Orange Crush No Borders

Well here is one of the OC quilts. If I do another Mystery I will remember to not be quite so scrappy. I also managed to put the white four patch rows in the wrong direction. But at least I was consistent in putting all of them in the wrong direction. I am definitely not doing the pieced border. I want to finish this one and chalk it up to experience! I am thinking of doing a pink border. What do all of you think?

Another Mistake, (or an Opportunity for Creativity)

This is block 6 in the Quilt-a-Long from Crazy Mom Quilts. Her block is different because she made hers the correct way. See this, this is how she wanted the block to look. What you see below is my version. Now I could say that I am exercising creative juices here, or I could just tell the truth and say that I screwed up the directions again. So out of 6 blocks so far, I have made 4 right and 2 wrong, but I am not going to rip it apart. No one will know but me and all the rest of the bloggers doing this Quilt-a-Long, and you, so please don't tell.







Bonnie has posted the final step in the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt. I have one of mine partially laid out on the design wall. I am still not too sure about these quilts. I may not do the scrappy borders. I may take the lazy way out and just add a resting strip and a non-pieced border. That option is sounding better by the minute.

This is the baby quilt that I mentioned in my last post. I like how the inside turned out. It is a package of charm squares from Moda's Simplicity. The border is from my stash. I may pull it off and buy some of Simplicity yardage instead to finish the quilt. It is OK this way, but I think it could be a lot better. Can you tell that I am not liking anything today?

I am heading out in the morning with a couple of girlfriends for a weekend in Prescott, AZ, away from the heat. Maybe that will make me less grumpy. There is a quilt show there this weekend, although we are just going to get away from the DHs and DDs and DSs. I will try to remember to take some pics along the way. We will see if we make it to the quilt show.

Now I am off to DS baseball game.

Donna

Have you ever wondered...

... why no one ever thinks mom gets tired too. My family was scattered to the four winds all weekend. You know how it is with teenagers; work, baseball, the mall, cheer practice, graduation party, etc. So mom stayed home today to make everyone a nice dinner and do the laundry for DS and DD. They were very appreciative and also very exhausted. By the time I turned around everyone had eaten and gone to bed, including DH! How is that for gratitude? I looked at all those dishes and leftovers and that's when I thought good thing mom never gets tired!

Anyway I feel better after venting that. I did get lots of piecing done this weekend. I finished the Step 5 blocks for the second OC quilt I am making. This one is less scrappy, and so far I like it better. I am looking forward to Step 6 to see how the border will pull it together.




I have had the experience before of not being thrilled with a quilt, only to have the resting strip and border(s) make a huge difference. I like the bright blue with the pinks.

I did block 5 in the Quilt-a-Long from Crazy Mom Quilts Blog. I think this quilt is going to turn out to be really neat. I finished all of the 12 setting blocks too.

Believe it or not I pieced a small baby quilt also for a shower on the 14th of June. I will post a picture tomorrow if I can get one of the sleepy heads to hold it up for me. I tried to take a pic of it lying on the floor, but it did not turn out well. The baby shower is for a friend who is remarried and having a little girl. Her sons are teenagers now. She has lots more energy and patience than me!

Have a good Monday. Thanks for listening.

Donna

Orange Crush Step 5

Well it doesn't represent my best moment as a quilter, but I did find some fabric in my stash that works colorwise with the pinwheel blocks.

One thing I have discovered through this mystery is that I don't buy a lot of fabric that reads as solid. I tried to stay true to the challenge and shop from my stash however. These are the album blocks and the corner pieces. It will be a mishmosh of pinks, so we will see how it all turns out. They look better in the picture than in person.

I did manage to buy a few more fat quarters this weekend in between baseball games. They were on sale and I really could not pass them up.

OC Step 4 "the pink quilt"

Well I finished the Step 4 blocks for the OC with the pink used as the light color. I am happy with these and think that this quilt is going to turn out to be my favorite of the two. The other OC uses whites and beiges as the light colors.

I am looking forward to seeing how the other two colors for each of the quilts are going to mix in with the 30 blocks we just made, and the other scrappy blocks. I ended up using the lime green that was to be used for the accent color in the first quilt, so I will have to pull something else from the stash.

I have never done a mystery quilt before so I guess it is ok to change on the fly. I do feel like it is 50/50 that I will end up with a big mess at this point. Worst case I can put these 2 sets of 30 blocks together with sashing at this point!

But it has been really fun starting a blog and sharing with all of you, so the Orange Crush mystery has been worth it for that alone.

While waiting for Clue 5, I am working on putting binding on 6 quilts that I have had as UFOs for longer than I like to admit. I will post photos of each one as they are finished. I had set a goal of June 1st. I think that will need to be revisited.

The other thing I have been working on this week is a quilt for my son's teacher. It is turning out really well. It only needs binding which I think I will put on tonight. I will do the hand sewing during Dancing with the Stars. I am totally addicted to that show. I have withdrawal when it is off of the air.

That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

Step 4 Done, Finally!

I don't know why it took me so long to complete my step 4. I feel like I was working on it forever. I still need to complete the Step 4 for the pink blocks. Hopefully I will work a little more efficiently.

