August has been a quiet month. This has been a time of vacations, travel, visiting, and drinking home made lemonade and fanning yourself in the heat.
I did, however, work on this stunning One Block Wonder made by Donna. I called it "Frogs in a Blender"...though that's not entirely a palatable idea, is it? Simply "Frogs" will do, I suppose. Donna is always inspired by new designs, new patterns, and new techniques. She found this one at the local quilt shop, and of course, she immediately had to try it. She selected a beautiful fabric with bright colors and high contrast, which worked remarkably well in changing the colors from light to dark across the top of the quilt. She added borders to make it large enough for her bed.
The frogs inspired me to "draw" lily pads all over the top. Well, where else would frogs live? I hope you can see it in this photo--I was having trouble photographing the stitches on this very busy print.
I tried, for the first time, the new Green batting made from recycled plastic bottles. It not only is called "green" because it's recycled, but it actually IS green...a pale mint green. While it worked fairly well for quilting and I didn't seem to have any problems with the quilting part, I found it to be rather fussy and easily stretched while loading it up on the rollers. If I were unfolding it on the floor with a few helping hands, or using it for small projects, I would use it again. Probably not for something this large, however. I still prefer needlepunched cotton--it's a little more rugged and, because it's a natural fiber, will breathe well on a bed.
I love some of the details she added on the edges, such as this fan of repeats along the edge. There were also hexagons floating around the edges, much like lily pads in a lake. I visited a local lake to look at some lily pads to get a better idea how they would look, and included a few random flowers in the stitching, too.
The next on the docket is another giant one-block wonder with peacocks on it. This is screaming for some feathers, but I will have to plan the feather pattern for it to make sure it lines up and looks balanced. It's a lot more work, but it's totally worth it in the end!
I have heard from another friend that she has another top ready to be delivered soon! Details to come!
Enjoy!
Karen
Ye Merrie Quilter
Donna gave me this quilt to do, and I had to think about it for a while to decide what I was going to do. Finally it became clear that I needed to do something feathery. So I decided that random feathers would be just the thing!
I did a nice feather all around the green border using a varigated green thread that perfectly blended with the fabric...so well, in fact, it was hard to get a photo to turn out! 
The interior was done in a black (and sadly, this photo is pretty blurry), with dark blue on the back to blend in with the slate blue batik on the back.
She handed me a new quilt to work on, but it needs to be done this week for the quilt show next month--the Elements Round Robin that the quilt guild did. I worked on Sharon's before, as I mentioned, and this is her quilt top! It's beautiful! Very different from Sharon's, and will be a challenge to find quilting patterns to reflect the various elements, and to get it done this week!
