Show-n-tell Saturday!

I am so excited to get to show this with all of you!!! This week I finished up my last block for my 1930's BOM from last year's Quilt Club!!!

Nora has really taken a liking to playing with the buttons and has even requested to go in the sewing room and "play buttons" the past two mornings before breakfast even!!! ;) So, needless to say that was very helpful in having time to sew during the day!

Here is my little "Jackson" sitting in front of the quilt just now. He's our "first child," a miniature schnauzer. For the first time in the 8 years of having him... we shaved him naked for the summer. Funny thing is, that we can tell he feels so much better b/c lately he has been acting like he's 5 years younger! :c)

Just to give you a recap I will post a photo of the 1st half of my 1930's BOM quilt (which is still pinned to the wall upstairs) of months January - June and then under it a photo of what I took today - the 2nd half of the quilt months July thru December. This should give us a preview of what the quilt will look like after I sew the two halfs together ;c) This week, I also got a good start to using up all my scraps for a 1" finished piano key boarder to go around the outside. Not sure about the corners - maybe make some more sawtooth star blocks? since they were used thruout the quilt so much as fillers... here is a photo of my piano keys strips so far. I was working on some chinese coins for Mary and that gave me the idea to do this :)the quilt store had a different final boarder on their quilt. The kit I received included the fabric for it and it would also be a good way to use up scraps, but I have always admired piano key boarders and wanted to do one... I will still do an inner boarder of the white like they did - then add my scrappy piano keys. Here is a photo of their finished quilt. (turned to the side... the right is the top of the quilt starting with Jan at the far right corner) As you can see, only some of my 12" blocks look like theirs (same fabrics.) For the most part, on all the sawtooth stars I did differnt fabrics than what they provided me with in my monthly kit b/c I think it is much easier to use Eleanor Burn's Flying Geese Rulers than to cut squares into triangles then resew them and have to use 1/8" measurements. Also in my monthly 12" blocks I choose all together different fabrics for Jan, June, & September..... and if you look closely, you will see that I changed the block patterns for the paper pieced star for July and also Y-seam star December. My blocks for those months aren't even close to what they used!

The last block for December (on the right) is called Mississippi Star. I found it while surfing Judy Martin's website and looking thru her photo gallery. She writes: "Mississippi Star is a versatile star that can achieve different looks depending on how you color it. With this coloring the dark blue star points look like they are gripping the center square. It's a block I put into a picture frame in order to display it." -Judy Martin

It wasn't difficult to figure out - just a little math and I knew what sizes to cut everything. I only wish I had been able to use higher contrasting fabrics like she did in hers....in the same color family...... and if I remake the block someday the darkest fabric will be like hers to create that woven effect. Here is a photo of her block.

I know my 30's BOM is a very busy quilt and for most who see it will just view it as a lot of mumbo-jumbo but for me I have loved it ever since I first saw it hanging in the quilt store. It just reminds me of my grandmother, "Momma Newt's" quilts and how she would have used up scraps to make herself a quilt....so that is what prompted me to want to do this one.

The BOM Quilt in the store is machine quilted with just a big overall meander I guess you call it type of quilting....and I will probably have the same done for mine since it is already so busy. I need what ever is the cheapest way to get it quilted. :c) I am really hoping my Daddy sends me my usual $100 bill with my birthday card this year, b/c I am planning on putting that towards having it machine quilted as my birthday gift to myself!

I hope the next photo I post of this project will be of the finished top with the piano keys attached! I hope Nora wants to play with the buttons some more this week - b/c the count down for the twins C-section on or around June 7th is only 19 more days!!!! and I have to have this done before then!!!

Also soon, I hope to post details about the FQ Bingo Game we are playing over at the quilter's board on HGTV. Today was day 30 of calling 2 numbers per day.... I have a feeling we will know next week who the lucky winner/s are of the 1600 FQ's in the jackpot!!! :c)

Happy Weekend everyone! ~Bonnie