The summer of 2006 members of the kayewoods-quilting-friends Yahoo! group did a signature block swap.  48 people participated and we each received a block signed by Kaye Wood (hers is in the middle).

I put the center of the quilt together, but didn’t quite know where to go from there.  My husband pushed me to work out side of my normal traditional box and finish the quilt in a non-traditional manner.

The piece measures 43″ x 54″ and hangs in my hallway.  I finished the piece 1/5/07.

I’ve entered it in this weekend contest “Group Exchange Quilts” at the Quilting Gallery.  Do hop over and check out the other group exchange quilts.

Today the design wall is my fabric storage shelves.  The quilt no longer fits on the design wall.  I have 5 more rows to assemble then it will be time to decide about the border.

Make sure to hop over to Patchwork Times to check out other design walls.

This week I was gifted with more Halloween Fabric.  I hesitate to call them scraps since this is 2 1/2 yards of fabric, but that’s how they were described to me. Pieceful Kwilter sent me this collection which was left over from her Halloween quilt which can be seen HERE.    Between these fabrics and the spider fabrics from last week I sense a Halloween quilt in my future.

It was an extremely busy week at work this past week – one of those mind numbing weeks – fortunately I was able to mindlessly piece on my Irish Chain.  I finished all of the Block 2 blocks, decided which block I was going to start with and started sewing them together.  As soon as I get the top done I’ll count the fabric.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 2.5 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  96.302 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0  yards
Fabric Used to Date: 74.277 yards

Net Used for the year -22.025 yards

Here’s the link for the stash report over at Judy’s.

What do you think?  Would you drive around with these bumper stickers on your car?  My husband designed them for me.

Last night while listening to QuitlCam with Bonnie Hunter I worked on my Happily Scrappily Irish Chain.  I’ve got another 10 blocks with one side attached, so I’m halfway through making Block #2.

I’ve made/making 50 of each block with the plans of making the quilt 9 x 11 blocks.  There will be one left over block.  I just have to decide which block I’m going to start with Block #1 or Block #2 (as shown).

My design wall isn’t large enough to lay the whole quilt out so I’ll sew it in 4 sections, then the sections together.  It will be one of my larger quilts since it will measure roughly 67 x 82 before borders.

Or, maybe I’ll just bind it at that size and call it good.

This morning I looked for a picture of one of my quilts (not this one) and discovered it’s not on my blog.  Under the Finishes on the right hand side are the subpages which show quilts that I’ve finished since I started blogging in 2009.  This quilt and the quilt I was looking for were finished prior to that.  So, periodically, I think I’ll pull pictures and write about the quilts, and create a subpage for my older quilts.

The quilt pictured above I finished on Mother’s Day (May 8th) 2005.  The pattern is Grandpa’s Best from Perkins Dry Goods.  I started it at my first quilt retreat on April 29, 2005.  The quilt was offered as a mystery so I picked blue, green, red and neutral FQs to go with my mom’s newly recovered sofa.  Turns out most of them were Civil War reproductions.

It measures 54″ x 69″.  I quilted this on my sewing machine and used Quilter’s Dream Cotton for the batting.  I started to go back and do a bit of hand quilting, but quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen.  If you click on the picture you can just barely see the hand quilting in the center blue square.

I was stitching down the label about 1:30 that day just in time to swing by my LQS where I bought the fabric and then go out to my mom’s to give it to her.

Tonight I quilted with Bonnie — at least virtually via her QuiltCam.  Tonight’s project was sewing squares to rectangles for Block 2 of my Irish Chain.  I’m using Happily Scrappily Irish from Adventures With Leaders & Enders by Bonnie Hunter.

I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to press these and cut the rectangles I need for the block.

I have finished half of the blocks for my scrappy Irish chain quilt.  I think  I’ll do a bit of reading to finish out my long weekend.  It’s back to work in the morning.

As overflowing as my string box is, I’m finding it difficult to get a variety of strings in my blocks.  Perhaps it’s because there are no purple and orange strings in the box since they are sequestered with my Orca Bay.  Additionally, I don’t know how many more blocks I want to make.

Two more and the quilt will measure 30 x 37 1/2.  Six more and the size is 30 x 45.  This could go on and on.

So, I think it’s time to switch out the pressure foot and do some piecing.

There’s nothing on the design wall proper today. But on the ironing board I have these string blocks that I’m making quilt-as-you-go.   This project is not on my list of things to complete this year, so I don’t know how many more I’ll make before I put it away again.

Yesterday I put my walking foot on the sewing machine in preparation for my young friend to do a bit of quilting on her first quilt. But time got away from us and we didn’t get that far.

I could have changed out the foot and resumed working on my Scrappy Irish Chain, but my box of 1 1/2″ strips to cut spools for leaders/enders is very low.

I really need to cut some more 1 1/2″ strips to increase the variety, but I  haven’t done it yet.  Although I did cut some strips from my floral FQs (can I call them FQs if they’ve been cut into?)  I have 4 spools kitted and probably 5 or 6 more floral strips which I have not kitted.

But anyway, between the lack of spool kits and the walking foot already on the machine, I pulled out the string project which I started a couple of years ago.  I have a stack of 8″ batting squares and light floral backgrounds (which is probably why I thought of it) and my string box is overflowing.

(the string box and the 1 1/2″ strip box are the same size.)  I promise I can get the lid on the box — just barely.

I have a couple of errands to run this morning (I’ve got the day off) and then I think I’ll work on a few more of these blocks before switching the foot out and resuming work on the Scrappy Irish Chain.

Hop over to Patchwork Times to check out other design walls.