Sticks and Stones Show and Tell

On Saturday it was exciting to see all the sampler projects that people brought to show each other.  Last year's Sampler blocks used a colorway that included grays, taupes, browns and charcoal, as well as light colored neutrals.

 Karen used a lovely feather design fabric for the sashing, and sewed stars for between the blocks, and smaller blocks to use around the edge in the setting triangles for a beautiful allover look.

 I loved the cobblestone like borders and setting triangles on this one.

 It will be interesting to see what gets quilted in those alternate squares..

 This sampler from the batiks colorway from a couple of years ago had a stained glass look to it.

 Verna also brought her 30 block king size top using the topsy turvy setting,

 I was sorry to see it get folded up,

 This was the first totally finished project that we saw.  Dianne used a light colored border, and it was all-0ver quilted with Baptist fans,

 Another finished one!  Very impressive!

 Beautiful quilting, and done on a home sewing machine!

 This was the third totally finished quilt, and again, quilted on a home sewing machine,

 You need to see some closeups of the beautiful motifs in the setting triangles and outer borders,

 Sheila made her quilt pretty zingy with her fabric choice for the sashing and inner border-- that diagonal stripe is great,

 what a difference you can make just by the addition of a narrow little strip of fabric:

 Another gorgeous quilt that uses a light colored border.  (I might have to re-think my plan for using a dark border....)

 I love what she did with the arrangement of the sub-unit s in that square on the lower right...

 It was refreshing to see this black white and lime green quilt!  Love everything about it!

 She also had her sticks and stones quilt, using a two-sided sashing

 I like the way the blocks seem to float on the light background:

Thank you again to all of you who brought your projects.  I was inspired.

Blocks....and Samplers

Hello, Happy Sunday.   I am happy today because I am not as sick as I was for the past three days.  Now it has just turned into a regular cold. 
Being sick really slows a person down.
Right now we have a big rainstorm going on, so I'm also glad that I am safe and cozy inside.

It occurred to me that yesterday was Block 20 of the Saturday Surprise Sampler!  Time to think about settings! 

Okay, I realize that many of you think of this much earlier in the game, but I don't.  I like to get all my blocks made first, then think of all sorts of possibilites of what to do with them.  I also have my black and white blocks from last year!!  that's okay, I'll just need to think of more possibilities.

In preparation for all this thinking, I spent lots of time on Pinterest while I was sick (until it made my eyes hurt)
I made a special board where I pinned a bunch of images of quilts put together with sampler blocks,
click here to go to this bulliten board.  If you click on the image in the right way, it will take you to where it was originally posted so you can get more info on a quilt that you especially like. 

Also, don't forget that along the top edge of this blog, I have a couple of pages where there are lots of photos of what people have done in previous years with their sampler blocks:

click either on the page tabs, or you can click here, or here,

Many of these were based on the 21 patterns that we have available at the shop --- Setting Solutions,
I noticed when I was pinning the other images on Pinterest that there were some quilts I liked that featured an extra large block in the center, and the sampler blocks around it,
such as this one from Stichin Heaven,

found here

or this one,

found here

There are all sorts of ways you can vary a sashing strip between blocks,
 such as this storm at sea type sashing,

found here

or this one using scrappy triangles,

found here

and there are all sorts of good alternate blocks that you could use,
Well, you get the idea, - the possibilities are endless.  Part of the fun is the dreaming,

Block 17, Box and O's

This is a nice block.  I think it would make a pretty all-over quilt design,

what about using Jo Morton Fabrics, those 1800's reproductions,
or how about with the light citrussy colors of Fig Tree ....

block 16 Four Winds

This block came out last Saturday.  I really like the way that the square seems super imposed over the darker brown cross, 

Block 11, Star in the Window

Today's block!

Block 10, nancy Cabot 1938

This is blocked 10 of the Saturday surprise sampler.

It sort of echoes the  design of Block six, the shaded pinwheel

I think it's quite an interesting block and it would be fun to Play around with it a bit more…

Block 8 whirligig

This is block eight of the sticks and stones color way of our Saturday surprise Sampler program. It is called Whirligig:

I mentioned yesterday that I was doing some backstitching on the cotton linen blend that is new at the stoRe.  I  Did make some hexagon frames for the two birds that I stitched.  now I need to decide which background to use, the gray or the blue. Right now I am prewashing them to see what they look like washed.   I backstitch around the edges so they won't fray in the wash.

I was sorry that I had to cover up a little bit of the owls tail. I suppose I should have made the frame first and then made the stitching to fit within it.  Oh well, I'll know for next time.

Sticks and Stones block 7

Can we really be on block seven already? These blocks seem to be going by very quickly. This one is called shaded churn dash. It's similar to last weeks block,  the shaded pinwheel, in that it uses variations of the colour brown.

I've mentioned before but I'll say it again: I think that the colors this year really lend themselves to variations of shading.  It might be good to think about when you're considering different setting options down the road. Which reminds me. I am sewing on the final borders to a previous year's sampler, the 1930's color way.  

For setting these squares, I sewed about 20 log cabin blocks to alternate with the sampler blocks,

I hope to use two narrow inner borders followed by a wider outer border of the green

I'm delighted and how it's looking so far. I think it will be really happy sunshine summer looking quilt. 

Sticks and Stones, Block four, flying geese pinwheel

Sticks and Stones, Block three, Irish chain

 

this is a pretty block, and it's got a nice mix of straight and diagonal sewing lines.  

If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out the previous post which shows some finished quilts from last years' blocks, the black white and bright ones--- there are some beautiful quilts!

Dresden Plate Ruler

Every so often, I like to play with my dresden plate ruler. 
I got one a couple of years ago, and it came with this cardboard cover and a paper pattern inside. 
I noticed the other day that now they are just packaged with the ruler, and not the pattern.

Good thing that it is so easy to use. 
Dresden plate blocks, and other designs that use wedge shapes can vary in the number of "petals" or wedges that fit into the full circle.
This ruler makes blocks that have 20 petals in a full circle.
A quarter block has 5 spokes, or petals in it, so I think that means that they are 18 degree angles. 
I made this little table topper with some of the fabrics that we are planning to use this fall for the Saturday Surprise Sampler program.  I decided to call it "Sticks and Stones".  It has lots of browns, beiges, ivory, and charcoal greys.

I was going to make a tutorial on how to use this ruler, but instead, I  found a really great tutorial already done on another blog called Quilt Expressions, here, so I don't have to re-invent the wheel.