Row Quilt Challenge & Other Updates

I'm baaack! After two weeks of travel, I spent this past week trying to catch up, both on sleep and housework. As the end of the week rolled around, so did the rain and I spent a rainy Friday in my sewing room catching up on my quilt guild row quilt challenge.

Last month, the basket block was drawn from the bag of possibilities. As you know, many basket patterns are made to be set on point, so my first challenge was to find a pattern that wasn't. I found a few, but all were larger than my 6" maximum limit, so I ended up designing my own pattern. To include the focal red fabric, I appliqued a flower on each basket. I decided to alternate the basket blocks with scrappy low-volume 9-patch blocks - mainly because I was lazy and didn't want to make 10 basket blocks. Since it's difficult to photograph a long row of blocks, you'll just have to imagine what the row looks like;)

I missed the May quilt guild meeting while we were traveling, but the next block drawn was the bow tie block. I only got a couple of blocks made Friday, just enough to know I'm going to like them! Because I've made a couple of 6" rows the last two months, I needed a skinny row so I decided to make 3" bow tie blocks. To get that pop of red in, I found a 3-D bow tie block pattern online that works great, although 3" is about as small as you can go and get the red fabric to 'twist' correctly. Visit the Generations Quilt Patterns website here for their 3-D Bow Tie Block tutorial. I think this row will look awesome once complete as the bow tie blocks will create a zigzag across the quilt with little red diamonds in the centers. There's more rain in our forecast, so maybe I'll get a chance to finish the rest of the 18 blocks I need to complete the row.

Speaking of my travels, I have to share what my daughter gave me while we were visiting - a custom Thistle Thicket Studio t-shirt and travel cup that she made! And the tea towels I made her with her son/my grandson's snowman drawing on the fabric band was a hit also. (Click here to check out the tea towels and here to see the original drawing.) I don't think my grandson ever really understood the whole transformation from his drawing to the fabric though, or maybe he's just all boy, either way he wasn't too excited about the whole thing.

Of course, while we were traveling through, I had to take my mom for her first visit to Magnolia Market in Waco, Texas. We had to hit the bakery right off the bat because there wasn't a line! We each got a cinnamon roll and then shared, MMMMM! The gal who checked us out at the bakery was a fellow western Kansan! What are the odds? We had fun shopping but I didn't take any more photos because I've shared my trips to Magnolia before (here).

Then it was off to Pawhuska, Oklahoma to visit The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's store, The Mercantile. We tried out the scones and muffins at the bakery here but I forgot to snap a photo. The line for her restaurant for lunch was out the door and halfway down the block at 10:00 in the morning, so we didn't stick around that long.

The Merc has a totally different feel than Magnolia Market, but it definitely had Ree's personality and touch of color. Check out those light fixtures!

This pillow is a perfect example of the personality of the store. I snapped this photo as a reminder of an idea I'd like to try on our Gammill quilting machine once we get our interchangeable feet we ordered while visiting Linda's Electric Quiters in McKinney, Texas. One of the feet is a couching foot and you can use it to add yarn or ribbon embellishments to quilts. Can't wait for them to come in and play around! Do any of you have a couching foot for your longarm? I would love to hear your experiences with them!

~Sharla

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