Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Friday Night Projects

When I go to my aunt's house on Friday night, sometimes we're working on projects and sometimes we're not.  It just depends on what's cooking, so to speak.

Last Friday she had just returned from a quilt retreat and had some blocks to show off.  She's got a stash of fabric (OK, not as large as mine...) and is always saying she doesn't need more.  I don't remember why but she had pulled out a pile of blue fabrics to do something with and we were talking about making something with them.

My other aunt, her sister, said she wanted a summer quilt, one that was lighter and not so hard to pull up onto the bed when she makes it. She's tiny, well they're both tiny, so I would imagine hauling a full sized quilt or comforter could be a chore.  Also she's already had a couple of heart attacks and probably shouldn't be overexerting herself on anything.

Aunty Two has a blue valance and I think a blue dust ruffle on her bed.  Auntie One has a pile of blue fabric ready to be made into something.

I have a rotary cutter.

Match made in heaven, right?

So Aunty One ironed the pieces and I cut 6 1/2 inch squares.  I had a plan... I saw this blue and white quilt on the cover of I think a McCall's quilting magazine a couple of years ago, and made one for my queen sized bed.  I have a bin of neutrals and basic whites, creams, etc., in my resource center.  Any two color quilt is great in my book but blue says summer to me.

I cut 80 blocks and took them home.  All night this project was rolling around in my head. 

Saturday morning I was so stoked to get going that I got down to the basement and brought up the largest piece of white-on-white that I had.  After some quick measurements I started cutting on the coffee table because it was too nice to go into the basement.  After all, we haven't had that much nice weather in southeast Wisconsin lately.

Now I am as good at math as you can get without a college degree, and I have pretty good spacial recognition, but I wanted to be SURE as can be that this quilt, when done, would fit a double bed and that I would have enough fabric,

So I started sewing ONE ROW.  Just to see what the final measurement would be.

 
It's like potato chips -- you can't sew just one!
 
I guess our Friday night project will be backing, sandwiching and quilting.
 
Sew on!