While I haven’t spent a lot of time at the machine, I seem to have made quite a large amount of progress. I would say that the Field Day top is almost done. I screamed through some piecing last Sunday (not the Sunday that just passed) and was shocked to see how much I had gotten done.
I have a couple of things to decide about this top:
Do I sew top and bottom borders of the Sangria on this piece?
Should I get some of the Goldenrod and put a thin border around the outside and then another border of Sangria?
The other problem is the last row. It was doubled up on top of row 7 and I don’t know if was intended to be row 8 or half of row 7? If it was to be half of row 7, then I added more coins where now it is much, much too long for a row. I may cut it in half to make row 7 long enough or add more to it and make the quilt wider.
If I make the piece wider, it is going to be a weird shape and I don’t know if I want to inflict that on someone.
I haven’t posted about this Stepping Stones project since February, mostly because I haven’t really worked on it until recently. And ‘worked’ is a generous description of my efforts. I have been pushing red and turquoise through the machine as leaders and enders in between Field Day and the Food quilt.
Voila!
Stepping Stones June 2015
More blocks.
Progress. And so it goes.
I plan to be a little more precise as I make the blocks so I don’t end up with a weird shaped quilt. Sometime I’ll drag the already completed blocks downstairs and lay them out on the bed so see where I am. I haven’t done that yet, though. 8 blocks does not a quilt make, but they are large blocks and we have a small bed, so I don’t imagine I will have very many more center blocks to make.
I made these two top blocks as leaders and enders when I was working on the borders of the Food Quilt #2. The bottom one is, as you can clearly see, still in progress. I do take my time picking out the fabrics to include.
I don’t remember exactly when it was, last Friday, I think, but I had a brief window of time before I had to go do something else for someone. The grief at the implications of my BIL’s loss were starting to creep into my brain in the quiet and threatening to overwhelm me.
4 ‘A’ Blocks
I turned to the Improv pieces I had worked on at the workshop. They were sewn together as you see (left photo), but I wasn’t happy with them, so I unstitched them and began to rework them.
Tina’s idea (from Little Blue Cottage) is that there should be a lot of negative space in the center. Because I like the interplay of the strong pattern, I wanted the blacks and whites to act as the negative space and the red to act as the foreground.
This isn’t a terrible idea, but it wasn’t working with this layout. I looked at it a lot, trying to like it – or at least be okay with the center. The reality was that I didn’t like it. I wasn’t achieving anything near what I was imagining, thus the ripping.
Big, fat Improv
The ripping really didn’t take long, but it did allow my mind time to wander, which is not what I wanted. After ripping, I began adding more neutrals to the ‘legs’. The photo (right) is what the pieces look like right now. I have not sewn the four blocks together yet. I haven’t decided if I am done with the ‘A’ blocks yet.
I think I will definitely add some more red to the outside. I also think that a few more neutrals is in order. It needs to sit a bit.
Windowframe layout
I wandered around it for awhile and then began to wonder whether I should reverse the blocks and arrange them the way Tina intended the pattern to be arranged. I think the neutral part of the blocks look too skinny again when arranged with the red in the middle. It isn’t terrible, though.
I think the ultimate path is to make some of the ‘B’ blocks and see what happens once I have more to look at.
I had the class and so much stuff to catch up on over the weekend that I didn’t have a lot of time to sew. I decided that I wanted to make progress on something. Not just a few blocks, but some real progress.
Food Quilt.
I knew I could make progress on it because I was pretty close to having the top done after the retreat.
Food Quilt #2 Top – June 2015
I got on it and the top is together with borders, though it took me a few hours on Monday to get the whole top done, but next stop: Food Quilt back.
The holdup at the retreat was that I forgot black to use for borders. I had plenty of black at home, so I waited until this week to do it.
After putting on the black inner border and the piano key food border, I decided I wanted a black border on the outside to contain all that food. I am pleased with the way it came out.
Food Quilt Holders
I caught a quick glimpse of the boys as they prepared to be quilt holders for me. This is what it looks like when they are acting as my quilt holders. I have learned just to wait for them to play around. It is fun to watch. I mean, you have to have fun in normal life, right?
You might remember that made a Food Quilt for the Young Man. This is a graduation gift for the Young Man’s friend. I kind of like the idea of them having similar quilts. It is like there will be a connection through these quilts. Sentimental, I know. It won’t be finished for his graduation, but I can send it to him at college and he can see the top.
I decided to make the peacock One Block Wonder project. I was really on the fence, as you may have gathered from my previous posts, about making it. I talked about some of my concerns in the last post and had decided not to make it. Things change.
