Heart Twist Progress

Now the top and bottom delectable mountain borders have been added:



And I've even taken apart the nine patch border bits I'd finished so far, plus made some strip sets with pink in them. I'd much rather sew than unsew, wouldn't you? ;)

Heart Twist

This is what I've been working on lately - remember the little 4 block sample I showed for the Superbowl Twist a couple of posts back? I've done Bonnie's Strip Twist in 1½ strips for the middle, then her Delectable Mountains in 1½ strips will be for the next pieced border, and I'm partway thru sewing a bunch of nine-patches from 1½ strips for the outer pieced border.


I have the top and bottom row of mountains completed, but just finished with the machine applique of the hearts last night.

Here's the EQ version of what I am planning the whole quilt to look like:



I'd thought I was going to do the quilt in faded denim blues and whites with blue, but it was calling for an applique in the middle. First I pulled out my reds, and almost went with a bandanna print, but the red looked too bright against the blue. When I opened the pink drawer, thinking maybe some medium pinks wouldn't look as stark as the red, this mauve seemed to slither right into my hands.

Then I had to go back to EQ and add pink borders and some dots of pink in the nine patches. Unfortunately, I've already sewn lots of nine patch strips as leader-enders while I was doing the strip twists and mountains, so I've got a little unsewing to do, do add some pink in here and there.

Anyone want to unsew for me? :D

Mini Strip Twist and Bluejean Purse

I'm going to join Bonnie this Superbowl Sunday as she makes strip twist quilts. If you scroll down, you can see the one I made my brother, I've also made one all in pink for a 'Quilt Pink' theme. Click on the 'Take me to Quiltville' button if you want to see Bonnie's pattern and join us.

This little one is all in blues and white, and since I'm using teeny 1½ strips, I decided to start early. Here's the first 16 blocks done:


I have 64 blocks made so far, and I'm trying to decide if I want just the middle of the quilt to be twist blocks or if I want to cut more 1½ strips and expand this.

I've also been working on a little bluejean purse:


I bought the girls' size jeans at a thrift store for $3, then got a really filthy white vinyl purse at a garage sale for 50 cents... I ripped out all the zippers and useable hardware for this purse, aren't the little brass D rings and clips on the handle cute? A lady at work says they make the jean purse look like a 'real' purse lol.


I had the black star fabric strips left from the border of a quilt, to make the belt, and the beads were left over from another project too. I made another back pocket-flap with a velcro tab just like this one, but decided that two flaps were overkill. Now I'm thinking of beading a little star or heart on the pocket with no flap, what'cha think?


The hardest part of the whole purse was putting in the zipper - I'm bad about tossing my purse on the passenger seat of my van, so I had to have a way to close it securely or I'd be losing change and pens and pencils. :D I couldn't sew the zipper on with the machine around the big lumpy jeans button, OR around the beltloops, so I've still got some hand sewing to do there.

4th File, 4th Photo

Hmm, I saw this blog-game on the blog after mine in the Stash Quilts blogring, Marcie at Patchalot More, and it sounded interesting. The rules say:

*Go to the fourth photo file on your computer
*Choose the fourth picture in that file
*post it and explain
*tag four people to do the same

So, curious, off I went to my photo files, to see what was the 4th file... I've taken a lot of photos, so my files were pretty nested, files within files. Is the librarian in me showing? After Catpix, Familypix, and HouseandGardenpix there came Quiltpix. And the 4th file in THAT (after BOMpix, MiscPix, and Quilts2004) was Quilts2005. The 4th cropped and named picture in the file was this one:



Brings back fond memories! This is my oldest brother, Dan, holding a quilt I gave to him back in 2005, around Thanksgiving. He liked it a lot, but I think his wife is the one that uses it the most. :) It was also the first one of Bonnie's patterns I tried, her Strip Twist.

I picked all the fabrics I didn't really like - my favorite color is forest green, so I pulled out all the olive toned greens, ikk. There were a lot of wine and burgundy and mustard FQ, and they made the pile too... then some 'ugly' pale colors. The ugliest one I remember was a beige with brown streaks and smears on it ... one of my brothers said the brown streaks looked like underwear 'skidmarks' -ewww! After that comment, that's all I could think when I saw that fabric!

Since I was making a guy quilt, I took out anything floral, then added back in a couple of blues, some prints with leaves and apples... till I had a mix I could live with. Even though it was all fabric I didn't like individually, I was pleased with the end result. :)

Now the rules say for me to tag 4 people - if you feel like playing, consider yourself tagged! Then let me know you're playing so I can go look.

Another Strip Twist Quilt

Here's what I've been doing lately... Girly pink quilt, anyone? I've had these pink, mauve and purple fat quarters in my stash for a lonnnng time (see the stashbusters ring picture on the left where I substituted a pic of my stuffed pink fabric drawer.) I've been thinking I'd like to use them all up in a more controlled color scrap quilt, using Bonnie's strip twist pattern from Quiltville:



This is a third of it. I plan to make two more sections like this, then I've also started cutting out the leftover bits of strips to make a pieced border. I've been stitching them together as leader/ender squares between blocks, so that'll go pretty quickly too.

I've already done a strip twist, and really liked the way it turned out. I'd picked colors for that one to make a guy-type quilt... if you want to see one I gave my brother, click here for pictures of a strip twist in olive greens, rusts, beiges, mustard, etc. They're easy to make, and I love the way it looks set on point without all the bother of cutting setting triangles for the edge.

Also been thinking of machine applique'ing something on top of this one, perhaps in the dark purple or maybe red - a trio of big hearts? A curled up egg-shape of a sleeping siamese cat on one corner? Any suggestions? I think I'll wait and see how busy it gets when I've put the pieced border on.