Design Wall Monday - February 3, 2025

 Good Morning Quilters!

Happy February to you.  My Cousin’s Walk borders are getting finished.  I am nearing the end, and try to appliqué one flower each day.  Here’s todays picture:  on left, the last two borders as they are now, and on the right, a picture of the same two borders from two weeks ago.  I am getting excited that the end is getting near!

The diamonds quilt on the design wall is coming along too.  I added the edge parts, and have about ten long strips of blocks sewn together, and also have a little bit in the top left that have the strips sewn together.  It involves thinking as I sew because the triangles all have bias edges, and when sewing them together, I have to offset the edges a little to line the seams up correctly.  It’s a job where I keep Mr. Seamripper handy when I first begin a session, but after I get sewing for a while, I use him less.  Here’s the design wall, in three pictures:

(1) The top left corner is all sewn together (except for the one little corner bit)

(2) The next set of blocks are now sewn into six long diagonal strips:

(3) And the rest is a mix of some blocks sewn to their neighbors, and some blocks that are not sewn to anything.

   

It is turning out to be fitting together like a giant puzzle, and I am liking it.  What are you playing with on your design wall this week?  It doesn’t have to be on a design wall, but we like to see what progress you are making.

Click on the link below and join our Design Wall Monday Linky Party.  I really enjoy seeing what you are making.  Thanks for participating each week.  I appreciate you.

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Design Wall Monday - January 27, 2025

 Good Morning Quilters!

My design wall now has most of the blocks for the Collection for a Cause - Community quilt up on it.  It still needs the outside red blocks, which I’m still working on.

Here is a picture:

I am now ready to start sewing diamond to diamond, in long diagonal strips.  Since it could be a boring job, I’ve decided to set my hourglass sand timer and work on it for at least as long as the sand is running from the top to the bottom, and then take a break.  Do you have a fun timer in your sewing room?

Here is mine, and sometimes I’m amazed when I look up from the sewing machine and see it has no sand in the top part.  It takes roughly an hour for the sand to run from the top to the bottom.  

I also appliquéd some leaves on the Cousin’s Walk borders.  It went a little faster when I was making the same shape over and over.  Here is a picture:

What is on your design wall this Monday?  We had lots of eye candy last week with almost 30 linkups.  Thanks to all our regulars and all the new people who joined in.

Please join in and show us any progress you’ve made (or squirrels you’ve chased) this week.  

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Design Wall Monday - January 20, 2025

Good Morning Quilters!

The two quilts I’m working on got some progress this week:

(1)  Collection for a Cause - Community is on the design wall, or at least 1/2 of it.  The blocks are now all adjusted to the same size, and here are all the solid diamonds for it.   I put the darks and lights into vertical rows.  Next, when they are all sewn, I’ll put up the four-patch diamonds into the blank spots.

As I am working on this quilt, I realized that since I cut all the diamonds shorter and fatter than the instructions, the quilt will probably be shorter and fatter too…..but, since the cutting mistake gave me extra fabric left over from the kit, I am making more diamonds to add three more rows to make the final quilt longer.  I will have to see what size it turns out, as I am thinking it should be fairly close in size compared to the original pattern.  We shall see.  This quilt is certainly an adventure.

(2). The Cousin’s Walk quilt borders are coming along.  Two borders are finished, and the last two borders are now 1/2 finished.  I had set a goal of having the borders completed by the end of January, but that may realistically be the end of February.  I am a slow appliquér.  But it is not a race, right?  Here’s a picture of the two side borders as they are right now:

How are your projects coming along.  Please update us by joining our Design Wall Monday Linky Party below.  Thanks!  I really enjoy seeing your progress and seeing your pictures.  

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Design Wall Monday - Janary 13, 2025

 Good Morning Quilters!

Here’s my design wall, as it has looked for the past month:

Last week, I talked about perseverance.  And I told you about our amaryllis that tipped over and broke off.  Well, here’s the second try of this hardy little bulb.  I am so proud of it!

So this week, I am rejoicing in perseverance and “second chances”.  This lily encouraged me to look again at the diamond blocks that have been in time out, on my design wall.  They are from a kit, Collection for a Cause, Community, by Moda.

There were two problems with my progress so far.  #1   I cut some of the blocks the wrong size……. read this December post if you want details (Here). I have decided to cut all the longer narrower block to more of the size of the shorter fatter ones.  They won’t be exactly the same size, but close enough to get this quilt moving along.  We shall see.

#2 After looking at it for a month on the design wall, I realized that there was a dark/light pattern to the quilt both horizontally and vertically.  In my start of the quilt, I had the horizontal part going, but was not paying attention to the vertical dark/light thing going on.

So this week, I used the seam ripper while on a trip - on the plane, and in the rental car - to take all the blocks apart.  I feel I am now back on the path to progress, but you never know with some quilts.  We shall see.

Also, The Cousin’s Walk border flowers are coming along as planned.  How about you?  What challenges are you attacking, and do you have any perseverance and second chance stories to tell us?

Please join our Design Wall Monday Linky Party below and share with us.

Thanks for participating.  Your blogs are so interesting, and I learn a lot from you.  I appreciate you.

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Design Wall Monday - January 6, 2025

 Good Morning Quilters!

I divided the two long Cousin’s Walk quilt borders into 6 sections.  I have 2 sections appliquéd and decided I could do 1 of the four remaining sections each week in January to finish these two borders in four weeks.   Alas, I didn’t get much done this week, just a flower or two.  But I will work on it more this coming week, and see if I can get past the 3rd section of each of the two borders by next Monday.  Here is a picture of where I am right now:  (just one borders, but both look the same)

A story of perseverance to encourage you (and me):

This winter, in our kitchen, we have an Amaryllis bulb.  It had five beautiful big blooms on it in December.  I was going to take a picture of it to show you, but just when it was in full bloom, before I took a picture……..tragedy struck……..it was so very top heavy that it fell over……fell off the counter top…….and the stalk and all five beautiful blooms broke off as it hit the floor.  No one was even near it!  We joked that we had never had a plant commit sucide before!  

But, here’s the perseverance story:  This bulb said he wasn’t finished yet, and another single stalk rose up out of the sorry looking remains…….and a new bloom is ready to blossom!!!  I am so amazed at the effort.  

So perseverance is the word around here, and I shall persevere with my two long borders,  How about you?  What are you persevering with?

I am looking forward to seeing what you have to show us on this week’s Design Wall Monday Linkup Party.  Click on the linkup below and join the party.  Thanks so much for your participation.  2025 is going to be a great year!

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