Where was I?

I've been in Adelaide with the family. I could have blogged from there, but I forgot the cord for my laptop, and the tablet was not co-operating with Blogger, so I just gave up.

Before I left I got these blocks put together into a top, and I still haven't decided if it needs a border. Maybe a narrow one? 

Don't know what I want to do next; I found some scraps that looked nice together and make a 9" block. It's pretty, but I don't think I have more of those fabrics. I'll put it in the box with my other blocks that size, and I might be able to find some co-ordinating fabrics to make more.

Quilt tops from the archives:

This one used up a lot of 2" squares, left over from a Trip Around The World. It's based on a Quiltedtwins pattern but I chose not to do the triple sashing. It was a great scrap buster, I'd like to do another one when my scraps have built up again.

This one was to whittle down my grey fabrics.

I seem to have collected far too many, so a simple triangle pattern helped thin them out. I threw in a few aqua and apricot triangles to lighten it up. It was fun to make, but I still have a lot of grey fabric.

This top was just 2.5 and 1.5" strips.

It went together really easily, just some fun piecing for a quick top.

My daughter Seonaid and family went up to visit my son Rhys and family in Brisbane, right in the middle of some horrendous storm activity. It was bad timing, so many lightning storms that it wasn't safe to be outside for a lot of the time. There was a lot of reading and playing inside instead.

Isla was very good with her small cousins, she read them so many books, and carried Charli everywhere. And Freddy whenever possible.

They ventured out on Halloween for a spot of trick or treating, which is not huge in Australia. I love how Finn and Theo hold hands when they walk.

This photo is of the same pair last year. I can't believe they have both grown so much. It seems to happen so quickly.

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I made a few Sawtooth Stars yesterday,and it was fun, so it looks like the Annette Gero Star quilt is underway.

I have some very odd stripes and repro fabrics that don't lend themselves to cutting into bitty pieces, so they will find a use here. I'm not going to be strict about using fabric only once, but I am going to scour the cupboards tracking down all those weird pieces. It would be a shame not to use them with all the others.

I'm pressing the stars like this. I hate turning up the point of the geese unit, it tend to blunt even perfect points, so I'm hoping this will help everything look crisp. I'm getting fussier as I age.

Just for fun I've started mucking around with a new projects. Flourishing Palms blog had instructions for a strip quilt using 1.5" strips, encircling a centre strip. She has complete instructions here Filmstrip quilt

I don't have strips of modern fabric that narrow, but when I cut up those FQs I will definitely cut strips for this.  It will make a nice baby quilt one  day.

So 2 new projects are underway, but I did terminate 3 projects. I sold these blocks on Facebook recently; I had no interest in seeing them to completion.

Box Kite, another Bonny Hunter block. Fun to make, but 68 was enough

Scrap Bear Paw. I loved making these, and they obligingly used up a heap of charm squares, but I didn't need to put them together. It's quite tiring for me to wrangle a whole quilt these days, and other people are thrilled to get blocks like this for a quick finish.

and some blue/green/aqua blocks. I have more of these cut out, but a lady made a special request, so these are off to make her happy, and I will fill the project box up with more of them.

So I've been busy, even if there's not a lot to show for it.

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My stash Needs Sorting

 I'm still wandering around the sewing room, opening boxes and being bemused with what I've squirreled away. I'm finding fabric I have no memory of, and remnants of old projects, and little collections that I might have meant to start new projects with. But it's all a bit of a mystery.

This fabric is not something I ever would have bought in a quilt shop, and there's so much of each that it's unlikely I found it in an op-shop 😕. I would remember that.

