Gallery Expansion, Market Day SAL, and random stuff

 Between thrift stores, antique malls and contributions from family members, I rustled up a few more wooden yardsticks to expand the small quilt gallery. The photo above is of the hallway outside my sewing room door. Again, credit for this idea goes to Ann Hermes at Notes from the Quilt Lab blog (and as I read further back in her blog, she credits Sheryl at Temecula Quilt Co., for giving her the idea)!
Below is my small quilt corner, which has been updated. Now I can move these around without adding pinholes to the walls. I even added a couple of wooden rulers in the space between the corner and my design wall, where it is too narrow for a yardstick. The other side of my design wall has the same issue and I hope to find a couple more wooden rulers to fill that space.

I'd like to continue the gallery expansion to the wall above my HQ Sweet 16 (Gidget), so I will still be  scouting out yardsticks for a while.

Did you notice the little cottage in the bottom of the photo above? Someone recently found it at a thrift store and gave it to my Mom. She said she thought I would have a better place for it than she would. Isn't it sweet?

I have to tell you that it is entirely possible to catch up on Pam Buda's Market Day SAL in one day (begin here with the revised fabric requirements). I just did it Monday. Hadn't even chosen fabric before then. Now everything is cut and stitched, waiting for the big reveal Friday. I stuck with Pam's colors and chose mostly fabrics with a patriotic theme. Is anyone else wondering what we are going to do with the second gold fabric? 

I have had fun seeing what others have been guessing as to the layout. Gave it a whirl and I can say I have absolutely no clue where Pam is going with this one. I'm quite certain this is not it.

Recently I posted a little quilt I was making from the leftover HSTs of Terry's Goodnight Irene quilt. Well, I wasn't happy with the border, so I trimmed it down and added more. Maybe I went too far, but this is it now. The little broken dish blocks are 1"

 I had a few more HSTs to use, so I tried little pinwheels this time. This is about 7" square.

The black borders are all on my colored star blocks now. They need to be trimmed--the squares were not all exact, so the borders are acting as coping strips, besides being part of the sashing design. This gives you an idea of the Garden Maze setting that I will use when I can decide on a color for the sashing strips. I need about 2 yards of whatever I choose, and I was wanting to work from stash. I don't have many cuts that large, unless they are even larger than that, which I intended for backings. Most of those are busy prints that would be too much for this purpose. I played with the rainbow idea, but it didn't click for me. I may actually have to buy something (horror).

You sew star points that match the cornerstones onto the ends of the sashing, and it creates the effect of the Garden Maze design without having to make tiny X blocks for the cornerstones. The idea was found in one of Sharyn Craig's wonderful books on settings (Setting Solutions and Great Sets). Does it make more sense now to those of you who were "smiling and nodding" when I tried to describe it before? : )

I am enjoying seeing the red/white/blue posts popping up around blogland. Even if we've seen it before, it is fun to be reminded of all of the possibilities.

Which reminds me, each time I have posted about this quilt I have had people email asking about the pattern.

It is a Primitive Gatherings pattern called Primitive Picnic Quilt. I did add extra rows and I put the borders on it to make it larger. It is on the Primitive Gatherings website, but not if you search for it by name (why?). You must use the product code, which is PRI-197. Or, you can just use the link above, of course. : )

Until next time,
Janet O.