Work in progress

Tennessee Waltz: work in progress

I'm working on a Tennessee Waltz quilt using Sue Bouchard's Quilt in a Day book, and so far I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out.

I love the colors and the fabric, especially since I didn't have to pick them myself! The lovely employees at my LQS saw how lost I was, pointed me towards the batiks (which I've actually never used before), had me pick out one piece that I liked, and helped me coordinate everything else around it. The top fabric, the dark blue with swirly teal bits, was the first one I chose, and I think everything else goes with it very nicely.



My new toy for this project was the Quilt in a Day "Triangle in a Square" ruler set. I've done several projects from this series, all using the same star design, and used flimsy plastic cutouts to trim the star points; having a heavy ruler I can cut around helps a lot! Definitely a good investment, even if I was silly and forgot my half-off coupon when I went to the craft store.



Thus far, I've got all the components for the star blocks ready to go, so now I just need to sew all of the nine-patches together and square them off. Once those are done, I'll be about halfway finished with the top, though probably closer to 3/4 of way done with the piecing time. I'm really excited to be working on it, likely because it's coming along so well, and can't wait to see the finished product.

Next project

Everybody in my immediate family except my dad has a quilt of their own, so guess what I'm working on?



I'm using navy blue and beige instead of this color scheme, and I think I should have the top done relatively quickly; the pattern is just a bunch of four-patches and half-square triangles.

Viola's Scrap Basket-- blocks

I finally finished the blocks using my package of 1930's charm squares, and I really like the overall effect (save that lone yellow block in the middle). I've decided to call it "Viola's Scrap Basket" after my great-grandma, who was an amazing and prolific quilter; I figure she would have used a lot of prints like these during her sewing career.

Repro pinwheels

I finally decided what to do with my reproduction fat quarters. I'm about halfway done with the blocks, and I really like the way it's turning out so far.

A tentative design

Prior to buying the set of charm squares, I'd considered doing a flying geese quilt and picked up a ruler to do so. Lo and behold, I just remembered that you can make four flying geese at 2" x 4" using a 5.5" square of colored material and a larger square in white. Perfect!
So after a bit of playing around, I think I'm going to do something along these lines, though with more "scrappiness" in the geese. (I was lazy with EQ and only used four colors for the blocks, but I'm going to have far more than that in my packet of fabric.) I tried it without sashing, but the effect was too busy, so I think that I'll be doing 8" blocks with 2" sashing. The finished result should look something like this:

Design process: potential reproduction patterns

I've been looking at lots of antique quilts and playing with EQ for a bit and I've come up with a few ideas for my 1930s fabrics. Lots of bright fabrics on white backgrounds, and plenty of applique-- which is a pity, because my applique skills are nonexistant and I'm not sure I'd want to practice on this project.
Here are a few ideas, mostly cataloged for my own reference.


I like the colors in this quilt, and the pattern doesn't look too crazy:


Design: Fairly quick and dirty, 9-patch blocks alternated with four-triangle pieces. Blocks would be 6" square, so it'd probably have more blocks than this when finished... assuming I've done the math right and I'd have enough fabric!


Or I could skip the setting triangles altogether and go for the straight "postage stamp" look:


I'm not sure what this pattern's called, but it'd be easy enough to whip up!


My version: I could whack each of the 6" squares in half and trim them to 5.5" finished blocks, I'm sure it'd go quickly.


I really like this block, though I wonder if I'd have enough fabric for it. Maybe if I used two colors in each block, I could make it fairly large?


Unsurprisingly, the final product turns out very busy, even when set off with sashing. Not sure how much I like this.


Simple would be better. And I'm seeing a lot of very simple nine-patch quilts put on point, so I'd have the authenticity going for me. I'd like something with piecing that'll keep me busy for a while, but I suppose something like this would give me a place to practice my machine quilting. (White on white so my mistakes aren't so obvious!)