Stealing time away.....

The joy of working on one's own quilt cannot be suppressed! When you quilt for a living, there is precious little time to work on one's own pieces. Or, at least, that's what you think when you say to yourself “You ought to be working on a customer's piece!”

Here's a peek at a piece I started one year ago, at Quilt Camp with my Peeps. I paper-pieced the feathered star and its flying geese border during the three days we get together each March. Wow! It's already a year later!

I don't think I've ever created a real Medallion quilt. You start in the center with a fabulous block, and then design, piece and add new borders as you go along. A LOT OF MATH is necessary here. No getting around it! The border called Chain of Squares had to meet perfectly at each of the four corners. Yup, it did! Of course, to cheat a little, you put in a “spacer” strip that is not pieced so that you can trim it down, if need be, so that the pieced border fits.

So now I am piecing the 8-point stars to go into the four corners of the next border. The solid (well, not quite solid – it is a batik) border will be getting some kind of applique; I'm still working in my mind what that should look like. I love the organic shapes that Ricky Tims uses and I am definitely leaning toward something like that.

I have completed 4 stars -- can you see which one does not go well with the others? When I picked out the fabrics for the very first star, I was overly concerned with contrast, and only chose the darkest, the lightest and the “quietest” of mediums. After I pieced it, I realized that I had left some of the prettiest fabrics back in the box, and I thought the star was, well, blah. Back to the box to pull some of the more vibrant pieces, and I can see now that the next three stars are much prettier. I will throw out the first one and make another.

Or, maybe should I be working on that king size customer quilt that is waiting on the frame?!!! Hmmmmm.