However, my Aunt Bert finished hers (pictured above).  She did a great job on it, and I’d like to mention that this is her first real quilt!  She made her very first quilted project the end of June during a visit to Minnesota (a pot holder).  She’s come a long way since then!  What a great job, and it will be fun to quilt it for her. 

Click here to visit JudyL’s site and see links to other Freeze Frame quilts.

–Sue

I was having so much fun, I decided to go back to Shelly’s placemat tutorial and see what I needed to do to make the placemats she demonstrated.  I found a sort of gradient (it’s a purple and black Paula Nadelstern)that I had been saving for “something special”, and decided to only use the silver for some dining room place mats.

Oh, there’s just nothing like diving into a new art project, is there? 

I’m up to date (haven’t done today’s assignment yet) on JudyL’s QFAH, Freeze Frame.

Next is a deep purple border, then the white again.  The third border will be more of these small “frames” around the whole quilt.  Very fun!

Part of the fun is my Aunt Bert in Huntsville is also playing along and making this QFAH!  So fun that we can sew together.  I believe this is also her first “big” project, having made some table mats and smaller items this summer (Bert, correct me if I’m wrong…).  Here is her quilt so far, in fall colors, with Tanner standing guard:
 
 

I’m up to my armpits in UFOs, and so of course I joined in Judy Laquidara’s Quilt For An Hour project, which started Monday.  Another new project.  And it always takes me more than an hour to do the day’s allotted tasks.  I’m not the first person done either when I take classes, so I can assume I am a slow sewer.  I like to think I’m just enjoying the journey. 

After I chose my fabrics from my stash for this quilt, I started thinking that approx. 60 x 80 is more like a big throw size than a bed size (at least at my house), and I don’t think many people’s living rooms are the colors I chose (raspberry, turquoise, gray, blue).  I know — I’ll make it BIGGER!!!  And so I did, like Judy’s larger example with 12 of the big blocks instead of six big blocks.  Now my Quilt For An Hour is more like Quilt For Four Hours. 

Also, when I decided to make it larger, I realized I wouldn’t have enough fabric for the darker background.  I hunted high and low in my stash, but I didn’t have enough of anything that would work.  So I went shopping!  In my defense, I went to Mill End and found a lovely gold that leans almost to a Creamsicle color.  Two bucks a yard (with one of those precious coupons out of the Sunday paper).  I think it actually works better than the gray-blue I originally chose.  The colors pop more against the gold.  DH and DS#1 will like it better too, because when I get the purple border on it, it will be leaning towards Vikings colors. 

These blocks are fun and quick to make.  The cutting is a little putzy, because usually I do all my cutting in the beginning of the project.  I could see myself making this quilt again.  Different colors/fabric patterns would really change the look of it.  I have some reds/oranges/yellows that might look pretty good.  I hope Judy sets up Mr. Linky or Photo Bucket so we can see everybody’s color selections and their progress.

–Sue

New this week is the Corn and Beans block at the top of the middle column.  These blocks are all done in Asian-inspired fabrics, and this quilt will be offered to my DIL Lynn, if she still likes it when it’s done.

 Judy L’s new Quilt For An Hour (QFAH) project starts today.  I hope to get my hour in tonight after our guild’s monthly meeting.  This looks like a fun and easy quilt, and I don’t see any half-square triangles in sight!  I pulled the fabrics yesterday from my stash.  It was so much fun, and only took about ten minutes.  I also had a red and orange option I could have taken, but I was won over with this raspberry/aqua/purple/blue combination.  PLUS this is about eight yards out of stash! 

Yes, as Kare in Ohio pointed out yesterday, My name is Sue, and I am a Judy Junkie.  There, I said it!  At least I know I’m not alone — there are a lot of us out there.  Her patterns are such great stash busters, her quilts are always fun and interesting, so it’s hard to resist jumping in and getting an extra quilt top done.  Click here to see other quilters’ design walls; click here for the first post of Judy’s Freeze Frame QFAH.

– Sue

And like everybody else, I just don’t have enough projects to work on, so I plan to jump in on Judy L’s next QFAH (which starts tomorrow).  This will be especially fun because my Aunt Bert, who just started quilting this summer, plans to do this one as well.  Hundreds of miles apart, and we can be quilting together!  How fun is that???

