Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-One Block Wonder Finish

This is the last time you will see this quilt,  one I agonized over when it came to almost every step. I've only done a little machine quilting so was a tad daunted at quilting a largerthanapostagestamp quilt. Thanks to the Friday Challenge group at Thread Bear, I saw several One Block Wonder quilts quilted without pain. That was enough to get me going.

I wanted to take the finished quilt to California for our newest family member, Ivy Rain Billings, but it wasn't finished. Theer allowed me to use her machine, so it is done.

 On the back I used the original fabric, pink dots fabric, and Minkee at the top and bottom. The binding is machine stitched. The quilting is straight stitching on either side of the seam lines, making a diamond pattern. I did a zigzag on the borders.

Thanks to Miss Lexi LouLou along with Theer for keeping me company while I sewed!

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Announcing the Winners and One Block Wonder Update!

The giveaway winners are #'s 10 and 18, Pattie and Rebecca! I used the Random Number Generator to choose the two winners, but I haven't figured out how you show the results in a blog post. I will have to read up on that.  I will get your fabric in the mail this week.

In other news, I am machine quilting this one block wonder which is a tad larger than a crib quilt. The quilt has been pieced since March (here's the post about it), but I am a big wuss about machine quilting and debated whether to take it to the quilter or to do it myself. I have done small pieces that turned out fine, but I quilted one quilt a long time ago that looked seriously ugly and it has stuck in my brain, "You quilt ugly quilts!" I know it's not true, but I am a "paralyzed perfectionist" about certain things and machine quilting is one of them.

There was a quilt show by the Teatime Quilters at Thread Bear in Las Vegas, NM a month or two ago and several of the One Block Wonder quilts our Friday group had completed were displayed. After looking at a couple quilts machine quilted by the same people who pieced them, I was encouraged.

It's just straight line quilting, but I am still a nervous wreck. To keep me calm and to pass the time I'm catching up on Breaking Bad, a television show about a chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer who decides to provide for his family by making meth. The moral dilemmas fly about, I am horrified and diverted enough to keep sewing, and I will never use meth or make it after watching this show. I promise!

That's Minkee you see on the quilt at the top and the bottom of the backing. For a baby, I thought that would be a nice touch, soft and cuddly for naps.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday

Wednesdays here at the Nickel and Dime will be reserved for quiltycraftymakeit projects that I am working on, or ones that I have finished if I have been a slug and haven't been doing anything.

At Threadbear, the quilting store in our nearest big town, Las Vegas, NM,  a group of ladies meets on Friday afternoons to explore new quilting ideas. We decide on a type of project and help each other muddle through the instructions, offering ideas and support when it comes to designing or laying out what we have done.

Our first projects were from the book One Block Wonders by Maxine Rosenthal.

These interesting patterns and blocks are actually from one fabric cut in an ingenious way. I won't get all technical, but we were amazed at the variety of designs we were able to cut from just one fabric. We each chose a fabric for the project.

This was the fabric I chose

 

And here are a few shots of the quilt top. It's not quilted yet, but will be soon. I promise I will become a better photographer, really, I promise!

and one close-up

It's kind of like the Stack n Whack technique, but looks more kaleidoscopic to me. It was a fun project and now when I look at fabric I wonder how it would look as a One Block Wonder.