Quilters Without Borders

That sounds like a very altruistic undertaking.  Running about, around the world, curing people of their bad moods with brightly colored patchwork.  Let's try again for an appropriate header...

Quilts With Lots of Borders

Back to that beauty, the Aviatrix Medallion quilt.  After that center medallion, everything on this quilt is a border.  You gotta love these borders!

When last we spoke, or I guess I showed a picture, border 1 was attached.  That's the multi-gray HST border.  I've been busy.  I pulled out all the cut pieces for border 2 from their well marked baggie.  (Once again, feeling very clever for sorting the pieces and marking them!)  This was a pile of pretty.

Sewed all those strippies together, and border 2 was born.

The fun continues with border 3.  For some reason, I loved making these blocks.

It's all fun and games, until you realize you did something like this:

Oops.  Rippity-do-dah.  You know, it takes a big person to admit their mistakes.

So when I ended up with a giant pile of x/+ squares, time for a celebration.

The celebration got totally out of hand when the border was actually attached to the quilt.

Every step I take, every border I make, I like this project more and more.  Even my husband, unimpressed with his first view of the pattern, now believes this is the most awesome quilt he's seen.  He's a little slow, but I love him anyway.

All about that quilt, the one with the rainbow of fabrics

I'm so excited about the quilt I am working on right now.  Let's see if I can catch up on my progress. The name of the quilt is the Aviatrix Medallion, by Elizabeth Hartman.  This is a picture of the quilt from her website, http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/

How do you not fall in love with this.  The colors are happy, the design is awesome.  It screamed at me when I first saw it.  I bought the fabric pack from Pink Chalk Fabrics, http://www.pinkchalkfabrics.com  I would have ripped my hair out trying to find all the colors on this island.  Score one for my sanity.

I decided to be a big girl and cut all my colorful fabric first.  Score two for my sanity.  I even separated them into zippy bags, as suggested by Ms. Hartman.  This is making me feel very clever.  I love feeling clever.

Blah, blah, blah...I got the center medallion put together!

Tad bit intense, matching all these intersections.  Well, pretty darn close to matching all the intersections.

Sew up eight points?  Check.  Sew on background fabric?  Check.

Realize the center sticks up like a little hill?  Crap.

Time for some Yankee ingenuity.  Rippity-do-dah.  I separated the four quarters and restitched the seams, grabbing a slight bit more fabric at the center of the star.  Put those little bastards back together, squint my eyes a little, now it looks so much better!  I actually considered cutting and stitching a whole 'nuther center.  Then I got over it.

You'll just have to trust me that it looks way better in this picture than it did in the ones above.  Add the first border, and voila!  On our way!

I like this so much, maybe I should make it into a cape so I can wear it.

If it is worth doing, it is worth doing in a giant, splashy way.

Well, it's true.  Back to the roots of the creative bug.  Sewing is the first creative endeavor that captured my heart.  So now I have taken up quilting.  It's been a whole year now.  So of course I go right for the huge payout.  The Aviatrix Medallion quilt by Elizabeth Hartman.

This is what you start with.  And if starting with this does not make you happy, does not make your heart sing, well you just need to move along because we can not possibly find common ground.