I guess I am on kind of a star kick. I am showing you MORE stars, after all.
Aren’t the colors pretty? I think they go together well.
This is the miniscule amount of English Paper Piecing I was able to do while we were out with the Natives. I was only able to piece in the car and it was just a 4 hour drive each way.
I thought I would have scads of time sitting by the pool to work on this project, but nope. I was too busy smiling, shaking hands with DH’s constituents to bring this project out. I think I will have a goal of getting it done by the time he ends his term as Grand President in 2017. It will be my political project. Perhaps I’ll have enough for a table runner?
I spent the weekend up on the North Coast with my handsome DH. In the car, I like to work on something. The English Paper Piecing project I started in August is perfect and I was able to finish 4 stars. A few of the stars were done during TV watching sessions.
I forgot how much I liked this project.
I organized the half hexagons in the hotel room on Saturday, so they were ready to put together in the car. It worked out great.
Earlier this week I wrote the Quilt To Do List, because I had these little things rattling around in my head nagging. Also, I had nothing else to write about having not sewn and already gone on and on about the Spiderweb. I mean how much can you tolerate about Spiderwebs?
I had kind of a brutal week at work. It wasn’t crazy busy, but everything was hard and the most difficult partners and associates were asking me for the impossible. I really wanted to just be at home today and rest. I might be getting a cold, but I feel like I need to rest.
No, I haven’t accomplished the whole list. The Hurricane Sandy blocks for Vesuvius Mama are done. I had to rummage around for some fabric like she wanted and found some very interesting stuff in the process. More on that later.
I had never made a Disappearing 4 Patch before, though I knew the concept from the Food Quilt‘s Disappearing 9 Patch Design, so I knew the concept. This was a good excuse to try out the Disappearing 4 Patch. I don’t remember if I thought the Disappearing 9 patch was fiddly. I thought the D4P was kind of fiddly. I think I like the D9P a little better, but I am always up for learning a new blocks and I think the D4P has some interesting design possibilities. And I can make blocks until the cows come home. I don’t need to like them much to make them. You’ll have to wait for photos as I forgot to take them!
Letter Journal Cover
I wrote really small all week and made the last few pages of my journal last. I still have about half a page left. I don’t know whether that is an accomplishment or cramping my creativity. Anyway, the first thing I did this morning was start cutting for a journal cover. I decided that I would make two, then I wouldn’t be behind when I ran out of pages next time.
Advertising Journal Cover
I had already ironed fabric that I bought for journal covers, so I cut pieces. The journal cover tutorial is now really right on in terms of size. I have tweaked it a bit lately and the covers went together with little to no problems in terms of size. Also, no frustration either. Nice.
I’ll put up more photos and info later. This post was supposed to be a quick “hi. hello” and it is turning into a dissertation.
I really should have made the binding today, because I could have watched TV and sewed down the back. I just didn’t think of it. Perhaps tomorrow.
I make about one of these stars per night depending on whether I have basted the half hexagons beforehand or not.
Faye did hers with rows of light and dark stars, as I mentioned, but my plan is to use dots on white as the alternate rows. This is a long term project. It is so I have something to do in front of the television when I am out of bindings to stitch down. I don’t know if I will ever finish this quilt, but I might get sick of it and just decide to finish it once I have made thousands of the stars.
I am still kind of working out how large to cut pieces and what pieces to cut. I have decided to leave out blacks and also dark greys, though I do have a medium grey that I will leave in for the time being.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
A few days ago, I gave a little sneak peek at my newest hand project.My quilter is quilting very slowly so I don’t have a lot of bindings to do and it is very hard for me to sit in front of the TV and not have something for my hands to do. There is only so much laundry a person can fold in this world.
I wasn’t really interested in doing anything using the English Paper Piecing technique until I saw my friend Faye’s stars. They look like the above stars, but hers are a bit bigger (I bought the wrong size patterns). When I saw what she was doing, I thought it might be a good project for in front of the TV, in the car, etc.
Like Faye, I bought my patterns from a company called Paper Pieces. They have GREAT customer service and a wonderful catalog that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of EPP.
TFQ is working on a hexagon paper piecing project, so when she was down, she gave me a little tutorial on how to put the pieces together. I was confused until she showed me that you sew straight through the cardstock patterns. Once I knew that everything fell into place. I also have Lisa at BAMQG and Faye via email as resources.
Faye’s Half Hexagon Top
Faye’s piece is getting quite large. Her idea is to use darks and medium-lights in alternating rows. She said the longest row is 15 stars. I am thinking of using dots with light backgrounds as my alternate rows.
