Easy Street - Part 1

On Friday Bonnie Hunter revealed the first clue in her new mystery, Easy Street:  192 four-patches in gray and black-on-white.  The units were simple to make, but that's quite a lot of them!  This is my first Bonnie Hunter mystery.  I am new to quilting and made my very first quilt for my husband's birthday just 3 months ago.  I had been collecting fabrics for several years, but didn't actually start any quilting until I had retired.

The first assignment for the Easy Street mystery is to construct 192 4-patch blocks, made from the gray and black-on-white fabrics, using 2" strips.   I started by sewing 2" strip sets together.

  I then cut them into 2" segments and sewed the 2" segment together to form the block.  In order to make the block lay flat and reduce thickness in the center, you press the seams clockwise and open up the center.  I had never used this twirling technique before but it reduces the excess bulk in the middle of each block.  It makes pressing take longer, but it's worth it.

As I finished the blocks, I pinned them together in groups of ten so I wasn't recounting over & over.

So now I am ready for the next clue that Bonnie will give us on Friday.  I am very excited about getting to the next step and can't wait to dig into some of the other colors for this quilt!

Brick & Stepping Stones

I was looking for something to do for my leaders/enders and thought I'd work on the 4-patches for Bonnie Hunter's Bricks & Stepping Stones quilt.  I accidentally started  making them from my 1.5" strips.  When I realized what I had done I decided to just do the bricks out of 2.5" strips.  This means that I need a lot more block units.

I'm trying not to use too many of any one fabric so I wanted lay them out but I don't have space to lay them in my sewing room.  I decided to use the  living room.  Thought you'd get a kick out of where I put them so the cats can't mess with them!

I have finally put the blocks together to make a little throw.  I still need to get a couple borders on it, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

For now, this cute little throw is going to go on my soon to be created UFO list.

Coffee Table Cover

After finishing the two Patchwork Travel Pillows, my husband wanted me to make a cover for our coffee table using the same pattern.  Our cats, that haven't been de-clawed, can get very rowdy in the house at times,chasing one another around and have managed to scratch it up pretty good. 

So after thinking on how to do that, and making Mendi's Fence Rail quilt, I set out to trying some different configurations.  I ended up with this:

 

I decided to repeat the pattern from the pillow and joining four of them together. Hubby picked the fabric for the border since it was his request that I make it. I used the smaller flower print for the sashings and the green fabric for the cornerstones.  I'm planning on binding it with that same green but haven't gotten around to it yet.  Here's what it looks like so far:

For now the only protection the coffee table has it the top as I am working on another project.  The cats have fun sliding across the table and pulling the cover off onto the floor, that is when they aren't sitting on the back of the chairs....  here's Roxie posing for a picture!

Mendi's Birthday Present

Well, I thought I was going to work on a table cover to match the throw pillows on the couch, but ended up working on a birthday present for my daughter, Mendi.  She loves to sit in her recliner with her laptop in her lap and keep up with the happenings as well as watching movies there.  So, I decided to make her a quilt she could throw over her legs and stay warm this winter.

This block is called fence rail and is normally made with 3 different fabrics, but for this quilt, I only used 2 different fabrics sandwiching the darker fabric between 2 of the lighter one.

I used the darker fabric for the binding and the lighter fabric for the backing.  I had to wait until her birthday to post this one.  This was my first quilt using machine quilting.  I outlined each of the darker blocks just inside the seams.  The seams on the lighter fabric seem to disappear.