The fabric is probably from a huge haul we got from a garage sale earlier in the year. A crafty lady had passed on and her family were trying to get rid of her stash, which wasn't just fabric. She had enormous tubs full of feathers, or sequins, or modelling clay, or buttons or paper or paint.  It was mind-blowing. We took about 10% of the fabric, but it was all prepacked in bags, with a lot of rubbish packed in with the good stuff, and it was priced way too high. We haggled over the bits we did want, and didn't pay too much, but the bulk of it all was still there when we went back in the evening of the second day. (Just to check there was nothing there we missed.) I'm actually glad we didn't get any more, because it's been difficult for our spaces to absorb the amount we did buy.

Going through my boxes and drawers has made me realise that the things that are giving me grief are the bits and pieces that I didn't want, didn't buy, and have no idea what to do with. We accumulate a lot from the quilts we finish for other people; they don't want the backing scraps, and we can't bring ourselves to throw it away.  It's mostly narrow strips and strings of really nice fabric, Tilda and William Morris to name a couple. Hence my foray into String piecing earlier this year, in an attempt to use some of it up. I was moderately successful, but the baskets of strings are still overflowing.

I did finish a string pieced top made from Kaffe offcuts from the patchwork shop in Jamestown. 

I really enjoyed working with those prints, but I didn't need to keep the top.

So I did what I usually do and sold it. And no, I don't make a lot of money from that, but this top was constructed from a small part of a $15 scrap bag, and fabric from the deep stash. I'm not in it for the money, I want to use my stash. The hours and hours of enjoyable sewing is an extra bonus.

We've been watching The Quilted Forest on You-tube, and her attempts to clear out her 2.5" bucket of strips. It's fascinating to watch, she's up to 24 videos in that series, and sometimes she makes 2 quilts per video. Very inspiring. Maybe if I could commit to a string pieced project every month I'd see progress.  Even 5 blocks a month would dent that pile of strings.

What I really need to do is start donating fabric back to the charity shops.  If it's not my cup of tea, get rid of it instead of trying to incorporate it into a scrap quilt.

Polyester. That's an instant No. 

Technically not ugly, but not my style at all. Back to the charity shop to make someone else happy.

I don't like Debbie Mum fabric, or 90s fabric with geese and straw hats and teddies. I don't like black backgrounds and dreary greyed-out colours. It can all go straight back. I think I will start a donation box right away. I'd better show Mereth, otherwise she might find it in the shop and bring it back again. We've done that before. What are we like?

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Play Time

I only meant to assess the situation with the Plaid blocks, but I got busy putting the cut pieces together, then realised I only needed 8 more to complete the top, so that's what I did. I went to the trouble of trimming each block, only to discover that they all measured 7.5" exactly. What a nice little block to put together.

They aren't all together yet, I assembled them into groups of 4, and I'll get it in one piece today. Then I can think about whether it needs a border or not. It might benefit from a 2.5" strip all round it to secure all those edge seams.

I had a little play with the Tucker Trimmer ruler, making Cat's Cradle blocks (or Mary's Triangles, or Shaded 4Patch) in various sizes. In 2020 I finished a top called Beloved from a favourite book, The Big Book of Civil War Quilts. 

I didn't have a ruler to help with the hundreds of Cat's Cradle blocks involved, and I cut all the pieces the exact size, which led to some struggles with piecing.

The ruler worked well, and I found it fascinating that this is one of those blocks that can be trimmed down to any size. An Hourglass block, or a HST can also be made bigger and then trimmed down.  If I were making a miniature with these units I would definitely make them larger and then cut them down to the size I needed. I've since discovered a Creative Grids ruler that might work even better, and I'm debating if I need yet another ruler to clutter up my table. But I'm a gadget girl after all, and with our current fabric prices here that's the equivalent of 1.5m of fabric..

I have other things I want to do right away, but I'll be on the lookout for a quilt design that I can use these units in, now that it's easy to do them.

What else am I doing? Still opening project boxes and organising the contents. So many of them are just leftovers from tops I've already completed, and think I might want to make again, or a collection of fabric destined for a top that's hardly begun. I might have to persuade myself to be a bit more ruthless.

