Iceblossom, It's cute how you used blue in the 4patches, and green for the cornerstones.

How observent, Givio, that was a design decision when I felt I needed to push my greens into darker territory. Sometimes when you just add a few pieces it's really obvious that's where you ran out of the other fabric! But I'm trying to tie it in a bit with the same color but a value closer to those blues.

Today's lack of progress report. Well, after I took off and fixed those "wrong" setting triangles I figured out that no, the problem was just that I needed the sashing on both sides and not just one -- which means I didn't have to take them off, I just needed to add to them.

I only have 2 sashing strips left and figured those would be for the corners but I seem to be maybe 6?? short and I can't figure out why, I used all those rectangle units I think... Don't know. Short form is I'm going to put together a few more sashing strips and that will be all I get done today. Promised the hubby to watch him bowl tonight.

Still planning on having the top put together by Valentines. We are going to do something different on Saturday. We have this thing where we point out the "first times" so this will be the first time we've been to a football game together live. Seattle has an XFL team and I actually suggested we go to the opener. Hubby was surprised but found out that yeah, tickets are pretty cheap and why not be a part of Seattle sports history. Team is the Dragons, but I'm betting a lot of us will have our Seahawk coats on, chances are weather will not be the best thing about the day.

old pokey here, Finally feeling like leaping between the working wall and the sewing machine :)
I've changed a lot of things, but think I'm loyal to the Frolic concept

I'm finding the 'planned scrappy' exhausting, probably won't do that again.
Crazy about my 30's fabric outcome, I'm a happy camper!

KalamaQ, this will be wonderful! The little pinwheel you've made from your sashing is so cute. Is that a separate color or a yellow?

KalamaQuilts I love your version of Frolic and your selection of fabrics. I almost wish I could copy your layout, but it is a bit too late for that. It is hard to maintain motivation when I'm not trilled with my color choices, but as Iceblossom has mentioned numerous times, things will all turn out ok....someone will like it.

Oh thanks for posting that, Kalama! I've been wondering how it (and you) were doing, I figured the fabrics would be great together but I like your changes, especially the pinwheels.

As I was digging through my scrap pile I found my extra neutral/red units (I had made too many). They were the ones I rejected as both colors being too pale, but I picked 6 of them and I made some others with stronger colors. Next dive in is to the new parakeets, those are easily in reach. I'm thinking I did have one of those Scarlett O'Hara/Tomorrow is another day moments and only made enough sashing units for my blocks. Basic counting has not been my friend this project. Speaking of which, I should finish this post and cup of coffee and double count that I made enough units before I stack it up again.

Beautiful progress Iceblossom.

Kalamaquilts, I love your version!

Kalamaquilts, I like your softer more subtle choices for your version of the Frolic Quilt. I still haven't started and am considering just not doing it at all, then I see yours and it is much more to my taste. So, I am back on the fence again. I would have to buy fabric if I changed color paths. Humm, this fence sitting is getting frustrating.:rolleyes:

Kalama, I love the fabric choices you are using in the quilt. So pretty. I have made all the blocks, half blocks and corner units and I am attaching the sashing as I go. The first corner and block and second row are together. The third row is ready to attach. I’ll try to post a picture of my progress in the next few days. Today I spent helping a friend on her journey with Frolic. She is using up my extra units and she sewed two blocks together and I gathered pieces to make 5 more. Having to cut pieces here and there but I really want all the extra units that I made to be put to use in her quilt. Having to encourage her to continue on as she is a very hesitant beginner. I keep telling her that this will increase her skills. I found that to be the case as I made Sylvia Bridal Sampler several years ago. (Actually that quilt is not completely sewn into a top yet; a little bit to finish it up. A project to be completed this year).

That 30s fabric looks great, Kalama. As the mystery went along I was glad I decided to use yardage in 5 colors rather than scraps. I’m still working away at my quilt, ready to start adding borders. I also did straight set. I always seem to stall with on point settings. There are three right now in the UFO pile. Didn’t want to add another.

Kalama, love the pinwheels in the sashing! You always have such original design choices, while staying with the units BH had in the clues.

i am using all of the HST intended for sawtooth borders and making a single pinwheel border. The stop border turned out to be exactly 1”, to fit the 4” pinwheels in. Dare I say it—tomorrow it may be a completed top. Cross your fingers that the AC guy and the meeting I have at 1:00 don’t take too much quilting time up.

KalamaQuilts, I too, love how your 30s prints work so nicely in this project. I love you sashing idea!

iceblossom, your quilt is going to be stunning! Keep up the good work ladies.

this is my cheat sheet for the color changes.
I used my darkest 30's yellow for those little spinning stars...it was the one that showed up best.
skipped the 4 patches
changed the sashing to three 4.5" pieces
Thank you for the compliments, I love everyone's shown!
I decided on the straight set because I like the crooked rabbit ear stars rather than the side by side star point effect. If that makes sense...
I haven't actually read clue 9, but I've seen a million assembled blocks go by on Quiltville Studio :) so knew what she was aiming for.

