More Fabric info

I went and looked on the Hoffman Challenge site, and saw all their challenge fabrics since 1988, and my butterflies in deep purple/pink/blue wasn't one of them. But I did find this one, which is VERY close, in fact, I'll add it to my hunt, this one would be great as a border print too:


This one is titled 'Orchids' from their 1995 challenge. I must be about 10 years too late on my color preferences - guess I never will be in style!

Their 1994 challenge fabric was titled 'Tiffany Windows' and has lots of butterflies, but way too much yellow/gold to fit in the quilt I'm doing now.

Looking for Fabric

Maybe you folks out there all around the world can help me find these:



I have enough for the center of the quilt, but I'd LOVE to have a couple of yards more of one or the other to make borders. I used these two fabrics to select all my other fabrics (the ones in the pizza box, remember?) and I've searched all over the place online for these, and can't find either one of them. It would help, of course, if I knew the fabric line they came from.

Any of you have any in your stash with a selvage still attached, showing the company? The butterflies do have some metallic lines, in gold. I've found another butterfly fabric that's VERY similar, but it has some yellow, and that won't go in this quilt. I'm down to the dregs of these two fabrics, in fact, if you look close, you can see that these two swatches are actually put together from 4 inch squares... lol I hope someone's seen them before!

*ForestJane crosses her fingers*

Double Star with borders

Well, here it is:


I used Dawn's suggestion and added two wide strips of the blue on the outside of the string stripes, then went around the whole thing in dark red. Kinda bright, but should add some color to someone's room in the nursing home I'll be donating it to!

And on the bad news front, I went to Walmart for an oil change today and of course, had to cruise by the fabric area. I'd never bought as much there as at Hancock's, but they did offer some name brand quilting fabric, Cranston, VIP, Quilter's Blenders, etc. Now, as stuff sells, they're not getting in any more. They said they'll still have some small notions, but nothing that has to be cut. So first the Hancock's near me closes, now the Walmart nearest me closes it's fabric area, where will I shop? Online only? But I like to feel my fabric... :(

Double Star

Yet another Heartstrings quilt top... this one again from the blocks people in my guild made for block of the month. I picked all the brightest ones I could find for the stars, eight with a red stripe for the points, and 8 with a blue stripe for the centers. Some of these blocks had center strips that were too large or too small, but in this layout, it's not as noticeable, I think:


The blue is actually a snowflake print, bought on sale, but the snowflakes are much smaller than the dark blue bubble shapes or the white asterisk shapes you may see, so I think I'm getting away with it. :)

One more blue border on the two long sides, do you think? It could stand to be bigger, so I COULD put even another border all the way around, red, maybe? It's going to be donated to a nursing home, so bright and cheerful is good, and any sizes from wheelchair to crib to twin are needed. I only used 24 heartstrings blocks on this one, so I still have plenty left to keep on playing with (and I'm getting more donated every time I meet with the guild members.) Those side borders made from the half blocks are a GOOD place to use the slightly 'maverick' blocks. I cut the red centered ones in half with the stripe leaning to the top right, and the blue centered ones with the center stripe leaning to the top left, so I got the zig zag effect.

I got another bit added to all 100+ of my bright squares that were in the pizza box, AND got all of them ironed, made another 6 kaleidoscope blocks for the king size quilt, AND got those ironed. I really appreciate all the name suggestions for it too! I haven't decided on a name yet, I like the beach references, because that tan/beige does look like sand with water, but I also like the windmill and diamond ideas a lot too. Thanks, everyone, for the super suggestions!

Need a quilt name

Here's what I've been working on lately. I took it to the library this morning and laid out a 4 x 6 set of blocks so I could see how it was coming together:


The colors are off in this picture, I attribute that to a bad camera battery and the gloomy rainy day... no daylight from the windows. I just went and bought a new camera battery today. I'll get a better picture when I lay the blocks out for real, and spread out the beiges and blues nicely. I know it's supposed to be scrappy, but don't most of you play around with the layouts, trying not to have two identical fabrics touching, like I do?

Anyway, the whites and beiges aren't as dark and contrasty as they came out here. It will also look much better when I go iron the kaleidoscope blocks flat... but I really DO hate to iron. :) All the depression blocks are made for this king size quilt, and 17 out of the 28 or so kaleidoscope/kite blocks. I'll be making two king size pillow shams too, and a couple of pillows to arrange with them. I'm getting there - but slowly!

I need to come up with a new name for this quilt, that doesn't have anything to do with depression. Depression blocks have a diamond shape inside them, that you see here, alternated with the kaleidoscope blocks... so something - diamond or ... ? Anyone have any ideas? I'm awful at naming quilts.

Uses of a Pizza Box

Like many of you, I like using pizza boxes (clean, unused) for sorting/storing my projects in progress. Here's the palette for my next quilt, teals, lavenders, purples, fuschias, blues, a few lighter turquoises, and two slightly larger prints tying together several of the colors:


I wish I could find more of the two prints on the upper right and left, either one of them would work nicely as a border. All 200 of these squares are from my stash, I haven't bought any fabric since before Christmas. Most of these are from 4 inch squares and FQ's I got VERY cheaply on eBay some time ago. It's so nice to already have your squares cut for you!

And, like the half square triangles in my other ongoing project, there's a furry good reason I have to keep them all sorted out in a pizza box with a lid:


Now there's no shortage of places Toby can lay. He has a cat tree with 3 perches. There's a windowsill with a view. The couch behind him is empty, with a nice cushion... and just over his back, you can see the raggy quilt that I leave on the couch for them. Not much damage they could do to that old denim thing, even with both of them still having their claws. It's very soft, very sturdy, easy to wash. But nooooo, where does he want to lounge? He shoves over the book I'm reading and sprawls half on, half off the pizza box. I could understand it more if it smelled like pizza, but this was an unused box I begged from Pizza Hut.

He kept squirming around, pushing with his feet, till the book landed on the floor and he could get truly comfy. But at least he's not IN the box, shedding on my squares! :D