I finished sewing the last 8 rows of the plaid half hexie quilt. Now I just need to attach it to the other 12 rows and press the last seam.
I have enough of both of these Kaffe fabrics for the back of the Stone Log Cabin. I just pulled them out late last night so I'll look at them today in daylight.
This fabric, the same as the center rectangle and 2 borders is what Kaffe used on his. My friend is going to put it on the back of her quilt. She eliminated the last 2 borders and is putting a wider border of this one as her final border.
I finished a dishcloth last night that used the ends of 4 balls of yarn.
The quilt top is so large now I had to hang it sideways on the design walls. One rectangle center, 20 borders.........I don't even like putting 3 borders on a quilt. This was a challenge. There are a few ripples.....I admit it isn't perfect. I had the most trouble after adding a crosswise grain border after a lengthwise grain border. Even though the book doesn't mention it you have to cut the black and white stripe lengthwise because the stripes run crosswise across the fabric. In fact it tells you to cut the binding crosswise when clearly it has to be cut lengthwise.
Here is the view from the side like I showed yesterday. This ended up 76.5" x 89". I am so glad I added 9" to the length of the center rectangle. My bedroom happens to be purple and this size should fit on my bed. I will try it on there later today.
It was nice and warm yesterday so I got out to the back garden. I wasn't able to rake leaves in the fall after my pacemaker surgery so there were a lot out there. I wanted to get the dry leaves picked up before we get rain tonight and tomorrow. They are even talking snow again Sunday night into Monday. I sure hope they change that forecast.
I got this far on my Kaffe quilt. Here is a link to a photo in Kaffe's Quilts in Italy book. I have 2 more borders to sew on.
Just in case you think this is a little quilt, here it is on my double design wall. Right now it is 68.5" x 80". The next 2 borders will add a total of 8" to each of those measurements.
I think this will be the last red cactus bloom. I have 2 more buds on the white one and 4 buds on one of the champagne colored ones. They may not all bloom since it is so late in the season but I hope they do. We are getting warm weather this week and then back down in the 40s for Sunday and Monday.
I finished sewing the top section of 6 rows together yesterday morning. I have to design this quilt sideways because the quilt will be over 90" long and the double design wall is only 82" tall. I planned the next 5 rows in the afternoon. This is on the wall with the poor lighting so I will move it to the other wall soon for better photos.
I designed one more row last night and then sewed the next 6 rows together and added them to the first section of 6 rows. It will be 20 rows wide so I am 60% done with this top. I will take a break from it today since my friend is coming over and we will finish the last 8 rounds on the Kaffe one block log cabin quilt. Here is where we left off.
I typed a list of the quilts I have made since I was the program at our local quilt guild in 2016. Yesterday I rounded up most of them. I still have to gather the 13 crazy pieced quilts and wallhangings.
This is what we woke up to in Sandwich IL yesterday morning. It only got up to 39 during the day but they are saying we will hit 70 on Friday. I'll believe it when I see it.
I took a break from the red crazy pieced quilt and started working on the plaid half hexagons.
I sewed the rest of the pieces for 2 long border sections yesterday. The blocks in the main part are 8" so it is somewhere near 56" x 64" right now. These border sections are 6.5" and the dark red strip will finish at 2". If I put them just on the 2 ends it will be about 56" x 80", a nice large couch throw quilt long enough for a tall person. Another idea was to put a 3" strip of the dark red all around the quilt in addition to this pictured border audition.
My trunk show is just a week away (Monday April 16) so I need to be rounding up all of the quilts and quilt tops and getting them in piles for packing. The trunk show is at the Federated Church 403 North Main Street in Sandwich IL. The guild meeting starts at 7 p.m. and guests are welcome (small guest fee).
In the spring Kaffe Fassett offers new colorations of some of his older prints. Lotus Leaf is one of my favorites so I had to have some of them. The one on the top left will be a great background fabric and would look great in the butterfly quilt I made earlier this year. My favorite is the lower left one. LOVE!!
I got the blocks sewn together into a top so now I'm ready to work on a border. I was thinking maybe I just need a border on the 2 ends to make it more rectangular. I'll play with ideas later today. Although I'm naming this one Crazy for Red it has probably 50% pink, orange and red/purple added into it. Of course pink is a shade of red so it still qualifies for that name.
The other thing I did yesterday was to sort the plaid and stripe half hexagons into 4 groups. The idea is to design each fourth of it and then sew that one and design the next. There were 4 cuts of most of the plaids and stripes but as few as 1 or 2 of some, 3 of a few, and as many as 6 or 8 of a few. One group has one of each in it.....92 different plaids and stripes. The other groups have 90, 70, and 60. I will do the largest group first, then the 70, next the 90 and lastly the 60 pieces. This should spread the color evenly across the quilt.
