Bargain Hunting

 I'm tired, yet again. I just can't seem to avoid all the going out, when all I really want to do is stay at home and sew. Blood tests, shopping in the next town, getting a tire fixed, picking up prescriptions: nothing is hard, just time consuming. And in the garden, I've been dealing with an onslaught of mealy bugs like a Biblical plague. How dare they attack my plants!. 

But I don't complain, remember? No whining.

This afternoon, while I waited for my washing to finish, I started ironing and cutting an enormous pile of scraps. They were on every surface, because we'd dragged them out of their hiding places, and I couldn't really function until I made some space.

This was a quarter of them, there were many, many more.

That was a lot of cutting.

 I needed space because a parcel arrived from Accuquilt and I wanted to unpack it straight away. They had a huge sale on discontinued dies, and initially I didn't want any, but then I started looking at the individual shapes on each die and they started to look more useful, Most of them were sold out by the time I decided to jump in, but I got three, and they should prove interesting.

I love that Weathervane shape, so I'm sure I'll use this, it's for an 8" block, which is a favourite size of mine.

This Star block eliminates a lot of tedious cutting, and I do love Star quilts. It ends up at 14".

This 12" Snail Trail block is a huge die, and again, I'm not interested in piecing the block as is, I'm more interested in how I can use those shapes in my own blocks.

These 3 dies plus shipping cost less than a single full price die, so it was a good bargain. Most of the prices have gone back to normal now, so I'm glad I jumped in while I could.

I'm off to Adelaide again for a week, so I don't have time to play. I grabbed a handful of batik strips and ran them through the Star die, and stayed up way too late creating half a star.

I'll finish it when I get home, but it all went together really well, and I can't wait to cut more.

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Progress

I had to go down to the shop to wait for a friend to drop off a top for quilting, so I took the Plaid top and it's border strips, and used the waiting time productively.

The 2.5" border framed the blocks nicely; it feels good to have a finish on a very long term UFO.

On Thursday friend Deb, Mereth and I ran away to Adelaide to indulge in a little retail therapy.  First up was Spotlight for a smidgeon more fabric, then to a favourite plant nursery.

Yes, more $1 FQs.  Seems I can't resist.

As for plants, I bought a strawberry basket loaded with runners from 3 healthy plants. I plan to establish another raised bed at Seonaid's place so the kids can learn about keeping plants alive, and eating the results. The other raised beds they have are flowers and succulents, not much to interest children there.

I also got a few more seedlings of petunias and parsley, to pop into spots where other things died during our hot spells.  My garden mantra is " A small well-tended garden can be a joy." I always over-commit myself, so limiting the garden to just this space has made it much easier for me to maintain.

It took me a day to recover from that adventure, and several medical appointments here in town, but last night I managed to start cutting up some FQs.  I like to cut 7.5" squares to make these kite blocks, but I'd lost the directions I wrote out.

It took me all afternoon to track down the box of blocks, re-engineer the instructions from the pieces, then test them. All of that is resting in the newly labelled project box, ready for when I make a start on those super easy blocks.

My aim is to completely cut those FQs into parts for projects, so I'm working on a cutting plan. They are a mix of quarter yards and quarter metres, so I have to be a bit flexible about what strips I cut. A 7.5" strip and several 2.5" strips accounts for most of one, and then I can decide whether I want a 4.5" strip. And I'm amassing 1.5" strips from the bright FQs for my Film Strip top.

And, in what passes for excitement in a small town, a council crew have been digging up a stormwater pit in the road outside my building. The drains haven't worked properly for the 16 years I've been here, and this might have something to do with it.

The whole pit was clogged with tree roots and dirt; the council planted those trees on the footpath, and the sneaky things sent roots 20 feet away into the drain to keep alive, and then the council had to spend 4 days clearing them out. Past councils planted a lot of unsuitable trees on our footpaths, so it will happen again, but I won't be around to observe.

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Clearing The Rubble

 In my clearing spree yesterday I  found a lot of little things that had been lying around unnoticed for months.  I would move this rubble from place to place, thinking, I really must find a home for that. or deal with it, or throw it out, and it would just get shuffled out of the way. If I'm in a mad rush to finish blocks I don't want to slow down and decide what to do with 3 partial 4patches and some random scraps of solid fabric from a scrap bag. After a while those things become invisible.

Here's a sampling of what I came across yesterday;

• a bit of strip piecing that I used for explanatory magazine pictures

I unpicked the wider strips and cut HSTs for the This and That blocks. Definitely worth doing. The 2 narrow strips went into the container of 1.5" strip piecing.