I attended an exhibition of Anette Gero's  quilts many years ago, and took photos of my favourites. Annette is an Australian historian, and began collecting antique quilts long before it was fashionable here in Australia. 

I loved the quirky 1800s prints in these Sawtooth Stars, and about 10 years ago I set aside all my suitable fabrics in a project box.  I made one star, and  to me the project was underway. 

But it never moved past that initial block. By the end of today I'm going to have made a decision on whether this goes ahead, or if it goes back into stash.

Some of these pieces have disappeared from the stash, and I thought I'd used them all up. Not so; I'd cut 8" strips and squirreled them away in this box. I'm glad to see them again, and I hope a little of them survives this project and enters the stash again.

Strange, strange prints, but they will work in a quilt like this. If I decide to do it.

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Dabbling

 Sometimes after I've made a big effort to finish something I don't know what to tackle next. I've spent some time cutting up shirts and contemplating the UFO list. I ironed a whole bunch of scraps and FQs that I intend to cut up for the strip drawers. I went through the photos I've saved on my phone and computer and I drew up possible new projects in my graph paper book.

In keeping with my resolution to get in touch with all my UFOs I pulled out my Plaid project and cut more pieces for those blocks. 

I can use 3.5" strips for both sections of these blocks, and then just add in 1.5" squares from my overflowing basket of them. I'll sew this lot up tomorrow and then decide where it's going.

Tonight I tackled my 1.25" strips that resulted from the last time I cut up scraps. 

I sorted them all into lengths and, consulting my list of sizes for my Log Cabin blocks, cut them all into pieces for more blocks.

 Oddly enough, though I was cutting sizes randomly, I ended up with enough pieces for 11 blocks exactly. That seems very strange to me, when I wasn't trying to do that. But then I added them to the piles I already have and it became apparent that I need a lot more light pieces. I guess I'll get busy tomorrow cutting up more light fabrics into 1.25" strips.

I don't feel very motivated at night, so I just sewed up the Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks. 

I unearthed a whole heap of fabric scraps that I can cut more squares out of, so I'll tackle that tomorrow.  Maybe after a couple of days dabbling in this and that I'll have come to a decision about my next project.

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Second goal accomplished

Well it's in one piece, so that's a major accomplishment.

I have to work out a border for it now. the original quilt just had some pink and white triangles, but I don't know if I'm happy with that. I did try it, but I didn't think it framed the centre of the quilt properly.

I thought this shirting would look good with the pink triangles, but it just looks dirty with the rest of the top, so I'll have to keep auditioning fabrics.

I sewed up another lot of HSTs for my Scrappy Mountain Majesty blocks, this will make another 30 to add to the pile. My least favourite part is trimming the big HSTs down to 8"; it's really hard for me to see the details, and the ruler kept shifting as I cut.

I solved that by making a ledge of masking tape on my 8.5" square ruler. It locks the ruler in place like a Bloc Lock ruler and it's been working really well. My squares are accurate and my eyes are much happier. I think I saw how to do it on a Karen Brown video, but I really can't remember.

So now I have some simple mindless sewing ahead of me while I contemplate my November goals.

A while ago I indulged in some speciality rulers, but I haven't had a chance to use them all, so I will aim to do that next month. Mereth road tested the V block ruler and liked it; I do use the Folded Corner ruler and I love it, but the other two need to be used yet.  I would like a few more of the Studio 180 rulers, but the 8-point star one I want is $93. Yikes. 

My thinking is that I don't really need more fabric, so when I want a treat I could buy tools to make my patchwork easier instead. Which is good reasoning, but wow, $93 could buy a lot of $1 FQs. Just saying.....

This is my Chicago Peace rose, blooming happily. Usually the spring roses are spoilt by rain or singed by the sun, but this year they have had a chance to be beautiful. I'm grateful the weather has been so pleasant.

