JST Quilts in the Pacific NW

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Pacific Northwest, United States
I'm afraid I'm not too good at this blogging thing. I ignore it, don't really know how to use it properly. But every now and then I get the urge to post something that I've been doing.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Step 5 Easy Street

Step 5 of Easy Street by Bonnie Hunter was quick and easy, which was a blessing during the hectic holiday season. I'm wondering if Bonnie will make up for it on Friday and we'll find that step 6 challenges us.
Here is my step 5. The mystery grows and, as Bonnie says, "Part of the fun of running a mystery is scrambling things up enough that no matter how you try to guess ---the mystery STAYS a mystery!"




Monday, December 17, 2012

Easy Street Step 4

A very easy step, thank you Bonnie.  Here are steps one through four. I love it so far except for the gold that I choose. I only cut out a few of the 3-1/2" gold squares and will wait to see what the next steps bring. I'm hoping that maybe the gold will be cut down or toned down by something. If not, I'll use green in place of it. I don't want the gold taking over the quilt. Right now it's all I see.


Saturday, December 8, 2012

Easy Street Step 3-This is fun!

I love this Mystery Quilt. The colors and the blocks. It's easier than the last one I did with Bonnie, Orca Bay, although I loved that one also. I was going to use purple, blue and gold. I changed the blue to turquoise/teal.



Here are a couple possible combinations but I'm sure Bonnie's finished configuration will be much different.


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Easy Street Step 2

Loved this step. I finished the flying geese using the rulers Bonnie recommends, the Easy Angle and the Companion Angle. Normally I use the method laying a smaller square on a large square that makes four geese. I like that method but seemed to get better results with the rulers and I don't have draw those lines corner to corner.
Now I can't wait for next Friday and step 3.



Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Easy Street - a new Mystery Quilt

I'm going to do another Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. She calls it Easy Street and promises no strings. I'm cutting it in half and will just do a lap size quilt. Maybe. I tend to change directions often so I'm never certain exactly what will happen when I start a project.
Here's the first step, black and white four patch blocks along with the other fabrics I'll be using. I only made 96 of the four patch instead of 192 like she has in the instructions. If I need the finished quilt to be bigger I'll just add more borders. I had a heck of a time deciding on fabrics for this project. I knew I didn't want the lime green Bonnie was using. I may change some of these fabrics and add some darker blue and some darker purple.



Saturday, September 29, 2012

Harry Potter Quilt

Early this year a member of the group I belong to, Quilters Club of America, started us on a paper piecing project. I had never paper pieced but thought I'd give it a try. The project was Harry Potter blocks from www.fandominstitches.com 
Really awesome patterns and I become hooked on it. I spent countless hours with the blocks until I had 30 completed and then put them together into a quilt. On a whim, I entered it into the Northwest Washington Fair and actually won a blue ribbon and a Peoples Choice award. Surprised the heck out of me. After all that work I hung the quilt on our wall so I can enjoy it.


Latest project

I've been quilting nearly everyday on one project or another. I love Civil War era projects and have been working on small quilts from Little Quilts All Through the House and The Civil War Sewing Circle. Here are just four of them. I haven't decided how many I'll make but enough to join for a queen size quilt. Even though the individual doll quilts are different sizes, I make filler blocks and sashings. This is a fun project, I just love the fabrics.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Bonnie Hunter MQ Variation

I finished all the steps and put my blocks on my design wall just as Bonnie shows. It was pretty but my fabrics were so busy that the design got lost unless you stood way back. So I broke the dark and the light star blocks into two separate quilts. I did change the way the red string blocks are laid out on Red Orca Bay but kept Bonnie's layout on Blue Orca Bay.

           Blue Orca Bay
                                                                 Red Orca Bay

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Bonnie Hunter MQ Revealed!!

Wow, this is one dramatic quilt design. Bonnie just released her final step. It's late but I just had to put a few of the blocks up on my design wall to see what it looks like. As I'm putting blocks up I can't really see much design, the blocks all run into one another and I'm feeling disappointed.

Then, I step back and it's "Oh - My - Stars!!" I've never made anything like this. It is so far out of my comfort zone I may never find my way back.  Major kudo's to Bonnie Hunter on this design. She's one amazing and talented lady.

Whew! I may not be able to get to sleep tonight. This is so dramatic it has me rather jazzed up. I'm going to need to decide if I'm going to make one large quilt or two smaller lap size quilt.