Before I left for my family visit on Thursday I had a chance to finish cutting and laying out the next sections of Joseph’s Coat on Wednesday afternoon. I plan to get busy stitching on it right away! This is the last of the darker blues. I have to immediately start going in to the lighter blues to turquoise next. I will be quickly running out of room on this quilt now. I am not sure if I will be able to use all of the colors I had showed you last week. This is where I will begin working on JC when I get home later today. Run on over to Judy’s at Patchwork Times to see what everyone is working on.
It is amazing how fast you get to these short rows once the full length diagonal is finished. When I get done attaching this row I might just have to get the design wall out and pin this to it in some way so I can get the color placement right for the next areas – I want to be able to use as many of the next colors as I can.
If you look back at how I started the first corner of the quilt you can see that in some rows I needed to use various colors in the rows – that bright orange is about where I am now with the blues
I don’t know how many of you have forgotten my Red and Green Applique quilt top that I started making about 2 years ago? I finished the blocks and put the top together last year but I never decided on an applique border. Finally – I made my decision.
When I finish Joseph’s Coat and have it ready to start to quilt I will need to get busy and find another hand project to work on. I must finish this top and that will be the next to work on.
A close up
I was going to make something that was kind of half way between fancy and simple but it had a lot of small pieces in it. I decided because a lot of the pieces in these blocks are actually large that something with bigger pieces would be appropriate. This quilt is more of a “folk art” type of quilt and simple and big will work.
This is the border I picked – image reds and greens – a little of pinks and yellows as they are used in the blocks. I few more flowers along the edges than what they show in the photo. Always hard to judge from seeing a totally different kind of quilt with a border but trust me – this is going to work out!
I think applique on this quilt will keep me busy for quite a few months this summer!
EDITED: I have been so busy that I have barely been on the computer! I have been answering a few e mails here and there but I have not had good reception in the motel. Sometimes the wi-fi is working fine and other times it hasn’t been so hot. I will add a few family photos after I get home. Also we went to the museum Crystal Bridges on Thursday afternoon and I got some photos there that I will share. We have been on the go constantly 
When I get home on Monday afternoon it will then seem like I am on vacation LOL
I have decided that Pineapple Square is going to be a wall hanging after all. I had thought to enlarge it with a Round Robin type of style to it but what with deciding to make one of the Edyta Star’s pattern next – and having two of her patterns as it is and the Sedona Star quilt – all large quilts to make – I better stick with a wall hanging for this one!!
When Star Crazy comes off of the quilting frame Joseph’s Coat quilt top will not be finished and ready to put on the frame. Pineapple Square is small – it can go on the frame. The quilting will be done simply and it will be finished quickly – maybe Joseph’s Coat will be ready to put on the frame when that one comes off?
I normally do not do mystery quilts. I like to see a photo of the final product first so that I select the right kind of fabric. I hate wasting fabric at the price it is and I can not pick out the proper colors without knowing what it will look like. That is the great thing of a free mystery quilt on line – you can print out everything – patterns and instructions and make it when you get it all!!
Pearl P. Pereira has a new free BOM out this year. If you sign up for her newsletter and web site you can have access to it. I haven’t a clue when I will make this and I don’t know if I will make the quilt or use the flower appliques in something totally different – but in the meantime I’m printing!
Here is a link to Pearl’s web site – P3Designs. If you go to Forums and then to Mystery BOM you can download the patterns. Another one for maybe next year – or the following 
Is anyone out there making the quilt called “Sedona Star”? It is a BOM from the Quilt Show. The pattern is by Sarah Vedeler and finishes at 88” x 88” – here is a clip of it:
I think it is a beautiful quilt. I had joined the Quilt Show a couple years ago when I made the Star Crazy quilt which was a BOM at that time. I let my membership lapse and then I saw someplace last week – I can’t remember where now – but someone posted that the Quilt Show was having a temporary “gift” of a month membership free – you just had to put in a code for the gift. Once you have membership you can access the patterns. It is listed under the BOM – you can look at it without a membership but you can not print out the pattern unless you have it.
My one month free membership let me access the first 5 months of the BOM – how about that! I immediately printed out all that I can and I will go back to it in December and print out the rest of the instructions by purchasing another month ($6.95) It does involve a lot of paper and I know I could just download to my computer instead. I have found though that if I do that I forget about! This way I print it all out – like printing out a book! and put it in sleeve savers and put in a ring binder – then I will have it all ready when I am ready for it.
With the membership you can watch any of the classes and get other patterns and downloads. I believe some you have to pay for and some you do not.
I most likely will do this quilt in a different color scheme – something scrappy of course to use my stash! Maybe next year? This will be a challenging quilt to make. I’m not sure which quilt will be my new quilt to make – I have the two new patterns by Edyta Star and one of those will most likely be next when I finish Joseph’s Coat. That is after I finish the applique on the Red and Green Applique – that is the one that I will finish first as soon as I get done with Joseph’s Coat.