• a block that needed a 3.5" square to be complete

This has hung around on top of piles of stuff for months. I kept searching for more of that pink, and finally gave up on finding another 3.5" square. I poverty pieced it out of three scraps, and now the block is in the Plaid project box where it should be.

• a stack of orphan blocks that should have been in the orphan drawer

Easy fix. Open drawer, place blocks inside, shut drawer.

• 2 mystery containers

I really had no idea what these were about. I'm not losing my mind totally, I remembered as soon as I opened each one.

I double stitched the flippy corners on my Boxy Stars blocks, and saved them, sewed them into triangles, trimmed them and assembled them into these little 3.5" blocks. And forgot about them.  I'm thinking a pine Tree top, or Cut Glass.  There's 28 made and 10 more kitted; I'll make a little status card and put them with the other project boxes.

The other box was chock full of random pieced squares.  Last summer, or the year before I sat in my air-conditioned shed and whiled away the hours making HSTs out of triangle scraps. I always have a drawer full of triangle shaped bits, which I periodically sew together and then turn into these. There were enough pairs for 10 more quadrants for the This and That blocks; single HSTs went into the box where they should have been all along. I'll find containers for all the other size HSTs. And label them.

• several 1" finished cheddar and indigo HSTs

I was piecing these when I made a string pieced star from shirts. I really should file them with that.

• offcuts from customer backings that should have been in the strings container

These have their own container, so that's where they will go.

• Little solid scraps

I do want to make Sawtooth Stars from solid fabric, there's always some in the scrapbags we find. I pulled out a boxfile and gave them a home.

I really can't explain why I repeatedly dump things instead of dealing with them properly.  Nearly everything I found had a home, I just hadn't bothered to put things there. I can't promise to be better in future, because I've always been like this, but I do want to commit to clearing surfaces more often.  Another mantra to add to my list. 

• Label Everything
• Look in all the boxes
• Clear the surfaces weekly

And maybe, Learn what to throw away.

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Moving Right Along

 I have been pretty dedicated to finishing the Fox and Geese blocks; I have one more to do and I will have the 30 I need. I never wanted it to be a huge quilt, so I'm stopping at 30, even though I have more cut out. They can go in the drawer of spare blocks.

I've even chosen the sashing fabric. I auditioned this a long time ago, and for some reason I rejected it, probably thinking I'd find something 'better'; I haven't even looked for something else, so this Christopher Wilson Tate fabric will be used. 

I bought it in 2020, when we were allowed out of lock down after the beginning of Covid, shows how long it's been in the stash. I'm debating if I want cornerstones between the blocks, it makes assembly easier, and I like how it links the blocks throughout the quilt.

My cutting table is silted up with a lot of stuff that shouldn't be there, so as soon as I finish that last block I need to tidy that up so I can cut the sashing.  It will be interesting to uncover each layer of leftovers, like a sedimentary rock; these are the Lupine and Laughter bits, these are from strip piecing, these from cutting down scrap bags.  Fingers crossed I get down to bedrock with the green cutting mat.

Much later,  Mereth came round and helped me make a few decisions which will help me shift a couple of projects along. They included cutting border strips, so I had to clean off the cutting mat. 

I haven't seen this much of the mat for months!

While I was at it I thought I'd better clear off my other cutting table, which was sqamped with squatters.

I absolutely love having this table clear; it's right under the fluoro and makes fiddly trimming so much easier with the extra light.  I really need to concentrate on keeping these spaces clear in future.

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A Long Time UFO

 After lunch with our friend, when we delivered her quilts, it was time for the next ritual of our Jamestown days; a trip to the patchwork store. We always try not to go overboard there, and if I don't fancy any of the fabric I can always pick up more blades for the rotary cutter, or an intriguing ruler or some half price fabric. This time I did something I've never done before - I bought white on white fabric. I really dislike that stuff, it feels so stiff and unnatural and I don't like white fabric anyway. But I'm making those Christmas Log Cabins and I've nearly come to the end of the scraps of white and gold on white, and light batiks. There were no suitable Christmas prints, so I chose a White On White to be going on with. The sky didn't fall down, and it's cutting up beautifully in my blocks: who says old dogs  can't learn new tricks.

