Quilting the table runner............................

Finally I tackled the machine quilting on the table runner made with Marcia Derse fabric.  I ditch quilted the four crazy pieced blocks and the seam where the borders were sewn on.

There is usually one large print that is offered with each of her lines of fabric.  I had just a half yard of this one and it makes an interesting backing.  I need to put a couple lines of quilting in the borders and then trim and do the binding.

It got up to 80 degrees yesterday and was still 68 degrees at bedtime.  One quick storm came through around 9 p.m.

All twelve Kaleidoscope blocks............

Since I'm out of room on the main floor design wall, I put these up on the double wall in the basement.  After seeing this I can see I don't want to stop at an uneven number of blocks so 5 x 7 = 35 is out and I'll probably make it 6 x 8 = 48 blocks.

Here is my Sunday progress, 5 more Kaleidoscope blocks and the second section of the quilt above them is filled in.  I can see some that I want to move.

From the pile of tall triangles on the sewing cabinet I counted out the number of pieces I need to design the bottom section (like the top section).  Then I counted leftovers that will be used in the rest of the Kaleidoscope blocks.  I will need to cut more.  I have the rest of the strip I cut the first ones from and I think I can get 4 more from most of the fabrics.

On my way to fill the bird feeders, I pass the Lenten Rose flower bed.  The plants will get much larger by the time summer is over.  All three have blooms on them.

Since the flowers hang down, all you can see is the outside of the blooms.  I love it that there are two colors of blooms on each plant.

Over by the bird feeders, the Scilla is blooming.

I broke off dried flower stalks from one Sedum plant and trimmed my Zinfin Doll Hydrangea in the front garden.  It sounds like rain starting Tuesday and lasting a few days so I need to get out today and break off more of those flower stalks.

 

6 more blocks.................

I had to cut some more triangle corners before I could make any more blocks.  That is 60 triangles in the stack, one pass through the Studio die cutter with a Studio die, 10 layers at a time.  That is enough triangles for 15 blocks.  There is very little waste when cutting with the triangle dies.

After that I cut 30 tall triangles in one pass through the cutter, enough for 15 blocks.

I also cut 6 of each of these Marcia Derse prints so I would have some more variety to choose from for both quilts.

While I was in the basement I pressed the first 6 blocks.

I added some more pieces to the quilt at the top and the layout is subject to change as I keep working on it.  The 6 new Kaleidoscope blocks are at the bottom and they will get their final pressing today.  The blocks will be 10" finished so I need a minimum of 35 for a quilt 50" x 70".  That means I'm 1/3 of the way there.

It was 48 degrees for a high yesterday and may get up to the 60s today.  I need to trim my Zinfin Doll Hydrangea.  It says to do it in late March before it has buds.  My Annabelle Hydrangeas can be trimmed in the fall or spring.  I'll check both of them and see if they need any more cut off.

Playing with triangles....................

I should have been working on the finishing of the Marcia Derse fabric table runner.  Instead I did my grocery shopping and then went back out to get birdseed that was on sale for a couple more days.

Last night I didn't want to go down to the basement where the table runner parts are waiting for me so I made a few more of the Kaleidoscope blocks.  I need to cut some more corner triangles before I can finish any more blocks.  I'll take these down to the ironing table today and press them and while I'm down there, cut the triangles.

Here is the whole design wall.  I started designing the part at the top on a design wall in the basement but I decided I would rather work on it in the main floor studio.  My friend and I both wanted to remake a quilt that we both had made and both had gifted to someone.  Here is the post with its finish in late 2016.  I made the first one with a tall triangle template but I'm making this one with die cut pieces, a little shorter than the triangles in the original quilt.  This quilt will be much smaller than the original.

When I brought the triangles upstairs they weren't sorted so I took time to do that yesterday.  I have gotten a couple new MD fabrics since I was working on this last year so maybe I'll cut a few triangles from them too.

 

Something new.................

This project has been on one of the design walls in the basement for about 8 months.  Here is the post where more of the layout is shown.  I decided it was time to start sewing some of the blocks to see if it would be an enjoyable project.  I need to cut a lot more of the light prints.  These are all Marcia Derse fabrics.

This is how the center of the first block turned out after 3 tries at it.  That is about 1/16" of an inch off.

The second block turned out better.  I used to make a lot of Kaleidoscope quilts so I know I can match the centers.

Another new orange cacti bloom yesterday.  They make me so happy.

The dark rose one is fully opened now.  I think I see a bud on the pale pink one so I'm hoping for one more bloom at this east window.

It was 70s early in the day yesterday and 36 at bedtime.  It was going down from there through the night.  All of the severe storms with hail stayed south of us.

Third finished quilt in March 2026........

This is another quilt made with mostly 1990s floral fabrics, with a few newer ones worked in.  I also added Kaffe Fassett Spot fabric. It is made of Hourglass blocks with rectangles used as the border.

It is 53" x 64.5".

I bought the 59" wide black and white fabric many years ago.  It was nice to not have to piece a backing.  The quilt has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it.  It was quilted by Robin Diaz.

This finished quilt top is made with all Marcia Derse fabric, from many years of her collections.  There are 70 different fabrics in the quilt top.

After pressing and photographing, I did the staystitching around the perimeter.

It is 63.5" x 80".

