Long weekend -- great time to get in some quilting

We had some snow here in the triad last week on Thursday but this gal had to go to work on Friday so I didn't get a 4 day weekend but 3 days off is almost as good. I spent Thursday evening attending week 2 of my paper piecing quilt class and got all my petal blocks put together. Friday evening was spent trimming the blocks up

and starting to think more about the design look I want. No offence ot the authors of the book or Ms. Elen Lee but I don't buy the perspective that this quilt takes and want something different. (sorry this picture is sideways).

I went on pinterest to help with inspiration -- these blocks remind me of a clematis plant that my mother had  when I was growing up so that is where I started. ( https://pinterest.com/katieyoakum/quilting/ here's a link to me in case you want to check out things that could show up later on here)  Most of the pictures online are single color clematis but my mother's plan was both pink and purple on the same vine due to a genetic cross breeding. I will be doing something similar to one of these two pictures.

I am leaning toward the purple picture where my latice would be black and the background a textured white but that arch on the white latice does call to me and the wooden background. I plan on using some of my time today to start laying this out on my design wall and mating up the petal pieces, and this will help with determinig the colors that I choose.

Saturday I did some cleaning in the craft room to get things better organized because I always find this to be motivating for getting more projects completed because I am not distracted by the clutter in my space, and getting things together in preparation for the sewing time with the guild on Sunday. I decided that this sewing time would be best spent working on one of the charity projects that I mentioned in my last blog about joining the guild. I a also preparing for the opportunity to be a part of a blog hop that is coming up in early February called Hugs and Kisses showcasing pink and red quilted items. (if I can ever get the icon thingy to post on my blog -- I keep getting an error message when I go to add it and I know I'm following the directions to get it added.

I started again on Pinterest for inspiration and found this lovely quilt for a starting point, and brought in some of the blocks that I got from the guild to tie several of my goals for the year together. Sunday afternoon I went to the Sewing time -- that I keep calling a crop on accident, from my years of scrapbooking but I don't like the term bee for some reason because that in my mind refers to my grandmother's time when the women got together to share the work of hand quilting. I vote that we as modern quilters need a new name for quilting get togethers -- if there is one I don't know about it and need to be brought into the loop. So I'm guessing if you have read this far you might be waiting for the progress that I made at the sew yesterday and here she is.....coming in at 36x45 inches.

Isn't she lovely. I know who ever receives this one is going to love it because I sure do. The backing and border will be the medium pink that is just above the white square in the lower right hand corner, adding an extra pop to the overall design.  

I'm thinking of making a shop hop in Winston today and I will let you all know soon my treasures that I find. Happy quilting and as always thanks for reading.