Here is the finished quilt I teased you all with in last week's blog.  I was given about 50 ties to make this quilt with.   I was told that I could do whatever I wanted as long as it was masculine and large enough to fit on a bed top.  I settled on the Windmill patter which is a variation of the pinwheel.  Do you see the signed Cal Ripkin Jr tie in the lower corner hiding behind the aloe plant?  I choose to showcase several of the ties with character or importance.
In order to get it large enough for a bed spread, I went to my silk stash.  This is a bag of silk fabrics I inherited when I was a teenager from a rather famous Taos,NM artist.  So, 20 years later, some gorgeous brown silks from the bag made their way into this quilt as sashing.  The windmills were actually kind of static so I arranged the sashing in step-ladder style to move the eye across the quilt.  
Once it was all quilted with free motion pinwheels and ribbon-cable sashing, it looked better than I had envisioned.  This is pretty rare for me.  I love this quilt!  Now comes the time I hope the client loves what I did too.
It's another windy day here in the mountains.  The boys are out blacksmithing anyway.  They haven't built a shop yet so last time I looked, they had hooked up a steel plate in the vice on several logs to create a wind block for the forge.  Hmmmm, those boys.  I suppose I should make them stew for lunch if I want to be really nice.  At the moment, I should be doing my sales taxes for the year.  I might just enjoy a day off in between quilt projects though.  COOKING AND CLEANING, HERE I COME!
HAVE A QUILTERIFIC AND CRAFTASTIC WEEK!

The Silk Tie Quilt Project

Do you see all these beautiful silk ties? I am

in the process of turning them into something that will resemble the antique quilt also pictured. This project was recently begun for a dear friend of the family. This friend wanted a traditional quilt pattern so I pulled out my copy of Vintage Quilts by Bobbie Aug, Sharon Newman, and Gerald Roy. I found this most exquisite Log Cabin Barn Raising from 1860 made by Florence Mae Hart Diehl. I just fell in love with the color ways she used. In the next few weeks, I will show photos and share the progress. I want to get it done quick because I get to go back to Long's Gardens and play in the dirt and smell iris soon.

It's been quite a week of progress for the quilt and my husband in the quilt world. We started by having to arrange the ties in appropriate color ways. I put Sid to work on that part, because he truly is my color guy. He started putting them in groups all over my long arm. A couple of hours in, I noticed he might not realize what we were trying to achieve. I continued explaining and he kept rearranging the ties. After about four hours, we were ready to kill each other. So we put it away for the day.

Second day of working on it, we begin in same (wrong) direction. I finally gave him all the books on how to piece a log cabin block, the photo above, any math I'd managed and sent him to his room. About a half hour passed and he started coming downstairs every few minutes to ask a very pertinent question or two. Then he'd go back upstairs to study and think. He finally came down and I could actually see the light bulb shining above his head. He actually got it, he figured out what I needed him to do. Ties were flying in all directions as he arranged them in wonderful groups of colors. When he was done, I realized that now it was my turn.

Well, Day 1 was only 6 days ago. I have already completed 28 of the 100 blocks. And I must it is coming out gorgeous! The next time we have the blocks laid out, I'll take photo for you all to see. We could vote on favorite variations of the settings.