Go on Rosemary you know you can do it

I've finally done it, I now have another 8 x 1" blocks to go into the 9" white border for a sprinkling of colour. I am going to try and be everso very slightly random with some of their placements (that should be interesting - I am so not good at random, but we will see what happens!). Then I can get my triangle borders on and see what size I really need to get my backing to.

(The miniature madness is still calling me - could I really manage 1/12" scale of this quilt? - not including the 1" blocks , that really would be madness!)

I spray basted it, and payed very careful attention to lining up my centre lines. Although probably one of the reasons it has worked so well is that one side is a small busy piecing pattern, which really doesn't show up the quilting very much at all, and the other is large piecing and the quilting was designed to enchance the piecing design on that side - where it could be seen.

When do we get to see pictures of some of your blocks? We all love seeing pictures

Nice to hear you have learned a lot.
If you follow Rosemarys suggestion and just tye it (good idea to use the eyelets) you will be finished in no time

PosyP wrote:
Rosemary, I did once try a double sided quilt but ended up ripping out all the quilting I had done because what suited side one in the way of pattern didn't look good on the other side. I ended up tying it - well sort of - I used the eyelet stitch on my machine very random and that was much better but I swore at the time never to try that again. How you managed to get your double-sided quilt to look so good is beyond me :shock:

Marianne

And I finally got my border fabric so I'll try to get around to adding the borders soon. Then maybe even getting the quilting done....

Nancy

Marianne, have you thought that you could use all the block in one quilt and not need any lining! You could do a 6 x 8 layout (twice) and have 4 left over for something else..

Just winding up to getting going on my quilt again, after my big finish. First job try and track down all the pieces

Marianne, Great to hear about your Laura Nownes project/s. I am still working on mine. I am almost done piecing shashing on the second one. I too hope to have picts in the not to distant future.

I haven't been around much lately but thought I would check in today and report that I have now used up all the 15 fat quarters I had from a range of fabric + 1 Kaffe Fassett I added to the mix. I used some scraps of solids too and I have ended up with exactly 100 6" blocks. None of them are Log Cabin but all use just about any combination you can make from HST, QST, flying geese and squares.
Now I can either put them all together in a QAYG quilt which I would do using Nancy Zieman's strip technique and give to charity or I can split them up and use them to try out some of all the free patterns I have collected over the years for totes, pouches, pot holders, bags and aprons.
Although I am very tempted to use them all in a quilt to donate because it would be fun to see them all in one project, I have nowhere in the house except on our bed to put out all the blocks, 65" x 65" is huge, and a number of the blocks are rather wonky so I think I will make another quilt that is more planned to donate and use this lot as toiles for patterns and I won't loose sleep over the finished items if they don't work out according to plans as they have already served a purpose - teaching me to piece more accurately.
I have learned so much from this adventure and a huge thank you again not just to Laura Nownes but especially to all who participated in the class and posted here in discussion, to those who held my hand when I tore my hair out and so freely shared tips and tricks. I feel I have improved a lot and my seams line up more often than not and I hardly ever loose points (of the patchwork kind at least )
When I get some blocks incorporated in some projects I will share pictures in the blog area when I get back into sewing in April.
Thanks again everybody - have a lovely sewing week-end
Marianne

Thanks for the links.

Hope you get your 'puter sorted soon. A good reminder to regularly back everything up to a separate memory brick - which I have and could probably do with getting on & doing as well.

Limbania, How frustrating with the computer. Hope you can rescue the data. Good luck.

Thank you Ladies! I'm slow and very detail oriented ( my sister-in-law- calls it an...) so, everything has to match and fit "properly" :shock:

Rosemary, sorry to say that for the time being I won't be able to post the paper piecing layout My laptop quit working The mother board "died" and would cost 400-500 US to fix it. Not happening! Will be cheaper to buy a new one. The hard drive is ok but since it's 7 year "old" outdated kind, it's going to take a few days before I can get the cable to plug the HD into the main computer and rescue the data (that's what happens whe one doesn't back it up ).
In the meantime, here'''s a couple of links where you can get Instructions/templates for a 16 1/2".http://www.quiltinaday.com/imgs/facebook/march/MexicanStar.pdf
12" with paper piecing templates http://www.dreamcastlequilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/BOTW-2010-stars-Mexican-Star-Block-18-directions.pdf
http://www.dreamcastlequilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/BOTW-2010-Stars-Mexican-star-block-18-paper-pieced-pattern-and-templates.pdf
This is an 8" version using templates, they call it Mexican Cross but is the same thing. http://www.quilterscache.com/M/MexicanCrossBlock.html
As soon as I get my data rescued I can e-mail you the EQ file or post the layout here for the 6".

Good blocks, like the others I'm looking forward to seeing the top completed, and mine my excuse is I'm improving my quilting skills before I start.

I read through the blog but still don't quite understand what she's going to do with the pockets. Will watch the podcast later.

Glad to see som life in this thread yet!

Lovely blocks Limbania, I've not seen the Mexican star before, but is does look fun - can you post your paper piecing layout? Will try & go looksee what the breast pockets are all about, but yours look fun.