What a great idea, Kalama!
I love everyone's photos. I'll show some soon!

How does everyone plan on quilting this project?

Claire, all I know is I'm sending it to a longarmer. After all this I want someone else to do it :)

I decided on swirls on the center but not sure about the plain borders I did instead of all the HST.

That's so pretty!
I also love the wallhanging in the background. Could we see a close up?

A big woohoo for me, I figured out my sashing issues and all blocks are finally labeled and sashed correctly. Short form is once I finally got everything laid out I had to reallocate some of the ones I had already sewn... That means I had to fix a couple of mistakes which freed up 3 sashing. And then I found that I had two set aside that I had bad center pieces and apparently just lost one... Since I had cut out enough for 6 new ones, I just made them instead of taking apart the bad ones. I am not concerned about the few extra units, they will just join all the bad ones and go to the crumb quilter. She says she knows when the combined pieces come from me by the open seams... she doesn't say if this is a good thing but I figure it's my way of saying howdy!

Today at small group I will start pinning the blocks together.

I have the HST borders complete as well. I started out by pairing Red and Blue units into twos. Then when I got to fours, I stay stitched the outer edge since I don't know when I will get this quilted down.

I'm considering sending it out because I am at an utter loss to quilt it, always my downfall. I would expect a rather swirly E2E pantograph maybe with some points here and there in my budget range. I've been looking at websites of home quilters within a couple hours of home and found a couple that are accepting new clients that I rather like the looks of their gallery quilts. Going to contact a couple and meet with them to see what I need to prepare my quilts for someone else to finish (never expected that!), and what they feel it would cost to put some of them just together and others what it would take to do what they would want to do. Knock on wood, everything is holding together and maybe I can get enough out of the tax refund to get a couple tops done. I'll also try networking some at that Ricky Tims thing I'm going to in May.

Claire: Very pretty!

nice finish Claire!
I'll be sending mine out to be quilted too, backed with one of the other finished mystery tops in the pile.
I only quilt my own when they are 40" or less. I Really don't enjoy machine quilting and I so seldom buy fabric I consider that non-expense goes toward my quilting ;)

In the 'if I had it to do over' I'd have switched the pink out to orange or green, this is a pretty pink and blue quilt in 30's.

Time for a coffee break/progress report. I am putting together the rows, still on track. This part is always so fun. I got a little confused at my Tuesday group pinning when I came to the sashing cornerstones that were basically just hanging in the air, but I did indeed pin them correctly. Goal is to get it ready for the border today, border tomorrow.

With my small work/layout space and since I had enough fabric in my "cut large and trim down", once everything was committed to and the setting triangles were in place, I trimmed them down after they were connection correctly to their square. I'm just not going to be able to do a good job if I wait until it's all put together. I was able to cut at .5" lining up along the squares in the 4-patches. Then I stabilized them at 1/4" which is the actual seam allowance. Just let the machine take it in easy and gentle along those bias edges while they are small and not a lot of tension on them. I might leave this as a half inch seam allowance on both sides, more decisions to make when I put on the inner border.

Such beautiful progress photos, everyone! I am only halfway through my main blocks, but they're getting easier and faster to put together. I am also out of the fabric combinations I just didn't love and into the ones I like much better, so piecing the blocks together is a joy instead of a chore. So is giving myself the freedom from making all of my points line up perfectly. I'm still a beginner and flying geese were a new unit for me. I will rip and redo a seam once...but it stays the way it is after that point.

It seems like with every project right close to the end I figure out something that would have made the whole process easier if I had known it from the beginning. This time it is how to get my consistent scant quarter seam without a quarter-inch foot or a bulky fabric guide. Now that I have it, I can sew faster and my machine doesn't catch and distort seams or chew on nearly as many triangle points as it did.

As for quilting? I am tempted to send it to a longarmer so I don't have to look at it anymore, but I really enjoy actually quilting. I am considering echoing the nine-patch grid of these blocks with my walking foot and diagonal straight lines, but I think something curvy would work too. Baptist Fans or freeform spirals....or pebbling! The latter two would mean FMQ though, and I have never FMQ anything bigger than a pot holder :D

Well...the borders are all pieced, the inner border is on, the pinwheels ill go on tomorrow. Then I will need to decide if I want one more border, maybe deep blue, for the eye to rest on the edge. See what it looks like. The binding will be green with a white flange.

I am finishing the second comfort quilt that interrupted my mystery. I have the second one layered and pinned and I'll quilt it tomorrow. Hopefully by Saturday I can get back to the mystery. I am going to play with the border HSTs and see if I can come up with anything I like. Otherwise I will add a single fabric border and binding to match. If I don't go fancy, I'll go very plain. lol

I am loving all the quilts but I think so far Kalamaquilts' is my favorite. Love those repro fabrics. That was a surprise to me for as a rule, I am not drawn to them.
I posted the top of this comfort quilt in Pictures. I am so pleased with how it came out. I drew it up on graph paper and it looks almost exactly like my sketch.

