Saturday, November 15, 2008

Raffle Quilt

I worked a lot of hours last week, 6 days in a row. I felt so tired during the week that I decided to take a vacation from blogging, sewing, and just about everything else--just went to work every day, and that was it. We did have a sewing day at Kay's last Friday, and I made another strippy top.

Yesterday I finally had a day off, and it was wet and rainy so I stayed in my jammies all day and sewed. A couple weeks ago I volunteered to assemble these blocks into a quilt top, which will be a raffle quilt for one of my quilt groups. The blocks finish to 12 inches with sashings and cornerstones that finish to one inch wide. I am a little further along than the picture, only have one more row to assemble. Then there will also be a 4" red border.

Anyone who has ever put together a bunch of blocks made by different quilters knows that no two ever turn out to be the same size, and these blocks were no exception. They ranged in size from 12-3/4" to 12" inches, so I squared everything up as best I could before I started sewing them together. I did have to rip out parts of several blocks and remake them in order to have at least a little bit of seam allowance. Thank goodness the group decided to add that sashing! I haven't made a narrow little sashing like this before, and everything is coming out nice and straight. I really like how it's coming together.

Most of the blocks patterns in the quilt are old favorites, but I haven't seen this one before. I like the fact that the quilter made it scrappy. I'd love to make a whole quilt with this block, maybe scrappy blues or scrappy greens.

The sewing store where I bought my Bernina a couple years ago is going out of business. Cote Brothers has been in business for 52 years, and it's so sad to see them closing their doors. One of the owners has had health issues in recent years; so I suppose it's really a combination of things, not the least of which would be the economy. Anyway, I am on my way to Cote's today to find a few bargains on threads and notions and maybe some fabric for quilt backs.

3 comments:

Lurline said...

Lovely quilt! The scrappy block you like is sort of scrappy in a very co-ordinated way - I really loke it, too - maybe a tutorial one day?
Hugs - Lurline!

Shari said...

I know what you mean about assembling blocks from different quilters. You did a wonderful job and the quilt has a wonderful, comfortable feel to it. I like the scrappy star block too. I wonder what it's called.
Cheers

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

Great job getting that altogether - sashings are a great thing to get odd sized blocks to look equal (without having to chop points on the block itself). It looks top notch!
Cheers!
Evelyn