How about a super special red day . . . .

Woo  Hoo, look what's home from the quilter!

It's Door County Cherry Baskets, aka, Done Pickin', Lifetime Quilt Number 75.  The pattern, Door County Cherry Baskets, is in the book Summer Gatherings by Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles.

It's so hard to get a good picture of the quilting on a quilt!

Here's a close up that should help.  The background fabric is heavily quilted and the basket and cherry pieces are outlined so they just pop out of the quilt. 

 Not  only are the basket blocks amazing, there's a beautiful secondary wreath pattern quilted into those quarter square triangles and some wonderfully fluffy feathers in the border.

Here's the back, it gives you a little better idea of the jaw dropping quilting on this top.

This amazing quilt job was done by the talented Linda Hrcka, over at The Quilted Pineapple.  You are probably used to seeing Linda's quilt work on Lisa Bongean, of Primitive Gatherings, projects.  I'm thrilled and very appreciative that Linda was able to squeeze this quilt into her busy schedule.

I loved this quilt when I sent it to Linda to be quilted, but I love it even more now that it's home.  The quilting adds so much to the overall look of the quilt, and the quilt designs are a perfect fit for this style of quilt.

Linda is going to blog about all the details of quilting this top on her blog today, for more detail click here.

For more detail on the specifics of this quilt go to Lifetime Quilt Number 75 on my First 100 Quilts tab or click here.  I went back and read my blog posts where I talked about piecing this quilt and if you're in the mood for a laugh, you've got to read about the day I went crazy trying to come up with the perfect placement of each one of those basket blocks. Even I think I was wound a little tight that particular day.  But the quilt looks great, so maybe I'm crazy like a fox!

My FQS Thelma bundle has still not arrived!  I continue to hear from other folks that they have received their bundles and like it, I'm so relieved, but there's nothing like seeing it myself to totally convince me that the reds are a nice mix.  I did get one comment that said, "I really like the beiges", I'm trying not to let that worry me!

I hope you have a wonderful Valentines Day, and remember, if your Valentine doesn't step up to the plate to make your day special, there's nothing stopping you from  making it special yourself.

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Done Pick'n . . . . .

Here's my version of Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles' pattern, Door County Cherry Baskets, from their book, Summer Gatherings.

I made mine a little smaller, 8 by 8 blocks instead of the 9 by 10 blocks in the pattern.

It finishes at around 90 inches square, has approximately 2,069 pieces, and is Lifetime Quilt Number 75.

To make sure I kept that perfect block placement I numbered each block with a post it and did not remove the post it until the row was connected. I left the row number on the first block in each row. I think it looks like I managed to get them all together just like I wanted and most importantly, no like reds are touching.

The whole time I was making my baskets I was fretting over the border. That plain red border did not appeal to me at all. But once I got all my baskets together I realized they needed that red fabric to frame them. I'm glad I followed the pattern. The red I used for the border is from the Cotton Club line by Bonnie Blue Quilts for Marcus Brothers Fabrics and is called Red Bubble Dots.

Just for grins I made one little change to one little basket,

I thought it would be fun if it looked like I picked all the cherries there were, and put only 3 in my last basket instead of the 5 in all the other baskets. You know me, I just have to be different somehow!

A big thanks from Cooper for all the birthday wishes. Someone pointed out he's now of legal age, legal age to do what I'm not sure, he's yet to ask for a cold brew........

Thanks for stopping by,

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Diary of A Crazy Woman . . . .

So I got all the red corners sewn on the last of my Door County Cherry Baskets. Next step, finding the perfect place for each basket in this assortment of 64 baskets. Here's what I had to juggle; I wanted to alternate the black and brown baskets, have no two background fabrics next to each other, and have absolutely no like red fabrics touching. I used different red fabric for the black basket blocks and the brown basket blocks, making it impossible to have two like red fabrics touching side to side, but not diagonally.

So mainly focussing on alternating the brown and black basket blocks and the red corner fabric I came up with this layout.

At this point I decided I needed to give more thought to the background fabric so I moved a few blocks, keeping with the alternating black and brown plan and the no like red plan.

And came up with this, which just didn't feel right to me. It was the background fabric that was still bugging me. So I came up with this idea.

To chart the position of each light, medium and dark background fabric.

Then I looked for rows of like toned background fabric and marked them on this grid, green is dark, orange is medium, red is light.

Then I identified the blocks that I thought I should move to improve the overall look of things.

And pulled them out of the mix. Here's where I went wrong, I forgot to consider my alternating brown and black basket plan. I thought if I could just rearrange these 9 blocks I would be good. But I didn't have equal numbers of brown and black basket blocks.

So I was left with this.

Which I still didn't think was quite right, SO I STARTED OVER!!

Another grid

with the like background fabrics identified

then the problems identified. This time I only moved one identified block at a time, paying closer attention to the black and brown basket fabric and not paying so much attention to the red corners.

Which led to this,

which I decided I could live with. There were a couple of like reds in the same area, so instead of moving the blocks again, I decided I would just put new red corners on the lawbreaking blocks.

Help me Rhonda if I get some of these blocks mixed up while sewing them together, wish me luck!

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Still Picking . . .

I'm half way through my Door County Cherry Basket blocks! All the basket blocks have been pieced and all the black baskets have their red corner triangles attached.

These aren't in any particular order, I just threw a block on my design wall as I finished it. But I think it's a good sign that they look good, with no thought to the correct, perfect and final placement of each block. (remember, I have that no two like fabrics may touch syndrome)

These blocks are a breeze to square up because I'm using the Fit to be Square ruler by Open Gate Quilts.

