Halfway There

I've made 53 blocks out of the 100 I'll need for my queen-size Flowering Snowball quilt!  

The more I make, the more I enjoy it.  

Actually, I've made several more, but edited out and unpicked many.  

The black and gray ones had to go.

You can see lots more beautiful Flowering Snowball quilts here.

My "Spring Equinox" quilt has been hanging at the Edmonds (Washington) Conference Center.

It's been in very good company with some other gorgeous quilts for the last few months.

I can't believe how small it looks on these large walls!  It's queen size.

It's coming down next week, and there will be a fresh collection of quilts there.

This is lunch recently with a friend who has a bountiful organic garden.  

Almost too pretty to eat!

Sunset seen from the ferry in the San Juan Islands.

Ah, summer!

Fini!

"Spring Equinox"  87 x 87"

Quilted by Cindy Gilbrough

Just in time for fall!

Ta-da!

I'd been wanting to make this quilt for a long time.  I thought it might take all winter, and it did!  Hence the name, "Spring Equinox."   87" x 87"

The inspiration came from this 1930's string quilt in Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts Book.  

Sarah Fielke made a similar quilt in the book, Material Obsession Two, by she and Kathy Doughty.  I started off by using the instructions in the book, which are great.  But I decided to try making it without foundation piecing.  

Wanda suggested I make the webs with strips, and I tried it.  I found I could get two and a half webs from two sets of four strips.  Half webs go on the edges.  The kaleidoscope ruler was key.  

To get pinwheels in the middles, I sewed the pinwheel fabrics on after the strips were cut.

And cut them again. 

I made the connecting pieces 15 minutes play style and cut them with a template.  I had to figure out a  template size that would fit with the pie shape pieces.  First I tested it with muslin.

Here are the pieces for one block. 

First you sew them into triangles...

Then squares, using lots of pins...

Then rows.  10 rows x 10 blocks each = 100 blocks = 1 queen size quilt!

Any ideas on quilting it?

On the Design Wall

Here's what's on my design wall today.

It will take a while to evolve.

It's inspired by this quilt in Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts book, and one by Sarah Fielke in Material Obsession Two.  I'm using the templates from the MO2 book, but not the instructions.

Remember these?  (December 8)  I had made them for this quilt, but had lost my courage and tried to find an easier way out.  Nothing satisfied me, so I went back to the original plan.