Fitzy - My Round Robin blocks

Wanted you all to see the blocks that are now home from my 6-block CQ round robin exchange. Words cannot express how lovely they are. I think each artist added their own special flair, and stayed well within my suggested parameters, among which were simple, steampunk and retro. I am totally humbled.

Have you done other block exchanges? I have done ones with quilting blocks and charm squares, and have totally been disappointed. I was hesitant to join this project, and now, I just am so excited to sign-up for Round 2! What a change of heart.

I'm currently working on my final block. It's got a gazillion seams and is looking more and more like a stitch sampler. I've got to get it into the mail this week, and have 2 more treatments to go.

Back to the blocks above...what ideas do you have for me regarding finishing? It will be a bell-pull style wallhanging for my office cubicle.

Have a great week!

Fitzy - Another Finish

Whew!

I've completed the 4th of 6 blocks in this CQRR.

This block is for a lady who lives in Istambul, Turkey. Her country is in such turmoil these days, all I wanted to do is to give her a little peaceful scene. Once you look through the pine boughs, you see lightly falling snow and snow covered pines. I added a peace dove with branch, and the word Peace.

After creating the scene, I went back and minimally decorated the seam using a simple blanket stitch, snailtrail stitch, etc. I didn't want them to detract from the message.

Working solid overtime, before work, shortened lunch, and after work. One tired chick here, but glad I could at least meet this deadline! Race last weekend and a getaway next...boy do I need it!

Hope you're off to a stellar start to the week!

Posting this on the weekend, so not to leave you hangin'!

Fitzy - Struggling!

I hope to give you no more excuses. They're true...just a tad trite. Just know, I'm trying like the dickens to get something (anything, really) done. Back into racing season, and the Bisbee 1000 stairclimb (1-mile in altitude) this next weekend.

I'll catch up with everyone's blog posts very soon, I promise! Until then, I've shown above my current CQRR block. I've just to stitch the inside seams with some very simple stitches to finish it up a bit. The vintage table linen's daisy (thank you Debra!) may have been too much, I now feel. The lighting is making it look much more yellow than in natural light. Once it's assembled into her project I don't think it will be so overpowering. Poor little girl looks like she's nervous!

Hope you are all enjoying the change in season, we're THRILLED to have daytime temps out of the 100's finally. Have an awesome week, and know I'm thinking of you.

Fitzy - 3rd CQRR Block

Good day! This is my next block in the Round Robin. I've chosen this one, from the creator's set, a bit differently. I chose not "my favorite colored block", or "my favorite style block", etc. Instead, I chose the block that I felt was going to be the easiest to embellish. (I would NOT have chosen this block at all under previously mentioned criteria!)

I plan to put some beads in the top loops of the "carnation" and perhaps some chips or french knots where the flower meets the green. A smaller second flower will be added to the right, a bit lower and at 45-degree angle to the first.

Lots of potential for this block!

We're back into the thick of racing season, I completed a 4-mile road race Sunday. Recovery time is getting shorter, I can almost walk without a limp now! ☺ It's also gotten cooler finally, I could even open my window to let a bit of fresh air in this morning! Woo-hoo!

Make it a FANTASTIC week ladies!

Moira - Almost done

Have made lots of progress with the block robin this past weekend.  All blocks and filler sections are now done.    I reworked the pink/turquoise filler blocks to create three different looks for filler sections and am happy with those now that I've reworked them.

The final two blocks that I added to the top were inspired by a couple of quilts in an Australian quilt magazine that an online friend sent me.  

The top is now together and I'm trying to decide what to do for border(s).   Currently i have two thoughts - first a narrow inner border of a WOW fabric (~1" finished) for either one.     Then either a piano key border with the leftover fabrics used in the top, or a solid border of a mottled teal green in the same shades that has already been used in the quilt (either one about 3" finished).    I plan to bind it in the teal green.

I'm happy to see this top almost finished.   Don't know tho when I'll actually get it quilted but that's another story........lol.

Moira: Two more blocks

Two more blocks have been made for the block round robin.    The replacement star was made with some of my fairy frost stash.   It still needs to be bordered with more of the WOW that I used for the background to bring it up to 9" finished in size, but I need to find the WOW first since I used scraps for the background.  

The flying geese were made with some of the pinks that I'd pulled out and sent at the start of the swap.

Am still playing with layouts and thinking about what to add next to fill in the open areas of the quilt.   Maybe an applique block or two before finishing with some small filler blocks.

Moira - Progress

This past week I pulled out one of my uncooperative projects that have been sitting in 'time-out' for a couple of years because it had refused to cooperate with me.    This is a block robin that I did with some friends that I'm in an online quilt group with.   

This block robin started with a piece of cross-stitch that I finished back in 1990.   (Yes I have oodles of cross-stitch UFO's in addition to all of the quilty ones, but that is another story all together.   LOL)  Since getting the original blocks back in 2011 I have not made any progress on it because I just couldn't get them arranged in a way that I liked.   Pic to the right shows how it looked as of the last time that I had tried to arranged the blocks and sections.    The block
Last night i finally figured out that what was tripping me up were the pink/turquoise blocks that were arranged around one block. (No I didn't do that the person who made the block did.)   That arrangement just kept the focus on that single block instead of playing nicely with all of the other parts. 

Once I finally 'heard' what the quilt had been trying to tell me all along (ok so I'm  a wee bit hard of hearing and stubborn at times) then the answer was apparent.   So frog-stitching was the first order of the day today to remove the half-square triangle block border strips.  Once that was done then I could rearrange the main blocks again and start filling in the gaps with all of the filler blocks that I already had.

Next up was to make a 9" block that brought more of the yellow from the cross-stitch into the quilt.  For that I made an Ohio Star block with yellow points and a gold center.    Next up to be made are a 6" block for the bottom left and about 7 - 3" blocks to fill in the bigger areas of the top.   I'm still thinking about what to do with the star at the upper left.   First thought is to take the turquoise framing strips off and replace them with WOW's ones.   I'm sure that the quilt will let me know if it doesn't like my first idea....or the second one.....or third......lol.    I'm just glad to be finally making progress on this critter. 

Moira - One of those weeks

The past week has been one when I hopped from project to project.   Did a lot of work on getting commissioned fabric ready to go.   Ironed about 22 yds of fabric, and then cut out 13 scrub tops.   Next up for that ongoing project is ironing more fabric (flannels) and cutting out tops from them. 

Next up was me trying to do a little practice work for the art quilt that I need to have done in early summer this past week by printing something on fabric on my printer and failed miserably when my printer wouldn't feed the fabric.  =(   So I'm back to square one on what i'm going to do for that challenge.  Will have to stop and think about what I want to do now.

After trying to work with that I then pulled out a long time project (at least 4-5 yrs old and aging) to see if I could get at least get the top together.   This was a block robin that I had participated in with a group of online friends.  My starting block was the cross-stitch piece in the top center.     I first sewed the bright pink/turquoise blue half-sq blocks around the appliqued block in the bottom right corner.   Took me three times to get it done.   And then after getting done I'm not sure that I like it because the pink and blue are much brighter and more intense than the other colors.   I should have listened to the triangles when they were fighting me on going on the block.  (note: the picture does not show how bright these really are compared to the other colors.)  So they will be coming off.  And I'm also probably not going to use the star either for the same reason.   Having decided that I put everything back up until I can figure out what to make to fill in the spaces - and ohio star will probably be one of the blocks, a second and/or third block haven't decided yet.

I was successful though in getting another set of the challenge blocks together for Sunshine Quilts.    So at lease something went right.  =)