Today the temperatures crept above 20 degrees for the first time in almost two weeks, so I ventured out of doors to document last night’s snowfall.
I did spend time today quilting on the Animal Friends quilt. I also prepared the quilt sandwich for the Round Robin piece, which is getting almost too big to fit under my sewing machine.
Tomorrow we may have more snow, but warmer temperatures will be here by Friday. And then, very soon, spring weather will arrive in Oklahoma.
Thinking about what I have done so far on the round robin quilt, I have concluded that the work needs some breathing room. A little space and lightness from the intense colors and diverse border designs will give the eye a place to rest. So for this challenge I had already decided to add a wider border of the light blue fabric.
I like that the light blue speaks to the blues in the checkerboard border while still providing much needed contrast in value. So I was pretty happy with the next prompt – Wonky Stars – suggested by pieceful quilter Wendy. Stay at Home Round Robin Border 5 – (piecefulthoughts.com)
First of all, I like everything improv. Wendy gave us a link to a wonky star tutorial, and I recognized the same technique I already knew and had used in my tropical fish blocks for Under the Sea.
https://www.berrybarndesigns.com/blog/wonky-star-tutorial
The pile of fabrics you see in my featured photo will form the substance of the stars. I will embed the stars at various places into the light blue border, which I expect to be at least 5 inches wide.
Today I got started.
The first star is finished. Tomorrow I will start early and work in earnest to complete the round.
Gentle Curves shawl is off the needles. Here is my autobiographical photograph of it.
This was a quick and easy knit. To make it more decorative, I added stripes of lacy eyelet stitches spaced up gradually over the body of the shawl.
I still haven’t formed an opinion about whether I like the slanting line that forms a twisted spine on the shawl. It looks better when the shawl is wrapped well around, with the ends hanging down in front.
Yarn fibers include alpaca, wool and silk. The pattern Gentle Curves can be found on Ravelry here:
Ravelry: Gentle Slopes pattern by Quinn Reverendo
My week has been a bit full – which is quite a change of pace for me. Among other things, I received my first COVID-19 vaccine jab yesterday. (sore arm today.)
None the less, I have been working steadily on this week’s challenge – checkerboard. I quickly decided it was important to make a definitive break in the design. It is desirable to separate out the triangular rounds from the checkerboard border, which will be strongly square. To make this, I added a wide coping border in the dark grey fabric.
I like the way the geese triangles now look like stained glass pieces.
To me, the checkerboard border can be a mosaic tile border. To achieve this effect I chose to use all medium toned fabrics, including the flowered batik. Here is a small mock-up for my design, using 1 1/2 inch square pieces.
The first step is to cut and sew together several strips, then cut the strips cross-wise into paired squares. Here you see the three piles.
Next I joined these strips into four square blocks, then joined the blocks into long strips. It took me a while to make the first side. For one thing, I again failed to true up the blocks before attempting to sew on the border. Soon, however, I was fully in the swing of it. The first side…………
……. and finally, all sides completed. There are a total of 48 four-square blocks used.
I like it pretty well. Despite my best efforts, there are some ripples. (Thankfully there are no pleats.) I can try to smooth them out by removing, adjusting, and re-attaching the checkerboards.
I’m ready for the next challenge, although I will probably have to buy more fabric.
Here I am, for the third day, working on Round 3 of the Stay Home Round Robin quilt challenge. Yesterday I wrote about my efforts to assemble flying geese blocks – a technique that was brand new to me.
I started with a quilt that looked like this:
To line all four sides with Flying Geese blocks, I would need to make 48. Thinking about how much time and effort I had already spent and considering that I needed another 24 blocks, I decided to change the design of this border.
What if I turned the blocks 90 degrees, and let the long side go parallel to the quilt edge? And while I was twisting the blocks around, what would happen if I alternated the direction – turn one left, the next right, and so on.
So that’s what I did. I made up more blocks anyway, because I needed certain colors for the new plan. Ditching the bright green geese, I went with my current palette of blue-green, orange and gold.
The quilt is now too big to stick on my bulletin board, so I am photographing on the floor. Here’s my round with the first three sides finished.
And here is the finished round.
I grouped the orange and yellow geese toward the corners, where they can have a conversation with the plus signs. And I laid the blue geese near the sides of the pale blue octagon. The result of this layout is a path for the eye to move all around the quilt, guided by the color groupings.
I feel very pleased. Maybe, just maybe the results were worth the effort.
If you would like to visit other quilters who are working on Stay At Home Round Robin quilts, you can follow these links:
Daily Fiber 