Finishing the 12 blocks!!

Today, I am happy to present the last two blocks in our “Twelve Ways to Quilt a Sawtooth Star” challenge!!

Block 11 doesn’t look complicated but it nearly killed me……

….and Block 12 was a simple, FMQ way to finish the challenge…..

Enjoy the video and then try some of these designs. They are really versatile!!!

Next week, I will finish up the project, talking about sashing and borders!!

More from the British Quilt List….

For the last few Thursdays, I have been sharing quilts that I made thru the “British Quilt List” (Yahoo group) challenge.

Now we are up to April and this was my absolute FAVORITE quilt!!

We were told to design our own geometric shapes that would finish to a 4-inch square and then use our imagination to turn them into PURSES!!!

I decided to use some fabrics that I had bought in India for the bags themselves and then had SO much fun embellishing them!!

The final quilt is so fun….

…and brings a smile to my face whenever I see it!!!

AND…..isn’t that what a quilt is supposed to do????

Do you have a quilt that makes you SMILE???

Challenging myself….

For the last few Saturdays, I have been talking about challenges that I have participated in over the years and remembering the things that I learned from them.

The third challenge was set by my local guild and dated back to 1991. It was called “All That Glitters is Not Cold” and the requirements were that the quilt had to include a circular element and something that glittered!!

This was one of those quilts that started out as one thing and ended up as something entirely different!!

Since my last quilt had successfully included Lamé, I knew where my “glitter” was coming from. At that time I was enamored with a feathered star design and took it upon myself to make one from Lamé…..

Since that worked so well, I decided to add a few more stars in a round window…..

Then I decided that someone needed to be looking out of the window so the little girl was added……

Since my daughter Jenny loved teddy bears the little girl had to hold one. AND, Jenny had a gown with a ruffle at the time, so the “window” girl had one too!!

Then she needed some other furniture in the room so the shelf was added, containing a drum (with glittery trim), a doll (with glittery buttons) and the ball (something else round)!!

The final quilt was sweet……

….and hung for several years in my daughter’s bedroom.

Again, this challenge took me to places that I had never been before and helped me to move on to another stage in my quilting journey!!

Is there a challenge that propelled you forward?

BQL – Fun Photo Block

For the last two Thursdays, I have been posting about my entries in the “British Quilt List” monthly challenge from back in 2009.

The March quilt started by picking out a favorite photo. In my case, I used one from a trip to Kew Gardens in 2007……

Step two was to print it out to a 4.5 x 6″ format. In my case, I added a small flange around the photo to bring it to the proper size and also to highlight the photo more…..

The final step was to pick out fifty-two 2-inch scrap squares and arrange them in a pleasing manner around the photo.

When pieced together, these squares made a wonderful accent to the photo……

I kept the quilting simple, following a “trip around the world” design.

The result was a fun “travel log quilt” that reminds me of a sweet day in London!!!

Those Pesky Challenges

Last week I talked about challenges and showed my very first challenge.

The second challenge that I participated in was about a year later and was quite different from anything that I had ever tried before!!

It all started with a quick one-day trip to Houston for the International Quilt Festival in 1988. While there, I first encountered the Hoffman challenges….Hoffman fabrics would present one fabric each year and then challenge the makers to design a quilt featuring that fabric.

I was SMITTEN with the process!

A few years later I saw the next year’s fabric and was even more excited. It was a dark night-sky with bright colored planets and stars. My mind started racing.

Now, I don’t remember exactly WHY I thought about a checkerboard (my kids were young and loved playing board games so that might have been an influence), but I decided that the planets were going to play checkers with the stars!!

To make the stars shine more, I pieced them in Lamé fabric!!

This one actually looks pretty good since, as you know, Lamé is thin, fiddly, and frays at the slightest touch!!

At some point, I got the idea that I wanted to make it 3-D so that there were planets BEHIND the board and planets IN FRONT of the board, and even one planet breaking THRU the board…..