What was I thinking?

Since I had finished “Bridge Over the River KEW“, it was time to turn back to the Color Wheel quilt that I have been slowly working on for the past YEAR!!!

Now that the hand applique on the corner’s were finished I needed to turn these five pieces into one very BIG piece…..

I had been dreading this part of the process since it would be extremely easy to get the triangles off center and then the whole thing would be skewed. When doing the corner design I had marked all of the sewing lines, so it was easy to match those lines up, iron a crease where the sewing line would go and then simply sew along the marked line….

After the initial sewing, I laid the top out on the floor and used the laser square to see how close it was….

There was one corner that needed some work…..

….but a bit of ripping and re-sewing soon had that fixed.

The bottom line is that the final trim will be very close but I will get it quilted and then see where it is.

Next I needed to make a back for the quilt and at this point I started asking myself exactly what I was thinking when I designed this quilt and WHY did I make it so big!!!

It was fun using a number of multi-colored pieces of fabric for the back…..

…..especially the cute psychedelic VW Bug fabric!!

So for now, I will put this into the line-up for quilting….it is number three in the queue.

Let the handwork begin!!

Over the last 9 months I have been working on my color wheel quilt. A few weeks ago I posted about using the Pathagorean Theorum to calculate the size of the triangles needed to fill the corners.

Now the question was exactly what to add to the corners. In my original design, the outside circles were going to move in curvy lines…..

But, when I started laying out circles in different orientations, having curves in the outside drew the eye away from the center rather than toward it……

I had also considered making the darkest grey into a circle, but quickly decided that it wasn’t worth the effort!!!

After a lot more playing around……

…….I decided that a starburst effect would draw the eye to the middle……

At this point I realized that I needed a bit more fabric than I had on hand so, while I waited for UPS to make a drop to my door, I started making all of the circles. I found that the colors were much easier to pick since I had my fabrics folded so well. This was the basic way that I worked…..

SUCH luscious colors!!!!

You can check out this post where I tell how I prepared the circles.

Once the fabric arrived I made strip sets and then trimmed them down to a size that was a few inches larger than the final product…..

Now I needed to transfer the circle pattern onto each of the 4 fabric triangles. I started by tracing the triangle onto the fabric and adding the straight radiating lines. Next step was to trace the circles onto the fabric……

Final step was to baste each of the circles into place….

Then it was time to put it up on the design wall…..

Happily, I am pleased with how this looks!!!

So, now every night will find me sitting in my chair and appliquéing circles!!!

LET THE FUN TIMES BEGIN!!!

Quilting in a real big empty….

Well, the construction started out going great guns, but then as projects often do, it came to a screeching halt as we wait for the Drywall guys to come in and close in the new wall.

But, today I had time to do some more work on the Henna Girl and I was not going to let a big open space deter me!!! I swept the area well and moved my machine table out of the corner and got everything set up……

I couldn’t figure out why it was so cold in the room, but Michael reminded me that there was an area that was open to the attic…..

……so a space heater was added to sort that out!!

I spent the next few hours happily quilting along and dreaming of when this room would be completely finished!!

I am pleased with my accomplishments for the afternoon, finishing the bottom portion of her shirt…..

…although when I cropped this photo, I realized that I have the top portion to do as well!!!

I was going to work on her arms, but didn’t have the right color of thread. Instead, I added some to her head scarf…..

Also, last night I finished all of the applique on the Color Wheel quilt so now it is time to get serious about figuring what to add to the corners. I took one of my photos of the finished portion, pulled it into Powerpont, and added the corners……

Now I have printed out a bunch of copies and hope to spend part of this evening playing with possible ways to finish the corners. Originally I didn’t have any ideas, but now have several in mind. Sometimes that makes it harder!!!

Now to get off of this computer and get to it!!

Two projects at the same time!!

I seldom work on two things at one time, but busy times call for intense multi-tasking!!

As I have posted here over the last few months, I have two quilts in the making….the Color Wheel and the Henna Girl. Since I found out that my studio enlargement is going to start at the end of January, and I REALLY want to get both of these quilts finished this spring, I am having to split my time between the two.

The first item on the agenda was to get all of the hand appliqued circles put onto the Color wheel quilt. When this was accomplished, I then added the color “squiggle, basting it in place as I went……

I had to make a few alterations to make the corners match, but it was fairly easy to put a fold into the squiggle.

Next I made 25 feet of bias tape, using the 3/8″ Clover tool and glued it to the outer edge of the squiggle…..

With all of it now in place, I will be able to work on the hand applique at night while watching TV…..

On to quilt #2……

Today I finished the body of the “Henna Girl”, adding her legs and feet……

The next step will be to work on the background. I am thinking about painting the “asphalt” fabric that she will sit on. The question is what else to add to the background. As I look at the original photo that I took of she and her Mom……

….I am thinking that I want to include a bit more of the background to better set the stage. I am tempted to include the bag of fruit in the background and maybe some of the woven basket in the foreground.

Decisions…….decisions!!!!

Studio Update

Now that Christmas is over, my house has been undecorated and redecorated in “Winter Blues”, using a few of my favorite “blue” things……

….including this small 12 inch quilt that I made YEARS ago…..

In the studio, I have been working on my Color Wheel quilt……

I have now appliqued most of the circles on and am ready to start putting binding on the edges of the squiggle. The first step is to baste it in place…..

Next I need to make miles of bias binding, and then decide whether I am going to apply it by machine or by hand…… I am leaning toward hand.

Now for my biggest studio news…..

In the upstairs of our house, there is a sitting room just on the other side of the bedroom that holds my studio…….

….and my husband has had the idea of knocking down the adjoining wall and adding about 75% to the size of my studio. We talked to the contractor today and he plans to start sometime toward the end of January. I am pumped!!!!

I have been searching the internet looking for new storage ideas for fabrics and threads and trying to figure out how to build a new cutting table. So many new things to think about!!!!

Now I need to get the Henna Girl and this Color Wheel quilts finished up FAST!!!