The August UFO # was 7.  That was Mom’s Chain of Star (on the left) to be made into a top,  and the Red, White and Blue baby quilt to be quilted.  I finished them both in August.  I also finished the other July quilt – True Friends.  definitely a good month for UFOs.

Judy pulled #11 for September.  That is my Compass Lone Star.

This is a quilt-as-you-go project that I’ve been working on for a while.  The center is pieced and partially quilted.  I’ve got some of the LeMoyne Stars made.  The quilt has been through many design changes since I started it.  I knew this quilt was coming up soon (there were only 4 quilts left) so off and on I’ve been thinking about it.  As a result there may still be another design change – especially if I’m going to get this done this month!

Follow the links over on Judy’s page to see what everyone got done this past month.

Yesterday I asked if I had too much white space before my green border.  The consensus is no.  Which is good — that means I don’t have to frog the borders.  I’ve set the blocks this way to fool the eye into believing all the blocks are the same size – which they are since I added white coping strips to the smaller blocks.  Anyway, since I know the measurement of the ‘coping strip’ I added before the green border I can’t tell if I added to much. It’s not like I needed the quilt to be an exact measure to fit a pieced border — I just needed that red cornerstone square to not butt up against the green border.

There was no quilting last night as my husband and I attended a concert – The Low Anthem.  At least this time when we walked into the bar they didn’t ask us if we were the parents.  That happened a few weeks ago when we saw My First Born.

This evening no concerts, but I’ve been on a mission to finish cutting the fabric for the log cabin quilt I’m working on as a leader/ender project.

I started sewing the red and neutral squares together June 1st, or there about.  Now I have less than 60 light logs to make the block square.  I’ve cut fabric for 180 – 7 ” blocks, but I think I’m only going to need 168 blocks for an 84″ x 98″ inch quilt.

So, if I’m using this as my leader/ender quilt, why the push to get it all cut?

Well — I now have a completely contained project that I can take to work on the next time my quilting buddies get together to sew.   We are over due for a sewing weekend, but our schedules simply haven’t meshed.

Yesterday I debated my choices on how to piece the border.  4-patches or Seminole piecing.  Mary suggested square in a square – I did say not too long ago I found away to make them nearly perfect.

I opted for the 4-patches with the setting triangles for a couple of reasons. Seminole piecing would result in a bias edge and I’ll have enough trouble with the border without adding a bias edge into the mix.  Square in a Square blocks would be difficult to line the points up.  That leaves the 4-patches with setting triangles.  I’ll cut them with the Companion Angle Ruler and since they’ll be 4 1/2 inches on one side they wont’ be too bad.

So why the title of the post?

I grabbed a hunk of white/off white fabric from my stash that I had enough of and made nearly all of my 4-patches.  Oops, the quilt center lean creamy instead of bright white.  So now I have to make a decision – do I remake these — meaning I tear these apart — I don’t think I have enough brown fabric to red0 them or do I leave well enough alone.

kwiltnkats asked if a pieced borer was in the works for Candy Sunflower Seeds.  There wasn’t, but admittedly I wasn’t excited by what I was planning on doing or the finished size the quilt was going to be (approx 54 x 71).  So, I started playing with borders in EQ.  This is what I’ve come up with now:

I don’t like the big cornerstones — but I just had a flash of inspiration and if I go with this option I’ll make those the same size squares as the rest of them – 2 1/2″ finished.   The pieced border also makes the quilt a bit larger – approx 63 x 80 and more inline with the size I frequently  make.

Now I’m off to figure out exactly how I’m going to piece that border — 4-patches or Seminole piecing….

It’s a Quilt Top!

This top is from a kit I won from a quilting web site back in 2005 or 2006. The kit is called Building Blocks and the fabrics are from Nancy Halvorsen True Friends line.  The kit came with pre-cut pieces and provided several options.  It measures approximately 50″ x 60″.

So what’s next?

I can either take another stab at sandwiching the Crossword Puzzle quilt, go a head and sandwich and quilt this quilt, add the borders on the Christmas Row Quilt or work on this:

Check back to see what I work on.  I’m guessing it will be a combination of all of the above.

Admittedly the top is not quite finished, but it’s never to early to think about backing and binding.  I dug through my stash and found two fabrics that I think work with this quilt.  The green on the top right is what I originally pulled for the backing and binding.  Then I discovered I don’t have enough of it for both, so I dug deeper to find something to stretch it.

I came up with a yard of the peach on the top left.  Now I’m wondering if I instead of using the green for the binding and stretching the backing with the peach, I’ll just use the peach for the binding.