Design Wall & WIPs

Judy asks “What’s on your design wall?” every Monday morning. Well, here is mine.

These 5 blocks are UFOs, leftovers from a BOM of 2005, I think. I used 7 of the blocks for a valance in my bedroom and always planned to make a throw with these 5. But as you can see, here they are, still orphan blocks. So on the design wall they went. I have finishing fabric for them but just haven’t decided what I want to put between them. The blocks are 15” so they should make a nice sized 9 patch plus borders.



On Thursday I got my first Christmas gift for this season, quilted. Friday I sewed the binding together and on the front and Saturday I finished sewing it on the back. I won’t have pictures until later but am really happy with how it turned out. I have one other gift to finish as I have not planned handmade gifts for more than a couple of people.

DH was off on Saturday to judge one of the last Jr. Miss programs in AL for the season and I had all day in the studio. I did a little cleaning and then some sewing. I am working on a Dresden plate quilt: 4 plates have been appliquéd with 2 to go. Today I made the centers for all 6 and fused 4 on the completed blocks. Next week I hope to get the last two appliquéd and then all 6 centers stitched. I also set up a new quilt with the last fabric I bought and plotted the design layout in EQ6. The last thing I did was sort and press lots of 1.5 and 2” strips for some scrappy strip piecing. I have an experiment I am going to try and if it works, I will share later next week.

We have not yet entered into Fall in the South. It has been rainy, warm (90F), and humid. I don’t mind much as I have been able to continue wearing shorts and my feet haven’t been cold, yet.



Anyway, late last week, due to the high humidity, I found this growing in my front yard.

The next day, the mushroom looked like this.

Isn’t nature wonderful?

Coming Up For Air

We got home from MD at 6am on Monday and the week has been filled with mundane things: laundry, napping, cleaning, napping, furniture moving, napping, company (DD & SIL) for dinner, more cleaning, napping, and finally a visit to the LQS for a BOM meeting today. I had done my block the day after last month’s meeting so I was ready.



It is a faux grandmother’s flower garden a’ la Eleanor Burns. We have now done 7 blocks and I am beginning to get an idea of how I want to set them. I think this may be a gift quilt as repro fabrics are not my cup of tea.







It has been raining every day for the last two weeks. I had ask my DD to water the hydrangeas while we were gone but she said that she never had to turn the water on. That has been the case this week, too. And today I was planning to dead head the rose bushes today but every time I started outside there was thunder, sometimes with rain. Anyway, look at my little hydrangea flower.

I am so excited although it is still the only one. And something is eating the leaves of the other plant so on Saturday I will be off to the nursery to see what can be done to protect my little plants. And look what else is growing in our yard.

Now, as much as I like eating mushrooms, I figure these humidity loving little stems would not be good for me. We only get them when there has been a combination of a lot of rain and humidity at the same time.

I did spend one morning this week in the studio and prepared two basket blocks for appliqué.

I am really enjoying doing these blocks but have no idea how I am going to set them or what fabric I will be using. I guess that’s what I like about how I do quilting, a never ending adventure.