Below is what my DH gave me for Mother's Day. He always goes to a LQS and picks a bunch of fat quarters. The funny thing is that he gets at least two of each one if he can, and sometimes he gets 3 or 4. He always picks what I would not, but I end up using his a lot. My favorite this go round is the dotted one at the end. It is always fun to open the bag (no wrapping from this guy) and see what goodies are inside. Love my feet at the bottom of the picture. Don't know how to edit those big things out!

Happy Quilting,
Donna

Orange Crush Step 3

Well step 3 is done, but for me it was not as easy as it sounded. I had a hard time with these half blocks, don't know why. After a nice round with my seam ripper they are complete. I must have had brain freeze or something.

First are the blocks for the Mystery Quilt with whites and off whites as the lights. Most of my darks are medium to darks with more mediums since this is what I tend to buy.

I have had a few requests to also show the blocks for the pink as light quilt, so here they are as well.

This is for the friend I mentioned who is a cancer survivor. I actually like how these are turning out better. All of the darks in these blocks are brights. I may have to buy some yardage for the next steps, but I am waiting to see what the next step is.

Finally here are some fun pieces I picked up over the weekend. Our local quilt shop had a $4.00 per yard sale. I would have bought more, but I can never make a quick decision under stress and it was definitely crowded and a little stressful. I am loving the orange.

That's it for now. Thanks to everyone who leaves comments.

Donna

Orange Crush Step 2

Well the step two blocks are done for the Orange Crush Mystery. I still need to do the step two blocks for the second quilt with the pinks. These blocks ended up being easier than they looked. The Easy Angle definitely helps the blocks to be the correct size, but what really helped was Bonnie's Fudge Factor Hint to match the outside corners of the large triangle and let the center seam gap a little on the pieced side. This little bit of cheating seemed to make the difference. Let's just hope that none of my seams pull apart.

I have a lot of mediums compared to most of the other photos in the Yahoo group. Hope that the pattern shows up well in the finished quilt.

I have been diligently cutting scraps into 3.5", 2.5" and 2" strips. Also started a box of strings and a box of crumbs. This is a big change from my former scrap system which just kind of threw everything in a bin based upon color. It was fun to see all the old fabrics I have made quilts from, some even from the first quilt I made 8 years ago.

I have continued to play with the crumb blocks. The block with blue sashing leaves 1/2" between blocks. The block with yellow sashing leaves 1/4" between blocks. I think I prefer the 1/4" right now, although it is a lot harder to sew since there are so many seams in a little area.

Thanks for stopping by. Love it when you leave comments.

Donna

Progress??????

Well I had great intentions of 2008 being the year that I finished up a lot of my UFOs. While making some progress there, it is an indisputable fact that I love to start new projects much more than I love to finish up old ones.

Now that I have discovered Bonnie's wonderful site I am feeling less guilty about starting new projects. After all I am just using scraps aren't I?

So here are some updates of what I have been working on.

The baby quilt only needs borders at this point. I don't have anything in my stash that works well enough, so I will need to buy some yardage for that and the backing as well. One of the LQS here is having a "mystery sale" tomorrow, so I will be checking that out!

Then I thought I would practice some more with the easy angle ruler, so I started this layout. I think this is from Quiltville's Leaders and Enders instructions. I really love the scrappy look. It certainly brings back a lot of memories of quilts made for freinds and family when I have been cutting up these scraps.

I have started step 2 of the Orange Crush Mystery as well, but just barely. I am finding it a little challenging to use the Easy Angle on the smaller 2" strips, so I have to go very slowly so as not to have any cutting accidents. Here's the lonely 4 patches waiting patiently for the next step.



I even messed around with the Crumbs, crumbs, crumbs instructions from Bonnie's website.

This is fun too. Kind of mindless sewing while I was watching tv. I have thrown out a lot of crumbs over the last few years.

And finally, so you don't think I am doing all this work on my own, here hard at work is my crackerjack assistant and harshest critic, Benji the dog.

Happy Quilting,

Donna

Purse and Pink Squares

Well I tried a couple of new things this week. The first is this purse from the book Patchwork with Pizzazz by Lise Bergene. I like how it turned out. Next time I will use some interfacing or maybe a stiffer batting to make it stand up a little better, but it was fun to make.

Then I decided to go ahead and make the second set of 4 patch blocks for Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville mystery quilt. This is for a birthday gift for a dear friend who is a two time breast cancer survivor. I am not sure about these yet, but we'll see if step two of the mystery helps them out. If you look at the Quilt Pink Magazine there are a lot of colors mixed well with pink. I am not sure what I will use for the four accent colors on this one. Probably bright pink for one of them. Maybe a bright yellow also. Any suggestions?

Donna

Mystery Quilt Step 1

Well thanks to a lot of determination from Tracy , I am in the Mystery Quilters Ring, and excited to be here. I finished the step one blocks last night.

Here they are waiting to have the little center seam pinwheeled open. I like to do this so that they will lie flat for me. They look like a fuzzy caterpillar to me.

Now pressed open and pinned together. I made a few extra, not knowing what the layout will look like.

I am looking forward to step 2. I think I am going to try making another version with pink as the light and all brights for the darks. I need a birthday gift for a friend who is a breast cancer survivor, but she is not the 100% pink type. We'll see.

Donna

First Blog Post Ever - Orange Crush Mystery Quilt

Well I am new to this blogging thing so I hope that this works. My picture of the fabrics for the Orange Crush quilt is above. I am using red instead of orange (so far anyway) so I will call it Strawberry Crush.

Hope this post works. We'll see.

Donna