Our weatherman here is hopelessly optimistic about our chances of rain, bless him. This time it's a 90% chance of rain overnight, and as there are deluges north of us in the outback proper, we may get something this time. But I want to be actually wet before I believe it. Only a few more weeks of summer on the calendar, though the hot weather often persists into Autumn, but I'll be happy when it does break.  We're all done with the high temperatures.

Apart from the Log Cabins I've been sewing on an ancient UFO from many years ago. I've pulled it out several times and done a few blocks or kitted more up, but I think I want to make some major progress on it this time.  Sometime last century I saved a tiny photo from an Ebay seller, which was how we used to find antique quilts when Google was an infant and Pinterest unheard of. 

Over time I acquired the fabric for the frames around each block, and chose precious prints for the blocks, and even kitted them nicely, But I never wanted to work on it much because it was such a 'special' project.

Yesterday I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I pulled out these blocks and started sewing the pieces together.  Past Me had been scrupulously accurate with the cutting, because all these blocks went together beautifully and are exactly the size they should be.  I'm enjoying the fact that I finally allowed myself to move this project along; I haven't chosen the actual sashing fabric yet, but I will have all the blocks made soon, and then I will be able to move this project closer to a finish. How exciting!

I was showing Mereth my progress and she asked, 'Did you mean for that unit to be rotated?'

Well of course I didn't, at some stage I will rip it out and fix the mistake. There's always something.

I wrote the above yesterday; this morning I took this photo and got wet and yes, now I believe it's raining. The plants are loving it.

A rainy day spent in the sewing room is my idea of heaven. I'll be cutting this stack of scraps into blocks and strips.

Just a few random fat eighths from the patchwork shop. They're perfect for me to add variety to my projects, so small that there's no temptation to save them and hoard them.  They get stripped up straight away.

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Quick Update

We are off to Jamestown in a minute to deliver quilts, so just a short post to show what I did yesterday.

Another Fancy 4-patch block. These are so cute and not hard to piece. I just have to remind myself to slow down and take care with the tiny pieces.

Lots of cutting of random 2.5" strips that I seem to have accumulated. These will make a lot of the blocks from this video from The Quilted Forest

I love the videos in this series of hers, they are really popular, and have so many good ideas.

People love planting Zinnias and this is why. These went in as seedlings just before our series of blisteringly hot days, and they positively jumped out of the ground laughing at the heat.

My poor tomato is probably toast, it really suffered. I'm such a bad gardener, because I leave things to struggle on instead of ripping them out and planting afresh. So long as this poor old thing keeps trying, I'll give it a chance.

The Verbena were burnt off, but bounced back. And the geranium just hung in there like it usually does. My garden is still looking pretty, tomatoes aside. No crop for me this year.

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What's Next

 Quilting for other people definitely cuts into my time in the sewing room, but luckily it's not a full time job anymore.  We only quilt for a few longtime friends and clients, my health just won't allow for more. But those few clients are prolific piecers, so they bring three and four quilts at time, usually on the small side thank heavens. On days when I run the Statler I often just veg out when I get home, too tired to sew. I'm missing my quilt projects, and my organising has come to a standstill.

One more day should see me close to finishing one friend's quilts, and then I'll take a break and recover. And my enthusiasm is building. I want to see progress! I have been tinkering with EQ8, and I've drawn up several plans for things that are already started. I always work better when I have a plan to follow, and it's been shown to me time and again that I need to leave a printed or written plan of action, stored in with the blocks and pieces that I pack away.

And just to demonstrate how easy it is to start something new: I went through a container of small 2.5" strips that was waiting to be filed in the strips drawer. I really need to get rid of the small leftover strips, but I didn't want to cut these into squares or triangles. Then I remembered a Westalee half hexagon ruler designed for 2.5" strips.

Those half hexagons are surprisingly large, letting the pattern of the fabric show nicely.

If the strip is folded wrong sides together there's a right and left half hexagon to use at the end of each row.

This took a minute or so to cut, and it looks like it will be fun and I love the hexagon shapes that result. The hexagon is 5.25" wide, so quite small strips are useable. 

 I made a batik quilt of these shapes, and it was very easy to piece and I really enjoyed it.

Finished in November 2014. Quilted and sold a few years later. It took more than 1 jellyroll of my batiks, and helped prompt me to start my batik collection. Like I needed encouragement.

Looks like I have another project to find a box for, but most importantly I now have a use  for those tag end of strips that clog up the drawers.  It only needs a 5,25" strip, even less for those quarter hexagons needed for the start and end of rows. I won't start sewing this for a while, but it will be good to cut up little ends of strips as I find them.

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