Swaps on the wall

I've been slow to post pictures of the last few sets of blocks I received, but I was just as excited about them. Here they are now, from Ruth, Theri and Beth:



Thank you very much ladies! Your wonderful blocks have been up on the design wall since they came. I have two sets still to come then I can start stitching them all together.

That trip to the quilt shop that resulted in buying a new machine was originally a trip to buy fabric for the sashing, setting triangles and borders. Here's what I came home with, besides the new machine (did I mention the new machine? Sorry, I'm still a bit excited about that!). I had planned to make the setting triangles from the same fabric as the sashing but when I put all the blocks up on the wall together I noticed that many of them have at least a touch of pink, rose or wine. I decided to try pulling them all together by making the cornerstones and setting triangles echo those colours.

Last night I worked on the sashing. I messed up my planning and made a few of the white strips too short, but I have enough fabric to correct that. I'll make certain not to be doing it late a night again though!

The last thing I did before going to bed much later than I should have was test my idea on the design wall. The blocks were already up so it was quick to add sashing strips and setting triangles. I didn't start low enough on the wall so I ran out of batting at the top to lay out the setting triangles there, but this still gives me a pretty good idea what the quilt will look like.


I plan a thin inner border of the polka dot fabric, followed by a wider border in the red fabric, and perhaps a prairie point edging instead of binding. Now I need to go practice, practice, practice my free-motion quilting so I can eventually quilt this one! Free motion is just as tricky as I expected...