What We Have Here...

is a failure to communicate.  Or maybe a heated argument?  At a minimum the Midnight Garden quilt and I were not on speaking terms for most of March. 

This was an outright surprise.  I was plugging along with the black blocks and had made quite a bit of progress by the end of February.  I had envisioned finishing the flimsy by now.  I liked the design on the computer and I really liked the individual black blocks.  However, when my mom walked into the room and went "Oof", I knew she was expressing what had been niggling in the back of my head.  The black on the wall was too busy and overwhelming. 

I Like Thursday: Springing Spring

It's been a while since I've written:  good stuff, bad stuff and just plain life stuff.  A few recent photos reminded me of the things I like.  The snow has melted (and we even have a bit of green grass in our front yard!).  

Rob took me out to hike around Buffham Falls.  As you can see there's plenty of water!   (You can also see Rob is less than thrilled I'm including him in the photo.)

Project Quilting 16.6 - Swirling Spheres

The last Project Quilting challenge of the year was called Button it Up.  My first thought was a shirt or a coat.  Boring.  I have a pile of buttons I want to use up, so how to use them?  Creating a postcard or a mug rug seemed awfully lumpy (and not very useful).  Maybe a pillow or a wall hanging would work better with the texture?  After some research on button quilts I found some interesting designs featuring circles.  I was fully inspired by this and ran with it.

Both Rob and my mother thought I was crazy attempting a wall hanging in less than a week, especially since I was still cutting and ironing circles on Friday morning.  I had a final layout by Friday evening ready to fuse in place.  Saturday morning I fused, sandwiched and quilted.  I had hoped to quilt it all with one color of thread (for speed reasons), but quickly hated how it looked.  So I took the time to rip what I quilted and switch matching thread.  It was quilted and bound with corner pockets for a hanging rod by early afternoon.  It had to be!  I ran off to dance the rest of the afternoon and evening.  I brought the quilt with me to the dance and spent the dance break burying threads.  Whew!

Project Quilting 16.5 - Arrow Postcard

This week's Project Quilting challenge needed to include an arrow shape.  I considered making a wall hanging, but I needed this to be a quick project.  After a bit of research I ended up playing with two variations of the Arkansas Traveler block.  I made my own tiny paper-pieced template, picked out some scrap and made some arrows.  

Tried out a couple of new things with this postcard.  I cut a wider binding (1¼ inch) and also sewed the binding closer to the edge (a fat ⅛ inch).  I had to update my notes - don't need the wider binding if I stitch it so close to the edge.  But for once I had too much fabric rather than too little to work with.  I also used fusible web to tack down the back side of the binding - that worked so much better than glue.  Will certainly use that in the future. 

Sharing with:
Persimon Dreams - Project Quilting 16.5
Melva Loves Scraps - Sew & Tell
My Quilt Infatuation - Needle & Thread Thursday
A Quiltery - Put Your Foot Down Thursday
Alycia Quilts - Finished or Not Friday
Nina-Marie - Off the Wall Friday