Pinwheels and Calico Cats

Here's another project I've been working on the past month or two. It started with some very scrappy calico pinwheels made in Pat Speth's class:


I decided I didn't want to do 35 pinwheels, to make the quilt 5 blocks by 7. Then I found this calico cat block in an old magazine. I redrew it to the size I needed and made four of them - it really made me like the blocks better to have some cats in there! I need ONE more cat for that empty bottom right corner.

My design wall is too small, so I had to overlap most of the blocks to get them to fit, even with folding the right hand row around to the back. I wish I had a bigger house --and a studio with a skylight and a maid to keep things clean and might as well wish to win the lottery while I'm at it-- but meanwhile, this design wall is as big as it's gonna get!

Now looking at the photo, I see that I've got to shift some blocks, those two brighter green background ones are too close together, and I don't think I like the two cats that're looking left being that close either. Anyone else get to this point and decide to just take them ALL down and start the layout over?

There'll have to be sashing between the blocks, because the pinwheels spin different directions. It'll be thin sashing, maybe 1 or 1½ inches, but I can't decide what color I want. There's a forest green... and a mauve, and a medium blue, and a dark blue. None of them are solid, but they're all a very tiny print, and almost read as solid. It's gotta be from stash, I'm on a no-buy thing till I use some fabric up. Any opinions?

Block of the Month for 2010

Been working on several things, but I'm such a bad blogger! Here's the block of the month I'm doing for my guild, for 2010:

Start Page

It's going to be stars, this year, a different star for each month. People can choose between 6 inch or 12 inch stars, and do whatever theme they want. I've put several suggestions/hints for theme ideas on that Start Page, some suggesting they make their own design for a medallion center, and one at the end for just a sampler quilt. It's pretty neat, seeing all the different colors being used to make the blocks.

Here's an Ohio Star, for January:


And the Strip Star, for February:


And a preview of the block I'll have up in March, the Rising Star:



My web page for the Rising star isn't up on the website yet, I usually put them up around the first of each month. ;)

Personally, I'm going to do six inch stars in a pastel scrappy theme, for Spring. I'll arrange these around a white medallion center, tall and skinny like the Easter one on the Start Page link. I think I'll put a tulip or daffodil in the middle instead of the bunny shown there.

And here's one of each in brown and green and cream, of each star - in the 12 inch size:


The Ohio Star (sorry the view is wonky here - the block is straight, I promise!)


The Strip Star - I paper pieced this one too.


And the Rising Star. I paper pieced the inner and middle star, but not the outer star points.

I'm going to give people the option of using a solid 3½ square instead of the teeny little star in the middle there, I know a lot of folks don't like paper piecing fiddly bits. :)

These will be added to my kingsize 'Neverending Sampler' that I've been working on for *blushes* about 25 years. As I've gotten better at quilting, I look back at some of the early blocks and think... ewww! I can't use that!