Wednesday, March 14, 2012

WIP Wednesday - a very old UFO

It's WIP Wednesday!


The week I have an oldie but a goodie for you.  It's a BOM from the quilt shop in the town across the Snake River from my hometown in Idaho.  I started it in 2004 and lost interest when two of the blocks depicted downtown stores -- not interesting or pretty!

When this quilt came up as the March UFO number, I pulled out all the block kits and decided "I don't have to put those two storefront blocks front and center in my quilt."  (Doh, I AM the boss of my quilting!  Why do we forget that?)

I do think the blocks tell the story of Idaho, though.  The sun shines 204 days a year, so this sunny block is apt:


The Idaho state flower is the Syringa, which is a :white-flowering bush:


I had some fabric that depicted the Idaho state flower, but sadly the designer had shown the syringa vulgaris, or common white lilac -- wrong flower!  So I pieced some blocks that look to me like the Sego lily:

 
which grows wild in the mountain meadows of Idaho.


I am adding a row of conifer trees across the bottom.  That "golden" conifer is a Tamarack, a conifer that turns a beautiful gold color in the fall.  The Tamarack is also known as the Western Larch, and is a deciduous conifer (cone-bearing tree) which loses its needles in the fall.  

Here is my quilt so far:

The large empty space on the right will have an applique block of the Perrine Bridge, the bridge from which Elder Son jumped last summer -- 486 feet to the water!

 

Oh look, the Devil Cat of Death wants to play.  Or bite my camera hand, whichever comes first:


And speaking of WIPs, all Meggie needs is the thread holder and the lamp, then she'll be ready to use!  Woo hoo!

The temperature is supposed to reach 72 degrees today, so I'm thinking it's a better day for yard work than for quilting.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

A MyAuntMarthaMadeIt Original

Look!  I've designed my first original quilt!

Because Sunday is for Scraps, I pulled out the drawer of green strips and just started sewing half WOF strips together. [And OK, I am really tired of the BOM UFO I've been working on all week.]

Then I cross-cut them into 4 1/2"squares.  

Then I sewed "twosies" into "foursies."

By now I was thinking "four strips long equals four strips across."  Since green means "garden," I added side borders of floral prints:

And got this:


The blocks are 8 1/2" square unfinished.  In about two hours I had made 35 blocks, so my quilt is 5 blocks by 7 blocks, and will make a nice lap quilt of 45" X 56" without a border.


I think I'll try this same design for a red-white-and-blue quilt next weekend for Quilts of Valor National Quilting Day.