Well, time to go down into the stash and figure out what I can use to get started on Judy’s QFAH (I have a bucket of bright FQs I think I will tap into).  It really makes it a challenge, when you’re just working from stash.  Three other quilts I’ve made along with Judy, and they’ve turned out quite nicely, just using up some of that fabric that was waiting patiently on my shelves:

If you’re on the fence about joining in this next QFAH, hop off the fence and come on over to the fun side!  Judy’s quilts are great stash busters, and she’s so generous to offer a free pattern along with the encouragement to get it done.  I always tell myself I can find an hour a day for another project (as long as I don’t break a wrist like I did last November), and it’s fun to watch everyone’s projects develop along with your own.  C’mon along!!! 

–Sue

So I’m starting the year in the negative, but I don’t regret it one bit.  25 FQ’s for a buck apiece (some for an Asian quilt I have in mind, some for my brown/gold/cream/red stash), three pieces of Fusions (yum) at half price, and a bit of white with pink flowers for a girly baby quilt.  So here are the hard facts:

Fabric In YTD:   16 yards

Fabric Out YTD: 0 yards

2009 Goal:         75 yards OUT

YTD Net:           -16 yards

Well, I need to get something of my own on the Gammill so I can at least subtract a backing for next week!  I’m currently back to  piecing blocks for Judy L’s last Quilt for an Hour (started it months ago, so can’t count anything out of stash).  I love the quilt, and I’m doing it in Civil War fabrics.  Oh, and I’m doing two of them, so I am currently working on 60 blocks!  I’m not much of a resolution maker, because I would make the same ones every year so obviously they don’t “take”.  But I should probably work on moderation in 2009!  And this week I plan to get my version of Judy L’s Labor Day Challenge Quilt onto the longarm.

I’ve been working on Judy Laquidara’s Quilt for an Hour quilt, Shine on Bayou Cane.  I thought this would be a great gift, but the greedy part of me wants to keep everything for myself.  Solution?  Make two.  Well, I will get two done, but I’m not saying when.  (By the way, the block is straight.  It’s my photography that’s crooked.  Really.)

I’m not done making my quarter-square blocks, but I got tired of just looking at “components” and wanted to see some finished product.  So I put one block together.  I like it!!!  My star fabrics are primarily from a 32-fabric pack of fat eighths, so it will be plenty scrappy.  In Judy’s instructions, she has you making two blocks alike, 15 times, for a total of 30 blocks.  Stay with me — that’s all the harder the math is going to get.  So I am making 30 different blocks, two each.  Divided into two quilts.  This way, each quilt will have 30 different stars in it.  Sounds good on paper.

I have too many other irons in the fire right now, so this project is going to get set aside for a few days, but I’m hoping to finish up pretty quickly.  Thank you, Judy, for another rewarding project. 

Sue

Another fun project is Judy Laquidara’s Star BOM.  We are up to Block #5!  Here is block 5, along with a photo of blocks 1-5.  These will finish at 12″ each, so they are good-sized blocks.  The Star BOM is another example of Judy taking familiar blocks and shaking things up by making the background, the borders, and the settings more interesting.  She also seems to favor nearly solid fabrics.  I’ve always been drawn to prints with maybe a couple of nearly solids, so this has been a new direction for me, and I’m enjoying it!

Here are a couple of table runners that are awaiting binding.  The one on the left is an Anka’s Treasures pinwheel pattern included in the pattern Little Charmers III, designed to use charm packs.  (Eileen, I think you were looking for the name of that pattern?)  And the one on the right is from a Terry Atkinson book, Lessons from Mama.  (Although I’ve never met Terry, I know she’s a local pattern designer.  Her patterns are always easy to follow.)  For a fall theme, I used an Indian corn fabric for the center of the stripe, which you can see better if you click on the photo for an enlarged view (you might even be able to click twice to enlarge it twice).

While I had a neutral backing fabric on the longarm, I floated the two table runners plus this sweet Mary Engelbreit panel.  (Mary also needs a hanging sleeve and binding.)  Panels are such a great “cheat”.  I have a place by the front door for panels of this size, and I would like to be able to change them out at least once a month, so I have a few to go.  It’s fun to look for them for different seasons/holidays/moods.

So that’s it for now! 

Sue

I think it’s wonderful that Judy Laquidara made this quilt pattern available to us, and it was a lot of fun to do it in daily increments of about an hour.  I also found out that I like to take my time and enjoy the process, and I don’t think I EVER finished a segment in an hour, but that so doesn’t matter.  I enjoyed it from beginning to end.  Thank you, Judy!

A note to local quilters:  Sandi Andersen, formerly of our area, now in Henderson, has a blog!  I have placed a link to her blog on the right-hand side of this page.  So a big “HI” to Sandi.  We’ve missed her, and it will be fun to check in with her and see what she’s up to.