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One Thing Accomplished

It's not finished, I'm going to do some sort of narrow border, but it's in one piece and all the leftovers are banished to a deep dark drawer. It's 54 " x 66" so far, and it doesn't need to be much bigger but a border will stabilise those edges. I can say I've met that goal for October.

I don't know what I want to work on next, I'm sort of sick of the tiny scraps. I'll cut up a heap for my Log Cabins, but I've no desire to sew either of them,

Last year I mucked around and made a pile of sampler blocks in various sizes. I wanted something that I had to concentrate on producing, not batch sewing like I usually do. I went through EQ8 and Barbara Brackman's Blockbase software and came up with interesting blocks that it would take some effort to piece. I've never completed a sampler quilt, only orphan quilts, and thought it would be nice to have some new blocks to play with.

Some of them weren't hard, but I chose to do them in sizes that weren't easy to draft.This LeMoyne star inside pieced triangle corners was one of my favourites.

 It took some figuring out, because the star grid didn't correspond to the outside triangles. 

I think this was my favourite, I had to work to get those points matching, but it's a pretty block. I can see a whole quilt of these blocks. One day....

I've always loved the Rolling Star blocks, and finished a whole quilt in the early 80's, hand quilted with with feather wreaths. I have no idea where that quilt is now, it vanished after a quilt exhibition.

Or maybe this graphic triangle block is my favourite. It was fun to make something other than the usual stars and 9-patches and Happy Blocks.

Seeing as I don't know what project to work on next I might just pick another couple of blocks to make while I think about it. It's nice just concentrating on one block instead of 25, or 42.

And another top from the archives: Moth In The Window, another Bonnie Hunter quilt in shirts and chambray. My goodness I use a lot of her patterns! 42 blocks were enough for a quilt, but I'd cut out many more.

 I gritted my teeth and sewed them all up, but I don't want to see them again for a while. I didn't enjoy them half as much as I thought I would. 

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October Goals

My goal for October was to get in touch with all the projects I have, in their various boxes and containers. And plastic bags, as it turns out. There are only a few days left in the month, so I really need to step up the pace.

There are 2 projects that I really want either finished or set up ready to finish.  One is the Bitcoin top, and the other is those pesky little 9-Patches. I'm sick of the amount of space they are taking up, so something needs to be done about them.

If the Bitcoin is in one piece I'll be content with that.  It will probably get a border, but I'll decide that later. It depends if I have pieces leftover. 

If the tiny 9-Patches are sewn into their 12" blocks I'll be happy with that. It would take another afternoon to sash the blocks and get the main part of the top done. It will have a border of pink and cream HSTs, but again, that will be a later task. I'll sew them in batches I think. 

I think there's a good chance of me making significant progress, if I can just concentrate.

There are 2 things I started as leader-enders, that I haven't mentioned yet. Both were begun a a way to use up my never-ending supply of blue fabric and scraps. I love blue, but I'm sick of these particular ones, and because I have so much of them they never seem to get any less. I'm not sure that I've made any headway yet. 

One is Triple Treat, which was a Bonnie Hunter leader-ender from a couple years ago. 

This has the added advantage of using up my red scraps, which I"ve come to hate for some reason. I keep finding containers of them stashed away, and I'm sick of the sight of them. I won't mind if they all vanish into these blocks.

The other is Four Patch Fun, this years challenge. 

I see I started with 2.5" strips and then moved to 2" scraps, of which I have an abundance. Over the winter I worked at cutting up scraps and even yardage, and made a lot of little kits all ready to piece in between my serious sewing.

I resisted making the Triple Treat a primary project while I was dealing with the string blocks, but I may just put them in first place soon. I really enjoy making them, they are so easy to put together now that the 4patches are all made.

Mereth brought me back some Verbena seedlings after her last trip to Adelaide. She potted them on for me, until we can decide where they will live permanently. They are so happy, and so pretty. I'm grateful that I have a gardening sister who helps me have a garden.

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