MY FIRST QUILTING LESSON!

Remember last week when I posted the WalMart
fabric? Well I am doing one in nine patch and the
other, I called my freind Helen who is a very
experienced hand quilter to come up with a simple design for me. Now Helen does hand quilting, I mean piecing and
everything else that goes with it...

So she said that she would come up with a simple
pattern for me. I said something that I hadn't done before and for her to teach me how she goes about designing a quilt. Keep it simple I asked.

So, the photo you see on the right is what she came up with and laid it all out on the table with the ability to vary the design as we saw fit.

I couldn't believe that she had cut out all those little squares, joined them and made the other
wonky looking pattern to go with it.

I'm sure it has a name, the white square with the
orange corners, but I am still in awe as to how she
came up with the quilt pattern!

You know me, I just cut out squares, and go for it,
and when I run out of fabric, well then the quilt
top is done! I'm exaggerating a bit here, but
basically it's what I do. I just put it together
and hope for the best. I'm not taking the quilts to Paduccah or a show, but just to the cottage and for the simple pleasure of creating. Which probably accounts for the fact that I have enough orange squares, triangles and fabric left over from my first quilt to make another one just as large as my first endeavour.

Anyway, Helen put these little squares on the table and I started laughing....I mean what the heh, she knows how to quilt and when she asked how large I wanted the quilt, I just said that as
big as the fabric I had would go....then she laughed
and thought that that was I would say. I did tell
her that math is not my fortee and so we proceeded
to do the math with my fabric...yeah, it's going
to be really nice, and I won't have too much left
over fabric thanks to Helen being able to do the
math.

What you see on the right here, is pretty well what it will look like as it was decided that the turning of the black blocks would make it look quite different. I learned how to do this block which was so easy to do. Next up is the flying geese pattern. And.....I don't have to pay to learn all of this....she already knows how all of this is done and I am sure she is still laughing at my reaction to..."what's with the squares?" when she came this afternoon....

So, I am doing strip quilting of the four squares and will have a sewing feast on for tomorrow. I think this is one that my girl will like for her house although I will have a hard time parting with this one when it's done. I am going to look for a celery looking backing for it and the side sashings I think. The green (celery) doesn't really show up in the photos but it's really a lovely coordinating colour for the black.

It's been such a while since I started a project and now I have two on the go, the nine patch and this one. I put the nine patch away and will work on this one because I just love the different look of it.

We had visitors this weekend and one of my grandsons' (Jeremy) got a spider bite on his eye. It was quite swollen but not painful and if he tried really hard, he could open the eye. We don't know where he got it, but he took antihistamines to help with the itching and cold compresses for the swelling. He went by boat a few doors down to see our friend the lake doctor as he is affectionately known by those who know him, who looks after all the ails of the kids at the lake. Funny to see a couple of kids in their boats pull up and get treated well and having a great experience. Jeremy's buddy also thought his bruise should be looked at too. Only at the lake folks!

We are expecting inclement weather for the next few days. I don't care, I am sewing and in the groove. My sweetie has almost completed the landing for the lift and I will post that in a few days. If only people would stop visiting and let him get on with his work! It's summer...