Month: April 2020

Frolic! Together (Finally!)

Frolic! center's last seam
Frolic! center’s last seam

Today would be Tax Day, but it isn’t and I am pretty sure I don’t need to go into why.

This is the last seam. I had to take a photo, because I feel like this top has been such an effort.

Frolic! Center Together
Frolic! Center Together

Yes, the top is together.

Finally! Seriously, I feel like this center took for-freaking-ever!

As I said last week, I have a long way to go before I can get it to Colleen, but this is major progress. I feel like I have accomplished something.

My friend Cyndi retired (even though she is about 35!) just before the shelter-in-place order and she is going to town on her UFOs. She is the rockstar who finished her UCAB already.

Frolic! Secondary Block
Frolic! Secondary Block

I think I might need to do something with the secondary blocks/setting blocks. They really look good sewn together. The bad part is that the block is made up of the edges of the main blocks. I could include the pieces on the edges of another block. I just have to figure out how to do it.

I liked this top before I started sewing it together, but I like it so much more now. Despite my whining, I think it looks great. I am constantly amazed how sewing the blocks together can change the look.

Someone asked me why I just don’t put it away and work on something else. Yes, I have been *almost* miserable working on this at times, but I want to keep my habit of not putting a quilt away. I don’t want to build up my UFO pile again after working so hard to get it down to a manageable size. It would be easy to put it away, but I don’t think it would feel good and I am sooooo looking forward to add the yardage to my “Fabric Used” spreadsheet!

New Spiky 16 Patch Blocks

New Blue Spiky 16 Patch #1
New Blue Spiky 16 Patch #1

While sewing the Frolic! top together I used the New Blue Spiky 16 patch blocks as leaders and enders. I felt like I had quite a bit of Frolic! to sew together, but I only ended up with two Spiky 16 Patch blocks. I guess the Frolic! top work seemed like more than it actually was because I feel like I have been working on it forever.

I haven’t, of course, but it feels like it.

New Blue Spiky 16 Patch #2
New Blue Spiky 16 Patch #2

In any case, these Spiky 16 patch blocks are coming along well. They are the same, or similar to Spiky 16 Patch #1 and #2. I’ll probably do the same kind of setting as Flame just to get this top finished. I’d like to try something else with the HRTs.

Sewing Together a Quilt is Not Pretty

Sewing Frolic! Center Together
Sewing Frolic! Center Together

I am finally sewing the Frolic! quilt top center together! Yay! I say and I am sure you say, because we have both, probably, had enough.

It isn’t really pretty, though, as I sewed sashing to the blocks in an attempt to chunk the blocks and that worked against me in the final stages. I have had to do some partial seams. Some blocks ended up with sashing on them and others didn’t.

C’est la vie. I see the end.

New Blue Spiky 16 Patch

New Blue Spiky 16 Patch in progress
New Blue Spiky 16 Patch in progress

As soon as Flame was off the design wall, I dug out some HRTs I had made last year (?) when I made the other Spiky 16 Patch tops.

I am thinking about making a donation quilt with just the HRTs, but don’t think I will do that yet. I think I want to just make another Spiky 16 Patch quilt. I think I want to make the HRT version (no 16 patch) with a variety of different colors – not monochrome or warm/cool.

Finished: Flame Donation Top/Back

Flame Donation top - April 2020
Flame Donation top – April 2020

I decided to call this donation quilt ‘Flame’ to make things more interesting. I guess we all need a little ‘nice’ interesting right now rather than alarming interesting. Enough of that going around.

I am feeling kind of bad that I am still working on donation tops rather than making masks. I think I will need to make some soon, at least for my son. I wonder how many are being made at the moment?

Flame Donation back - April 2020
Flame Donation back – April 2020

I used a pretty large piece of Jay McCarroll fabric for the back. I had to add a strip to it to make it large enough, but it will be fine. I still worry about labels. I think I might use stitch lettering to put my name and the year on the back and note that it is from BAMQG. I sort of want people to know I existed down the line. Of course, who knows if the quilt will exist for very long?

Flame Donation top - April 2020 (annotated)
Flame Donation top – April 2020 (annotated)

There is one thing that is interesting that is going on with this top. If I pay careful attention to the placement of colors, the piece looks woven.

I didn’t plan this, but it has design potential. The overall design might work better with more variety in the colors, so a viewer could tell where the colors were weaving. I suspect that too many colors wouldn’t work.

Creativity. Not Sewing

Lemon Tumeric Tea Cake
Lemon Tumeric Tea Cake

Some food items are hard to get. This is has made me more aware of what is in my fridge and not letting it go to waste. I had some lemons in my fridge and decided to make Lemon Tumeric Tea Cake**. I had been thinking about it for awhile and on Sunday, I finally did it.

I last made this at Christmas for my work colleagues. The batch was really small and I didn’t get a loaf to try. My boss has been asking about it, so I decided to make some for my work colleagues again. This time I doubled the batch and added a bit more tumeric, so I got to try it. It is delicious and I am thrilled. I also had enough to make a loaf for my mom. The three loaves we are not keeping are going in the mail this week.

 

 

**N.B.: If you don’t have a subscription to the NYT, check your local public library or your library at work.

Long Way Before I Sleep

Frolic! -all blocks sewn
Frolic! -all blocks sewn

As I said the other day, I made good progress over the weekend. I have made better progress-

< this is one of the good things about shelter-in-place: sewing at lunch time >

Since then I finished all the blocks, half blocks, quarter blocks: ALL. Hooray. Now I just have to sew the thing together.

This doesn’t mean the piece will be finished. There are still at least two borders, the back and the binding. Perhaps by the time shelter-in-place is over, I will have it done.

Weekend Donation Blocks

While I was sewing Frolic! over the weekend, I made a bunch of donation blocks as leaders and enders. I am getting quite a collection to turn in when I finally get to back to guild.

I counted all the donation blocks I have made in 2020 and the total came out to about 76. Not bad. Not 30 per month, but not bad.

Frolic! Real Progress

The weekend was tough. The sense of unreality I am home all.the.time was very strong. I couldn’t really wrap my head around it even though we have been living it. I took the car out for a spin and felt like I had forgotten the finer points of driving. It is hard to explain. The only thing I can do is not to think about the unreality and list off the good things I have.

Frolic! -early April 2020
Frolic! -early April 2020

Be that as it may, sewing must go on. I am focused on Frolic! I want that quilt off my design wall. I want to work on other projects. For once, I don’t feel like my weekend sewing was futile. I feel like I made real progress.

One thing I did to get to this place was sew a big chunk together (upper left hand side). Once that was done, I repositioned all the other blocks so that they would be in the approximate place they would end up when the quilt was finished. This small act allowed me to see what else I needed to sew. As you can see, All I need to sew is 4 more half blocks. Halleluijah! I can really see that the end is near.

You might wonder why I don’t just toss it on the UFO pile and move on to something else. That is devil talk! I don’t want my UFO pile to grown any higher than it is already. This thing will be ready to go to Colleen when shelter-in-place is over. With any luck, it will go with three friends.

Various & Sundry 2020 #5

I deleted my Cafe Press store. I really appreciate all of you who bought things over the years, but after the second security breach and so few sales, I decided to let it go. I might open up another store in another app, but for now, I am going to use my time for other things.

Media

I had to include a New York Times blurb about polka dots, which you know I love. N.B.:  If you don’t have a subscription to the NYT, check your local public library or your library at work.

If you need something to calm your spirit, check out Johanna Basford’s site. she has some free coloring page downloads to keep up all of our spirits. Print them out on good paper.

Brief history of Kansas quiltmakers.

Other Artists

I love to hear other people’s stories, especially positive ones. Belinda Dill went on vacation with her sewing machine and ended up in quarantine where she cheerfully worked on a quilt!

Valerie has a lot of quilts available in her Etsy shop if you don’t feel like making one.

Tools, Fabric, Supplies and Notions

Pink Door has some great bag hardware.

Stitch, the cool modern quilt store in Ferndale, is there for you in your time of quiltmaking need. They have a Build a Box program. It works like this (from the email I received) “We will be in the shop on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm. 

  • Call us on (707) 786-5007 to place your order.
  • Call us with your shopping list, we will fill a box with your purchases.
  • Everything is 20% off, excluding BOM.
  • You can add to your box all week!
  • You can also contact us through Social Media –  Facebook or Instagram
  • We will mail your box directly to your home”

Projects, Patterns & Tutorials

Doctors and hospitals are looking for people to make masks. Our guild president created a visual tutorial.

You’ll be behind, but you can always catch up. Edyta Sitar is hosting a Quarantine Mystery Quilt Quilt-a-Long. The blocks aren’t difficult, so you should be able to catch up in a few days. Gretchen is working on it and her blocks look really good.

Charlotte has a tutorial up for dyeing hanks of Perle cotton. I didn’t know you could buy a big spool of white! Of course, I never thought about it either.

Finished: Cool Windmill

Cool Windmill Finished
Cool Windmill Finished

I was reminded when I wrote the 26 Projects post yesterday that I forgot to post the finished Cool Windmill quilt.

Right now it’s kind of all Frolic! all the time so I am happy I didn’t post this earlier so you guys get a break from Frolic!.

This will head off to a friend’s house once Shelter-in-Place is over, though if I have to go out, I might drop it off and do a sort of ding-dong-ditch. I would tell her and possible stand off the porch and ‘yell’ at her when she opens the door. We’ll see how long I want it hanging around. We have another month of Shelter-in-Place.

Cool Windmill back (finished)
Cool Windmill back (finished)

The back is ok. I don’t know why I chose so much green, perhaps to get rid of it.

DH was kind enough to hold the quilt up for me so I could photograph it. Click on the photos to enlarge them as they look better.

Mom has requested one of these, but in warm colors. That will be a good way to get rid of some of the patches and it was a fun and easy quilt to make. I look forward to that.

26 Projects 2020 #3

Finished 2020 Quilt Projects

Finished 2020 Non-Quilt Projects

This category covers bags, toys, aprons and knitting as well as other non-quilt projects.

Doing Good

In Process
The ‘In Process’ is used to denote projects on which I am actively working or are on the design wall waiting for me to stitch. I try not to put away projects, because that will ensure I never work on them.

  • English Paper Piecing Project– half hexies – I have been making slow, but steady progress. I am adding another dots on white row to the piece to make it larger. I am getting a little sick of it and thinking that I will just accept the size, square it up and finish it.
  • Frolic! – I am making progress. I have most of the whole blocks done. I have made some half and quarter blocks as well.
  • Serendipity Lady – I am still planning to take this piece to be framed.
  • Lobster – I finished the stitching. I plan to back it and overlock or satin stitch the edges. Even though I don’t need anymore cushions, I may turn this into a cushion.

Small Projects in Process

Most of my progress involves thinking or just cutting.

  • Retreat Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started
  • Running with Scissors tote gift
  • Ultimate Project Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started
  • Officer gifts for January 2021 – have the pattern and the supplies. Need to start so these are ready and I am not scrambling at the last minute

Ready for Quilting

Nothing now

In the Quilting Process

In the Finishing Process

nothing now

Still WIPs
I still have WIPs. Who doesn’t, after all? A project in the ‘UFO’ category means I am stalled. A nicer way of saying UFO is a WIP. The list is a lot shorter and the projects are newer, for the most part.

  1. FOTY 2018 – this has to be on the list now as I have cut a ton of squares and need to arrange and sew it together. This is next on my quilt list. I cut a bunch of black 2.5? squares so now I can get started.
  2. FOTY 2019 – this is now on the list since 2019 is over and I have the squares.
  3. Handbag Sampler – this is still the forgotten project. It should be on the UFO list. Too bad I don’t have one. The blocks were teaching samples when I taught a sampler class the time before I started writing the quilt class sampler tutorials. I found one block recently, but otherwise I actually don’t know exactly where the blocks are hiding. I have an idea and still have to crawl up in the far reaches of my fabric closet soon and see if I can find them. I haven’t even found a picture of all the blocks. Sad.
  4. Pies and Points from 2016 Victoria Findlay Wolfe class. The last time I worked on it was when Julie and I had a playdate in April 2018. I brought this piece with me so I could cut more elements (Julie has a Sizzix). I lost my excitement about this piece shortly thereafter and still have to get it back. Thus, I had to move this to the WIPs area.
  5. Pointillist Palette #4: Fourth is a series of 6 quilts; needs tiny square patches sewn together. No progress.
  6. Self Portrait: started in 2006 at a class at Quilting Adventures in Richmond, Virginia. I am still stalled on this again. As one of my oldest (I am pretty sure) UFO, I put it on my blog and out into the Twitterverse and Diane suggested that I not consider this as a self portrait. I think that strategy is a great idea. I am now trying to think of a new persona for her.
  7. Black and Red quilt – This project is creeping into my mind, so it might be up for work soon. The project originally came about because of two other projects. I made a whole bunch of bias tape as part of my failed attempt at doing the Mighty Lucky Club a few years ago. Another part of the inspiration came from my class with Tina of Little Blue Cottage fame. This was going to be for a nephew, but I think it will be for one of my SILs and BILs. I have rectangles cut and some bias tape ready. My next step is to sew the bias tape to the rectangles like pickup sticks. I don’t have any photos of this, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
  8. Who Am I? – This piece is off my design. I have lost momentum, but I think that just has to do with the amount of satin stitching I am facing.

Some People Can’t Count

No joke. I really can’t count.

The other day I crowed about finally finishing all the whole blocks for Frolic! I was really thrilled. I made progress!!!

🙁

Frolic! Back on Point
Frolic! Back on Point

I didn’t actually finish all the blocks. I just counted wrong. I thought I had made 5 rows of 5, but in the photo, you can clearly see 4 rows of 5.

I didn’t figure it out until I was working on the corner and put the blocks on point. In trying to place them correctly, I realized I was short.

WTH?

I counted, recounted, looked for missing blocks and finally at the photos. I realized what I had done and that I was just so anxious to finish that I had counted wrong.

This was supposed to be fun, not a long and difficult process. I don’t mind difficult quilts with a lot of pieces, but I am still not quite recovered from Flying Away.

Now I have to decide whether to work with the blocks I have or make another 5 blocks. Those whole blocks have 65 pieces each. While I have some already made, I don’t have all made. 5 more blocks is not that many, but still.

Sigh.