I also want to use some of my newer fabric that has not been earmarked for a project.
Yes, I am working on the Flowering Snowball. It is a hand project (as I designed it to be) and I work on it when I watch TV.
I did a lot of cutting a few weeks ago, as I mentioned and the result is that I am putting segments together until there are none left and then putting other segments together until I can start sewing blocks together. At the moment I am working on sewing a foreground piece (the printed, colored fabric), which has been joined with a black on white piece to a different foreground piece that has been attached to a small black square.
So far, I have done three. When I looked at them the word ‘florets’ came to mind. Yes, like broccoli, but not broccoli. Nicer than broccoli-not that there is any thing wrong with broccoli, but fabric is much better. So I am calling these joined segments florets.
One of the things about this method is that I put all the squares together at once. I sew the same segments to each other until all of the blocks are done and then I move to the next segment. When I start finishing the blocks, they will be done quickly.
I have written a lot about the Corner Store pattern from Pretty Little Mini Quilts. This block is very appealing especially since I have been thinking about my scrap pile lately. I bought a large piece of Kona Snow and finally cut into it for the Zig Zaggy quilt and for this Corner Store project. I didn’t cut a multitude of pieces in advance (always a recipe for disaster for me), but I did cut some.
You are probably wondering why in the world I am starting this quilt at the same time I started the Zig Zaggy quilt and am still working on the Blue Janus quilt. Insanity? Perhaps.
The true reason is that the box in which I store the triangles for this project is getting full. Also, I thought I would make a few blocks and see how they looked.
My first step was to ask TFQ for the dimensions. She has the Pretty Little Mini Quilts book at the moment. She emailed me back right away with a 3.5″ size. When I cut a few of the squares I thought that looked terribly small. When I put one triangle on, the block did not look at all like the version I saw in Pretty Little Mini Quilts or on Flickr. I must have misunderstood the size. Again, something that should have been a quick chain piecing and trimming start to a project has turned difficult.
Difficult is a strong word. I have to test different squares sizes to see which one will suit the look I am trying to achieve. I wanted to focus on the Blue Janus quilt, so this was put to the side.
Last Sunday night, I went over and watched a movie with my SIL. We often craft together and this night was no exception. We watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and stitched. I was able to finish the last middle block of the Flowering Snowball/Cross Block project.
Now I need to worry about the border blocks. I haven’t taken the time to make the pattern for those. I will soon.
This is the second to last Flowering Snowball center block. I brought my handwork bag with me to the meeting yesterday and put this together while we worked on the business of the organization. It is something I can do while I listen and participate. I feel productive on my fabric projects, which is a good thing.
I also started work on the last block, but didn’t get very far before the ATC swap started.
This morning I was facing the reality of this project. I get to start the border VERY shortly. I think I opened the project in EQ6 in recent memory, however I don’t remember looking at the templates or doing any work on them. I need to get on that.
The other issue I am facing is squaring up the center blocks. I discussed this here before and think that I will have to trim the blocks after machine sewing around before I trim. Otherwise I think that they may come apart.
The problem is that if I trim them before I make the border, the border won’t fit. Glad I thought of it before I made the border!
The weekend was filled with picnics. Both Saturday and Sunday included hot dogs and potato salad, chats and a bit of sun. It was nice to be outside, but I was pretty tired after all the sociability. Also, I didn’t get to work much on my projects.
Sunday was a beautiful day to be outside. After greeting lots of people, I was able to sit and do some hand stitching. I had some of the block (right) finished, but did most of it at the picnic. The completion of this block means that I have only two blocks left to make for the center of the Flowering Snowball quilt.
I still haven’t designed the border, but put an idea into the Sun Creative Prompt response. I know what I want; I just have to figure out how to make it a reality.
As promised, here is an up to date picture of the Flowering Snowball (Cross Blocks). I found myself short of backgrounds the other day when I had the perfect opportunity to hand stitch.
I laid it out in order to see what background fabrics I should cut. I don’t want to have too many of the same fabrics. I want it to look scrappy.
As you can see I have 3 more blocks for the middle section before I start on the outside. I need to make the pattern pieces for the outside, too. I thought of combining the pieces that will become background, but I may just leave them as individuals, so that I can use a variety of fabrics. The former method means the rest of the project will progress much more quickly. The latter means that I won’t have to figure out a new piecing order.
I sat and watched Wall-E the other night, which provided a good opportunity to spend some time finishing this block. I am only a few away from needing to start the border.
It is one of the blocks influenced by The Child’s comment that the blocks were pretty chaotic. I think the tone-on-tones look good with the prints. I will lay them out and take a photo soon.
