Finished!

I can't quite believe it's finally finished. It's been hanging around in various project boxes for more than 15 years, inspiring guilt in me, and now it's done. 

I'm thinking I might ditch stitch all the blocks on the Statler, and then hand quilt the rest. It would be nice and relaxing to quilt, with those big shapes to outline. I've pulled out a few bolts of fabric to audition for backings, but I haven't made my choice yet.

I've been eyeing the Dear Jane all day, trying to decide where to start. Finally I opened up my drafting software, drew up an outline of the quilt and experimented with various sizes for the triangle and the coping border.

The original had an 8" border, making the top 85" square. No way I was making it that big. I kept trying different things and finally chose a 4.5" high triangle, which is a similar shape to the original. 

I even made a template and cut out a few pieces so I could hand stitch them together. When I was putting the Periwinkle together it occurred to me how easy it was to ease the hand-piecing into the required length, easy to stretch or to compress. So I will be hand stitching this border too.

That way it won't tie up any of my machines, it will be more enjoyable at a leisurely pace, and I can make decisions as I go along.  I need 17 triangles for each side, which is not a lot, and I'll be able to work at them tucked up on the couch keeping warm under my granny Afghan. 

I've dug out quite a lot of fabric scraps. Using a smaller triangle means I can use smaller scraps too

I need to do some mindless sewing after all the decision making, so I'm looking for something to just push through the machine. I might even get out my Bitcoin top and see what that needs for borders. 

I have heaps of strips already pieced as piano key borders, maybe I can extend those to be big enough? That should be fairly easy.

That's a 4" border. I can live with that.

The length doesn't need adding to, I might do a 3" strip top and bottom.  No matter what I decide, I need to cut some more 1.5" strips for my mindless sewing.

A Busy Week

At the start of the week I quilted a baby quilt for a friend (and talked Mereth into binding it for her). It was pieced with minky in several spots, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it behaved itself and looked really nice.

Then I trimmed the four heart quilts I quilted for another friend and got them ready to pick up.

While the machine was stitching on the baby quilt I cut borders for the Periwinkle top. This is the first border finished, the others were waiting their turn. I'll have a decent photo to post tomorrow.

We went to the closing-down craft shop twice, and raided the shelves for anything useful or irresistible.  Not a lot appealed, but at least we can be assured that we went through all of it and picked out the good stuff.

On Wednesday night we were going to dinner at a friends house, and I cooked two Chinese dishes that afternoon.  I think I used every dish and frypan and spatula I owned. But it was all very good, and everyone else contributed a couple of dishes so we had a proper banquet. It took a while to clean up afterwards tho.

What next? Remember this from maybe 2013?

It's been in a box ever since I finished the blocks, and I need to see it with some progress.  I need to work out the size of the little coping border that will help the border triangles fit perfectly. It will mean a bit of calculation, but it's not impossible. I just need to apply myself to the problem.

I'm going through the blocks and trying to remember if I have any of those fabrics still in the stash. That will keep me quiet for a few nights, as I go through every scrapbag and box. But it should be fun to revisit all the fabrics I used.

Projects Definitely Advanced

The Fox And Geese blocks are now a finished top. I took the photo late in the afternoon, and the lighting was really bad. The border is not dark at all;

it's a lovely light background, but the camera couldn't capture that. I'm so glad it's finished though, it's been on the UFO list for more than a decade.

We have lots of this wideback, who knows where it will turn up next. I fussy cut the border strips, so I have leftovers to incorporate into my piecing.

Another long term project is nearing completion. The Periwinkle blocks were started probably in 2010, I'm not sure of the exact date.

I've done some more work on it, I only have about 6 long seams to finish and it will be all joined into one piece. I'm still debating borders, but I think that stripe on the right hand corner is winning at the moment. I still can't quite believe that I have moved this so far along!

I've been sewing lots of the tiny triangles needed for the Fancy 4Patch, and cutting more pieces and generally getting in a muddle.

Tonight I'll sit down and sort it all out and give it a single project box. At the moment I have no idea where I am as far as block numbers and pieces needed.

It's making my head hurt just looking at all the bits and pieces. I'll write a card to put in the box and make notes about what else is needed. I have definitely advanced this project, which was my aim.

These little cross blocks have grown in number, from 50 at the start of  the month to 82 now. Later this week I'll do some planning as to how I'll use them, so I have more of an idea of how many more I should make.

I don't seem to have a photo of the Spinning Rectangles, but I had 55 at the start of the month, and I'm up to 95 now. I'm very pleased with that progress.

My night time belongs to spinning at the moment, I'm really enjoying getting back into the habit. I didn't spin at all last year, so I was a bit worried that I'd forgotten how to, but it's all coming back to me.

This is part of a washed fleece that was close at hand, so I filled a bobbin with it and I'll make a 3ply yarn from it. Once I've done that I'll investigate all my tubs of fleece and decide what will be next. It's such a peaceful, reflective hobby, I love it.

Variety

 It occurred to me yesterday that my frantic attempts to move all my projects further along might be linked to the urge to do some serious spinning now that the weather is cooling down. I went through all my spinning gear and fleeces and now I'm really wanting to spin at night instead of sew. And I need to knit up some of the skeins of yarn I've produced. I have too many crafts that I'm passionate about, so I'm going to have to ration the sewing so I can indulge in some kitting, crochet and spinning.

