Tag Archive | Arkansas Crossroads

Have a Safe Holiday and Snapshots Review

May22

We are going to see how well we remember our swimming skills this weekend.  My kids tell anyone and everyone that “they can swim”, … but they would sink like a rock I’m afraid.  Going to practice, practice and practice this weekend until we are sick of chlorine.

I have been doing some sewing and quilting, here and there.  I find it harder to set aside time to upload pictures and write out these blog posts.  I really want to share as I go along, but a lot of pictures never make it here because I end up finishing my blocks while I procrastinate!

Here you go!  Blocks 4 and 5 of the Snapshots Quiltalong are done!

Puppy Love!  We are going to look for some blue translucent buttons for his eyes…

Snapshots 4 Puppy

Kindred Kitchen!  I added a little back stitch embroidery to the front of the apron to make it stand out from the background.

Snapshots 5 Apron

Here they are all together … waiting for their ice cream treat next month!

Snapshots1-5

I also sent off my U of H schoolhouse gift quilt (Arkansas Crossroads) to be quilted by Linh at LiMa Sews.  She has turned it around for me so fast, it is already on its way back to me this weekend!

Since I was shipping her a box anyway…  I threw in some small quilt tops.  This is truly a feeling of accomplishment when a quilt flimsy makes it from the corner of my cutting table to Linh.  It is a real milestone and feels GREAT!

From top of the stack to the bottom … Fig Tree Pears window valance for my kitchen, Fig Tree mini sampler made into a baby play blanket (butterflies, flowers, sun), Yellow/Gray Sunshine baby quilt (also a gift that is long overdue) and the Arkansas Crossroads schoolhouse gift quilt.

Ready to Quilt

 

Again – have a wonderful weekend and a safe one too!  I’ll see you again soon with some finished projects!

Jennifer

Arkansas Crossroads – no longer at a Crossroad

Apr2

Well, I had contemplated this design choice for the center of my quilt:

UHCS Center

 

 

And wasn’t sure about the size of the flying geese.  I even made up about 20 smaller geese (about half the size) and that looked so horrible that I didn’t even bother to take a picture of it.

I decided to play around with placement of existing block components that I already had – four patch units, two patch units and the other unit that have the two opposing corners on them (I don’t know what they are called)…

Here’s my first candidate… Not bad, not bad at all:

Center Option 1

Next candidate is a little different looking – kind of echoing the X design of the blocks…

Center Option 2

Third candidate is very similar to the first – can you spot the difference?

Center Option 3

Fourth candidate is getting closer – but I didn’t quite like the uneven octagon shape it created in the center:

Center Option 5

And the final candidate – and the WINNER – is:

Center Option 4

It works on all levels for me.  The symmetry and still enough white space to set off the House block.

I had to orient the House block so that the visual center of it was in the middle instead of being bottom heavy (and basically touching the surrounding design on the corners).  I have pieced the block together here:

Center House Pieced

See how I shifted it up vertically about 2 inches?

Here is how it will look in the center of the quilt, less the shrinkage:

Center Pieced Inset

After staring at the wrong side of the fabric for so long, I really enjoy laying out the blocks and seeing the rich colors and the mix of them together.

I’ll be piecing the center rows together this weekend now that I have about 50 of my signature blocks back from the kids.

I hope you have wonderful holiday plans for the weekend, quilting or otherwise.

Happy Easter!

Jennifer