This ruler is always easy to use, but since my blocks are 9 1/2 inches,

and the ruler is 9 1/2 inches, it's been super easy to square up the basket blocks.

Over the weekend, when I wasn't working away in my sewing room, I was doing a little decorating for Halloween.

I usually keep my mantle fairly clutter free. . . . .

.....a few more knick knacks in my kitchen.

I also hung a Halloween quilt on my rack in the living room but it was such a dreary day I couldn't get a good picture. I'll try again another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

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DCCB - Progress . . .

So I got all 832 half square triangle units for Door County Cherry Baskets pieced and trimmed! Now I'm in the basket weaving - cherry picking business. (Door County Cherry Baskets is a pattern in Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles' book Summer Gatherings.)

I'm not making my basket blocks as called for in the pattern. My baskets will be the same size and I think look the same, but I think I came up with a way that works better for me. Me being the "lets square things up and much as possible as we go" me.

To help get each little piece in just the right place I made this help sheet.

I'm making my baskets in 4 units, A, B, C, and D. Once those are pieced I combine A to B and C to D. Once those are pieced I sew AB to CD. And there you have it, a nice, neat, square basket.

So this is the before picture.

And here's the after, with each unit in its proper place. I think it's a real time saver. I try to chain piece as much as possible on any project I work on, but I think the best way to keep these pieces all going the correct direction is to piece one cherry basket block at a time, so that's what I'm doing. So far so good. I'm not tired of making baskets yet, but I do have a ways to go!

Remember that great Red and White quilt show I mentioned at Temecula Quilt Company? They've created some great red and white quilt patterns. A booklet with 6 small patterns and another pattern called Red and White Favorites. If you've been looking for some great red and white traditional looking patterns, you should check these out. (click here for patterns)

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It goes on . . . .

I'm still working away on my Door County Cherry Baskets quilt. I'm only going with 64 baskets as opposed to the 99 baskets in the pattern by Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles. That still requires 832 half square triangle units. Belle Meade required 656 hst units and I started making those 3 months before I actually started on the quilt.

So my days have been pretty much spent piecing hsts. I use the Easy Angle but still make my units larger than required and square them up. It's relaxing, making all these units, and even if I only have 30 minutes to spend in my sewing room, I still feel like I'm making progress.

This is my current definition of progress. I am getting close to having all my hsts done, then it's on to assembling those baskets and picking those cherries.

A couple of weeks ago I actually got to visit Lisa Bongean's shop, Primitive Gatherings.

The shop is in Menasha, Wisconsin. If you read my blog regularly, you know I don't get to visit quilt shops very often, I need to drive approximately an hour one way to hit a shop, so I was very excited to get to visit any shop, let alone a shop with such a wonderful reputation. It did not disappoint. The staff, fabric and pattern selection, and overall feel of the shop was wonderful. I think I was in that shop for over 2 hours!

This is the quilt that greets you as soon as you walk in the door, 45 & Life To Go. It's a stunner, I really love the black and tan combination of Little Gatherings by Lisa Bongean for Moda. I also like that checkerboard pattern in the center of each star.

So much that I bought a fat quarter bundle and the pattern. A couple of nice souvenirs of my visit to the shop. The pattern has directions for two sizes, a small size lap quilt or a king size quilt. (Don't you think those checkerboards would look even better with a little red thrown in?)

I'm not in the know when it comes to fabric, so I'm not sure if the Little Gatherings fabric is a one time thing or something that shops can reorder. The fabric will make great projects on its own (as you can see) or work wonderfully with other fabrics. If you've not bought any yet, I wouldn't wait much longer. I did notice the black fabric was in short demand in every shop I visited.

I hit a few more shops while I was in Wisconsin, be sure to stop back by for my review of them later this week.

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Next Up . . . . .

I'm back, did ya miss me?

So really, how long did you think it would be before I started another red quilt after finishing my Red and White Tribute quilt, a year, a month, one project . . .

If you figured not very long at all you would be right, James River Blues is done and this is the project that will be consuming my time for the foreseeable future.

This pattern is Door County Cherry Baskets and is in the book Summer Gatherings by Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles. (Lisa is The Lisa of Primitive Gatherings fame and her blog header is this basket quilt!)

Door County is in Wisconsin and I spent last week in Wisconsin, checking out quilt shops and visiting with friends, so I thought this would be a great time to work on this quilt. Although, technically, cherry picking time runs mid-July to mid-August in Door County Wisconsin. I'm a little late with my cherry picking.

I pulled all the fabric for this project from my stash, so you know what that means, YES, it's a free quilt!!

Here are my background fabrics.

I'm going with over 100 different fabrics in this project and it took days and days to cut all my pieces. Now I'm on to the assembly portion of this project. (finally, hurray!)

And here's my inspiration block! The pattern calls for 99 blocks, I don't think there's that many cherries at my house, I'm thinking maybe I'll be needing a few fewer baskets.

I have some pictures to share of my Wisconsin Shop Hop and am still pushing for an official name change for Carrie Nelson for Miss Rosie's Quilt Company's Schnibbles pattern Bibelot. I stand by my original notion that this pattern should be named "T" Stands for Thelma. I'm not sure what it will take to get this done but rest assured I'm on the job!!

Stop back by for further updates!!

( Hey Sinta - there's no room on this bandwagon for any other "T" names!! )

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