30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Blog Hop

Sorry!  It has taken all day to get this posted.  Ugh!

Carla Henton of Creatin' in the Sticks has hosted a blog hop and quilt along all this month.  We are on the last two days of the hop, but you can see any of the Blocks you may have missed by visiting Carla's blog at the above link.  

I chose Dovetail as my block and I wish I could inspire you with an artistic reason for that choice.  But, I can not tell a lie....it was at the bottom of the list and would give me more time to complete.  Even with all the extra time, I still failed to photograph my process and progress.

So I will use Carla's pics...

I wanted to make a black and white quilt for one of my sons.  Black and white seemed so masculine and the pattern so strikingly graphic.  And I wanted this layout

in black and white.  After the first row, the work and design looked just fine, I on the other hand felt like this.

Vertigo, dizziness and migraine.  Too much contrast between black and white?  Design too busy to focus on?  I don't know quite what happened, but I was definitely feeling ill.

A couple of days later I tore it apart and went to this layout...

Still in black and white, but now I don't trust an entire quilt of this pattern, either.  So I opted for a pillow...although it almost became a piano bench cover, as the design looks like piano keys.

 

 Using 3 full blocks with a half block on each end and 3" white lattice strips between the blocks, the finished pillow is 40" x 10" including the trim.

After the piecing was finished I decided it needed some character.  I ironed fusible batting between the pieced top and a white cotton fabric of the same size.  This gave a perfect stiffness for hand quilting a stenciled Ribbon Cable #28725 by Simply Quilting Stencils.  The quilting stitches were made using Coats and Clark Glace Finished Hand Quilting Cotton thread in black. I prefer thread with glace finish because it provides abrasion resistance and reduces tangling and knotting.  I have a real battle with most regular finish cotton thread when hand sewing quilt bindings.  Knots and tangles...and bad words.

 

Lastly, I added a loop piping in black that took me forever to find at Joanne's in Fort Smith AR.  Guess they lost their super employee that kept the shelves organized.  

I enjoyed the hand quilting so much that I may yet make that black and white quilt to go with the pillow.  Check my blog in a year or two.  I am a Slow Stitcher.

Thanks to all for reading my words and to Carla for a fun blog.  Be sure to come back tomorrow to see what Carla will do for Block #30.

April 30th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Block 30 - Slow Tee