Stringin' Along

The blue and green string quilt for Nurses for Newborns has been sewn together. These small 6" blocks sew up quickly, even though I am using my treadle and taking my time. I hope to get this one sandwiched and quilted in the next day or so. Soon I will prepare the papers and select strips for this evening's sewing. Red and neutrals come to mind.

This behemoth of a quilt top is very nearly finished. The last border needs to be sewn on, but the pieces are all sewn together. This quilt was started in a workshop with Bonnie Hunter last fall and is my rendition of her free pattern, "My Blue Heaven." The original is done in blues and neutrals. As there were not enough blue strips in my scrap drawers, I branched out and chose the additional analogous colors of green, purple, and aqua. All well and good if I had paid closer attention to value. As it turned out, with the additional colors and a good many of the star points disappearing into the background because they were too light, the effect of setting the blocks immediately next to one another was a big visual mess. Hence, the sashing was introduced. That, of course, changed the dimensions of the quilt and required some figuring with paper, pencil, and calculator to figure out how to compensate for the extra inches created with the sashing.

I was pleasantly surprised (actually startled is more like it) when everything fit together so well. It was almost scary how well the border fit. I used the broken dishes blocks from the original pattern which mirror the centers of the interior blocks, each of which features a broken dish block. However, I decided to make them in the same gray and white tones of the sashing and cornerstones to bring some cohesion to the quilt top. The idea came to me from reading Mickey Depre's latest book, "Half Scrap Quilts". She has a couple of quilts in this book (which I highly recommend) that use this coloration. This quilt is huge. It easily covers my queen sized bed with enough to actually completely cover the mattress and with enough to tuck under the pillows. Needless to say, I will not be quilting this one.