Dance of the Dragonflies fabric quilt

When I went to visit my mother-in-law in New Jersey last month, I visited a quilt shop up there.  I bought some jelly roll strips and fat quarters in the Dance of the Dragonflies fabric line.  In the past, when I buy fabric while I'm out of town, I never actually make anything with it.  So this time, I wanted to go ahead and make something out of it.  There were 12 jelly roll strips, 4 FQs, 1/2 yard of one fabric and 1 yard of another fabric.  This quilt was the result.

A few more Moda blocks

This year our project for the Moda group was the Quilter's Patch quilt by Edyta Sitar.  I did a few blocks and then decided that I really didn't like making the quilt.  The instructions were bad, the pieces were small, the flower blocks didn't really look that great, etc. etc.  So, I quit making them. 

But since I had already made three of the flower blocks (delphinium, cosmo, and daylily) and the cat block, I wanted to do something with the blocks I had already made.  I dreamed up a much smaller quilt that will use the blocks that I have already made (some of them slightly deconstructed) and a few more blocks thrown in as well. 

This month we were supposed to make 3 flower pot blocks and the segments of the watering can that go in the border.  My alternate quilt design uses 8 flower pots and the watering can as a complete block, so I made them to show at the next meeting.  We were also supposed to do part of the rake and one other flower block, but I don't need them, so I didn't do them.  The only other blocks I need are the butterfly blocks.  I don't like the ones in the book, so I plan to make different ones, but I will wait until the butterflies are assigned before I make them. 

Once I picked the book back up to make these blocks I remembered exactly why I stopped making them in the first place.  As far as I'm concerned, this is an awful book.  I will never buy another book or pattern by Edyta Sitar again.

Scrappy Mountain Majesty

Our guild project for July was the Scrappy Mountain Majesty quilt by Bonnie Hunter.  I didn't finish it in time to show at guild this month, but at least I will have it for next month.  The original was done all in scraps, as you can imagine from a Bonnie Hunter quilt, but I decided to do mine a little less scrappy.  The blue is all one fabric and the yellows and oranges are 7 different fabrics, a quarter yard of each.

On the night of the guild meeting when we were given the project, my husband and I took a walk after the meeting and there was a really beautiful sunset.  It gave me the idea to do the quilt in sunset colors.  The dark blue and the sunset colors formed a split complimentary color scheme, that I thought would work out well for a little color theory practice, as well.  I got my trusty Color Play book by Joan Wolfrom, and headed to the quilt shop to pick the fabrics.  I wanted to be as true as I could to the split complimentary color palate. I picked tone-on-tone fabrics in blue, and orange through yellow and went to work.

I originally intended to use a different layout for the blocks. My first thought was to do the layout that she calls "Mirror Image Mountains", but when I laid the blocks out in that design it seemed too busy.  I rearranged them into this layout, "Zigzag Mountains", and I liked it a lot better.  Keeping the blue fabric together seemed better to me.  It looks a little less like mountains at sunset, maybe, but I still like it better this way.  My son, the graphic designer, says that it makes him think of the sunset reflected on water ripples, like on the ocean.  Sounds good to me.

I think it turned out pretty nice.  It is not the sort of thing that I normally do, but I am happy with it none the less.  I'm not sure yet what color thread I want it quilted in or what design.  But at least the top is finished.

Patriotic bag

I know that it is after the 4th of July, but I wanted to go ahead and make this bag anyway.  I figured that I can use it until the end of July at least.  I actually got the idea for the bag around the 4th of July, and I went ahead and ordered the fabric.  I didn't want to wait about making it, because I was afraid I would forget about it by the time next summer rolled around.  I tend to do that with projects, I buy the fabric, don't work on it right away, and then either forget about it or lose interest in making it.  I didn't want that to happen this time, so here it is, my new patriotic bag!