Bloggers' Quilt Festival Entry: Dunes

I'm so happy I could finish the neutrals quilt in time for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, as well as listing it as a Sew-n-Tell Friday finish!  Heartiest of thanks to everyone who gave me advice on the design and assembly of this quilt.  The name of this quilt is Dunes - obvious, but too fitting to resist.

The quilt is going to my friend, Marcia, who moved to the U.S. to take up a new position.  I miss her terribly.  This is a belated housewarming present for her; it's small - only about 55" square - but I think it will be nice on her lap while she reads her murder mysteries.  Marcia does research in mathematics disability; I chose the "math facts" fabric specially to honour her work.  She doesn't know it's coming - I hope she will be surprised in a good way!

As you can see, I chose a tone-on-tone red for the back.  When I asked for help in a previous post, there were so many different colour suggestions!   I know each of them would have looked great with this quilt, since the hallmark of neutrals is that they go with anything!  I had the fabric in my stash already, with no prior claim on it, and I decided to be economical, for a change.

I used a King Tut thread variegated in neutrals for the quilting.  I'm not mad about the fact that the quilting shows through on the back, but what can you do?  I really dislike the nylon thread option, and I could find nothing that would be mute on both the front and back.  I think the quilting is decent, so it doesn't look as tacky as it might otherwise (I hope).

I chose a red and violet stripe for the binding, which I adore!  I think it looks great against the neutral front!

I hope you don't mind closeups of some of the blocks.  Since I'm giving it away, I like to have some photos to remind me of it once it's gone.







All through the process I talked about how I felt neutral about this quilt, and how I appreciated it intellectually but not emotionally.  Guess what - now that it's all done and washed, I'm in love with it!  I hope I can bear to send it on its way south of the border!

Busy weekend but little to show

Quilting in progress, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

Yes, friends, I was fairly productive this weekend, huzzah! As you can see, I started quilting the neutrals quilt. I was amazed at the range of suggestions offered for the back, whether it should have colour or continue the neutral theme. For the colours, there were so many different suggestions. I liked them all, and think they would all work wonderfully well. I guess it's true that neutrals go with everything! I won't reveal just yet what I decided - I'll leave you all in suspense a little longer!
But I have little photographic evidence of the rest of my weekend work, because, in my haste to catch up on my heinously behind bees, I packaged up the two bee blocks that I completed before taking photos. I had a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. Anyway, believe me when I say they were not evidence of my finest hour. I finally made the gnome home for Sharon of the Incredible Shrinkers, and despite best efforts, this one ended up looking like something a Habitat for Gnomanity team on crack made. I am so sorry, Sharon. I did my best. I also made the two vintage sheet pinwheel blocks for Heather, in the Maple Leaf Bee. So I have caught up with my April bees, which is no real accomplishment, since it's the middle of May.

I also wanted to show you these waterproof gardening gloves. Because why? Because tomorrow morning at 6.30 I'll be doing pushups in the mud at a fitness boot camp, and looking forward to four days a week of this regime, for four weeks. Why, oh, why? All I can say is it sounded like a good idea at the time.   At least these will keep my hands out of the mud.

P.S. This is my 97th blog post. My century post is looming, and a giveaway, too! What will it be? Hmmmm *scratches chin*.......

Two things I learned

Neutrals quilt top finished, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

I'm happy to report a flimsy finish for the neutrals quilt that I've been plugging away at. I sashed each block with the cross-weave and then sewed them together. The blocks finished at 11.5", so the finished piece is about 55" square. Respectable enough for a smallish lap quilt.

I learned two things about myself making this quilt. First, as much as I thought I would really like a quilt in a sophisticated palette of taupes, tans, and greys.... I really don't. I appreciate it on an intellectual level, but it doesn't call to me to wrap myself up in it. The second thing I learned is that I am really not an improv quilter. The first few blocks I made were fun and exciting, but as time went on, they became more and more of a chore. Like someone had a gun to my head, saying "Be creative with only these fabrics and only this style right now!" As a result, there are some blocks that are horrible, in my opinion. But I used them all because, after deciding I would go with a 5 x 5 layout, I couldn't force myself to make extra blocks to replace the horrible ones. I also recognized that if I did, the extra blocks would probably be horrible, too. I won't reveal which ones I think are horrible, but if you click through to Flickr and click on the "all sizes" button, you can see the blocks in greater detail and form your own opinion!


I love this photo of the back of the quilt top, with the sun shining through.

Thanks to all of you who helped me with various design decisions along the way. Here's one more question for you. I 'm thinking the back of this quilt should have some colour. What do you think?
(Updated to link to Sew and Tell over at Amy's - be sure to go see what marvelous things everyone else has done this week, plus another photo of Amy's new baby!!)

Workshop in Progress, coming to you from Ontario

It's my pleasure to host Workshop in Progress today, since Cheryl has her hands full with Quilt Canada.  She is involved with the professional development program and I'm sure she's getting lots of inspiration to share with us upon her return.

Although I've got a full docket of projects at various stages of undress, I don't always manage to have something to share for Workshop Wednesday.  Today, however, I thought I would bring out my neutral blocks and ask for your thoughts around sashing.  The last time I posted about these, several people suggested that sashing wasn't necessary.  I'm not sure.  One problem is that the blocks aren't all the same size.  I made some fatal trimming errors on a couple of the blocks, but most of them are close to 8.5".  I pulled out three pieces of yardage that I thought would be possible sashing options, and here they are.
The first one is an ivory cotton from Amy Butler.

The second one is a green cotton, also an Amy Butler, if I recall correctly.

The final choice is a Moda cross-weave cotton in natural (you can see that the block on the top right is one of the trimming casualties).

Here's a slightly larger view of the cross-weave; you can see the natural and black threads a bit better.

What do you think?  Or would you still go for a non-sashed option?

In other workshop news, Felicity is in a quandary about quilting choices.  She's done a great Hungry Caterpillar quilt top and is now trying to decide on the best way to quilt the various features.  Her dilemma about becoming paralyzed through overthinking the quilting decisions vs rushing in without a plan just to get it finished really resonates with me.  Let's go have a look and give her some ideas to ponder.