Usually when I can’t sew for a prolonged period of time, I end up shopping for fabric online but just having packed up my overly generous stash that’s NOT going to happen so I’m just playing with quilt ideas. Who knows if any of these will be made in one form or another but if not, they might inspire a future quilt of mine or inspire someone else.

This might be a little busy as designed and I’m almost thinking that using lighter colored fabrics for the checkerboard so it fades a little more into the background might work better … but then I look at it again and think I kind of like it as it is.

I didn’t work too hard today but I did pack up most of the books in the library. Even after donating 10-12 bags of books, I still have a lot of them. Keith will need to get me just a few book boxes so I can finish up since most of them fit in all the empty bins from the sewing room. We also enjoyed watching the Lightning game as they won the first one in the series against Carolina. This is the beginning of round two so hopefully they’ll continue on and go all the way to the finals!

I’ve also been planning another Churn Dash quilt … so today while I was waiting around for another inspection of the crawl space issues, I modified the quilt design from yesterday. Using a 9 inch finished block … those squares in the chain block would be two different sizes. The 9 patch would be pieced from strips or squares that were cut 2.5 inches. The framing rectangles and squares would be cut 2 inches. A couple borders would bring this up to the donation size I like.

If you’re wondering about the crawl space issues – we’re in the process of working with the Association and getting quotes to resolve the issues. Our buyers have until next Friday to decide if they are moving ahead with the purchase otherwise we go back on the market. It’s complicated, expensive, and a hassle but not a disaster … we’ll work through the problem and get the house sold. The move goes ahead mid June regardless and I need to keep packing!

I’m not a huge fan of making 2 inch finished half square triangles but I thought I had an Accuquilt GO die in that size. When I went to make my Friendship Star and Rail fence quilt last year, I realized it was a 2.5 inch finished HST so I used Thangles to make the HSTs for that quilt.

However, ever since then I’ve been thinking about a quilt I could make using the 2.5 inch HST die. I typically like to use 3 or 4 inch HSTs but for some patterns that makes a larger block than I’d want. Tonight, I was playing around with stars and chains and I think a 2.5 inch HST would work great in this one. The squares and rectangles would be cut 3 inches wide. Block size would be 12.5 inches finished (13 inches with seam allowances). Of course, if you like making 2 inch finished HSTs you could always use them. It would be a smaller quilt – 50 x 70 but that’s a nice size too and you could add a border if you wanted it larger.

Instead of going to bed like I should have … I thought let’s change the block offset and the spacer block …

Then … I was like what if I changed the star to a sawtooth star?

I haven’t really calculated block/border sizes yet but I’m thinking I’d probably end up using 9 or 12 inch blocks to reach my typical donation size quilts. Now it’s time to stop playing and go to bed!

My Circle of Nine books came the other day and this was the first time I had a chance to read them and play with the idea. This is just a first effort to familiarize myself with the design idea but I can see how using this setting with different choices for blocks and spacers can give lots of different looks. Changing how far the blocks are offset and/or adding frames to them creates even more variations. Some options are busier than I like and the piecing fussier but others are fairly simple and easy. I will say I’m more interested in the design possibilities than I am of making the actual quilts in the books but that’s why I bought them – to use the setting/concept to make my own designs.

I’m feeling good about my progress today … each time we organize another step in the process, I feel better. Today it was meeting with the realtors. Keith has a local business acquaintance/friend who referred us to this realtor and I was very happy with our meeting today. He brought a partner and the two of them were very positive about the house and the market and I just liked them. We’ll have a call on Monday to discuss pricing and next steps but I think we’re on our way to listing in about a week or so. I worked like crazy to get the house in good shape, decluttered and clean although you can certainly tell we’re in the process of prepping for a move. They didn’t stroke out about my sewing room which is great. It’s in the master bedroom and I don’t have any intention of trying to move things out of there until mid June so I admit I was happy to not get negative feedback about how the room would show as it is currently.

Tomorrow Keith will pick up a UHaul trailer and we’ll stuff it as full of bins of fabric and yarn as we can and he’ll drive to GA to unload it. I’ve already got plans to make some time for sewing next week. I have a project I need to work on for our family gift exchange that is due the end of May and I need to get cracking on it.

While I’m not sewing yet, I took a little time tonight to draft out an idea I have for a quilt. I want to remake some of my favorites from my website or in this case, combine a couple different ideas from two rail fence quilts. I’ve had this one in the back of my mind for a while and maybe I will actually get around to making it some time later this year or next year. These are the two quilts I’ve already made ….

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I would probably go ahead and make it the same size as the RWB rail fence but this slightly smaller size would work for donation too. I haven’t decided whether I’d go scrappy like the autumn quilt above using many greens, golds, reds, and oranges or stick to fewer fabrics like the RWB quilt.

I’ve had this 4 Patch Stars quilt on my website since 2013 and haven’t made it yet. It’s designed as an 8 inch finished block and I think I just didn’t want to work with the 2 inch finished HSTs.

So this morning I played around with the design. I could use either a 3 inch finished HST for a 12 inch block or I have a GO die for a 2.5 inch finished HST which would make a 10 inch block. I might eventually make it in blue AND make a scrappy multicolored version too. I’ve got a busy couple months coming up so I don’t expect to start one anytime soon but hopefully this year!