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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Scrappage

 What was in my little box of scraps? Little useable bits that no one else wanted, obviously.

But they will find a home and a use in my sewing room.  Except for the white on white scraps, I gifted them to Mereth.  Some are destined to be Terry Roland blocks, others will be logs in one of my log cabins.  

All ironed and ready to trim.  I'll cut larger scraps into squares and triangles, and it will add a bit of variety to my own scraps.

One fabric made me laugh. It's quite a few 1.5" strips; I have a little piece of this and wanted to use it in the Fancy 4-patch quilt but was doing my usual 'It's too precious' dance.  Lo and behold, the universe has gifted me with a little more, so I get to use it, and keep it.  Thanks Universe.

I would have liked to sew this morning, but I was good and went down to our shop and got a quilt loaded. We have lots of small tops to do for others, but this one was bigger and will require more quilting, so I wanted to get it underway.  I'm finding it hard to handle larger tops, with their larger battings and backings. So much walking involved in ironing and squaring up a 108" wideback.  But it's loaded and the quilting begun, so that's a big load off my mind.

In my sewing room I haven't had time to do much, but I made an effort to get my This And That project completely under control. People have asked for a pattern, and a name. 

I don't have any idea what this block is called, I put it together after making dozens of these units. 

I'm linking again to my old post that shows how to make them from 2.5" Squares and HSTs. They are simple and addictive, just two squares, one dark, one light, and 2 identical HSTs. If I haven't replied to your comment about this it's because you are no-reply and I have no way of contacting you.

Or put them together like this:

I'm sure that has a name but I'm too tired to go look it up. It's like King's Crown but the centre is pieced instead of one big square.

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Attitude Adjustment

 How many bloggers admit to having  Bad Temper days? I try to only post positive things, but for two days I've been in a foul mood, so no posts possible. But in the interests of journaling, I'll describe it here; just skip this post if you don't want a dose of whiny rage.

It started off with dropping seven (7!) eggs on my kitchen floor, which just happens to be carpet. Which I inherited from previous owners and have never changed.  I was so cross with myself, and that carpet, and the world in general. 

I used up all the salt in the house on that mess, which turned it into a granular mess easier to clean up, but I was still foul. Then the computer enraged me with more random interference where it had no right to be. Some AI bot keeps muscling in with offers to read my email, or summarise my messages, or write something for me. AI could vanish from the face of the earth and we wouldn't be any worse off.

So I went to bed, and instantly got the most terrible cramp that prevented me from going to sleep for half an hour. I take my magnesium tablets, and calcium and Vit.D.  My test levels of those are fine. Cramps are so uncalled for.

I woke up in the same foul mood, so decided to sew it off. The first few seams needed to be unpicked, so that was unwise. I obviously couldn't be trusted with a rotary cutter at a time like that, so I went and sorted out the jumble on my coffee table, which made me feel a teensy bit better.

The day before we had gone to our favourite op-shop and I picked up a container of patchwork scraps. I decided it would be safe to sort those out, so I sat and did that trying to restore my equilibrium. It helped, but I was still grumpy at the universe, so I went and scrubbed things in the kitchen and concentrated on putting away everything that wasn't where it should be.

Books in the book case, clean washing in the linen cupboard, clothes hung up and in drawers, things from the opshop expedition sorted into categories to be washed or stashed, shoes on the shoe rack. That actually made me feel heaps better. I also opened a pile of online purchases that I hadn't bothered with cos I didn't need them straight away: luckily they were all what they should have been and undamaged, so they got put away too.

As a reward I sat and ironed my op-shop scraps while I had a cup of coffee. Then ,in a mood of grim competence, I straightened my fridge shelves, cooked enough meals for the next three days, and I cannot stress the importance of this, I did all the dishes afterwards and put them away too. 

And so to bed with no further mishap.

This morning I'm back to my more optimistic self, and so many jobs are done, done, done. At least there's a plus side to being so cranky 👃😊

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A New Little Something

 It's ironic that the title of my last post was Restoring Some Order, and yet it took me hours to make Blogger behave and get my words in order and do what I wanted it to do. The formatting was all over the place, the pictures were sideways or butted up against the margins, paragraphs non-existent. In the end I gave up and just published it. Lets hope it behaves today. (Nope. Still no paragraphs, and 5  different text sizes, even though they're all the same in the draft. Looks like I'll have to struggle with this too.)

I've been doing some dull stuff like cutting more HSTs for This And That, and sewing some blocks together before I move them off the design wall.  I also tracked down the blogpost from 2012 where I talked about how I made the original. They are very easy to make, and if you spin all the seam intersections then all the seams nest nicely throughout the entire quilt.

It was lovely weather this morning, not too hot, so I spent it in the kitchen. It's been awful lately, so meals are usually a bowl of salad or something heated in the microwave. Or I just don't bother. I can prepare the ingredients I need for several salads and just throw them together quickly at meal times. We have two really hot days coming up, so I think it will be more simple salads, dips and crackers, and lots of ice water. Even though I'm in the AC for the worst of it I still have to drink lots of water. 19 more days of official summer, so the end is in sight I hope.

I may have succumbed to Taryn's quilt along, but I don't do tiny blocks. (I don't do Instagram either, I followed a link from Facebook, but I have no idea how to navigate Instagram. )

I want the material to shine, and the prints and colours to show up, so I don't like sewing teeny fragments of cloth together.  I'm going to do 6" finished blocks, which makes those little triangles 1" finished.