Top sewn and binding on another.................

This top is sewn but needs its final pressing so I'll do that today and then photograph it.

After that was done I sewed the binding on the floral hourglass quilt.  I was happy I had more of the same fabric I used for binding on the other 1990s floral quilt.

You can see the print better in this photo.  It will be machine finished so I hope to get it done today too.

My two cacti plants by the east picture window are finally blooming.  This is the third time for the white with pink edging, but just one bloom each of the last 2 times.  The other is the dark rose color and it isn't opened fully yet.

I checked the orange one again, by the west picture window and there are 2 more buds and another bloom.  I would have been disappointed it this one didn't bloom a second time because it always has in previous years.  I turned the pot around so I can enjoy the blooms more.  They were originally facing the window.

12 blocks and sewing columns....................

The last 6 blocks have been pressed and trimmed and have joined the first six on the design wall.  I have several thoughts about these blocks.  First I thought they would be nice sewn together like this as the center of a medallion quilt. But then, the  more I looked at it, I wondered how they would look with sashing between them and a wide border all around.  I removed them as stacked columns so I could use the design wall for my other project.

I went down to the basement, looked one last time at the layout of this 'other 16 patch' and moved 2 blocks.  Then I stacked, clipped, and numbered the columns and brought them up to the main floor for my evening sewing.  I have 5 of the 7 columns sewn, 4 on the wall sewn to each other and #5 sewn and laying on my sewing cabinet.  Tuesday nights there are 6 TV shows I want to watch, so I watch 3 live and the other 3 are recorded to watch tomorrow night.

This has been fun working on two projects made with Marcia Derse fabrics.

More blocks and a layout................

I finished the 5 blocks I showed in progress yesterday and added them to the one left over from the table runner.

Last night I didn't have anything else lined up to sew, so I made 6 more blocks.  I will get them pressed and trimmed today and add them to the other 6.  They will all finish at 8".

While I was in the basement doing laundry I decided i needed to get the Marcia Derse fabric blocks up on the design wall.  I was a little disappointed with the result.  There were 2 blocks left over.

I took out the two lightest blocks and put in the two left over blocks.  It was a little better but I knew I wanted to move a few blocks.

I moved most of the darker blocks to the top and bottom with the lighter ones in the middle.  I'm still not positive it's the final layout so I didn't start sewing it together yet.  As I'm looking at the photos I think I like the second layout better but in person, I like the third layout best. 

 

My choice..................................

 My choice for the sashing and borders was the busy print.  Surprised?  I love busy quilts.  The binding will cover the outer edge so the borders won't look quite as wide when it is finished.  I'm not sure what color will go on the back but I'm thinking a red binding might be nice.  I ended up just using 4 blocks instead of all 5.  I didn't want to piece the long border strips.  It is 43" long.

I was going to sort and bag all of the rest of the scraps, but they told me they wanted to be sewn into blocks.  The largest ones are about 8" on the longest side.  I will will probably sew on some more strips today. 

From my kitchen window I noticed the Forsythia bush had a few blooms so I took my camera out and looked for more signs of spring.  This bush is an ugly shape, an old bush chopped off many times, but I leave it there because the birds love to fly back and forth from the bush to the bird feeders.

The Lenten Roses are small but they have their first flowers.  Last year's leaves are huge and dead so I need to get out there and clip some off so I can rake the leaves out of the bed.

The lilies are always one of the first plants to come up.  Lots of raking needed here too.

One Coral Bell plant has its first green leaves.  This plant gets huge by the middle of the summer and spreads a lot too.  I think I'll dig some out and put it in pots.  I might put one of them in my front garden.

I saw several Peony plants starting to grow and this was the most colorful one.  Somehow I missed cutting the leaves off this one last fall.

It got up to 78 yesterday, a little more than the high 60s that I was expecting.  It was still 67 at 11 last night.  Today the temperature will start dropping to 40s by mid-afternoon and tomorrow.  It might get down below freezing Monday night so I won't do any raking of leaves yet.

Down to three...................

I removed all of the fabrics that had a stripe pattern from yesterday's choices.  That narrowed it down to 3.

This one might show the best contrast between the light edge strips and the sashing fabric.

This is the original fabric I showed a couple days ago.  Now I just need to study these photos and make  my decision.

My niece was in town visiting her parents so I invited her over to choose a couple baby quilts for her first grandchild, a little girl.  This was her choice for the baby's house.

And this was her choice for a quilt at her house.

It got up to 74 degrees yesterday and today might be in the 70s too.   It was nice to have all of the windows open for most of the day. Tomorrow's high will be at midnight with temperatures dropping through the afternoon. 

Finding more choices...................

There were more black/irory Marcia Derse fabrics that I thought I should audition for the sashing on the table runner.

I put 4 of the 5 crazy pieced blocks on top of them.  I may have to remove the light strips on the edge of 2 of the blocks and replace them with something darker.

I turned the two with light edge strips to touch other fabrics.

I had pulled this fabric for the first photos thinking it was too dark, but I still had to try it with the crazy pieced blocks.  No decisions made.

It got up to 69 degrees yesterday at our local high school Weatherbug station.  Two more 60+ days today and tomorrow.  This is the right weather for the first day of spring for a change.  Usually it is a cold day.