Another Top Finished

I finally got the borders on the Courtyard top, and put it on the wall for a photo.

I sewed this in between quilting 3 quilts over 3 days, and I was so determined to get it photographed that I forgot to trim off the border strips; That will happen when it comes down off the wall.

In total I quilted 5 of these Anzac tops, built around panels. A friend made them as gifts for her family, some of whom served in the forces, or who had fathers who served. The artwork and colours are lovely.

But after the 5th one I was glad to see the end of them.

I was badly in need of a dose of my comfort colours, blue and green. I pulled out the box of Happy Blocks and built 42 in a couple nights sewing.

In the process I chopped up 12 FQs entirely, so that left some room in the drawer of modern fabric. Unfortunately, every time I use up a lot of these colours I feel like I have to replenish the supplies. I'm not planning a Spotlight trip any time soon, but when I do go I know that I'll be concentrating on the blue FQs again. This is why I never have any luck down-sizing the stash.

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Getting There

I've slaved away at the borders for the Stickle quilt, and today I successfully attached the first one.

This was such a lot of work, and I'm not even doing the pieced triangles like the original quilt. I'm not that mad.

It's up on the design wall so I can admire it for a bit, before I tackle that second  side.

It seems rather unreal, that soon it could be finished, after 17 years. Then I'll have to decide how to quilt it. I think I'll ditch stitch every sash on the Statler, then hand quilt the individual blocks. I should enjoy that; the ditch stitching will completely stabilise the quilt, so I can take my time with the handwork.

I'll enjoy choosing a special backing for this, something from the 'too good to use' pile. I have many, many pieces that come under that heading...

It's hard to use these big floral prints in patchwork, the overall effect is lost when they are chopped into little pieces. A backing is the perfect use for them.

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Long Triangles

While I was tidying up a pile of ironed fabric I found a heap of blue and salmon fabric that I had earmarked for this quilt about 4 years ago. A lot of them were from Spotlight's FQ sales, and they weren't really my cup of tea, but they were cheap, so they ended up in my stash.

I'd read on a blog somewhere that to create this long pieced rectangle shape you cut 5" x 10" rectangles, drew on the diagonal, placed 2 together with opposite corners touching, then stitched a quarter inch on both sides of the line. 

Cut on the line and voila! 2 pieced rectangles.

 I thought, that sounds too easy, so I had to try it, and it worked. 

There was trimming involved, but that never put me off, 

so I started collecting these fabrics and gave them a project box, and never really looked at them again.

On Friday I finally decided to make this quilt and get all that fabric either used up completely or the leftovers consigned to the scrap drawers. Of course I had no idea where the original idea came from, so there was a bit of experimenting, but it wasn't long before I was cutting and sewing and trimming and sewing, and it didn't take long to make enough blocks for a 48" x 64" quilt.

It was interesting, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. Sometimes I had to fudge the trimming because the pieced rectangle wasn't wide enough, and in a few places the points were off. A Tri-Recs ruler or similar was still need for the trimming; it all seemed a bit of a faff and not a shortcut at all.

Now I need to do a big tidy up. 

I think a Tumbler quilt from the leftover strips would be rather nice. It would be better to put these away as a kit, instead a box or random scraps.

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Progress

I have 2 borders for my Jane Stickle quilt pieced together. It's taking a long time, but it needs to be done, so this ancient UFO can be a complete top at last.

OMG, 2009! The blog never forgets....

I have a box of fabric scraps set side for these triangles, far more than I need, so I'm looking forward to completing these borders. Then I can sort out that box and either store them with the rest of the scraps or cut them up to go into projects.

Mereth is scathing about my addiction to Facebook scrap-bags, but so many of these old favourites are being discarded from other people's stash. I snort with disbelief at people pricing old fabric at $16m, but a scrap-bag for $10 is hard to resist. 

When we were unpacking the latest purchase I said, it's like our own stashes from the '90s!' We have used up all of our own, and now I'm buying it online😁.

There wasn't a lot of choice in the early days, and it was available for years, so it's no wonder that the same fabrics show up again and again. It irritates me that fabric lines now have an expected shelf life of months, and then disappear. The fabric industry reminds me of a carousel going faster and faster till it's just a blur of colour and new releases. It seems unsustainable.

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Split 9-Patch Finish

I got a bee in my bonnet about finishing the Split 9-Patch, so now it's done. I tried not to be too controlling about what fabrics and colours ended up next to each other, but there's several places that bug me.  I'm trying to talk myself into ignoring my misgivings.

I really don't like the light square in the top right hand corner, but I'm going to try colouring it in with a permanent pen and see if that makes it acceptable.

