The Start of a New Quilt -- Decisions, Decisions....

In keeping with the bird theme, I found this fabric at Joann's (a fabric chain) and thought it would be great for a one block wonder or some type of the Serendipity quilts I had been making.  The repeat was a large one -- probably 24 to 27 inches.

Here is the beginning of the arrangement -- surrounding the dark blocks with the lighter ones.

I had decided that I would probably do a "one block" quilt as I thought it was too bright with the addition of the fabrics I had picked out for the Serendipty arrangement.  However, even switching these blocks around, it was much too busy for a one block quilt as you can see here so I gave up on that idea.  So now to try to alternate arrangements...

This was my first though.  I would fill in the missing blocks with some solid hexagons.  No, don't like that one...

Then I thought I would take the easy way out and put solid color triangles in the empty spaces.  At least you can begin to see the blocks here which are all pretty interesting (you can tell I love radial symmetry).

After some thought and a look back at some older quilts, I decided that I would expand on this arrangement for the blocks.  This was a small "stack and whack" I made for the 2004 (I think that was the year) Hoffman Challenge.  I have never seen this particular arrangement before but it is all hexagons, some plain hexagons and some with stars in the middle and then I used different color backgrounds.  I think it displays the blocks well and adds a little interest.  So now I have to figure out how big to make the diamond shapes and background triangles.   The hexagon blocks in this quilt are only about 2 1/2 to 3 inches across so the blocks in this new quilt will be at least double that.  I am hoping that it will be big enough for a queen sized bed when finished.  I ended up hand quilting the above piece as it was not easy to figure out how to machine quilt it!

Two Down, Two to Go.....

Well, except for the final borders, this quilt top is done and has already been on my Facebook page!  It took about a week to do -- although I only worked on it a couple of hours each day.  I may have to call it Upstairs/Downstairs as that is what I have been watching while working on it!  I am almost done the five years of dvds.

Here I have added borders of the medium blue  to the two sides.

Probably I will add a darker blue thin border and then use the stripped fabric as the final border but not totally convinced yet...

This is the fabric for the next quilt I will be working on.  I haven't decided which block/blocks to use but it will be another of the serendipity quilts.  Hopefully I can find a block that is as versatile as the one for the last quilt.  If not, I will use that block again but will do something different with it.  I am currently thinking I will use some different colors in each of the blocks with just a couple of colors being a constant to pull it together.  We shall see
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Here are the first of the star insides and the fabrics I have pulled to work with it.  Most important is to make sure I have at least one pretty light fabric and one fabric that reads dark.  Photographing  is a good way to determine if you have enough contrast.  Changing it to black/white works even better.


Black will be added to the mixture of colors for this one.

There were a couple of female Scaups down at the lake this afternoon.  They looked small but look more like Greater Scaups than the Lessers so maybe they are young.  I had the Coots with which to compare them.