I made some great progress on Star Crazy yesterday late in the day and I was able to give the frame a couple more cranks down and will be able to start a new section once again! I finished 3 stars and the edge of the border.
You can see how much is left to quilt on the pieced section of the quilt that is left – the top row of those stars and then the half square triangles. Once I get to the final border it should go quite quickly as it will be straight lines and no seams to have to go through.
What is left? This much!! It has taken close to 120 hours of quilting so far and it will be 5 months on the 18th.
I mentioned I will be going out of town once again – tomorrow! I won’t be back until sometime on Monday. Lot’s of visiting to do and I’m not taking any stitching with me – I would never get around to working on it anyhow so why bring it. My fingers should be well on their way to healing when I get back ready to work once again.
I plan on having posts scheduled each day while I am gone. I want to share a few patterns of up coming projects and show the next quilts to be worked on. I am coming so close to finishing two quilts that it will certainly be time to move ahead to more 
I will be bringing my computer with me to stay in touch so feel free to still leave comments. I will be checking mail and my blog each morning and evening.
I got done attaching the circles to the quilt row last night. More tv was watched yesterday than I normally do but I made good progress. I will start to cut out the next row tomorrow. I want to concentrate on Star Crazy today instead in between doing other things that need doing here at home. Today will not be a major sewing day.
Joseph’s Coat – the circles:
Star Crazy – this much left to do on this row – plus the straight lines on the border. When I crank it down again I will have one section left of pieced pieces to quilt – I am not reaching the top row of the star blocks and I will have the row of the half square triangles above them as well to do. The rest of the quilt will go quickly once I get the pieced areas done – straight lines go fast normally.
My aim is to get the quilting done by May 18th – that will have been 5 months on the quilting frame and will be the fastest I remember getting a quilt off of the frame – no reason for the challenge to myself 0ther than that will mean I can get another quilt on the frame – my goal is to get caught up with my hand quilting!
Circles are made! I will possibly sew these on tonight – maybe some, maybe all. I have quilted a little on Star Crazy today as well and might try to get in another 30 minutes or so of quilting this evening.
The rest of the colors. I think I will be using most or all of these colors for the final part of Joseph’s Coat – I think these colors will be enough but as I go I will know if I will need to drop any colors out or add any more in. I thought I had some “green-green” colors but I don’t have any – these will have to do. That one piece put aside to the right – I love it and would like to use it, I might use it on the very end corner – but I will wait and see if I think it will look right when I get to the corner. I really like it. But most likely it won’t go right as it is such a mixture of colors.
I am currently working this section of Star Crazy.
These rows are definitely getting shorter! I started the sewing last night and worked off and on all morning on getting this row done. I took it outside to try to get a photo but it has been little bits of rain off and on all morning so I couldn’t spread it out in the sun on the grass – the grass is wet! I spread it out on the deck where it was dry but a little bit of shade already in this spot so part of the quilt is in the shade. I used the flash so the shade on the right side of the quilt doesn’t seem to be showing up in the photo 
As you can see the rows are for sure getting shorter!! I need to make 15 black circles this time and get those stitched.
Next up for sure is the last that will have any purple in it as you can see I do have to get busy on the blue so that I will have room left to do greens.
But I’m taking a break from this now and doing some other things for awhile – back to sewing/quilting later today.
What are you going to be working on today? – head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone is working on. Me – Joseph’s Coat this Monday and for the first half of the week. The second half of the week I will be visiting family. My sister and brother who both live in Maryland are flying in on Thursday for a visit – we are all meeting in NW Arkansas where most of the family live. Mike is staying home seeing as he is back to work. I will be gone Thursday to Monday morning.
I will bring my computer along but haven’t a clue if I will have anything to blog about – when all of us sisters (4) get together there is a lot of talking going on! Shopping, eating, family gatherings – you get the picture? We haven’t had all 10 siblings together in town at the same time in about 4 years – one of my brothers though is on call for the weekend and lives 50 miles from the rest of them, so I don’t know if it will be 10 or 9 of us and of course some of the spouses, a lot of the “kids” several generations and my mom. Not the whole family but a lot of us.
Joseph’s Coat – this purple row finished – now to connect the row. I keep telling y’all this row is purple and really truly it is – I am trying another setting here, on my computer it looks more purple than it had – on your? Now though the other colors don’t quit look right.
One of my readers – Wanda from Exuberant Color says to try laying something gray behind the color and see if the purple will show better –and I am using that setting from the upper photo – it looks more true to the color in this photo. The next two dark colors – the first one on the left is purple the next a blue/purple and then the next are blues. They will be the next four colors used.
I think I have 14 more rows to go but it is hard to judge for sure unless I lay it all straight out and see it flat. I might do that when I get done stitching this row down – I will take it outside to the deck and see if I can get it all flat and start counting – Maybe with the lighting outside I can get the colors to turn out right.
Have a good week! Can you believe it is May tomorrow!!!
