Laying out the queen bed quilt...

The past two weeks have been a blur and I apologize for not posting more. The whirlwind of cleaning and organizing has slowed down to a manageable pace, finally. My brother and his son were here over this past weekend. Gaston (not his real name!) is contemplating attending Arizona State University in Tempe, which is right next to Phoenix, so they extended their stay for a couple of days to visit.

We had a great time, walked all over the ASU campus and spent Saturday afternoon at the Desert Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, we didn't make it over to see the installation by Patrick Dougherty that you see on the main page at the Desert Botanical Garden website. Gaston had to get back and do some homework so I'll have to see it next month when I go with Mom to see the wildflowers.

I've managed a few stitches on my feather stitch sampler but that's about it. I'm hoping things slow down soon so I can get back in the groove of stitching on a regular basis. I miss it! I also miss crazy quilting so I'm definitely going to have to do something about that.

Meanwhile... I have put together a few pictures to show you (in case you are interested) how I put together each quarter of the bed quilt (I need to figure out a name for it) I'm making for our master bedroom. The quilt is my take on this lovely quilt by Lisa Call New Works and Inspiration (scroll down).

First I lay out the 15.5" squares, making sure I had one of these in each corner of the quilt and then just spreading them out from there.


Next came the 10.5" squares, making sure to spread the colors around fairly evenly.


Then I added the 8" squares, snuggling some of them together and others by themselves.


The 5.5" squares are next...here is where I started to make sure that I had "blocks" of pieces that could be sewn together easily...


and lastly the 3" squares, finishing out the quilt quarter. Some of the lighter 3" squares are laid out together to break it up a bit.


and... this is the state it has been in for nearly 3 weeks. I'm hoping to get some work done on it tonight... keep your fingers crossed!