Division, and Best of Show!!  I could hardly believe it and almost cried.