Seeing Stars ~ Bumpkin Baskets Quilt

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might,  have these finished by tonight.

The little stars have put a twinkle in my eye.  I'm loving it!  Only nine more to make. That's about two hours worth of work.  How do I know?  I timed myself yesterday.  Well...I didn't start a stopwatch.  I watched(listened to) two episodes of Mike and Molly.  During the two episodes, five stars were made.  Trying to speed up the process only made my time worse. So five and hour it is. 

  

You're going to think I'm a little crazy but I'll also be making the other plan of light blue circles for the center of the flowers.  

Sounds nuts, I know.  Once all the stars and circles are finished, the quilt can be laid on the floor and I can start playing with the circle and star options. All stars, all circles, every other, stars only in the corners.  And you never know, maybe I can use the leftover applique pieces somewhere else in the quilt. 

 As I looked at the picture below while writing this blog post I noticed how the flowers were nesting perfectly on the bottom of the red arches.

  Oh my goodness!  I did not plan this!  I could scallop the border by cutting away the fabric below the arches...that would be cute!  However, it would leave the quilt too small for my bed.  So, the struggle begins...the battle with me, myself and I.  Which one will win?  Only time will tell. 

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Midweek Bumpkin Baskets Progress

 The last couple of days didn't go as planned and I'm happy it didn't.  The plan was to work on the applique border for this quilt.  

As you can see I took a different route and decided to make the star sashing instead.   My thought was "what if the planned border won't work as planned?"  It's probably best build this quilt from the center out  and not make anymore applique border pieces until I'm positive that it's going to work.

Today's plan is to add the next border of background fabric.  Then if time permits start cutting for the many HST's in the next border.  

The HST's will be made from the same fabric as the baskets. Yes, this quilt has a lot of my precious Lakehouse Drygoods fabrics.  It used to be hard for me to cut into these pieces.  Something happened, I had a shift in my thinking in the last week.  Basically I'm ready to start cutting and using any and all my fabrics.  No more saving it for special projects.  There's big plans in the weeks ahead for my stash, so stay tuned, I'm about to do something wild and outrageous....well for me its a huge step. 

This post is being shared over at Quilt Fabrications, Midweek Makers.  Hop over to be inspired!

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Vintage Makeover

Top of the week, top of the morn!   It's so nice to be back home and in my happy place.  While I was away there was a little time for wandering around the internet.  In my meandering I stumbled upon this unique block called Colonial Baskets.  The basket base made with dresden blades is adorable.   The basket handle is a little too pointy for my taste.  Let's see if I can rework this block and make it my own.

So in my quilty brain archives I know that a charm square(5" square) can yield 3 dresden blades 5 inches long. You can find a tutorial on how this is done here. Well did you know that one charm can also make 4 smaller blades?

Here's how it's done.  Pretty simple, huh?  

Now just stitch them together in groups of five.  I added a few extra pieces from my scrap box so I would have enough arcs to make a matching pillow or wall hanging.

The block below is my first reworked block idea.  I like the design but I've not committed to the basket and handle fabric.  As you can see by my poor drawing, I'd like to add a flower and some leaves.  Well.... that is IF I can find the right fabrics in my stash.  Of course the handle could be made from ricrac and the flowers from gingham.   So many ideas to play around with before actually making the block.  Oh the block name?  

Bumpkin Baskets!

~ Lea Anne ~

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