That's still tiny, but the 2" squares allow the material to show off.  

I realised that I have dies in 1" finished triangles and squares. I cut a few today and made a couple units to see if they were accurate enough and they were.

 It will take a lot of the pressure off if I just have to run larger pieces through the Accuquilt.

I'd love to use some precious scraps in  these little blocks, some of those treasured pieces that are down to the last scrap. 

Maybe this little scrap will find a home after 25 years, 

I will also use a lot of my madder prints, because they have both tiny prints and bolder ones that I can mix and match through the blocks. 

I have a cream for the background picked out, so I hope there's enough there to make a decent size quilt.  I really should take time to draw it out in EQ8, so I know what to expect.

Now to pack it up in a project box and get ready to quilt along with everyone else.

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Restoring Some Order

 I'm making progress on sorting out my Leader-Enders, and my UFOs. Part of me wants to go haring off the path to start another project, but I've resisted so far. This seems to be my pattern of behaviour at the  start of every year. I attack the scraps, sort out the projects, get bolstered by the feelings of control at last. Then I rush away and make a start on several new projects, confident that this time it will all be different and I'll stick to my new organisational habits. But I don't. After all this time I should just realise that it's the way I work and I manage to get lots done so I shouldn't fight it so much. At my age I need to ignore the 'You really should..' thoughts, and the "You ought to....' voices and just do what I want.

I spent most of two days working on This And That,  which was a mess of pieces next to my sewing machine.

Enough pieces for nearly 35 blocks on the design wall.

4 units per bag, 12 blocks kitted.

I have it cleaned up, organised, the units and blocks catalogued and a list of how many more units I need to complete a 7 x 8 block top.  That will only measure 56 " x 64", not overly large, but I can always add a few borders if I want. 

I never did the maths for it until now. I have enough blocks, units and kits for 42 blocks, so I need 14 more blocks. Which will take 56 block quadrants. Which is 25% of the whole quilt. That sort of dismayed me, because I thought I was much closer to a finish than that. 

I think I'll pack the rest away in a project box and use the HSTs as Leader-Enders until I have enough for those 14 blocks. And by golly I know where to find those 2.5" squares when I go looking for them.  Oh well, at least I've got it under some sort of control. 

This is the second top I've made of this pattern. The first one was when I was living in a rented place and I left my stash at the hall and worked entirely out of my scrap boxes. I did a magnificent job of reducing my scraps to almost nothing, and was very fond of this top.  

Last year I couldn't find it in any of my boxes and concluded that I'd sold it when I got rid of about 60 tops.  I regretted that, so I decided I'd make another as a Leader-Ender to replace it.

Last month I moved some vintage bedspreads and uncovered a box full of tops, and there was my This And That top, safe and sound. So now there will be two!  I'll sell the new one when I finally finish it, because I still love the original.  I think there's a lesson in there somewhere, just not sure what it is. Keep better records. Organise my belongings. Or maybe just Open Every Box.

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Leader-Ender Report

I'm getting into trouble with too many leader-enders, yet again. Time for one of them to hit WIP status so I can clear the decks of all these little trays of pieces. 

This And That has enough units for 30 blocks and 5 completed blocks; I need 56 blocks, another 104 units. I should be able to do that over a couple of days, if I have plenty of pieces prepared. I know I have enough 2.5" squares for that. I'll just have to find more HSTs in that size.

Then there's the Triple Treat blocks that I'm working on in the shed. I thought I just had a few kitted; turns out there are 55 blocks and another 30 kitted, and some more pieces in a box. I might get busy and get all the kits sewn into blocks, and then decide how many more I need. It's a lovely block to piece, but I haven't decided how I want to put them together. If I do it like Bonnie's then all the seams nest nicely.

If I make diagonal lines of colour I'll have to mash a lot of seams together.  I'm pondering that. (And also the fact that I'd like to do a multi-coloured one as well..)

Then there are the Terry Rowland scrap blocks. 

I will keep them as a side project, whenever I get those odd fabrics that would lend themselves to these.

 69 finished, more kitted. I'm a long way off the 300+ blocks I need, but I'm enjoying just making a few at a time. 

I also have these little cross blocks that are using up my repro 2" strips.

 (Blogger's being difficult and rotating random pictures. Thanks so much.) I've got a pile kitted up, but I'm tending to reach for easier leader-enders than these. 41finished,and 20 kitted. 

I think I also started a Four Patch Fun in blues, with 6" blocks. They are way down the list, so they can stay in the box for now.

And my latest start:

They already number 61 pieces joined in twos. I'm not even bothering to iron them, I just whizz them through the machine and toss them into a tray. I think every Sunday I will iron them and make as many blocks as I can. It's too tedious to do it as I go along.

Before Christmas Seonaid said, A Christmas Log Cabin would be Cute!  Then I found a scrap bag full of metallic Christmas prints, some quite beautiful. So I chopped them all into 2" strips and I'm building blocks a few at a time. 

She has a King size bed, so the blocks can be large without overwhelming the space. I just haven't decided how big to go. She only wants a 90" square quilt, and won't need it for another 10 months or so; this one can be added to 10 or so at a time. I'll quilt it with a cotton batt, there's no need for warmth in our summers.

Needs more light metallics, or maybe batiks?

What else? I'm bound to find something more in my organising efforts. Just need to get a couple done and dusted.

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