Promised pictures!

Some days, blogger has a mind of its own . . . this is one of those days . . . maybe, it is a signal that we should have just stayed in bed, and this is the view we would have from there!

Anyway, here is some eye candy for you to enjoy. The first quilt top is one I acquired recently at an auction. It's primarily 1940's fabrics in the pickle dish pattern. I can't tell if more than one person made it, or she just ran out of the red setting fabric. Either way, it has one row and one edge which don't feature the red center. It's quite a feast for the eyes, with many different muslins, and perhaps some feed sacks as well. I scored it for $55, and was just ecstatic.

In my never ending quest to tidy up my studio . . . a quest that never ends, nor is ever complete either, I might add . . . I started going through the plastic boxes with various projects in them to analyze what needed to be done to get them moved into my quilt top "collection". I was quite surprised at how close some of them were to being complete, and I kept the sewing machine ticking along as I finished up the necessary blocks, so that I could assemble and border them while our group was on its annual Retreat at Miss Mary's Quilting Cottage at the end of January.

This Snail's Trail is for my grandson, Drew, who loves orange. I began it several years ago, when I acquired all the fabrics from the clearance table at Quilter's Harvest, while we were staying in the Quilting Cottage next door. I drew it up for myself in EQ, and don't know what possessed me at the time, because in my drawing, I had an on-point set! That would have required half-blocks, and been a logistic nightmare, if I hadn't come to my senses. It has two bright cheddar yellows, and two oranges. It was quite a bit of fun to piece.

This one is from a Fons and Porter pattern, Kitty Corner . . . which I keep caling "Kissing Cousins" for some reason! I was looking for scrap patterns to be adapted or displayed at a Guild Retreat two years ago. My sister-in-law was also looking for a pattern to make use of her accumulation of Mr. B's fabric club squares, and Benartex Quilter's Candies. The candies are two-inches square, and that was the cut size of these pieces. There are several hundred 2-inch squares represented in this quilt top. I just love the way it turned out. Jan launched hers before our Retreat, and actually completed assembly while we were there. I was a slug, and stuck this in my PIP's . . . "projects in progress" . . . sounds so much more interesting that UFO's, don't you think?

This was also a block selected to be displayed at the Retreat two years ago. Again, my sister-in-law was looking for a pattern to use some triangle units left from a previous project. Once again, she got going and finished hers. Have I mentioned that she is a project person, while I am a process person? We have managed to corrupt her a bit more, but she still pretty much sticks with a project from start to finish. The block is a 6-inch Contrary Wife, and I set mine with an alternate blue and white hourglass block. All the Contrary Wife blocks were cut from scraps and strips in my scrap drawers. I could stand to clean the blue drawer out again.

This might be my favorite of all these. Once again, it's comprised of red scraps, though I did buy some fat quarters to "sweeten" the mix. Kansas Troubles is the classic pattern. I only had to make 20 blocks because they are 16-inches, and I'm just tickled to death with how it turned out.

I'm presently trying to finish a block for an alphabet challenge for our Guild show coming up on April 5. I actually finished the quilting on my lunch hour, and need to make binding. It has to be ready to turn in for voting next Tuesday evening. We drew for our letter, and the rules indicate that our letter must be represented by a shape or object, using a color which starts with our appointed letter. I drew the letter "T", which was a natural, since I collect teapots. I'm going to Sossy's on Saturday for a sew-in, and believe the binding and label will be my appointed duties. I will post a picture of that one next time.

Next post, I'll also provide some pictures of a couple other auction acquisitions, as well as the PIP resulting from review of my purple scrap drawers!