Graceful Garden Side Hangs

Both of the side hangs, or 'drop', are together and attached.  Here it is on my king-sized bed, which doesn't look quite right, since a king is 16" wider than a queen.  I will sew the hang for the foot tomorrow, and then there will only be two or three borders to attach, and it will be done.

I've laid it on the bed so that the right hang is properly positioned.  That put the left hang right atop the mattress.

Blocks and Three-Strip Border

The quilt is now big enough to cover the top of a queen-sized mattress, with the three-strip border starting the hang at the sides and the foot.  It's on a king-sized bed in these photos.

Kaleidoscopes

The 'bucket skill' of the month on the online Cyber Quilters groups is kaleidoscopes or 'stack 'n' whack'.  I decided to join in, and make a block or two to for another pillow to coordinate with The Graceful Garden quilt.

The 'spinning blades' are cut; and now I will cut the background.  Which way do you like it best – against a dark background (yes, I will 'kaleidoscope' it -- right now, the blades are just lying

on the uncut black/gold fabric), or with the lighter color?

Those blades were cut from the same part of the printed design of the fabric.  I cut 8 squares, then cut the squares in half diagonally and used one side for one kaleidoscope, and the other side for the other kaleidoscope.  Funny, how different they look!

Okay, the jury is in -- but this is not a democracy, and I may or may not have gone with the popular vote.  ;-)  (It was close... very close.)  Here are the blocks, ready to be put on pillows.

Border for Quilt Center

I laid out enough quilt blocks to add to the center of the quilt to make it the right size for a queen-sized mattress, and it looked like a muddle to me.  It needed an interior border that was dark enough to separate center from outer blocks -- but I was nearly out of dark brown.  I decided to make the border of the mottled dark brown and the printed dark brown in one-inch squares, as the vertical sashing at the top is made.  So the border is made of nearly 400 one-inch squares.

Looks better now.  I'm ready to start joining together the loose blocks around the center, using a variety of sashing.  There will be another border before the blocks for the hang are added.  The hang needs to be fairly wide, as the bed is tall.