Playing Catch-Up

While hand quilting on my Doll Quilt, I've not been a total slacker on the sewing front.

Vandy, a longtime member of the SR Quilt Guild is moving to the Portland area and her best buddy Norma has organized a friendship block collection for her. The background was to be cream or off-white and any other color, preferably a bright or clear color. Of course, mine had to be blue and I chose one of the FQs I bought from Karen Combs when she was here last year. This is such an easy block and would really make a pretty quilt.
To the left is my friendship block for Linda, a member of the guild and the Snooze-You-Lose mini group. Her theme was "They Only Come Out at Night," for Halloween blocks and I have to tell you, she has received some fabulous blocks. I used the Liz Aneloski method from her book Simple Fabric Folding for Halloween. The spider is a yo-yo that is machine sewed down and then gathered, a technique she demonstrated on Simply Quilts. I'm debating adding a tiny bright green spider below the big one......or perhaps a fly!
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You've probably heard this elsewhere, but I like to use my digital camera to check for value when making a block for an exchange. My camera, a Casio Exilim 7.2 megapixel has a "Best Shot feature and within that menu there is a black and white option. Using that setup, I take a picture of the fabrics I'm auditioning and can often see value better than with those red and green plexiglass filters--especially when using reds. Here are two samples of a lotto block I was working on for my friend Kathy. Everything is the same in both blocks except the fabrics in north-south-east-west positions of the nine patch center. The fabric on the left is a mossy green and the fabric on the right is a red with gold metallic. I loved the green for color (the two patches are a medium gold and the background is a pale gold, but the red really showed up better. Red it is!
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Finally, I am quilting away on the Doll Quilt and am probably half done. In the meantime, I've prepared the binding and have it stored in my favorite way; on an old cardboard ribbon spool. If I have a flimsy that I won't be quilting any time soon, I will often go ahead and make my binding and then hang it on a coat hanger with the flimsy and the backing so all is in one place when I'm ready for it and I haven't used the binding fabric for something else!