One of the things I’m thinking about for border is that pile of pink and white sashing I won’t be using, stacking them. I’d need a lot more but that is easy Peasy work, I’ll also have a ton of blue and white 1/2 square triangles I can incorporate.i love making quilts!

Working on borders--I'm doing a zigzag rather than sawtooth. Fighting a virus (again), so I'm not moving forward too quickly.

I have all my rows done. Today I hope to sew them all together. Yippee!

I have one more block to put together on the En Provence that pushed my Frolic to the sidelines, then on to borders. I think fear of quilting it is the reason I delayed finishing this top for so long. But the idea is somewhat less daunting since I decided these somber colors look better as a 3x3 block quilt than as a 4x4.

Managed to get a pretty good night's sleep last night, or at least a couple relaxing hours listening to one of the Elm Creek Quilt books on audio before I actually got up. So instead of my coffee break after hours of work, this is my pre-work coffee... Woohoo, today is the day to finish off this top!

First thing is I need to make my inner border which will be of the light Parakeet. I'm going to cut it at 2" wide and will be joining random lengths together on the diagonal until I get the lengths needed. I have the sawtooth sides already made, but I am going to miter the border on instead of butt joint, so I need to put the pointy ends on the border strips. Then I will put on the inner border and cut my angles to give me my proper corner points and away I go.

After I get the first strip done, I'll know how wide it should actually be but I'm planning on leaving in that 1/2" seam on the diagonal blocks.around the bed of the quilt until after I get the border on so would prefer to match it with a 1/2" seam for the border too -- even though I have my stay stitching at the correct 1/4". I'll decide after it's on whether I want to trim it down. If I trim, I might actually go around the seam and stabilize it again near the actual seam line. So we put the two fabrics together and do our seam, I would generally press open but for this I might stitch again between the real seam line and the seam allowance and the press to the side.

Coffee break -- ok, good thing I cut large (don't quite remember if I actually cut 2 or 2.5") because I'm using the full cut when I include my half-inch seam allowance. I have one side on and my inner border is coming out right about 1.5" while others are saying 1" is pretty sweet. I must have been sewing scant the days I did those border units. I am still having to squish in the neutral/sashing areas a bit but the star point setting triangles are behaving nicely.

All the inner borders are pieced, all the pointy ends are on the sawtooths. Don't know if I really like the corners but they are going as they are. So I have the three more sides to connect to inner borders, I can get that done today but good thing I still have tomorrow available and no real deadline because I think those other three sides aren't going on today but maybe I will get motivated/my back will hold out. Right now it is a well deserved break.

And I'm ready for the game on Saturday, we went out last night and got some Dragon team t-shirts, colors are mostly green and orange, have a safety orange knit hat I'll wear and call it good.

Angelia: I hope you get over your virus quickly.

I enjoy reading about the progress on your tops.

Iceblossom: Enjoy that game.

Last 2 seams to go.
I laid it out on the floor last night to show my husband. He looked at it for a long time. Finally said " it's busy" LOL
He loves every quilt I've made but I think this is a first he doesn't :D

I laid some of my finished blocks out on the kitchen table today and added in the sashing pieces to get a feel cor how it will look....and the answer is very very busy. I still like it, just wow.

Finished top

LOL My husband said the same thing. And added it would make him dizzy to look at it for too long.
Origamigoldfish and SusieQOH I love both your finishes. Great jobs so far everyone.

I do think laying it out horizontal rather than diagonal calms it down a little bit.

Let's try this. A bit larger.

My hubby is also in the "very busy" category but he tries to be very diplomatic. "Grats on the finish honey, it took a long time and it's not your style but good for you".

Three of the four sides of borders went on smoothly and easy -- the fourth however was a bit of a beast. I have no problems at all drawing my seam lines when/where I need to (and mitered corners is one of those things) which was very important for me with my half inch seams.

Speaking of things important for me, I decided that I would piece the inner border with random lengths of my new Parakeet and I decided that all the mitered edges had to go the same way. Doesn't matter really except that I decided it did.

So here at last is South Seattle Frolic, completed top version :) The corner shot shows that fun Southwest (very southwest of Seattle) print I'm using for the back.

Thanks all for sharing this journey with me. I appreciate the company and commiserations more than you know. My Tuesday group just laughs at me.

edit: lol in the corner of the full shot is a strange set of items, a big rubber ducky and a dust mop. My son's grandmother gave him an Easter basket one year which was the duck. Now it's our way to shut the door from bed, or since the hubby goes to bed so early he shuts it most of the way to block any light but open enough for the pets to come in and out.