Bucky Borders

The Bucky Badger quilt is coming together really quickly, I knew that it would.  I am now working on the very last border, and the cornerstones.  Here's how it looks.  Not a bad week's work!

The outer border will be black, 9", with a thin red strip in the center.  A 9" border seems wide to me, but I want to put those same stars in the corners as cornerstones. Those stars are 9" blocks, so that dictates the size of the border.  I suppose I could make smaller stars though....  I'll have to think about this.  I'm not sure what I'll use for binding yet, I'll see what I have when I get that far.  Probably not black though, Red would look nice against the black, so that's a good possibility.

I'm not really crazy about the Badger prints next to that grayish border.  I wish I would have reversed the colors, black on the inner rail (surrounding Bucky) and the gray on the outside but with a black border.  Too late to change it now.  I had a hard time (not really "hard" just time consuming) matching the stripes in the plaid.  Things are out of sync in a couple of places, but the white stripes match, so maybe it's not that noticeable.  In order to line up the white plaids so that the vertical lines would match in the corners with the vertical lines on the side borders, I had to fudge a bit.  The lines were offset about an inch.  So I took tiny tucks in the top and bottom borders, about an eighth of an inch or so, next to the Wisconsin "W." There was a little wider space next to the vertical white plaid line at that point. I could remove some of that extra space and it wasn't noticeable in the overall design.  Sewing an eighth of an inch tuck next to that wider space removed a quarter of an inch from the width of the border.  Doesn't sound like much, but doing it 4 times removed that offset inch, and my vertical lines could match up!  I'm pretty pleased with that.  I will quilt over those extra seam line when I quilt this and camouflage my fudging even more!!!

Bucky Badger

Awhile ago, my friend, Linda, has asked me to make her a Badger quilt to give to her son for Christmas.  So yesterday we went fabric shopping, and today I started.  I have a pattern especially designed for sports fans and team fabrics, so I am excited to get to work!  This is the same pattern that Heidi from Pins and Pieces used to make a 56" x 56" quilt for Bo Ryan, head coach for the University of Wisconsin basketball team.

Bo Ryan (center) with his quilt from Heidi (right)

Mine will look something like this, but no pictures of Bo Ryan, of course.  I will put a scanned pic of Bucky Badger in the center instead.  Mine will also be much bigger.  I designed the parameters in Electric Quilt, and mine will be around 76 x 82.  This is a really easy pattern with big sections so it shouldn't take me too long.  The backing will be a Badger print fleece.  I used fleece for the backing of Bailey's quilt, and it's very nice to work with.

Here a good start.  (Love my "design wall, an old flannel tablecloth pinned to a big piece of cardboard?  Gotta love flannel!)

Darlington Quilt Show

Darlington had its bi-annual quilt show this year and, as a member of the local quilt guild, I helped with that show.  We raffled off the Jewel Box quilt (which I helped make last spring).  I entered 6 quilts and 1 wall hanging in the show this year, and although I didn't win any ribbons, I did get some Viewer's Choice votes on my various quilts.  I say "my" quilts, but I mean quilts that I made!  I borrowed Kaylyn's, Bailey's, Maggie's and Luke's quilts for the show, as well as entered 2 of my own: Kaleidoscope Stars and Bottled Rainbow quilts.  I also entered Bob's deer wall hanging which I gave him for Christmas last year. Here they all are, in the show.

Bottled Rainbows

Kaleidoscope Stars  

Kaylyn's Hexies and Cubes

Bob Deer Wall Hanging (left), Bailey's Deer Country

  

Luke's Deer Quilt

Maggie's "In Memory of Kay"

Quilt Guild BOM

You know me, I never work on one quilt at a time!  I have at least 4 quilts in progress at the moment!

1.  Spice Market for Ryan for Christmas
2. The Gravity Quilt  (BOM)
3.  The Harry Potter quilt
4. The quilt quild BOM
5.  Multiple quilts still in the planning stage (Drew's quilt-3 Dudes, Isaac's quilt (dragons and dinosaurs, and Al's quilt, (still in the brain, mulling over possibilities...)

Anyway, Ryan's quilt is off the design wall (I'm adding borders now...) and the design wall is empty (OMG!!)  I put my Quilt Guild Block of the month blocks up  onto the design wall.  There are 2 blocks to go, but I made a few extra.  I wasn't excited by the quilt possibilities.  I was thinking it was "too blue" and so wanted to add some other color to make it "pop" and not be so boring!  I have auditioned some colorful sashing and corner stones:

Nothing really strikes my fancy.  I decided I didn't really want a "traditional" sampler quilt layout with cornerstones and sashing.  But I have a pattern that I like and could adapt, one not so traditional.  It's called "Sunshine Garden" designed by Barb Sackel.  So I scanned in the picture and cut/paste my blocks into it with Paint.  Here is my (rough draft) result:

I'm not sure if this will be my final draft or not, but I like it a lot better than the 3 x 4 rectangular layout of the first draft for this quilt.  The original pattern uses 9" blocks and my blocks are 12", so I will have to jiggle the pattern to make everything fit, but I can do that!  I won't be able to use all my blocks for this quilt with this layout, but that's ok.  I don't like all of them anyway!  I'll be able to pick and choose.  Maybe use the rest to make pillows or pillowcases.  Ok, now back to work!