Tumbling Blocks Experiment

I was very excited about trying this, but really would need to get better coordinated fabrics.

Joyful Village quilt top is finished !

Next comes the quilting, which I will do in free motion with my Janome Horizon.

Joyful Village Quilt - Start

Last night I started on my next project!  It is a folk art quilt using fabrics from Quilting Treasures, Joyful Days, designed by Julia Cairn.  These are beautiful colorful fabrics depicting scenes and people in an African or Caribbean village.

It will be a gift for my friend Vicky in France who has a love of Caribbean art.

Last night I started fussy cutting some of the 4 1/2" squares for around the outside edge.  It is amazing how much waste there is.  In addition it seems that they guestimated the fabric requirements rather high for this.   Oh well, I can probably use the extra to do something cool on the back or make some pillow covers!

Koi Fish Table Runner

I had Saturday and Sunday off this week and got this table runner finished.  I had purchased this remnant of border fabric at Country Cloth in Altaville over a  year ago, not knowing what to do with it, but loving this Oriental print.  It is called Kingyo, from Red Rooster.

Later I decided to make a table runner for my friend Cherie, who has a koi pond.  I cut the fabric and lined it up, hoping to get 4 patch posey blocks, but these turned out to be only slightly effective.   I do like the end result, however. 

I put it on my wall to photograph it and started to think it looks real nice there....

I used a black meandering stitch in the ditch around each block, then did an ecru simple leaf design in the center of each.  I used Echo Shell for the border.

For the binding I used a coordinated floral from the same collection that I found on E-Bay.  I have several yards of this beautiful fabric.

This is my largest FMQ piece so far, following Peter's Tee Shirt Quilt

Start of 2011 Block of the Month : Houses

I have been having a blast learning paper piecing and following along with the Blocks of the Month on The Quilting Board!  

The theme on the first of each month for 2011 is Houses.

Here are mine so far.  I did not post all of them, but there are photos of the finished quilt in a later post.

January: Church

February: Farmhouse

March: Old Red Barn

April: Bird House