March Mumbles

 

"Diamond Down the Drain", 32"x32"

This is the red/green scrap quilt I was working on last month. The name refers to the pieced diamond just off left center and the spiral quilting. I used a lot of my red and green scraps but there's always more where they came from.

I used Crazy Mom Quilts instructions to make a Scrap Vortex quilt and her tutorial for spiral quilting. Here's a link to her blog with the instructions. That spiral quilting just about did me in but I love the effect!  Linda, at Flourishing Palms blog, has some tips for spiral quilting success too.

 

I've been wanting to try some simple walking foot machine quilting for some time and now that my arms are no longer aching, I'm glad I did the spiral quilting! 

 

During March I also bound my Mediterranean Hexagon quilt which was the result of a class I took with Kaffe Fassett at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. It will hang in my quilt guild's upcoming quilt show, Common Threads Regional Quilt Show, June 16-18, Wichita, KS.

 I asked my machine quilter, Jan Hutchison, to follow the lines of the flowers. I've lightened the photo so you might be able to see the quilting. Most of the fabric is Kaffe Collective but I especially like that I was able to use some thrift store Jinny Beyer fabric in the triangles.

 I decided I'd ignored Love Entwined (LE) quilt long enough! This is what Part 8 looked like on March 14. I finished the flowers in the pot on the right border and added some 1/8" circles in the pink flowers. They were definitely a challenge to make. Each of those yellow flower petals are less than 1/2" square! At this point I'm wishing I'd made those broderie perse.

 The green leaf wreath - kind of fun to applique.

 The pink and gold flowers and leaves (what are those things?) - its going to be a long time before I feel my inside curve applique is good. More green fried eggs! Do I sound excited?

My progress as of today - March 31. 

 

I feel like I've been stitching in slow motion but I just realized I've only been working on LE for the past two weeks. I was hoping to finish both the upper and lower part 8 borders by today but maybe my slow and steady applique progress isn't too bad after all!

 

Still no final color/fabric decision for the border between the zig zags. Today I'm leaning toward gold but tomorrow? I think when I'm finished with the part 8 & 9 borders I'll try out fabrics at the quilt shop until one speaks to me. 

My goal for April - finish part 8 and start part 9. Its interesting to me that the upper and lower borders are a different design than the two side borders.

Until next time, Mayleen