Monday, April 30, 2018

April OMG Update

In spite of having what felt like extremely limited time in my sewing room this month I actually accomplished quite a bit. I'm very happy to report that I have converted the piles of Starlite Skies blocks into a top, so I am four for four on my OMG projects!


It still needs to be pressed and there are a thousand threads to pick off of it - that sashing fabric was really stringy - but other than that it is ready for quilting. I would have liked it to be a bit wider - it's currently right at 90"- but decided to exclude the optional border as it is already 106" long. I really hate super long quilts since all of our beds have footboards. My husband suggested bucking convention and adding borders to the sides only but I am pretty sure that would be too much for my symmetry-loving OCD brain to handle!

I haven't decided how I am going to quilt this one. I feel like it needs to be custom rather than an edge-to-edge design, but I have no idea how to quilt those blocks. It might be a while before I load it on the longarm.

This weekend I finished blocks 89 & 90 for Triangle Gatherings. I had only prepped enough HSTs to get to block 90 since that was the original number Lisa had thrown out for the total. I spent a little time in EQ over the weekend and figured out a nice setting that will work with what I have so I decided to skip the last 9 blocks. I have a black fabric that will be perfect for setting this one but will need a few more yards of it so I will be searching for that this week.


I also finished my last Magic of Chrismas block over the weekend.  I had been putting this one off because of the teeny tiny triangles - the little HSTs are 1/2" finished.



As always my photos are terrible - the lighting in my house is not ideal for photography, apparently.  The actual color of my background fabric is somewhere between the block above and the picture below.  Anyway, I saw an absolutely gorgeous version of this quilt in Paducah with wool applique in the center and border and have decided to use a similar setting. This layout uses 42 blocks. I thought about going larger since I have 49 blocks, but once I figured out that I would need to make more to maintain symmetry it was easy to decide to just orphan a few. My design wall isn't quite large enough so this is a bit sloppy, but here's the idea. (Now that I see the photo I see a couple of blocks that need to be moved...)


This will be a bit challenging to piece since some of the more elaborate pieced blocks are a little larger than they are supposed to be....apparently my seam is a little too scant...but I am determined to get it together.  I'm a little frightened of trying to applique after quilting but the one in Paducah was so fantastic that I feel like I want to give it a shot. I still need to come up with my applique design and figure out the quilting so this will be another one that takes a while.

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts to share my April OMG finish and now need to decide what I want to choose as a focus project for May. Obviously it should be the one above, but there are a few others calling my name...

3 comments:

Susie H said...

Oh my! Starlight Skies is beautiful! Probably even more so in person. Terrific job!!! Love seeing the other in-progress projects ... wondering what you'll come up with for that wool applique!

Patty said...

Beautiful! Thanks for linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal and congrats on your finish.

Heather said...

I love the layout for Magic of Christmas! Can't wait to see the applique too!