Easter Plus

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! We had my DH's side of the family over, like we do for all of the holidays.

This is my MIL with all of her grandchildren (minus 2 that live in MO).

She plans on using this picture for her Christmas cards this year.

This week has been pretty crazy with getting customer quilts done, appointments for drop offs and pick ups, moving my MIL in with us and getting her settled and then Jenni and RJ (BIL/SIL) lost RJ's mom on Holy Thursday (so if you would, please say a prayer for Jenni/ RJ and RJ's family it would mean alot to them), then hosting Easter. Yup it has been very crazy here indeed!

 

But even with all of that I still managed to work on my "Sister's Choice Swap". Above is some of the blocks, I made 4 addtional ones so I will have a larger quilt. I still have to do the sashings and border but had to wait for the fabric to arrive.... 

Which it did on Saturday! Pretty, huh? I am planning on using this for the star cornerstones in the sashing as well as the outer border. Hoping to get it done (flimsy stage) by the end of the month. 

If it wasn't for my quilting...I would have gone insane years ago :0)

High Desert Mystery Quilt is Now A Flimsy!

I am finally done piecing my High Desert Mystery Quilt that Kristina hosted last fall. I would have gotten it finished earlier but the move got in the way and I wanted to add a pieced border to make it a 90" sq quilt.

This is what it looked like after the mystery right before we moved....

And this is what it looks like now with the pieced border. I really like how it turned out and I am glad that I waited until I had time to do it this way and not just add a plain border to it, like I do with most of my quilts these days. Yes I am keeping this one :0) Thanks again Kristina for hosting this mystery it was alot of fun.

Now I just need to find the time to quilt it....

My own quilts "to be quilted" pile is getting larger, I now have 7 in that pile and it will soon be 8 because I am also working on the "Sister's Choice Block Swap" quilt that Shannon hosted a while back. I just finished making 4 extra blocks for it so I will have a 90" sq quilt when I am done. Just need to add the sashing & star cornerstones and a border, but am waiting on some fabric that I ordered to be delivered to finish that one up.    



Slice and Dice 9 Patch

I found this technique on You Tube awhile back (sorry can't remember where) but it is a quick an easy way to use up those 5" squares!

First decided on how many blocks you want to make, a baby quilt uses 12 blocks and a teen sz or lap quilt uses 20. You can make this totally scrappy or as I call it (and did) organized chaos and stick with a color scheme.

Layout the 5" squares in nine patch fashion to your liking ( I chose to do a teen/lap size quilt so I needed 20 blocks and I chose to use the pink sqs in the 4 corners and in 10 of the blocks use this green & pink print and in the other 10 use a green tonal for the center sq. Once you decide what your game plan is then get to sewing your 9 patches.

Here's block "A" after the 9 patch was sewn together I sliced it in half horizontal and vertical.

Her's my block "B" and it is also sliced and diced. Seperate your new smaller blocks into 2 piles,  pile "A" and pile "B". You will now take 2 small "A" blocks and 2 small "B" blocks to create your block for your quilt. Lay them out so that 2 same green centers are diagonal to each other, then going clockwise starting with the upper right block turn it 1/4 turn, bottom right, 1/4 turn, bottom left 1/4 turn, and finally upper left 1/4 turn. Resew these 4 small blocks together this new way. Then do the same for the remaining blocks.

Arrange the blocks in a 4X5 layout pleasing to your eye and stitch your quilt top together.

You will get this! At this point you can add borders or not...I choose not.

This is a baby quilt I did for one of my neighbors it had 12 blocks  and finished at around 48" X 60" 

I quilted it using the "Tickle" panto from Willows Leaf Studios