Binding Choices

I've been auditioning some fabric choices for my newly quilted quilt and I thought I'd ask for opinions.  I have my opinion and my DH has his, but I wanted some other opinions. 

Here are three choices pinned up next to the quilt.  All three of these fabrics appear in the quilt.

The purple is the background fabric in the star blocks:

 

The green in the darker green used in the stars, darker than the large patch of green.

 

The maroon is the one used with the pink in the stars.

 

I don't have enough of the light blue in the sashing to use for the binding.  I wish I did because I think that would look nice.  

Thoughts???  What one do you prefer?  Or would you go with something different?

It's Quilted - Gaaa!!!!

Okay, go ahead and laugh at the title.  Can you tell that I'm excited?  Judi over at Green Fairy Quilts finished quilting my "Fire and Ice" quilt this week and she shared some photos of the finished quilt.  It shipped out to me yesterday and I can't wait to receive it and study it up close.  These photos are from Judi.  I'll take more of my own when I get the quilt. 

I love how from this view the quilting doesn't take away from the actual pattern of the quilt.  Then, once you get up close you see the beauty of the quilting.

The colors are a bit off here, but you can really see the detailed quilting.  I love how the large blue triangles were quilted to match the fabric used.  I also LOVE the light blue sashing.  I think the quilting there is fantastic and perfect for that spot.

Check out the quilting in the green area.  It's so different and fun.

And here are a few photos of the back of the quilt.  It's the same green on the front and I love the way you can see all of the quilting so clearly on the back.  The back is one of Judi's favorite things about a quilt. 

I'm so happy with how this came out.  I absolutely love her work.  If you're not familiar with her work, hop on over to her blog and see some of the other absolutely fantastic work that she has done.  She also has a store where she sells tons of precuts at great prices.  I've ordered from her in the past and always receive everything quickly.  (no, she's not paying me to say this.)

Fire & Ice Top Completed

After a hiatus from quilting after being hit by the dreaded H1N1 virus, I was finally able to get back into my quilting room this weekend and finish the Fire & Ice top that I asked your opinions on earlier this month on the border.  100% of the people I asked, both online and with people that I asked in person, that I should extend the inner border to accentuate the corner squares.  Without further adieu, here it is:

It's not the best picture since it was taken last night at 10:30pm, but you get the idea.  The lime green isn't as bright in person as it looks in the picture too.   Most of the fabric is from the Jacobean Arbor line from Timeless Treasure and Mark Lipinski's Elements line if you were wondering.

Now to come up with a real name for the quilt.  Fire & Ice was the name of the pattern and Carol Doak's quilt that she made for the pattern/class.  I don't think I want to use the same name, so any suggestions? 

I'm Back - Opinions Wanted

Yay, I'm back in the blogging world!  My wonderful DH finally found my camera charger, so I can finally post pictures of my projects.  Now I can post update pics of everything I've been working on.  Here's the progress on my Fire & Ice quilt from the Carol Doak class I started at the Lowell Quilt Festival in August.

Here's where I could use your opinion... Do you like how extending the inner border out into the border to showcase the corner stars or do you prefer to just have the corner stars next to the border?  After photographing it, I think I'm leaning in one direction, but I'm not going to say which one, as I want some other opinions.  I've had this up on my design wall for a few weeks now and I haven't been able to make a decision. Here are close ups of both option.

To give an idea of size, those corner squares are a total of 6 1/2" square, so some of those pieces are really small.  

Thoughts???  

I'll post more later on with more of my recent work that I haven't been able to post about.  

Fire and Ice Progress

I've been making some progress on my Fire and Ice quilt from Carol Doak's class at the Lowell Quilt Festival in August.

It needs it's inner border and outer border with corner stones to complete the quilt. I'm thinking of possibly reducing the star in the middle and making four of them to complete the corners, but I haven't decided if I'm that ambitious right now with so many other projects going on. We'll see.

KK's Fire & Ice Quilt

I was really looking forward to quilting a bit last week when i got home from vacation, but unfortunately, as a result of our delays resulting in our 3am arrival at home Monday instead of 9:30pm Sunday, I came down with a bad cold in which I was bed ridden for a good portion of last week. You know you're really sick when you can't even bother getting out of bed and doing a little quilting. I had a fever for a couple of days and everything. Yuck.

The good news is that I'm feeling better now, so hopefully I'll be able to work on a few things this week. I really want to work on getting some of my quilt tops quilted and finished. I just have so many that I need to focus on finishing and I need to stop starting so many projects with so many unfinished ones still hanging around.

Here are a few pics of KK's Fire & Ice quilt from our Carol Doak class at the Lowell Quilt Fest last month.



Here's what she had to say about it... "This poor quilt started at one thing (with the lovely fabrics I bought in Maryland), morphed into something else because of the inner border fabric I picked out, and then morphed again because that inner border fabric looked nasty. So this is what I ended up with. I think it is pretty cool (or hot, with all the yellows and reds). The backing will be green. I thought it needed something quiet on the back. I actually like it a lot, even if it wasn't what I planned to create."

Fire and Ice Class Yesterday

Yesterday was the Fire and Ice class with Carol Doak at the Lowell Quilt Festival.  I took the class with my aunt, KK, and co-worker, Lynn.  We all really enjoyed it.  Even though KK and I had paper pieced before, it was fun taking the class because we learned some tips of the trade from Carol to improve our accuracy and speed.  

Here's my work-in-progress block.  It's coming together.  

This is Carol posing with the quilt she made using her 300 block book (I don't remember the exact name off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to double check right now.)  She jokingly referred to it as her "Dear Carol" quilt since it contains ever block in the 300 block book.  

Here's Carol showing the class how to attach several squares together to form your block perfectly, or as we said in class yesterday... "puuuur-fect" 

And here it is... a photo of my finished block.  I love it!!!  I probably should have taken a photo of it on point since that's how it's going to be in the quilt, but you get the idea.  Just tilt your head a little if you really want to get a feel for it on point.  ;o)  I absolutely love the colors here. I can't wait to see how it comes out. 

In this photo, you can see the colors in the little dots in the background fabric.  You can really see how the colors used in the quilt really go well with the colors in the background.  

Here's KK holding her finished block.  It's made of batiks and I think it's going to come out awesome!!!

And here's a close-up of KK's finished block.  

Sewing Room Almost Set Up

So my sewing room is almost completely set up. YAY! Unfortunately, I won't be able to do much sewing in there until around July 13th-ish since my in laws are coming up and at least one of the kids will be staying in my room. We haven't seen them since our wedding last year, so it will be nice spending time with them. Here are a few pics prior to putting a bunch of stuff away.
I did take a little time out of putting things away to cut out my fabric for the Fire & Ice class that I'm taking with Carol Doak at the beginning of August. Here are my fabric choices. The purple on the top is going to be the outer border. It's a few years old and is from Timeless Treasure's Jacobean Arbor line. In the close up picture, you can really see where I pulled all the colors from. I think it's going to look awesome!And I also finished cutting all the pieces for the second part of the first step in the McCall's Mystery Quilt.
I can't wait to start piecing again and get some of my tops quilted. I have one that's all layered and basted, just waiting to go too.