Batiks

Karen at Quilts etc recently finished her lovely Rainbow Crossings quilt. I've been following her progress on it for some time, thinking, I have that Accuquilt star die. I could make those stars. Hmmmm.....

When I bought the die I immediately made a test block, and found it so easy to put together. NO set in seams here.

But I also wondered if I could change it and make a dark star on a light background, or a light star on a dark background. the answer is, yes you can!

I'm still obsessing about using up the batik stash, so one night I ironed many, many FQs and set about cutting pieces with this die.

I still think my batik stash is too limited, there's not a lot of variety, but I don't want to take the time to build it into a really comprehensive stash. It would be too expensive, and take too much time, and I don't love them enough. But some of them are lovely....

I know a lot of quilters don't care for ironing their seams as they go, or making all their seams intersections meet, but I don't fall into that category. I love it when  everything is just right, and if I take the time to make all the units correctly then the whole block, and quilt, goes together nicely as well. 

Of course, that depends on my mood too, so if I'm in a hurry, or I don't like what I'm doing, I can mash seams and fudge with the best of them. But I do love being precise.

I have absolutely no plans for these as yet. I'm just playing at making them and combining whatever colours I feel like. I don't need to know where it's going, I just want to have fun.

The Flying Geese leader-ender blocks are multiplying quickly. I already have 160, with hardly any effort. If I had to make 160 all at once I'd complain, but I've hardly noticed these accumulating one seam at a time.

I'm aiming for this arrangement, needing 245 geese, and it won't take long to get to that number. Then I'll have the fun of choosing the fabric for the bars between them. I'd better start cogitating about that one.

The mess in the sewing room is staggering, so I think I'll spend the Easter weekend getting these blocks finished and put together. Another two rows will be enough; I'll still have to faff around with borders, but I can clear away all the pieces and rediscover my cutting table.

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Progress Report

I'm starting to spend time in the sewing room more regularly, and there is progress on  a few fronts. I've cut many strips to use in this; I still haven't tracked down a name, or thought of one, so it's just the batik quilt for now.

It uses a lot of the same fabrics as the Plus quilt that I gave to my son a few years ago, and there are pieces left over from that quilt which have found a home here. There are also a heap of pieces cut for a brown Plus quilt, so I could probably move on to that once this is finished. My mind always drifts ahead to think about what is next, and I should just be enjoying the one I'm working on.

I have 16 of these blocks now, and they'll go into a project box for now. I wanted to fine tune the piecing process, so that those seam intersections met at all the important places, but it kept eluding me. Finally I think I've nailed it, but I've used up most of the scraps I was using for this, so it can wait a while till I generate more. A big consideration in pausing this was the realisation that many of these scraps were from fabric used in my Dear Jane top. I still haven't done the border triangles, and if I use up all the scraps from that then I'll have to hunt down new fabric to finish it.  So I printed out the triangle template, and I'll start putting material aside for that.

I have 14 of these Washington Sidewalk blocks made, and the triangles cut for another 9. I love making them, but I'm confusing myself with so many projects on the go, so these also will go away at least until I finish the batik quilt. (Millhouse, made of Perler beads, supervises my sewing. My eldest grand-daughter made him for me years ago, and he still makes me smile.)

As well as trying to work on three projects I was also working on three leader-enders, which definitely contributed to the overwhelm.

 I have piles of Flying Geese, 6" blocks made of squares and some rectangle blocks to use up already pieced strips. I need to simplify it all, so I'm just going to have the Flying Geese as my leader-ender for now, and keep amassing pieces for the others.

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