Friday, April 27, 2012

{Post #960} Rectangle Wrangle Goes Brown


Here are 4 Rectangle Wrangle blocks.  I decided to give brown a whirl instead of black for the consistent color.  I was going to wait until I could buy some solid brown, but that might be a couple weeks.  I gave this Thimbleberries brown (that I had in my stash) a try.  I think I like it.  I am using brown because my bedroom walls are brown, and this just might live in my room eventually.




This section is 12" wide by 24" long.  


Last night I spent a bit of time cutting up plaids into strips for this quilt.  I also bought 4 more shirts yesterday.  They were $1 each.  More shirt deboning (as Bonnie calls it) in my future this afternoon.


Now off to cook lunch and make a big mess!


~Joan

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

{Post #959} Rectangle Wrangle Block

Just wanted to stitch up one of these blocks.  This is from Bonnie Hunter's Scraps and Shirttails II book.  The pattern is called Rectangle Wrangle.  I photographed it with my hand in the picture so you could see how big (or rather SMALL) the block is in comparison.




Only a bazillion more to go, and I'll have a good-sized quilt! This one block is 6" x 12" finished.


~Joan

Monday, April 23, 2012

{Post #958} Fair and Square Nearly Ready to Set


My Fair and Square quilt blocks are nearly ready to set out on the design wall.  I have to sew the second set of black pieces on about 20 of the blocks and trim down the string blocks to 10-1/2" square.  I had barely any time to sew at all today.  I don't know how you readers who have full-time jobs get it all done.  I ran just a few errands today...two banks, Wal-mart, filled car with fuel, daughter to piano and violin lessons, two chats (separate in-person visits) with college students, son to karate, shopping, drop off daughter at nursing home to minister, take son home, go to nursing home to sing and play flute with daughter, home.  I'm worn out just reading it.  How could I do this if I had to WORK??


Hubby (oh, dear, sweet, hubby) is making me a second design wall tomorrow.  Mine is only 4' x 6'.  That is probably huge to some of you.  I would really like to lay out a whole quilt at one time.  My design wall is portable...it's not attached to the room wall.  I just lean it against my fabric shelves.  How much harder would that be with two?  Not enough to matter.


Anywho...here is a sneak peek of how my quilt will look:




And a smackerel closer...




I am every so glad that I made the string-pieced blocks.  The main reason is that they totally depleted my stash of homespuns (oh, there might be a thread or two still in there, but they are for the most part GONE!).  I think the strings add to the look of the quilt.  I didn't want this quilt to weigh a ton.  I thought the strings would be so heavy, but I cut them in fairly wide widths, so it isn't too bad.  


Recently I got a machine quilting DVD set and have watched them all the way through.  I'll probably be selling it at the next online yard sale.  But it did give me some ideas for how to quilt this particular quilt.  Love, love, love it!!


~Joan