Design Wall Monday

It's been a while since I've written a Design Wall Monday post. It's not because I haven't been doing anything, but rather because most of what I've been doing is secret sewing and can't be shared yet.  I'm caught up on those projects (for the moment) and have a couple of personal quilts on which I'm working.

This tiger fabric and the coordinating ones in the second picture, have been sitting around far too long, waiting for me to make Layne a quilt. It's up on the wall where I have to look at it whenever I walk into the room. My goal is to have a plan by the end of this afternoon and to actually start cutting and sewing tonight.  I do have a few thoughts, but I need to do some sketching and playing around.

I have completed sewing the first units of my Perpetual quilt (a Tamarinis quilt pattern) and am very happy with how they look. 

I am making the bed size quilt (73" x 97"), so I have to make 72 of these units. They will be made into 18 blocks, once I complete the next two small sections that get sewn to the sides of this unit. 

Tammy Silvers (Tamarinis) will be teaching this quilt at the Ohio's Amish Quilt Festival; but since I will be working at the Festival, I can't take the class. Instead, I decided to make my own so I can show it at the Festival. (No pressure to get this done in a timely manner, right?  lol) 

When I showed the pattern to Jack, he said that he really liked it. It is quite intriguing, isn't it?

While talking about the pattern, Jack said that he would love to see this done in red and black. I agreed with him that that would be striking. So... I started the search for fabrics. This picture do NOT do these fabrics justice, but this is what I'm using.

The pattern includes instructions for three sizes - bed quilt, lap quilt, and table runner. Of course I decided that if I'm going to do it, I might as well go big - so the bed quilt it is!

I'll update as I work on this, but it's a busy week for me so it might be just like this next week. 

By them, I hope to be able to share some of my secret sewing projects.  

What are you working on this week?

Check out the eye candy at 

Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

and

Beth's Monday Making

July Color Challenge

It's Color Challenge Time again!

This month's color is Rust,

and the bird is the American Robin

For the pattern and block instructions, 

head on over to 

Jen's Blog - Patterns by Jen

American Robins are songbirds that typically have large, round bodies, long legs, and a fairly long tail. They are easily recognizable by their rusty belly and the flicker of white under their tails that can be seen when they are in flight. 

Robins are quite populous throughout North America and can commonly be found in gardens, parks, yards, golf course, fields, pastures, pine forests, deciduous woodlands, shrublands, and even tundra. 

Many people mistakenly believe that all Robins migrate south for the winter. While some do, many remain in their northern locations year-round. The reason for this confusion is that many birds, including the Robin, will stay up north as long as they can find a food source, be it natural or man-provided. During the winter, Robins form nomadic-type flocks consisting of hundred, and even thousands of birds. Typically the flocks will find food on trees and shrubs like crabapples, hawthorns, holly, and juniper, or that which is provided by people filling bird feeders. 

When the weather changes and Spring comes along, the flocks split up and the Robins begin their individual and never-ending journey of finding worms in our yards. (Remember the saying that the early bird gets the worm? That dates all the way back to the 17th century and is attributed to John Ray's collection of English proverbs.) 

Whether or not they leave the area for the cold month or stay here, to me, seeing a Robin is always a welcome sign that warm weather and green grass will soon be an every day thing. I find it comforting and peaceful to hear the easily recognizable sound of a Robin when I'm sitting on the patio early in the morning, enjoying a cup of coffee. It is another sign to me that we are headed away from short, cold, and dreary days of Winter, and that Spring is on it's way. 

Click HERE to listen to the sounds of the American Robbin. 

While searching for quilt pictures, I realize that I don't use a lot of rust in my quilts. There is definitely more brown than rust, and I'm not sure why that is. I think I'm going to work on changing that. 

While it doesn't have much rust or brown in it, it has some. This was made using the Bundle Buster pattern by Quilting Jetgirl 

This table runner has some beautiful rust fabrics in it. This is from Doug Leko's Once Upon a Memory book.

I used a variety of browns and rust batiks for this Breezy quilt that I made while pattern testing for Rachel Rossi. 

 

Most recently, I made this Prism quilt (a Tammy Silvers pattern), and I just love how the rust fabric works in it. 

 

I found this awesome rust fabric at Once Upon a Quilt in Ft. Lauderdale and knew right away that I wanted to use it for this block. I love the multiple "layers" of color here and it immediately made me think of a Robin's breast. I think it looks great with both the black and white background fabrics I chose.

Here are all the pieces, cut and ready to sew.

And here are the blocks! 

Check out the bloggers who are being featured this month. 

I think I'll grab a cup of coffee, go to the patio, and enjoy these posts. 

Hopefully I'll hear some Robins. 🐦☕😊

Jen - Patterns by Jen

Wendy - Peaceful Thoughts

Claudia - Create with Claudia

Kathleen - Kathleen McMusing

Stephanie - Steph Jacobson Designs

Sandra - Textile Time Travels

Fawn - Quilty Creations By Fawn

Stephanie - Quilt'n Party

Don't forget about the prize opportunity. 

Here are the 3rd Quarter Sponsors

Sponsors July thru September

Quilters Chic - PDF Pattern

For The Love of Geese - PDF Pattern

Carole Lyle Shaw - Pattern and Grunge bundle

Quilters Dream Batting - Dream 80/20 - 60" x 60"

The Fat Quarter Shop - Fabric Bundle

Warm Company - Warm 80/20 - 55" x 60"

Warm Company - 1 yard Insul-Bright

Make Modern Magazine - 6 month subscription

Patterns By Jen - Superior Thread S-Fine 50

Patterns By Jen - Magic Wand