Labor Day Sew-in Day 1

There is a Labor Day Sew-in happening on Twitter. If you are on Twitter, you can add the #LDSI hashtag to your sewing tweets and join the fun. If you do not have a Twitter account (or you want to follow ALL the tweets) you can still follow along via Tweetchat at this link: http://tweetchat.com/room/ldsi . I tweet as @Artquiltmaker. Are you surprised? Hope to see you there!

This phenomenon started sometime last year with the quilty podcasters. I think Sandy from Quilting for the Rest of Us was the first, but the others quickly joined in. There was a Black Friday Sew-in (for those who don’t shop, or get their shopping done early), Boxing Day Sew-in, New Year’s Day Sew-in that I can recall. It is a fun way to have some contact with other quiltmakers and still sew in your pajamas.

I stayed home while much of the family went to see Cal play in their new stadium. I want to see the new stadium, but when given a choice between sewing and watching football with 70,000 other people, the choice is clear.

I had the Young Man, of course, and one of the nephews home with me. They are close in age and hang well together. I worked on the laundry and tidying the house. Feeding those boys turned out to be a major undertaking that I didn’t expect, as well. I went through: 2 bowls of potato salad, 5 pieces of cobbler, 2 pot pies, a bowl of goldfish, a bagel, frozen yogurt and smoothies. WHEW!

As mentioned, I am sewing more slowly than usual, but I did make some progress on various projects.

K-man Pillowcase
K-man Pillowcase

First, I finished a pillowcase that the nephew (above nephew) started sewing awhile ago when he was home alone with me. I didn’t think he was going to finish it anytime soon and I kind of wanted it out of my workroom and on his bed.I talked to him and he was fine with me finishing it.

What a pain this thing was to finish! It was much too narrow. I don’t know what I was thinking when I cut it. I had to add pieces to make it marginally wide enough. My nephew is an easygoing child/Young Man, so I think it will be fine.

A-B-C Challenge Blocks - LDSI Day 1 Progress
A-B-C Challenge Blocks – LDSI Day 1 Progress

I started to sash the A-B-C Challenge blocks. They are looking good, IMO. I am really liking the grey.

One of the bonuses that I didn’t expect was that after I sashed a number of the blocks, I was able to see how much better the grey sashing looks as opposed to using white. I may not have considered white, but the design wall is white and having the un-sashed blocks next to the sashed blocks shows a big difference. I also think that the grey is really setting off the vibrant colors of the blocks well. Glad I chose that grey.

Pink & Green Donation Block #1
Pink & Green Donation Block #1

Yes, the new color scheme is Pink and Green! I like the black on white, but needed a bit of a change. I don’t use green much and after trying out the yellow, I thought green might be a good challenge. someone said that it looked like 1980s Papagallo. I have a vague memory of that store (??) or shoes (??). Not sure, but the comment made me smile.

What do you think? Is using a color as a ‘neutral’/background successful? You can reserve judgement until the quilt top is done, if you like. I do think it looks cheerful.

Pink & Green Donation Block #2
Pink & Green Donation Block #2

All of this means that I finished sewing together all the groups of 2 2.5″ patches I need for the next donation quilt, so I pressed and resorted them into groups of 8 and started making blocks. I made a total of 3 blocks yesterday and may be able to finish the rest of the blocks today. I don’t know. We will see.

Mrs. K can see some of the pink fabrics she sent me in these blocks. There are also a lot of pinks and greens from my fabric closet as well. It was kind of fun to pick greens, though looking at these blocks I wish I had stayed with one slice of the color wheel rather than going more scrappy. This is one reason I like these donation quilts. I can try out different combinations, not only of color, but tones of color to see how they work together. I might have another one of this color scheme in me. We will see. I still have a lot of pink squares cut.

Pink & Green Donation Block #3
Pink & Green Donation Block #3

As previously mentioned, I make these donation quilts as a leaders and enders project. My main project at the moment is sashing the A-B-C Challenge blocks. This means that I don’t know how long the donation quilt will take. I have a vague goal in my head of finishing the top and bringing it to the BAMQG meeting next week, but I already have the Pink Donation top to bring, so I don’t feel obligated. Still, it would be nice.

EPP Star
EPP Star

My final accomplishment of the evening was to unsew and then re-sew a half hexagon star while I watched football with the family. More info, generally, can be found in the previous post about this project.

The footballers (first game in the new Cal stadium) called on their way home from the game and asked me to bring the boys over to SIL and BIL’s house to watch the Michigan game. We are new fans as a niece attends that school. I agreed to pick up Chinese food on the way. I packed up the boys and my hand work project and headed over at the appointed time. The lighting wasn’t that good, thus the poor photo. I’ll get a better one when I take a photo of a group of stars.

None of these projects are really new or exciting for you, perhaps, but I am fond of them.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

8 thoughts on “Labor Day Sew-in Day 1”

  1. My, you had a productive day! I think the extent of my #LDSI will be Monday as I’m a bit sleep-deprived at the moment (nice wedding, but late night last night!), but plan on getting all my jobs out of the way today so I can have a nice long sewing day tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have some of my own pics to post!

  2. I am not sure I would have guessed that you were doing pink and green if you hadn’t said so. The color/black and white checkerboards you were doing is that the values always made it look like checkerboards, but in these, the values are mixed.

    1. Good point. I tried to use the light pinks only, rather than including some of the darker batiks. I should have chosen the values more carefully. Good to learn something, though.

  3. I love the pink and green… especially the apple green.

    In 1976, I used those colors for the baby’s room (you, know… the olden days when you didn’t know if it was a boy or girl).

    bright and cheerful

  4. Your Pappagallo comment made me think of “The Official Preppy Handbook” that I had in the 6th grade. There was a Pappagallo store in the mall near by where I grew up and although I never remember going in, it made me think of preppy clothes. Silly eh?
    All of your projects are interesting and worth reading about – happy for you that you were so productive all three days.

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