Fri Night Sew in and I sewed

Well so many times I sign up for this sew in and then I forget or I sign up and then forget to report what I did do. OR I sew and report but I forgot to sign up. I managed everything this week. Signed up, check. Sewed, check. So now I am reporting what I did. But first I have to rewind to last fall the hubby changed satellite dish providers and in doing so we got the DVR. Yay I can record things to watch at a later date. Well that new series Revenge, I had a friend that loved it so I have been DVRing it. Well last night for my Fri night sew in I sat down in my comfy recliner and took out some hand work, and watched the show. Not bad I have to say, nothing I can't live without, but decent. Now onto the hand work. Needle turn applique.

It's hard to see just what I have done. I should have taken the other quilt down. But it is something that I am working on  too. Sometimes I get 4 or 5 things on the wall and I just have to make do. I am afraid if I take one down then I may not get back to it. So just keep it up and layer it. But back to the FNSI  I got all the vein appliqued and all the leaves  and flowers on one side stitched down. I think it was quite a bit considering... But when the dog had to go outside to do his thing, I went into the sewing room and worked on sewing up the back to my grandsons quilt. No I didn't get a pic of it but it is done and hopefully will get it quilted this weekend. I tried to use up a bunch of scraps on it so it is quite colorfull.
The quilt on the background here is Gail's Row x Row and I am working on the row I am adding. You know for a long time I was addicted to swapping blocks on the Internet but now I am into these  row x rows. I am in 4 of them right now so that is one row a week. Gosh then there is my full time job and then the quilting job and of course the things I want to do for myself. Then somewhere in there the hubby expects  me to cook. I just don't know what he is thinking!

These next three are Janet's. She's a piecing machine and always does a wonderful job. This first one shades of black with some cream. So elegant

One of the down falls of doing quilting for others is you don't get to know the name of the pattern or name of the quilt when I do them. So I dream up names for them This one I call Stairway to Heaven. For some reason it just reminds me of climbing up to Heaven. Now don't laugh at me. I think all quilts should have names and whether or not it is their real names that is how I associate with them while they are here.

This one I called Gardening. That center fabric is seed packages or what reminded me of that. I am not a Gardner and could care less about sticking my hands in the dirt but sure wish someone would come to my house and do that for me. Hmmm wonder if some bartering could be arranged.... now just with whom..... Will have to look into that. BUT back on track. This is a gorgeous quilt and the colors are more vibrant than what shows in the picture. I really do hate the hubby's camera. But I do have my new camera figured out so hopefully no more pics with this yellowed out camera. I had fun with this quilt doing something different in each border. Great Job Janet!!

I told you I was in 4 Row x Rows well this is one that just started and this is my starting row. The chickens are a 8 inch block and once I put them in a pen and a house they turned into a 12 inch block. Once this comes back to me I will add a row of the wood fabric to the top and down the right side thus finishing out my chicken house. I also have the chicken wire fabric that will be the borders so in reality I have a chicken yard when done.

These are blocks I did for Jane's row x row. She didn't want hers sewn together and she wanted fall colors. I thought I would have a hard time finding fall colors in my stash but I didn't so..................

 

I joined this row x row on the Internet that is the maple leaf block (like you couldn't tell that) and it is in fall colors. Everyone will be doing the maple leaf block and we use natural muslin as the background. There were only five people that joined this one so we are doing one row apiece and one block. For some reason I thought it was two extra blocks  and then the center loose block is my label. So with the extra loose block everyone will make a block and sew onto it so when this comes home it will be  6 rows by 6 rows.  Since I made that extra extra  block I am sure that I will add another row so I don't have an orphan block hanging around.  So with the green and cream one in the first pic you have seen the 4 row x rows that I am in.  I will continue posting pics as I make rows.  Well I better get to sewing some blocks or I won't get my rows done.

Borders how do you decide

Well well, borders are my question. How do you decided what size to make those borders? Of course that is if you are making it on your own. I very rarely go by a pattern. I may attend a quilt show and see something that I like and later, sometimes years, I will remember seeing something wonderful and try to recreate it by memory.  Oh I have patterns but you will find them in pristine condition, well there is one or two I actually followed, but normally I just go for it. So then I get to borders and sometimes I just get lost in what size to make them. Oh I had a fellow retreater pull out a book that gave 'rules' for size of sashing to block size with border size to quilt size. Well I am NOT a rules person and then to think that there are rules for being creative! So at another retreat one time I was debating on borders and a fellow retreater, Gail gave me her perspective, 'I just cut my borders the width of my ruler.'
This is Gail at a sew in we had recently.

 Well I gave that a thought and grabbed the 3½" ruler and cut, sewed, then there was an 8" ruler so I cut the next ones with that. So I went and bought different size rulers and have lived by that 'rule' now. So when you are designing on your own  what dictates your border size? Do you go with the 'rules' of acceptability or just do your own thing.

Well this is a quilt I call Simple Girl. Note the borders. Not what was found in the book. But what I wanted. When making this the fellow retreater with the 'book' kept telling me I was wrong to do it this way. She finally gave up trying to make me see it the 'book' way and left me alone. I really like the results of this. I really like how it turned out. These borders came from what fabric I had left from the center top and went from there on how to use it most effectively or efficiently. And that is how I figure my borders, what do I have left and  or cut it with what ever size ruler I have.



Well the grandson turned 9 couple weeks ago and two weeks before his birthday he and his brother inform me that they need new quilts for their birthdays this year. So I went to retreat the weekend in between and had to make his quilt. Note the borders were easy to decide, had to go with how much fabric I had. I had bought fabric couple years back for him a new quilt so I got it out and got it done. I used all fabric but about one strip 4½" x 8". Yep cut it close but he loved it.

I hope he gets some good use out of it. He loves science and that kind of stuff so the planets and space was his theme. He even told which planet was which on there.

So let me know what are your thoughts on borders!