Nickel Tops Pieced

Finally, the Nickel quilt tops are pieced!  I've been loathe to work on them over the last week because of the heat--piecing requires the iron to be on.  And who wants to add to an already warm house?

But on to the Nickel tops!
Here's the first one, looking more yellow than blue

and here's the second one, looking more blue!

This second one was made with the leftover small units from the first.  I would have liked the first quilt to be bigger, but I ran out of the blue fabric, and I didn't want to add a different blue.  The blocks had been sewn and it was too late to mingle a new blue into the mix.  But it measures out at 49" x 65", so it's still a nice lap quilt.

As for the second one, I played with different settings

Option 1

Option 2

Both of the above options required either a yellow or blue square in the middle, but I wasn't wild about either setting to put those in.

Playing a bit more, I came up with this

 and again, by rotating the orientation of the lights and darks, came up with it's compliment

 Then I finally settled on the Idaho Beauty layout from More Nickel Quilts (affiliate link) but auditioned different centers.

Solid blue center of a different blue fabric

Piece of blue stars that is also going on the border

Or using up more units!

So I liked the last option, but again, didn't have enough units with the same blue.  But what if I made a few units with a similar value blue, then made another row to make this quilt bigger?  And voila!

The center stars are slightly darker, and a few dark blocks appear next to the other stars, in the upper and lower center.  Overall, a good compromise, and I rather like this one!  And in case your wondering, I did rotate the units to make yellow stars, but because of the wild fabrics, they just didn't look as cohesive as the blue stars do.

Some people just sew their scrap quilts and let whatever happen happen, but I like a bit of order about them.  And I could just stitch a panto on these and be done, but I think I'll have a bit more fun with the quilting.  I'll keep you posted!

Stay cool, and Happy Quilting!

Morning Glories

It finally dawned on me that I never posted quilted pictures of the January Book of the Month quilt, Morning Glories.

I gave a teaser last week on Update Day,  to announce that it had won 2nd place in the Pieced Wall Hanging division at the county fair.  So, here are some detail pictures

I stuck with a rather simple fill quilting design of stippling and pebbles.  I wanted it to resemble the sandy-like rock from the original picture.

Then a very simple border treatment that frames it without competing.

Originally, I was going to quilt the 'glow' of the flowers.  I did do some stitching with a light blue thread, but the stitching smashed down the flower in an unattractive way, making it appear nothing like the funnel shape the flower is.

After tearing those out, I decided to just quilt in the ditch in the star points of the flowers, and applique the little centers.

Then the 'glow' was applied with these fabric crayons from Pentel, giving the flowers the appearance I was looking for.

Happy Quilting!

Susan

June Book of the Month Progress

Well, the project for June's Book of the Month, Nickel Quilts (affiliate link), is not as far along as I hoped.  Once again, travel has taken me away from quilting, so now I'm playing catch up!

But I do have progress to report!  I have picked out the Sunny Lanes pattern from the book, and decided to make it a yellow and blue theme.  Got the yellow nickel pieces sorted out from the rest, then determined I should find some more!  Looking through my yellow stash, I found a bunch of small pieces that could be cut into 5" squares:

The above picture shows the original nickels on the left and top.  And when making scrap quilts, the more variety, the better!  But what a lot of cutting!!!

So now I've got some sewing done, and here's the pile of chain stitched half square triangles

and here's the start of the four patch units

Everything needs pressing, cutting, some more sewing, and squaring.

I don't have a particular size in mind for this project--I just want to keep sewing nickels till I run out of yellow!  Unfortunately, I have run out of the blue I was using.  So back to the stash to find something similar.  I could use a bunch of different blues, but I really don't want to drive myself nuts!  And if I get two quilts out of all of this, even better!

Will keep you posted!
Happy Quilting