There were a couple of things that made me decide to do it. 1) I was able to find the Timeless Treasure panel on a website. 2) I saw Maureen’s blocks and 3) I really like the colors in this panel.
I was easily able to buy the panel from Miller’s Dry Goods, which I found unexpectedly after doing a simple Google search. The line is fairly new so I wasn’t expecting that it would be available yet. I am still interested in the group of solids shown with the panel, but they are not as important. I think they might make a good addition to the quilt, but I don’t know what the final quilt will look like, which means I don’t know how they would fit in so we’ll have to see.
Maureen read one of my previous posts and brought her One Block Wonder blocks, as well as a piece of the original fabric to show me at the retreat. I didn’t even know she had worked on a One Block Wonder and was very pleased to see what she had done. Pam’s class using a panel seems very different from using fabric, but there are quite a few similarities as well. I was pleased to see how different Maureen’s blocks looked from each other and she confirmed that it is fairly easy to avoid ending up with the same blocks, which adds to the variety of the quilt. We encouraged her to work on her OBW quilt, but she worked on other projects. I would love to see what she does with those blocks.
I do like the colors of the panel. There is no cream, as there was in the other yardage I considered, which is a bonus. I am annoyed at cream backgrounds lately. They look dirty to me.
Maureen assured me, as did looking at her blocks, that the black would not overwhelm the piece. There is plenty of blue, especially turquoise (!!!), in the panel as well.
This is a limited collection for Timeless Treasures and I only bought the panel. If it doesn’t work out, the effort will make a great donation quilt.
Another thing I did a the retreat was work on the nine patch blocks for the O9P quilt.
Before I got to the Box Full of Letters blocks, I worked on these. I wanted to finish all of the parts and then cut more when I got home – I need about 55 more 9 patches to fill in the rest of the O9P quilt. As I finished the squares, I realized that they were getting to look too much alike and I decided to switch to the Box Full of Letters blocks.
Good decision as I got two sets of blocks done and major dents in both projects.
No, it isn’t about getting things done and finished, but it is about making progress and both of these projects felt stalled before I left. Now I feel like I am back on the road.
I worked on the Box Full of Letters blocks at the Retreat. I made 21 blocks as leaders and enders. The photo (left) shows a selection of the blocks I made.
I love the leaders and enders technique. I couldn’t believe how much I accomplished using leaders and enders.
I still don’t know what I am going to do with these blocks, but I am thrilled that I have an actual group of blocks with which to work.
Another part of the wackiness of the weekend was adding to my nine patch stash for the Octagon Nine Patch. I made some progress on adding to my nine patch pile.
when I stand next to the piece, I feel like I am making progress, but when I look at it in a photo I post here, I think I will never be finished. I guess that is why I take photos, then I can compare. For example, this photo with the last one.
Octagon Nine Patch – detail – April 2015
One part of my attitude is that people comment on how small the blocks are. Yes they are on the smallish side, but are by no means miniatures.
I think I need to sew some parts together pretty soon. That will make the piece much smaller, of course, but will also enhance the feeling of accomplishment.
I have been preparing for the CQFA Retreat. I have been putting projects, supplies and parts into project bags in preparation to grab and go.
I was all over the place sewing over the weekend and this was part of the wackiness. I don’t know why, but I decided to sew a couple of the blocks rather than waiting until the CQFA Retreat.
I guess they look ok. I am not completely invested in the project yet, but I have some ideas and I want to move forward. It might be a palette cleanser
More progress on the Octagon 9 Patch. It seems slow, but I see the progress. Compare from last time and let me know what you think.
The 9 patches are not in their final locations. I started to arrange them as I made them, but it was hard to judge progress so now I just put each nine patch in the next open space. I’ll arrange them later.
I don’t think I have made much progress but I am making some progress. I finished all of the extra octagons so the piece is much bigger. I have to make a few more just to complete one side. I also still have a lot of nine patches to make.
I am now out of grey squares and have to make a concentrated effort to cut a bunch more. It isn’t a big deal; I just have to do it.
It looks so little. You know I make big quilts so this one just looks weird.
I could cut more octagons and make it bigger, but the pieces are really small and piecing the blocks takes forever.
I have a few more octagons that are in the process of being sewn into Snowballs, so the piece will be a bit bigger, but it won’t be bed sized.
I can add a border and I do have an idea for that already, so that will also enlarge it.
I could also just be okay with the size that it is.