 If that doesn't fix it, I'll take the square out and replace it.

The other bit that bugs me is just above the star in the middle, where 2 squares seem to be the same shade of brown.

The left hand one is actually a madder orange, but it's blending into the square next to it too much for my liking.  I don't feel like doing any remedial work on it just yet, but I reserve the right to replace one of those squares some time in the future.

I have to come up with a new use for all the 2.5" squares and triangles. I've been playing around in EQ8 and there are a few blocks I'm considering.

I like this one.

It would make a nice quilt laid out like this.

Or this;

Or I could change that middle triangle to point out.

It has a circular effect.

Or  a more complicated layout.  I think I'll have to make a few samples and work out the best way to press seams.  If I can't nest the seams, I don't want to make it,

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Triangles!

I got busy with my fabric strips  and ran 46 through the Accuquilt. It hardly took any time at all, and then I sat down with a cup of coffee to sort them into piles.

I like doing meditative things like that, when I'm not in a hurry to be doing something else.

I need light coloured triangles, and some red and blue ones, so I will find those next. And, as the Split 9-Patch is so close to being finished, I will need to find another pattern to use these pieces.

I used the triangles as Leader-Enders and built up a stack of them, which was nice. Then I made a heap of simple blocks with some of them, just for fun while I contemplate my next effort to use them. I'm sort of stuck on 6" and 8" blocks at the moment, but there are lots of bigger blocks, like Sisters Choice, that use 2.5" triangles and squares. I do love 10" blocks too, but I'm not fond of 12" ones; they are just too big for my liking.

I managed to get borders on the Trail Mix top, which finished it of nicely. 

It's a lousy photo, looks very washed out, so I'll have to try again, earlier in the day when the light is better.. I really like how it turned out, mainly because I find it so hard to do Random. I always make things into a pattern, so there's some sort of structure to it. The structure in this comes from those tiny chains of 4-patches, but in between it's all haphazard. I'll chalk this up as a success.

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Block Progress

I made good progress on these blocks, which I called Antique Geese, but Nann says they are also called Northumberland Star, and I like that name better. I started off with 20, and added 10; my EQ plan needs 42 blocks, so the next time I pull this project out to work on, I should be able to finish it.

My next project box contained Mosaic blocks, 3 finished and 25 kitted.

 These are easy to put together, so I did 6 one night, and I'll continue to work on them for a while, till I feel like I've made progress.

While I was sewing all those blocks I was building Split 9-Patches as leader-enders, and getting very frustrated with my fabric choices for the HSTs. Why do I not have enough triangles? I complained. Then I did some calculations, and realised that the whole quilt needs 432 HSTs, or 864 triangles. Small wonder I've run out of options!

With that in mind I went through the bolts of fabric, and the stash drawers and the scrap drawers, and made a stack of 8.5" cuts. The Accuquilt 2.5" die needs a piece of fabric 8.5 x 7.5"; I plan to cut one 7.5" slice from each fabric for a start.  That will give me enough variety to finish this top, and then I'll decide how to use the rest of the strips. I think I will use the triangles as leader-enders, and build up a box of HSTs for future projects. The die cuts 12 triangles at a time, so I'll aim for 24 from each fabric. The rest can be cut into 2.5" strips, or squares to restock the sadly depleted Box'O'Squares. 

Of course I'll have to be careful I don't make the last quarter of the top with too many new fabrics, or it might not look the same as the rest. I fear that I'll have a stack of leftover blocks that will morph into another top over time, but that's not such a bad thing I guess.

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A New Tradition

It's Mereth's birthday today. When we were kids Mum had to buy 2 sets of birthday presents; on my birthday we both had a present and on Mereth's day we both got another one. We always got the same thing, so if I opened mine first, Mereth would know what she was getting. To avoid disappointment we got double. Interesting that in modern days one present would not cut it; shades of Dudley Dursley shouting '36 presents! But last year I got 37!' Harry Potter reference there. At Christmas we would sit back to back to unwrap presents, and no exclaiming out loud to ruin the other's surprise. 

I think I might institute a new tradition, to start something new on my birthday. This 9-Patch hired man's quilt was on an auction site somewhere.

The green and yellow print setting fabric appeals to me. I've been hoarding those sort of fabrics for decades.

They have sat on the shelf untouched for long enough.

I have enough for 6 quilts, plus a lot of FQs.

I have three 1 yard pieces of this, which tells me I bought it at Spotlight, from their American precut selection. It's a strange print for them to have, they don't go in for repros, but I gladly bought all I could find. I realised that some of the neutrals I bought yesterday would be perfect for the 9-Patches, and I could use my Precious scraps for the coloured squares. 

And thus another WIP is born.

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