Long Posting and Lot's of Pictures!

I received my 12 x 12 challenge quilt from my trade swap partner - can't say trade since since I send to someone else and we aren't trading quilts.  It is from Helen who lives in New York State.  It is a BIG Apple and has the New York subway map on the back.  It is wonderful!  Now I need to send mine off to my partner.  I also need to send off my signature block to Victoria.  I made this first one and while I like it okay, I don't like how I had to piece the background to make it meet the size requirements

Which allowed me to create this one.  I truly love this one.  Can you say that about your own creations?  Mom's say it about the children they create, so I am going to say, yes.  Okay, now that I have analyze that, I can say, I love this one!!  I started with the same background fabric as above, but used the back side of the fabric for the center.  I made the sides the same width as my middle block and knew that I was going to do my funky star thing, but I wanted it outlined.  I first did the light blue and then went back and added the red on top.  I layed it all out and nope, didn't quite meet what I wanted so I took a leftover red bit of fabric and snowballed two corners of the center square.  Looks good.  So, let's do all four corners and put it together.  My original thought was to have the corners of the star block to be a totally different fabric - still a blue floral, but different, but it was too distracting and I decided to go with the same background all around.  After everything was sewn together, it was too small.  ARG!  What else to do?  Make more of a statement with the borders and cut the star block even smaller so I can add more light blue on the outside.  I really, really like how this one turned out.  Added my signature in the middle and off it goes tomorrow to Victoria for her quilt. 

Since I had out the pen and I needed to send off the 12 X 12 challenge before May 16th I needed to make a label.  Below is the label for my quilt and it is sewn on and ready to go. 

I know that I told you all about the Ogallala festival back at the first of April - wow one month ago - time flies when you are busy, huh?  Anyway, I took Yvonna Hays, Dashes and Patches class and here is my quilt without the final borders.  I have it layed out with the top and bottom border strips, but they aren't attached.  I don't know what fabric I am going to use for the final border.  My friend Molly was pointing to fabric after fabric saying this one or that one should be the border and I agreed with her on everyone of them.  Problem is, I don't have enough of any of those fabrics to make a border and I can't find them on the internet! I have had them in my stash for so long - or I got them on clearance - that nobody has them anymore.  I know that I want to do a large print floral in these colors.  I am thinking something by Kaffe,  Phillip or someone else along those lines.  Now, I have to just find that perfect fabric that will set this off to perfection.

I know this blog is getting long, but just hang in there with me just a little bit longer and I will be done.  I haven't posted anything in over a week and I didn't want to break it up into three or four posts one right after another, so here goes the rest.  The quilt below is my friend Kathy's Manzanita tree.  I love her fabric choices in this one.  The leaves - glass leaf shaped beads!!  They were expensive, but I think they were totally worth the price because they just make this quilt!  

Kathy took my Divide and Conquer class at the Ogallala Festival and after making all of her blocks she decided that they were just tooo wild for her and she couldn't stomach them right next to each other so she grabbed up some brown fabric that was just laying around her quilt room and she sashed those blocks.  It is perfect!  I love it.  It just adds a new dimension to this pattern/quilt.  Great job Kathy!

These last two pictures are what are on my design wall.  I am - okay, don't faint or anything - actually doing English paper piecing.  I am enjoying the work and don't know exactly how big I am going to make it - probably not too large - but, you never know.  I wasn't ever planning on doing more than one or two hexagons ever in my lifetime so - you just never know. 

This last picture is fabric that I made this past week during little bits and spurts along with off and on during our quilt in with Bee Friends.  I don't have any idea where or how I am going to use this and it may morph somemore before I use it since I really think some areas are quite large.  I know that I am going to cut it up to use it again, but . . . stay tuned!

I pushed the spell check button, but nothing is highlighted - I hope it is all spelled correctly.  If not - it's the computer's fault!