Monday, September 20, 2010

Playing with blues

Here's what I was playing with the last couple of days.

It's 16"x20".  The resident dolls Susie, Curly and Elizabeth will be sharing it once it is quilted, though there is a rumour that the vast collection of stuffed animals may challenge them for it.

I'm happy to report that this didn't make a huge dent in my new blue stash.  All it took was a 1.5"x10" piece of each blue and one fat quarter of the white, so I have plenty left to make a throw size version, with more and bigger stars now that I'm satisfied that the pattern looks like I thought it would.

I started thinking about this one shortly after I made this little Kansas Dugout. The more I looked at it the more I could see stars where the rings meet, and I thought that careful colour placement would make an interesting star quilt.

I never did finish the Dugout quilt.  I was going to make it into a doll quilt and practice free motion on it.  Unfortunately, because it was a practice piece I sandwiched it with some really cheap fusible batting I had left over from a craft project, and it really messed up the quilting.  Apparently it was the cause for my skipped stitches and broken threads and birds' nests on the back. It took 3 visits to the quilt store and leaving the machine for service before anyone came up with that idea, and then that person was me...We'll see how this little blue one quilts up with good batting and see if that was indeed the issue!  Plain practice sandwiches with good batting and no seams are quilting up OK now.

Now I'm heading back to the hearts quilt: 27 blocks quilted, only 21 more to go.  I'm past the halfway mark!

9 comments:

  1. Ohhh I like the stars! And now that you mention it, I can see the stars in the Kansas Dugout quilt too. I hope the quilting goes well and it was the batting causing all the trouble.

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  2. I hate it when they sell stuff that just doesn't work. But, both of those little quilts are pretty;)
    Happy Quilting!!

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  3. Oh I love the blue quilt!! Gorgeous :) I hope that your next endeavor with free motion quilting goes as planned :)

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  4. Glad to hear you may have figured out the quilting machine problem. The little dugout quilt is so cute, is there any way you can salvage the top? It is a shame to not use it. The blue stars are so pretty, I love blues, too. Hope you are back in business!

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  5. Love the blue star quilt, very small for sure. It will make a fabulous a larger quilt. Glad you fiqured out the problem. Take care.

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  6. At first glimpse, I did not see stars in the Kansas Dugout (which I love, by the way), but after studying the blue stars, now I see stars more than anything else in the Kansas Dugout. Isn't it funny how our eyes play tricks on us? Both are really, really lovely! ---"Love"

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  7. I, too, can now see the stars. The blue stars are lovely -- lucky dolls. I hope you can still salvage the dugout top. Good luck with the free motion quilting.

    Sandy

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  8. Oh yes, the stars are terrific! Aren't you clever to see them in the Dugout block. It would be fun to make a version where the stars are more prominent. I am so pleased you found the reason your machine wasn't working. Cheers, Ann :-)

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  9. I am amazed that these two quilts are the same pattern just careful color selections! I really love how that works! Amazing!

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