Robots Welcome!

Well, maybe not welcome, but you don't have to prove you aren't one in order to leave a comment!

As you can see, I have most of the Rocky Mountain Christmas (aka Smoky Mountain Stars) flimsy assembled. I am down to borders and wondering if I want to square up all of the little bonus HSTs created in the making of this quilt and slip them in between two of the cranberry colored borders. They are 1 1/2" unfinished. What do you think? I've put the few I have finished on opposite sides of the quilt in different layouts. The original pattern has the two plain borders.
Squaring up all of these little HSTs is not fun, I don't know about you, but on the tiny blocks like this the seam just seems to make a teeter-totter out of the ruler and it is so hard to hold it stable. I'm okay on the larger blocks--the bigger surface area allows more contact, or something. I had seen the Bloc-Loc rulers online before, and it seemed that they would solve the problem. Sandi has posted about them on her blog here, and I thought it was something I wanted to try. Then Bonnie posted about it here. There is a channel cut into them that you place over the center seam. It does kind of lock in place and make the job much easier.

They are kind of pricey for such little things and then to pay shipping besides, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But when I started considering doing all of these little HST I knew I would be playing teeter-totter again. So I was excited to find that my LQS now carries the Bloc-Loc rulers. They are still pricey, but at least I avoided shipping!

I have had fun playing with my new toy (I have GOT to choose a name!) this week and got my version of Pink Lemonade quilted.

I've played with the name for this one and "Flies in the Mustard" is settling in, I think. I used the Handi Quilter 2" clamshell template to do this. There is a learning curve to get used to it. Masking tape helped hold it securely in place. If you look closely you will see some misshapen shells in the finished product, but I think if you aren't looking for them they don't jump out at you. I unpicked the worst ones, but there are some that I am leaving in place.

Some fun mail lately--I got this LOVELY PURPLE PLAID cotton shirt from Doniene at Now It's Just Quilts blog. What a treat. She knows I am making The Farmer's Wife from plaid shirts and she knows I love purple. Oh, I love this fabric. Thanks again, Doniene. I owe you one!

Then Randy at Barrister's Block blog generously DONATED (she said dumped, but I don't consider this a dump) half of her Christmas scraps to my second set of the FW blocks which I am making in Christmas scraps. This is more than scraps, Randy--this is a prize package! I owe you, too.

Finally, I know many of you follow Judy L. over at Patchwork Times, so you have probably seen this new book. I have her Weekend Quilts book and I think it was her clever border treatments that really drew me in. So when I saw that she had a book devoted to borders I immediately put it on my Amazon wishlist. I checked local shops, but couldn't find it, so I finally ordered. Got it today and it is a great source for border inspiration! It includes 15 quilt patterns, which in and of themselves are fun layouts. But each quilt is paired with 4 different border options. The title doesn't lie--60 borders in all! How cool is that? And there are instructions on how to adapt the borders to any quilts. Judy uses primarily bright tone-on-tone prints for her quilts. Those are not my fabrics of choice, but lets face it--a beautiful quilt is a beautiful quilt, no matter your fabric preferences, and Judy makes beautiful quilts made all the more beautiful by her creative borders. This is a keeper! Check it out! No affiliation, I just appreciate a job well done!

Lots of random stuff in this post. If you stayed with me, thanks! 

Until next time, 

Janet O.