Design Wall Monday--Windham Challenge

I'm late as usual for Design Wall Monday--but still wanted to share the sewing room project of the moment.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

The Sewtopia Event this year in Palm Springs is coming up fast.  I signed up for the Windham Fabric challenge and received a fabric bundle. I showed it a few posts ago with the block I wanted to make. 

The challenge rules allow any Windham fabrics.  I had some scraps of solids from a previous years' challenges and pulled those to play with the new group. 

I cut and sewed, cut and sewed...

The block turned out pretty well---but it was far too busy.  I let it stew overnight and tried again. 

After some careful surgery of some of the non-current challenge fabric, and and frustration with wrong-sized strips, I was happier with my changes. 

It took nearly all day but now it looks like this!  Much better.  I believe I will make a quilted pillow sham from the block.  I have made binding with the remainder of the blue and white striped fabric.  There is a light-colored fat quarter from stash that will do for half of the backing, and I'll cobble together extra block parts/pieces of challenge fabric for the rest. 

In other Sewtopia prep, I sewed together one of the blocks for the Four-Patch X quilt I also plan to work on--but it turned out too big!  I am blaming that on the sewing machine foot I was using.  Still to finish is a general swap gift and my sister's birthday quilt...as well as packing, etc. 

Pismo Getaway

We were happy to have a recent weekend getaway to visit friends--I took a day off work and we headed up the coast to Pismo Beach on Friday.  It was cloudy and cool and the drive easy. Toni and Dan have a house high up on the hill with wonderful views. We had wood fired pizzas in their amazing hillside pavilion--built since the last time we visited. 

 

Their hilly lot has an unobstructed view to the ocean and the freeway is far enough away to be mostly hidden. 

It was a wonderful way to spend the first evening catching up by the fire table and under the heaters. 

Their rescue Golden rested on her fake lawn--Callie is still pretty young and ready to get into mischief :)

We went to Avila Beach for a late lunch one day.  The ocean was very calm with hardly any surf all the way from home.  All the tourists didn't seem to mind. 

The pier was closed some time ago for safety reasons but there were lot of folks enjoying the many shops/restaurants along the boardwalk.  

Toni wanted my help sorting out sewing machines she had from her mother and aunt after they both passed about 10 years ago.  While she was getting them all out and set up, I sewed down the binding on a tablerunner I made her--she didn't know it was for her until I finished it :)

Toni and Dan have a lot of grey tones in their decor and I wanted to match that.  How did I do?

These were leftover Chunky Churndash blocks, hourglass block and sashing from my Dad's quilt. It is a Betsy Chutchian fabric called Eliza's Indigo. Wish I had more of this!

Backing from a fat quarter and more scraps. Very simple quilting. We sorted through Toni's machines and she made decisions on what to move on.  One machine we could not get the bobbin case to stay in; the other was a late 70's fancy Bernina with embroidery menus that she will keep.

Another sunset enjoyed from the pavilion...The colored bands from the deep fog bank above the ocean and a huge upper cloudbank were so unusual.  The drive home on Sunday was an easy couple of hours.  I forgot a bag of shoes so Toni mailed them to me!  We look forward to visiting again. 

And Yet Another New/Old Project

Years ago, at the first QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA (in 2013!), I saw a quilt that totally grabbed me. It is called Sidewalk Chalk, designed by Meghan Buchanan of Then Came June.  I bought the pattern then and there, but have never made it. Part of the reason was that it called for 1/2 yard cuts, which is not a size I generally buy.  However, on closer re-reading of the pattern, there was a twist!

Meghan included instructions to use scraps to make up the different color groups called for in the quilt. I pulled all these from my fat quarter drawers, choosing mostly tone on tone and small patterns.  I already have the solid background fabric on hand. 

A couple of weeks ago I had ordered a bolt of Kona Snow from Joann's Fabrics.  I had received a great mail offer deal and this 10 yard bolt that was originally $99 only cost me $65.  It was also shipped free to the store for pickup.  I didn't even have to get out of my car, as they brought it out to me.  Nice to have on hand and I will certainly repeat this in the future! Meghan has since written many more great modern patterns and recently opened a studio in Portland, Oregon, finally getting her business out of her house.  She has a great eye for color and design and sells curated fabric bundles. I participated in her Meadowland quiltalong in 2020 using a fabric bundle I won at Sewtopia.  It is still a top....

The fabric line is called "We Whisk You A Merry Christmas". This needs to turn into a quilt before Christmas, don't you think?

Wart Fix, New Projects

 I fixed the Wart in the Easy Breezy quilt top...

Much better swapped out for this block with the light prints around the center 4-patch!. Another squirrel popped up while I was taking care of this fix, however...

I have so many four patches in baggies,  and remembered an idea I'd had for another of Bonnie Hunter's quilts, from her More Adventures with Leaders and Enders book.  I liked her Four Patch X quilt (photo below copied from her blog post on the book release) and sketched out a portion of the design for a small quilt.

However, I want to emphasize the Churn Dashes a bit more in my version, so will be using red for the corner triangles in the X blocks.  I liked the yellow setting triangles, so cheerful. However, I only had a partial fat quarter of solid yellow.  So I drew out the square from the pattern directions and used washi tape on Bonnie's Essential Triangle Ruler, so I could cut the right sized strips for the QST. 

I did get all the setting triangles I planned, however will need more of the yellow for the pieced border.  That may happen during the Sewtopia Shop Hop :) I will take along two choices to audition for the striped sashing, in case I get that far along in the construction. I had fun cutting up red scraps for the sets of 4 corner triangles.  More red scraps will be needed in the pieced borders, but that is a future job!

Here's a cartoon that made me smile: