I finished Month 10! Yay and boo!
Yay because I finished Month 10!!!
Boo because I finished Month 10 and Month 11 isn’t here yet.
La Pass Month 10 Finished
Amy’s Rainbow
Remember when I talked about Sew Day? I mentioned a future donation quilt (no progress yet). I talked about some Sew Day Improv I worked on with Tim and Mary to create a quilt that would keep someone warm and comfy. I also talked about basting La Pass Month 10. What I didn’t talk about -yet- was Amy’s amazing rainbow quilt.
The first thing I saw was the line of strip stacks laid out on two long tables.
As the day progressed, I began to see the piece take shape. Amy struggled with not having a complete set of colors/shades/tones to make a smooth transition between colors. She was determined to make it work. I could sympathize after working with the various Fabric of the Year quilts. Unlike painting, generally we work with certain fabric prints and can’t alter them (yes, I know there is fabric painting and dyeing, but you know what I mean) like painters can on the fly.
The piece progressed well, I think. There was a lot of moving around of strips and a lot of people got involved.
Amy wasn’t super picky that everything flowed into one another. I think the rest of us were more invested in the outcome than she was.
Amy is cleaning out her workroom and I think this was a set of Allison Glass strips she wanted to use. I didn’t hear what her plans were for the final piece.
I did not get a picture of the final piece. This is close, though, to the final layout.
Maria helped Amy sew, so the piece could get finished by the end of Sew Day.
The piece is cheerful, regardless.
Orange You Glad in Process
I have finished cutting out the circles and am now starting to pair the circles with the backgrounds. I hope to sew these this week in the evenings.
I didn’t really sit down and cut all of the circles at one time. Each time I had a break or a few minutes free I would cut 1 or 2. I finally completed the task a few minutes at a time over a few days.
The pressed cross is so I can line up the circles in the middle of the background. I prefer to line the circles up exactly even though this is a bit of an improv process.
Now I am not sure if I want to press the creased out then sew or just leave them in. I’ll have to press creases in again later, but I don’t want the creases to interfere with the sewing. I want the circles to be flat along the background.
I have sorted the ‘ready to sew’ backgrounds by the color of the circles. This is a selection of the blues. I want to match the thread color to the circle so it doesn’t show up much.
Life Less Tiring
I should be less tired, but I’m not. DH was out of town, which should be a good time for me to rest, but I did an extraordinary amount of driving to be with him to attend some events.
Work has been stressful. I am working on getting a new contract, which will be in a different department. This means that I have to prepare my work to hand over to the next person. I know you are thinking “really? again?”. It is the nature of contract work. I am constantly having to get my contracts renewed or find new ones. It isn’t ideal, but I have a lot of flexibility, which I like.
Still it is all tiring and people in the department are whispering about my contract ending, which is just annoying. I am looking forward to some time off.
I haven’t done much sewing except for my work on La Passacaglia. I have had an hour here and there to do some hand stitching. I love that project. I think I will go work on it now.
See you later!
Orange You Glad Circles
The other day I talked about completing my squares for Orange You Glad. Now I am on to cutting.
Mostly I grabbed handy fabrics and cut squares out of them, then folded and pressed them. I didn’t spend a ton of time deciding on whether a certain fabric would fit in with the orange. I did eliminate fabrics as I was choosing, if they were too close to orange and wouldn’t show up or were obviously not suited to the project. I also eliminated all browns, blacks, predominantly white fabrics and fabrics with too much white in them.
I used templates I made when I cut circles for one of the previous versions of the quilts, Seeing Red, I think, but maybe Passionate Purple.
The paper template is a circle I made the right size by using a compass or a plate. I don’t remember as I had to use both for different sizes of circles we agreed upon for this project. The circle template is folded into quarters.
The scissors have to be sharp. I want a smooth cut the first time. I hold the paper in place with my left thumb and fingers, but you can also use WonderClips or pin the template in place.
Friend Julie has some great photos of making the templates, using the templates and holding them in place in her blog post today.
La Pass Month 10 in Process
I am speeding along in sewing the Month 10 rosette together. I will probably have to find another project on which work for the rest of the month. I am making good progress.
I changed out a number of fabrics this month. I added the coneflowers. I wanted a little space for the roses to shine. I wasn’t sure if the coneflower fabric would provide space, but I think it does. It also continues a mini theme from Month 2 (Rosette #1).I have a couple of other coneflower fabrics in different colors and hope to be able to add them in as well. I’d like to add at least one more coneflower fabric to balance out the two I already have.
I also used a Carrie Bloomston fabric for the center, replacing the Curiouser and Curiouser cat fabric. The rainbows don’t show up as well, but I still prefer the newsprint fabric to the cat fabric.
All the Bullseyes
I have a spot in my gallery for the Bullseyes, but it is unsatisfactory and I need to rewrite the page. This needed, yet still undone, update spurred me on to show all of the bullseye quilts here.
I realized in looking at them that they are another color project like the Fabric of the Year quilts.
Original Bullseye: The black background provided a way for the other colors to shine out from the black.I like having each circle separate. I remember thinking how clever I was to include partial circles as well.
Seeing Red: The red background is bright and cheerful and I do like the way the loops are continuous.
Feelin’ Blue: we decided that trying different shapes would be a good idea. I had to add background pieces to prevent jagged edges or partial squares. While I like this quilt, I prefer the circular versions.
Passionate Purple: this one might be my favorite, though all of the different quilts bring something special. I like the way the loops are finite and that they are different sizes. I hesitate to duplicate the idea for the recent orange version, but I am sorely tempted.
I really want to make quilts in this style from all the colors with my friends. I don’t want to do them by myself. The element of surprise when others add the rounds is part of the fun.
Sheffield in the Wild
I made a Sheffield Tote for Gerre as a gift in 2020. I make gifts because I want people to know I am thinking about them. I do know that what I think is great may not be great for someone else, but I don’t have hard feelings when someone doesn’t use a gift I made for them.
Alternatively, I am super thrilled when I see a gift being used. This ‘t the first time I have seen Gerre bring it. She says she uses it all the time. Whenever we sit near each other I see it packed with supplies. It makes me so happy that it is a useful tote.
Orange You Glad – First Round
Or maybe this is the second round?
I received Julie’s orange squares last week and have been diligently cutting the fabrics that I will applique’ to the top. I had many of them cut, but not all.
The background squares are 10″ and, during this round, we are supposed to applique’ an 8 inch circle to the top. I do this by first cutting 8.5 inch squares, then cutting a circle from the square.
I am using mostly cool colored fabrics, as you can see. I selected these from the stacks in my fabric closet, but may switch some out if I don’t like the way they look.
Looking at the fabrics I chose alongside Julie’s backgrounds has got my mind working on which to pair. I feel excited!
Friend Julie and Adrienne are, presumably, doing the same to my squares and Adrienne’s squares.
We have a month to applique’ the circles to the backgrounds. This is a fun project.
Foxglove Inspiration
I had just read Friend Julie’s Late Spring Flower Friday post when I went off to a work event and saw this bed of foxgloves.
The nice, but odd thing is that this is right next to a parking garage. I didn’t really have to crop the photo much to keep the concrete out of the photo. This bed was quite large and even included a few small trees. It was really nice to see some nature near a shopping mall.
Future Donation Quilt
This is another piece donated by my Mom.
In the course of looking at the other pieces, we decided that we (meaning me) would put a border on this one and call it done. The pieced rows that are not joined to the larger piece will not be used for this quilt. There is something wonky about the piecing and we will repurpose them in the yellow and blue piece I talked about yesterday.
The hardest part will be deciding which fabric I should use for the border.
Sew Day Improv
At the last Sew Day Mary and I decided we would make another donation quilt in an hour. Neither of us brought a sewing machine, so we just played around with some blocks and shards that Mom donated.
Mom is clearing out stuff she doesn’t want and quilt projects she won’t finished.
These are not really my style and they are all odd sizes, but we can make them fit together in some way.
We started out by just putting them on the design wall and looking at them. Tim stopped by Sew Day and helped us play around with them. Three brains are definitely better than one.
We got rid of one block that was the same pattern, but just much busier than the others (bottom center block). It didn’t really go. The butterfly was not sewn by my Mom and that one was out, too. I really wanted to put all the blocks in so there were none left, but that isn’t always possible.
We tried spreading out the blocks and imagining other fabrics or blocks in between.
I think it is harder to imagine what could between blocks when you don’t have any extra fabric with which to work. When we did the Improve charity tops, Maria and Cyndi both brought big bins of solids we could use.
Still, we thought we had a good selection of blocks and some possibilities.
We automatically put the largest block in the center, but started talking about not having it in the center. What could we do if we put it somewhere else in the top?
Moving the largest block down and the Ying/Yang blocks (those with the crazy circle fabric prominently placed) to the center made the piece a weird shape, but we liked the location of the blocks better. We will probably cut off the yellow square on the bottom and use the yellow in some other location. We finally started to feel like we were getting somewhere.
Part of the issue is that none of use these types of fabrics. My Mom has a unique fabric selection style that people love and is hard to imitate.
We finally ended up adding some of the leftover purple and lilac squares from the Celestial Squares quilt to bring out the purples in the batik. Those fabrics are unconventional choices, but I think they work.
We have plans to sew it together next time, but we will see.
Happy Box Contents
I have received three of the Sew Hungry Hippie Happy Boxes. You saw the Rainbow Pincushion I made from the first box. I really enjoy these boxes, partially because they are not 100% sewing supplies and partially because they are fun.
There is always a theme. This month’s theme is ‘Radical 80s’. Did people say ‘radical‘ in the 80s? I seem to recall they did. This month has some fun smelly erasers, which I remember my sister having in the 1980s.
The box also contains a boom box project. Boom boxes were big in the 80s. The nice thing about the projects in these Happy Boxes is that everything is there: fabric, interfacing, pattern, hardware, everything. You don’t have to think; you just have to sew. The project has some of the Ruby Star Society novelty prints with roller skates and boom boxes.
There is candy, too. From the other boxes, I noticed that it was candy with which I was not familiar, but always fun. This time it is Hubba Bubba chewing gum. I am not really a gum chewer, but Hubba Bubba and Bubblicious are the most fun gums to chew, because a person can blow HUGE bubbles.
The box also always includes a good card with a profound saying.
I won’t get these forever, but for now it is fun. I am two projects behind now that I have gotten the latest box, so I need to get sewing.
I noticed on Saturday that there were two left, so check out the Happy Box subscription and consider getting one of your own. There is also a Happy Box Mixer, which gives you the opportunity to get a box one time and see what is inside. No affiliation!
La Pass Month 10 Basted
I spent Sew Day on Saturday cutting and basting my La Pass Month 10 pieces. There are under 100 pieces, fortunately, and they are now basted and ready for stitching. I am relieved as I thought I might not have enough time to baste all the pieces.
First, I had to decide on a new center fabric. I am not using the Curiouser and Curiouser cats. They are too scary looking. Tula might like them, but I don’t.
The Carrie Bloomston text fabric is the one I chose for the diamond pieces in the center. It is not the same gold color as the cats, but will work just fine.
I actually changed quite a few fabrics in this month. I hope it works with the rest of the quilt.
Mother’s Day Gift
The Take a Stand** bag (which for some reason I keep wanting to call the “Without a Trace” bag) bag is done and I am on my way to give it to my Mom for Mother’s Day.
This is the first time I have made this bag and it has the usual things that annoy me about a ByAnnie pattern: quilting all the pieces and lots of binding. It is also a great size and shape. It might be a good replacement for my Travel / Go-to-Sew-Day Bag. Or at least a partial replacement.
Yes, I used the Tula Pink webbing for the shoulder strap. It isn’t the perfect color, but works ok and Mom can unhook it and use it for other things. Using webbing means that I don’t have to make straps. I seem to remember making straps with webbing as the inside a la ByAnnie, but I can’t remember (or find) what project they were used on. It wasn’t a completely smooth process, but the strap went together pretty quickly and I am happy with them.
I adore the rainbow hardware!
I am pretty proud of the inside/lining. It is hard to see in the photo, but easier if you make the photo larger. I used a text print with color wheel type paint blobs on it. It is perfect for my mom and came out really well in terms of placement in the bag.
I have two more in the works, meaning that I have two more cut and quilted (such a chore), so you’ll see at least one of those soon. I decided that I want to make the larger size as well, but will have to cut and quilt that one before I can decide if it will be a good replacement for my Travel / Go-to-Sew-Day Bag.
I hope Mom likes this bag. She is getting quite the collection.
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