Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

So I am the only Crackpot who has been slacking off during NaBloPoMo, and I have nary an excuse – no small baby, no mathematically insistent pre-schoolers, no exhuberant beading project. Obviously I am just a slacker.
So, in the interests of trying to make up for my negligence, here is the first of several posts: the fabric I bought a few days ago at Joann’s for a quilt for Andrea’s as yet unborn baby, little Blanka, the first (I hope) of our Hungarian grandchildren.

The plan for the quilt is to make five paper-pieced hot-air balloon blocks, using the pattern from one of Nancy’s baby quilt books. The blocks are rectangular, 8×10″, and I will alternate them with plain “cloud” blocks, so the quilt will be a 9 patch. Each balloon is made from 8 fabrics, plus the “basket.” I bought enough cloud fabric for the backing, but I have no idea at this point what I will do for borders. Or for the baskets either, for that matter. After all, if I had it all planned out, it would not be Crackpotty.

I fear I may have given the wrong impression in my previous post about trying to finish Andrew’s quilt before starting any other projects. That may have implied that I’m only working on one thing right now. That is certainly not the case! Here is one of the many other things I have in progress:

One of the women in my quilting group found a pattern for a quilt with a variety of different, unique baskets in a magazine and suggested that we each make one of them multiple times and swap, so that everyone has a quilt of multiple baskets. I shouldn’t really be starting any new projects now, but how can you say no to that? My basket isn’t very hard, though it is a combination of a little piecing and mostly applique. I am proud to say that I didn’t purchase any fabric for it, just some applique thread. I don’t think I’ll make all of my baskets the same – that might get boring, since I need to make 10 or 12.

I finished my two Quilt for the Cure blocks.

Once I decided where to put the different pieces, they went very quickly. They were easy to put together. I used my new 12 1/2 inch square ruler to square them up. I was surprised to find that they were slightly larger than expected. I guess I’ll have to recalibrate my 1/4 inch seams.

The new 12 1/2 inch ruler was purchased out of frustration with trying to square up blocks on a previous project. (The 40% off coupon pushed me over the edge.) So far, I’m delighted with it. I used it on my current project, which will be revealed in my next post.

Thanks, Nancy, for the block kits!