Just Tumbling Along

I'm back at work hand piecing the tumbling blocks for my little quilt. This is my first attempt at hand piecing and I've enjoyed the process but I have to say, I'm so thankful for my sewing machine!

I just cannot imagine what it must have been like to sew all your clothing, quilts and linens before the sewing machine. Probably, my family would have had very simple clothing and comforters, not quilts.

As you can tell in the picture, I've pieced the lower half of the little quilt together and tomorrow I hope to finish piecing so I can buy border fabric over the weekend. Its made entirely of Jo Morton fabric and I think its a charm quilt, no fabric repeats but there may be the same design in a several colorways. I say "think its a charm quilt" because as I was beginning to piece one of the rows together, I noticed a repeated fabric so I did a little ripping and stitched a new diamond in place.

I'm struggling a bit with the hand piecing and have the occasional hole in the middle of where the seams should join. I know the reason behind this is not stitching up to the 1/4" seam allowance even though I think I am! Considering this is my first hand pieced project, I think I am doing fairly well though.

This Kathleen Tracy pattern is from her book, "Remembering Adelia". She used two brown fabrics for the borders so I'm auditioning some brown fabric from my "resource center" to see if I like it. I may go with a completely different color but feel I need something darker in the borders to act as the frame around the quilt. Perhaps I will even have the top pieced by early next week!

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Thank you, Betty for the disc of Missouri River Quilt Guild Quilt Show photos! I'm enjoying looking at them and finding lots of inspiration there!

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Be sure to go to Loft Creations to vote for Viewer's Choice in the Parade of Strings! This string project challenge was why I began blogging back in January. Stephanie has included my "30 Years on the Fence" quilt in the choices to vote for Viewer's Choice. There are many great string projects there so go check it out!

Best of Class!

My crazy quilt won Best of Class in the Traditional Other category at Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild's quilt show, Common Threads, this past weekend! There weren't many quilts in that category but the judge will only award ribbons if she feels the quilts are worthy of the prize so I was excited to win the ribbon!

Seeing my quilt hang in the show was great but I was surprised to see how dark it looked. When I tried to take a photo of it, the fabric appeared grayish blue. In the photo above, the colors are more true but a little brighter than in the quilt. Click on the photo for a closer look.

This past weekend, I finished hand-piecing the three piece tumbling blocks for the tumbling block quilt from the book, "Remembering Adelia". Tomorrow, I'd like to piece the blocks which just have two pieces and start arranging and rearranging the tumbling blocks to get the colors balanced. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those quilters who can randomly stitch blocks together. I like a controlled scrappiness.

The next step after I'm satisfied with the layout is stitching the blocks together into rows and then the rows together. Perhaps that will be something for me to do on Wednesday, the day I'm having dental work done. Its work that needs to be done so I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst part of it for me - the needle sticks (cringe!) and the numbness. Difficult to talk, drink or eat, that leaves me with napping and, as the numbness goes away, I'll plan to do some stitching as a reward for making it through another session at the dentist!