It's the Design Garage Wall

Before the preview and look at my wonderful quilt, I wanted to announce that I finally figured out how to do tabs at the top of the blog!!! I've been trying for about nine months...but something didn't work. Well, last night I figured it out! It must have been the two naps I took yesterday!

There is a tab with my Quilt Provenances. It has a picture of each of my quilts I've finished, plus the numbers, and a write-up on each quilt.

The other tab is a list of the nicknames I use for my family in the blog. You can find out when I write TGS that it means Talented Geek Son, and that he is my third child. I guess this tab is a reference resource!

I'm very proud of my tabs. They are still a work in progress, as is some of the problems in certain parts of the blog. It's a journey...

One more major announcement! I put up my 2014 Quilty Goals in the right sidebar. Take a peek and shake your head at my over-ambitiousness!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My design wall took on a whole new twist today. My log cabin is up to 50 blocks! Wahoooo! It's too big for my flannel quilt wall, so outside I went.

When I have a quilt that is very big, I use the side wall of the garage. I take a queen size flat sheet and thumbtack it to the wall. After that, I pin the blocks to the wall. It's not perfect, but actually it's no worse than my flannel one. The lighting is perfect there also because it is in the shade. It's sunny out today but the color showed up beautifully on the picture.

There I am in the shivery cold, well, shivering. I've got the step ladder and I'm thumb tacking a sheet to the garage wall. I don't know about you, but I find it near impossible to get the layout right on a Log Cabin. Thank goodness I didn't live back in the 1800's. I'd never be able to build a log cabin!

I'm following along with the quilt layout from Quilt In A Day. I'm drowning out here. I keep having to re-arrange blocks. Sometimes two or three in a column. It's amazing I even have hair left. I've got about half the blocks on and my husband, in robe, opens the front door. He can clearly see my handiwork. Then he says, "Okay, okay! I'll paint the house!" He's such a card! He proceeded to tell me three blocks that were turned wrong. I'm bummed. I was following the book! So I coerced him (with Bambi eyes, which usually don't work) to come out and help me finish putting the blocks up.

With my husbands quilt life- and hair- saving expertise, here it is:

What do you think? Right now it is 6x6 and the blocks are 14" finished. That comes to 84" square. I'm making this a king-size for my TGS & his OSLW. They have a California King, which is just longer than a King.

I was figuring that I'd make the quilt 109" square without a border. Doing that would be adding one more row of blocks all the way around, making 8x8. So here's the dilemma:

Do I add another row of blocks all the way around to make it 8x8? The quilt would then be 112". I hadn't planned on doing a border, so that would be the correct size.

My other idea is to stop here and put on a border. If I put a 2" dark border, then a 5" lighter border, then another border of 2" dark, It would come out about 116" square. A little on the big side.

Please help me choose! If you have an idea for a different border, let me know!

And now for the silly part. I ran out of the outside dark blue fabric. I cannot tell you how many times I went back to the fabric store and bought more, then more. I didn't have a pattern, so I was winging it with fabric amounts. I thought I bought more than I needed, better safe than sorry. When I realized I needed more to finish 13 more blocks, I panicked! Run around, pull your hair out, hit your head against the wall panic.

I realized I'd need to know the name of the fabric to look for more. Unfortunately, all the remaining fabric had been cut into strips. I finally found four that had writing, but I was mising the last part of the name of the fabric. To the waste basket I go, looking through the strings left from squaring off the fabric. Voila! I had pieced together the name of the fabric!

I discovered several sources on the web. Interestingly enough, they were all 108" wide back. Hmmm. I bought mine as 42" fabric. Oh well, less yardage to buy, more money per yard. It will work.

I'm sharing with: Patchwork Times, What A Hoot Monday, Show & Tell Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, WiP Wednesday, It's a Party, We Did It Wednesday, Needle and Thread Thursday, and I Quilt.

Please, please, pretty please, leave me a comment with a suggestion on border or no border, ideas, etc. I will love you forever!