Octagon 9 Patch – March 2015 detail
There are a lot of warm colors and I may need to cut a few octagons from cool colors, but I am not going to decide until I have more 9 patches completed and all the octagons are made into Snowballs.
Friend Julie and I went to Colleen’s last Friday and picked up quilts.
I picked up 2 quilts, which now need to be bound. Julie picked up her giant Christmas quilt. We went to Dharma, Flourcraft and had lunch at the Miracle Mile Cafe.
Colleen is finally getting back into the swing after her family challenges. She is caught up on quilting quilts and is starting to design patterns again. She is working on a group of patterns with a labyrinth theme. They are gorgeous and the construction uses a technique that keeps them very straight. I will share more information with you when she gets to a point where you can buy them.
Julie picked up her giant Christmas quilt, which she showed at the CQFA Meeting. It is a full on scrap quilt and really epitomizes Julie’s exuberant nature.
I picked up the FOTY 2013 and the Russian Rubix. I didn’t remember FOTY 2013 until the morning of when I was in the shower. I am very pleased to have it home and am in the process of hand sewing the binding. After that I will work on the Russian Rubix. I thought I might get RR done in time to enter into the SCVQA Show, but I don’t think so. It is in two weeks and I have done no paperwork, contacted nobody. I’ll enter it into something else later in the year.
Silk ribbon
Julie needed to stock up on dyes and dyeing supplies, so we went to Dharma. I never feel like there is much there for me there, but I bought a couple of bottles of Retayne and some gifts. I always enjoy looking at the yarns. They are such beautiful colors and feel so soft.
Julie and I shared the purchase of on skein of some PFD silk ribbon. I wasn’t even thinking about until she showed it to me and said that we could lay it on other fabric and color it or paint it. Once she said that I was a goner. I couldn’t get the process out of my head, especially with the Tsukineko Ink experience fresh in my mind. She put it back, but I said I would share it with her.
After Dharma, we went to lunch. There is a cafe, which has a lot of gluten free options. I had GF Eggs Benedict. It is so nice to order straight off the menu and not have to go over ingredients with the server. It makes me feel like a real person. We sat for awhile and then headed over to Flourcraft, which is a gluten free bakery. I was full as a goog, but we sat and had coffee and cake anyway. I stuffed a piece of orange bundt cake into my stomach AND bought two scones for later. Again, I can’t tell you who a treat it is to go into some shop and buy whatever I want without worrying about wheat flour. It was nice to sit there and look out the large windows. The clouds were big and fluffy and gorgeous that day, so the sun was, on and off, peeking through to give a blast-like sunbeam. I definitely did not eat pizza for dinner. I just had a salad while the boys ate pizza.
We stopped at a small toy/craft shop called Doodlebug as well. They have a lot of fun toys, but also craft supplies. They also have pottery to paint. Their button selection is almost as good as Britex, but veering towards kids themed.
It was supposed to be a leisurely day, visiting with each other and doing fun stuff. We did fun stuff and we visited, but we also went and went and went and it felt a little like a marathon. A VERY fun marathon. 😉
Some time ago I wrote about TFQ’s cool quilt, Pink Lemonade.
I have washed a lot of blues lately, so my version (future) has been on my mind. Mom came over the other day and on a whim I asked her if she would use my Accuquilt to cut blue squares for me from my scrap basket. The scrap basket over floweth, as they say.
Blue Lemonade Hunting & Gathering
She said yes, which netted me a bunch of blue squares. I am much farther along that I was, though I still have a long way to go.
As I was organizing them, I wondered about just sewing them randomly or trying to organize them like I do with the the Fabric of the Year quilts. I have to admit that it doesn’t sound very appealing. It sounds like a boring slog.
In TFQ’s version, it looks like she sewed the fabrics together sort of randomly, though I am sure there was a method to the madness. I definitely do not see a gradation.
I don’t often have something to show for Throwback Thursday. I received a box back from ScanCafe and I found an early photo of the Tarts Come to Tea. It is amazing to see how it has progressed and to realized that the quilt is still in process. Sigh.
Early Tarts Come to Tea
I started this quilt pretty soon after TFQ and I made She Had to Have Her Latte and I was still thinking that novelty fabrics would be a good idea.
Those novelty fabrics were jettisoned at some point, but some of the elements stayed. Even some of the placement basically, stayed.
I also started out using much darker fabrics.
I do still have that vase, which I like and may make into another applique type quilt.
I am not sure how I feel about these improvisational pieces now. Clearly, I am having trouble finishing the Tarts, despite keeping it on the list.
