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The Golden Years Quilt
Original Design: Ellen Marie Mislo
Block Quilt, Machine Pieced and Quilted including 12 Embroidered Blocks

The Quilt is made up of 21 – 10″ blocks.
12 of those blocks where made by starting with a 6″ embroidered rectangle. A 2″ red patterned border was sewn around the block and then another 2″ block of background fabric was added to create the 10″ block.
The other 9 – 10″ blocks were cut from a repeating design patterned fabric,(They could be created by sewing together strips of fabric).
The assembled quilt was created by starting with 3 embroidered blocks, then  alternating rows of embroidered/patterned/embroidered then patterned/embroidered/patterned.
A 4″ complimentary red border was added around the entire quilt, then finished off with a gold/green/red binding, tying the quilt together. The finished quilt measures approximately 39″X79″.
Ellen Marie has shown with this creation that very simply made blocks can become something very unique.

The Golden Years

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I Spy Kids Quilt

Pattern: Original Design by Ellen Marie Mislo
Material: Fussy Cut Blocks collected for about 5 years
Quilt size:  28″ x 36″ Machine Pieced and Quilted

Ellen Marie always wanted to make a I Spy Quilt but could never find one that she liked so she designed one herself to incorporate the blocks she had been collecting for years. The Quilt was inspired by a friend in her vet”s office and so she made it for her.
The pattern is 42 – 4-1/2″ by 4-1/2″ fussy cut blocks connected with 2″ sash and arranged  6 rows across and 7 blocks down ..The first row down is sewn by alternating a block an sashing to the bottom then repeat again adding a block and sashing to the bottom until you get 7 blocks in the  row. The second row down begins with the sashing first then the block, so forth down the row, until you have 7 blocks. Once you have the 6 rows sewn together with the alternate block then sash first, you assemble the rows – again with the sashing between. Having the top of each row alternating -block then sashing gives you the offset appearance in the finished quilt. Ellen Marie used the same color sashing to boarder around the quilt. The Quilt backing was a piece of material bought special for the quilt that carries the theme to the back as well.  This quick an easy to assemble project is a fun Quilt that any child would love to have!

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Oceanscape
Wall Hanging

Pattern: Original Design
Machine piece, Hand Quilted, Beaded Embellishments

I used pre-printed interfacing for this wall hanging. With this product after the squares were pinned & heat bonded (I would not recommend removing the pins). I just sewed on the pre-printed lines.
On some consectutive horizontal rows there is a sewn-in overlay of white tulle.
The scene was a composite of two pictures taken of the Atlantic Ocean while on a visit to Cape Cod, Mass
There are beaded treasures on the sand, beaded lobster pots, waves and clouds.

          

The Christmas Gift – 2

Quilting can be a way to maintain a bit of stability when your world is turned sideways. The focus of having to spend a certain amount of time doing something you have control over allows you to momentarily forget the world. In – out- in -out pull, repeat, repeat. The turmoil in your mind subsides. Then you stop and voila ! see how much has been accomplished.

I bought 3 blended/varagated colored threads for the OZ quilt; a yellow, green and a pink.The center panel of movie stills is all done. I used the pink and green alternately in the 4 small stills in the center, outlining elements of the pictures as I felt necessary. For the BIG Glinda pic- pink, Wicked Witch – green. For one of the large Dorothy?Toto pictures I used a light bright blue and in the other a dark purple.I outlined elements of these pictures also.Think reverse coloring book.

Three of the four narrow yellow brick road borders around the center panel are done with the yellow thread in horizontal rows. Two the wider long side borders of the Munchkinland montage are done in pink thread, vertical rows. It will be back to the green thread for the two W.W.W. corner squares. Not sure what color thread I will use for the ruby slippers on yellow corner squares, then back to horizontal rows of yellow for the outside yellow brick border.

Laid the quilt on our bed the other day to see how it is all coming together. I was very happy. I also needed sunglasses- the colors in the fabric are very bright.

Oz Bed Quilt Cat Approved!

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Playing With a Block

Providence Block 10″
From 1898, Ladies Art Company
alternate name Providence Star

The original block, figure one. uses six different fabrics in dark, medium, light, neutral

Click to enlarge

This is a great block to play with. Get out the colored pencils, markers, or crayons. You will also need paper, pencil and ruler: or a drawing program on your computer. (I used Appleworks)
Make your basic pattern, figure two. Mine is based on one inch squares. It is just squares and 1/2 square triangles.

Click to enlarge

Make lots of copies! A computer program should let you resize your block after it is drawn so that you can print at least 2 blocks per page.
Start coloring! There is no right or wrong way to color in the block. To get you started see figure three.

Click to enlarge

I used just 3 colors. Use dark, medium and light in just one color, then two colors, then three, four etc. Remember that black, white, tan and gray are colors too.
Going on road trips with kids? Give them a copy and a few colored pencils, who knows what they might come up with.
Figures four and five show the block with the darks and lights reversed.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

This block is a great way to use up scraps. If you decide to make a sampler quilt using all you blocks I suggest that you cut the pieces for each block separately, then put the paper block and the fabric pieces into a plastic sandwich bag, to keep them organized.
I made this quilt for my oldest grandson, using a different original block that I played with 25 times. My daughter did some of the coloring.

So – now you have all these paper blocks which you have turned into a quilt top – or not. Don’t throw them away! Use them as design elements for greeting cards, scrapbook pages, gift tags, bookmarks, picture frames. Paste them onto boxes. Take them to the sewing machine, put in an old needle and zig-zag stitch them together to make wrapping paper, posters or wall paper??
Origami cranes anyone. Uncolored blocks for those who are bored. Write a message on the back of colored ones, cut into pieces (paper jig saw puzzle) and send them to friends or family.
And you thought playing with blocks for only for kindergardeners! Leave us a comment, let us know if you have a favorite block to play with.

Clearance at Joann.com!

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