Battles with borders

I've been running into problems with borders the last few quilts.  You might remember that I was working on Whimsy's pieced borders when I decided I needed to go piece a gazillion flying geese instead.  Mostly that was because Whimsy's borders were waving at me when I attached them and I didn't feel up to dealing with them just then.

I happily went off to piece the flying geese and was astonished and delighted at how quickly the center of the geese quilt  came together.

Nevertheless, I'm sure you have noticed that I haven't posted any progress on this unnamed quilt.  That would be because I'm not sure what to do with it next.  I made a trip to the quilt shop specifically to choose border fabrics and actually came home with two selections.  At the quilt shop I and all the staff were sure they were perfect choices, but when I got home and spread out the fabric and laid the quilt on it to mimic borders...nope.  Not quite right.  It's in a UFO box until I figure something out.  Perhaps when I get set up to download pictures again (that's a whole other sigh-inducing story!) I can post pictures and you can all send me suggestions.

When I hit that roadblock, I didn't pull Whimsy back out. (Sorry Pat!  I'll get it out again at some point, I promise!)  Instead I finally cut into my Greetings from Canada fabric to make a "Canada Quilt".  It came out more or less as I had designed it on graph paper, with a few adjustments.

However, the lovely dark blue fabric with maple leaves and provincial flowers that I had planned to use as a border, while still absolutely lovely, just doesn't work as a border. It worked beautifully as a filler in the body of the quilt, and will make a lovely backing, but it will not be a border.  So now what?  I don't have nearly enough of the greens and reds to piece into borders either.  I fear this one is heading to the UFO bin as well for the time being.

I have a few placemats and runners to finish, so I'll work on those and hope I come out of those projects inspired to push ahead with these three!

How well do you get along with borders?

Happy Halloween

  Take a guess which one the young man in the family carved! We were very proud of ourselves for getting these carved last night rather than this afternoon after school in a mad rush before trick-or-treating began!
Last night I also obsessed about the new quilt in progress.  I started cutting and sewing, and changing the plan as I went along and the next thing I knew it was way, way past my bedtime.  I made progress though.  With another few hours of work today, this is where it stands:
I’ve been having trouble sorting out exactly how I want to piece the body of the lighthouse, and I have to rework my plan for other pieces of the lower half to balance out sizes and colours a bit with the upper half. I’m also peeved that my log cabin blocks are just a smidge smaller than they should be so I’ll have to redo a few seams to make the border fit around the center as the graph paper claims it should.  That said, I’m pleased with this overall so far.
Tomorrow’s task will be to stay clear of the quilting corner and clear the desk of office chores.  It will be tough though.  The desk sits on the opposite wall from the sewing machine…

Cutting fabric

I am finally cutting into this little stack of fabric.

These are mostly “Greetings from Canada” by Thimbleberries. (The light blue one second from the left is from my stash.) Mom sent these to me a year ago and I don’t think she quite believed me this summer when I assured her I had a plan for it that just needed to simmer a bit longer.
Here’s the plan:

OK, it doesn’t look like much in the picture :).  Maybe if you click on it to enlarge it you might be able to make out some of it.  I’ve drawn it out a few times to tweak this or that and I’m still not sure it will work the way I want it to.  You’ll just have to be patient right along with me until I get these pieced:

This just goes to show why I’d like to win a copy of the EQ7 software in The Pickledish Patch’s givewaway  It would be so much quicker and easier to design a quilt and I’d get a sneak peek before I actually sew it up!

The giveaway closes on October 27 so you still have time to go over and diminish my chances by entering too (I’ll understand and won’t take it personally, really!)