Morris Garden Flimsy

I got an early start on my Friday Night Sew In and spent the day working on my Morris Garden quilt. It is finished! (Well, the flimsy is anyway; I'll obviously still need to quilt it once I get my long arm.) 

I gave up the idea of making all the corners match, this one is actually the best of the four. I decided done was better and right now I just don't have space to lay it out to carefully match the fabrics.

This is made from Jinny Beyer's free pattern, Midnight Garden. I used an old set of fabrics from 2012, called Morris Meadows, designed by Michele Hill.

The squares were all cut in kaleidoscopes. I layered four repeats of the rose fabric and then cut out all the pieces. I didn't fussy cut to get any special effects because I wasn't sure I had enough of the fabric.

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

This also finished up my November One Monthly Goal.

Linking up with 

One Monthly Goal

Friday Night Sew In

Finished or Not Friday

TGI Finished Friday

Peacock Party and

Whoop Whoop

Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt

I decided to participate in my first mystery quilt along. I've never done one before but I have watched a number of them and thought it would be fun to try one. I love the colors for Quiltville's Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt so I decided to give it a try.

To be honest, except for the yellow, these are not colors I tend to just buy for my stash so I pulled what I had, but I'm sure I have enough for this project. I have TONS of yellow but I just pulled out the smallest pieces from my stacks; hopefully I'll use some of them up. And I didn't have an aqua that was more than two yards, but I had three pieces that were all close to the same color with a little different texture so I'm going to do the aqua portion a little scrappy.

As we get going, I'm sure I'll raid my scrap bins and come up with more fabrics, but this was just the first pass on my fabric wall.

Morris Melody Quilt Design

I have spent a lot of time the past week playing in Electric Quilt. I guess I haven't felt like struggling with getting the border fabric repeat to match on the Morris Garden Quilt nor have I felt like cleaning up the basement (which is really what I should be doing because we have a remodel starting just after the new year).

When I was cruising around online looking at various medallion quilts I ran across this Morris Medley BOM quilt. I thought about buying the pattern, but there were some elements I didn't really like so I started playing around with putting together a similar quilt in EQ. Then I got thinking, I'd really like to try some applique. I've seen some great pieced quilts with some applique added to make them nicer.  

So I started erasing and recoloring blocks to create more white space and then I got carried away and just kept adding applique. I'd always wanted to learn how to add applique blocks/motifs in Electric Quilt so I learned how over the weekend; it is not difficult, but it is really tedious. But I like being able to trace shapes and then play with the elements to combine them in different ways so it was worth the effort for me. The poppy and acanthus leaf applique patterns were scanned and traced from Michele Hill's William Morris in Applique book.

Anyway, I will probably never make it, but wouldn't this be a nice one if I'm ever up to doing all that applique?

All these fabrics in the design are from Barbara Brackman's Morris Tapestry and Morris Workshop fabrics from around 2012. I found it just as it was going out of print and I was still pretty new into quilting and didn't really know how much to buy for the stash so I bought nearly everything I could find. It was WAY too much. LOL

Thanks to Judy for hosting Design Wall Monday.

Tuesday ToDo #26

Last week my tasks were to work on my Morris Garden quilt. Since I'd already cut the white triangles out, I needed to start putting together the blocks and assemble the quilt per the plan. It took a couple of days, but I finished the central blocks.

I'm really pleased with how the kaleidoscope squares turned out. It's difficult to see in the larger photo how the vines and leaves are all twisted up.

I still need to add the border. I had planned to just put on a basic border with a mitered corner, but now I'm wondering if I can maybe match the corners so the design aligns. Since the repeat on the border fabric is very small (less than 3") it may be possible, but I need to lay it out and see how close it is.

I had planned to finish over the weekend, but I went and picked up some library books instead and that often distracts me for a couple of days. This time I got several quilt books and I scanned the designs I liked and ended up playing with Electric Quilt again. LOL

My list for this next week:

• Finish adding the border.
• Make the backing.
• Make 2 sets of pillowcases.

I'm linking up with Tuesday ToDo.

Morris Garden Almost Finished

I just need to add the mitered border, but the Morris Garden is almost complete! I'm really happy with how this quilt is coming out. 

This is the first time I've layered fabrics to cut out kaleidoscope pieces and it's definitely a technique I need to use again.

This is the border fabric I still need to add.

Nov Friday Night w/Friends

I got an early start on my Friday Night With Friends as I spent most of the day sewing. In fact, I've spent quite a lot of hours this week working on my Morris Garden quilt.

By today, I had all the pieces assembled and I could start putting together the quilt. I tried doing one mitered seam then decided it was going to be too difficult to get all the points to line up perfectly so I made the decision to tear apart all those kaleidoscope squares I had already sewn together so I could sew corners onto the octagons. It was an easier decision once I realized I could fit 2/3rds of the quilt up on the design wall.

The ripping added a bit of time, but I think my final assembly is a little smoother.

As of bedtime tonight, I have three rows finished—half of the central blocks—and have finished ripping apart all the kaleidoscope squares. I'm quite happy with how it is turning out. I should be able to just sew tomorrow unless I get distracted by something else. LOL

I'm also linking up with Finished or Not Friday.

Morris Garden Quilt

This post is a Tuesday ToDo and my November One Monthly Goal combined. I think I will make finishing my Morris Garden flimsy my One Monthly Goal. I had expected to finish it by now, but I keep getting distracted. 

I've gotten my white fabric and I've cut out all the 45° triangles and I've sewn them onto the blue diamonds, but I still need to finish sewing them onto the red and yellow. It's fairly slow going because I am being very precise in the positioning so all the edges line up when I'm done. If it's wrong, I rip it out and do it again.

I am nearly at the point where I need to figure out how to assemble this quilt. I cut out the squares between the octagons into kaleidoscopes.  I didn't have enough fabric to get really fancy with positioning so I just layered four fabric repeats together and cut out all the triangles. I ended up with whatever happened to be there, but I think it will look better than if I had just cut out random triangles and pieced them together.

So now, I need to make sure each set is kept together. I'm not sure whether I'd be better off assembling the kaleidoscope squares and all the octagons separately and then combining them with Y-seams when I assemble the quilt. 

Or, should I assemble all the octagons and then have the endless headache of adding the corners right before I sew the blocks together? I don't have a very large design wall so I would likely have to do this in sections.

Do any of you have experience with this? This is one of the more complex quilts I've made. Usually "complex" for me has been lots of little pieces. I don't have much experience with octagons yet, but I am enjoying the challenge of this project. I just want it to turn out well.

And for my Tuesday ToDo report. I had anticipated getting this project already finished, but I had a major distraction last Friday when I bought some woman's "stash" and then I got sucked into the vortex of looking through all the new fabric, magazines, and books I'd gotten. 

Then I found myself scanning all the projects that looked interesting to me so I could get rid of the magazines. And then I "organized" all the files on the computer. I'm not sure how, but the weekend just disappeared with barely a stitch. So, now I am trying to get back on track. 

I think I'll actually get this project done fairly quickly once I get going, but I am easily distracted, hence the OMG. I'm hoping it will help direct my attention.