vines, blocks & circles

I have decided on my border – thank you all for your opinions.  I am going to put the vines on the border like the one I showed you on the baby quilt.  I will put nine patches in the corners also in pretty much the same arrangement and then on the sides of the borders I will put circles here and then instead of the patches shown in the baby quilt.  I was busy today cutting bias strips to make the vines but that is all the further I got with it today.

Someone asked in the comments on yesterday’s post how I plan to quilt this quilt — by hand of course!  I do not quilt any other way.  I think she mainly wondered because of all the seams.  For me when hand quilting I go with the design of the quilt.  I would not try to do anything fancy – wreaths or what not on the main part of the quilt because of all the seams.  Around the circles I will quilt circles (outline) and on the squares I will have a diagonal line run through them.  Yes the seams make it a little harder but there will just be a couple bigger stitches there.  This is for me not a show or whatever, the size of the stitches do not matter to me, consistency does.  On the border I will do outline stitch around the vines, circles and blocks and then the diagonal lines from the squares will run through to the border – that is what I am thinking right now.  Another questions was why did I have a baby quilt — I’m not sure why that question was asked – don’t all quilters make baby quilts?  This particular baby quilt was given to one of nephews on the birth of their baby about 4 years ago, I take pictures of most of my quilts and have a computer file to pull photos from.  I have made a lot of baby quilts over the years.  I used to try to make them for all the babies in the family but I come from a very, very large family and can no longer keep up with them.  I still make baby quilts now and then, sometimes for charity and sometimes to sell.

I spent part of the day finishing a book I was reading so I could get my books back to the library before they were over due.  Of course seeing as I was at the library I checked 3 more out.  I also made a cake earlier – Mike’s birthday today – we will go out for supper later – steak for him – I don’t make a good steak and I don’t care who knows it   steak is not a favorite of mine as I know it is for so many people, maybe that is why I don’t make one well?

We actually get a little more snow I hear over the next two days!  I am amazed – this winter seems to be drawing out longer than normal for us.  The temperatures are not bad though and what we have on the ground is melting.

I have a book I want to share with you all.  I’m giving it a great review.  I wonder how many of you quilters have this handy reference?  This is a great little book.  I picked  it up at  a quilt shop on one of our travels someplace – the sticker on the book says “Hearthside Quilt Shoppe”.  We have stopped at plenty of quilt shops when we travel, it could have been anywhere!  The book is by Peggy Scholley and it has a ton of information stuck into 30 pages.  The book:  “The Quilters Pocket Reference” I do not know if Peggy has a website to order the book from, the link I gave goes to Amazon. Com

The Quilter's Pocket Reference by Peggy Scholley

An example of the inside pages. This book gives you information and measurements. How big do you need to cut a piece of fabric to make a 3 inch half square triangle block? The book tells you. Run your finger down the column of numbers and you will find what you need. Anything from figuring out how much the fabric will cost to make you quilt to hst's and borders, how to cut and measure for quilt backs, calculate yardage for squares. You name it the little book has it. I really think it is one of the handiest books on my shelf - in fact I don't even keep it on my book shelf among the other books I have it on the shelf right above my cutting table where I can access it easily and always know where it is!

This is a very handy book and I recommend it to all quilters – especially if you are poor at math like I am

One more Insanity Revisited block is finished, actually I almost finished two last night but the one not shown I have several pieces to applique on to it and will show it another day.

Block # 7 Row 10 "Insanity Revisited"