I'm also aware that my hands aren't up to all the spinning and fleece prep that I would like to do, so I need to be sensible about it and start off slow. I've been spinning for an hour each evening, and sewing whatever is ready to sew, and cutting kits for a change of pace. So far, so good; no major hand problems and I'm making progress on a lot of things.

I got all the Cat's Claw blocks set together. 

Now it's down the shop waiting for it's borders.

I laid out the Periwinkle blocks and cut all the sashing for it. I'll sew this in strips over a few days; it's such an old project that there really is no hurry to finish it.

I'm sewing on the Fancy 4Patch blocks. I was a bit bored with how they were looking, and went on Instagram again to have a look at the original quilt. I was intrigued to see that the tiny HSTs were made with different backgrounds; that was interesting.

I immediately sewed up a heap of HSTs with different shirtings, and wow, what a difference. I'm keen to cut and kit more blocks, and instead of complaining about the blocks now I'm loving the change the extra fabric makes. I guess I was just sick of all that boring cream background.

I admit I'm feeling a bit tired of patchwork I have to concentrate on, so I'll probably make 50 or so of the Spinning Rectangles as a treat.  They require no brainpower at all.

Sunday Progress Report

 I am steadily working on the things that I listed as needing attention. I've decided that the Cat's Claw blocks will be set 7 by 9, and I'm sewing them into rows now. It's not hard, just tedious, so I make myself do some of it before I'm allowed to sew anything else.  

I'm in the process of adding the borders to the Fox And Geese top, but it's slow going, as I need to fussy cut those wide backing strips. I've been quilting too much to concentrate on it, but I hope to get it done next week.

I have 76 of the little cross blocks finished, and I cut up a heap of scraps to make more. I think I'd like to use them as a border, but I don't have any ideas yet on where that would be.

 I could also sew them together in fours, to make  blocks, set together with sashes. I really like making these little things, so it's no hardship to have more of them to sew, and they obligingly use up little scraps.

I have 65 of the little Spinning Rectangle blocks, and more cut out ready to use as leader-enders. They are such fun to sew that I have to keep stopping myself from making them all at once.  They also use up tiny scraps, very helpfully.

I'm up to 6 of the blue/green strip diamond blocks, halfway, and I have all the grey background blocks cut ready. I just need to find time to work on it, Now that I have a major quilting job out of the way I should be able to concentrate more on it. No progress on anything string pieced yet; I have to be in the right mood to mess up my sewing space with strings.

I'm up to 20 of the Fancy 4Patch blocks. It occurred to me how silly it was that I thought the waste triangles from snowballed corners were too small, when I have a whole project using 1" finished HSTs. I was getting a bit intimidated by how many of these I had to make, when I realised that my blocks are bigger than the sewalong ones, so instead of 150+ I only had to make 50. Whew that seems much more achievable. 4.5" blocks versus 6.5" blocks; I wouldn't even attempt that.

This And That

I put the borders on This And That today, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. 

Using green in the borders brought out the green in the patchwork. It feels good to be able to cross this off the list.

I'm working on those Fancy 4Patch blocks, I'm up to 16 finished and 10 kitted. I make all the HSTs first, then I cut the 1.5" squares for each block and bag them up. 

I'll decide later if I want the 2.5" squares to be the same fabric or something different.

One night I saw the Periwinkle project box tucked away on a high shelf and pulled it down to see what needed to be done to it. I've chosen and cut the sashes, and I'll machine sew them, so I trimmed all 35 blocks to be an accurate 9.5" square. They weren't bad for hand pieced blocks, only a few had skimpy seam allowances. Now it should be easy to lay them out and get them sewn into a top.

I based this on a Grant Wood painting that was in one of my quilt books, and now I can't remember what book.  I found images of the painting, Spring In Town, online, but in all of them the pink and green quilt on the left has been cropped out. 

This was the best I could find, and the quilt is all smeared.  I'll keep looking for the image in the book; it will be an excuse to go through all my old favourites.

Progress Report

One UFO has made it to finished top stage.

This took a few hours while I fiddled with how to finish the edges, trying to be fancy, but ultimately I was limited by the amount of fabric I had. I love how it turned out, and I love how vibrant it is with  the black linking the autumn colours, but I think I'm over using black for a while.     And I'm never going to start another black project without ensuring I have more than enough fabric.

Onward to another on the WIP list. I finished 2 more blocks on this scrappy project. It's called Scrappy Dappy Do on the YouTube video, but I refuse to use that name. I'll call it Strippy Diamonds I think.

I'm sewing this on my dear little Pfaff, which is just the sweetest machine. I think she has a touch of dementia though; when I turn her on she takes a lot of fiddling to make her sew normally. She responds with a gathering stitch no matter how many buttons I push, until I'm ready to give up, and then she relents and gives me a normal stitch length. I thought, at least she's a later model, I can have her serviced, but then I find that she's actually 24 years old. So almost vintage. A motherboard fix might be expensive or not even possible. 

I got busy and sewed up all but 5 of the little cross blocks that were my leader enders. I have 76 now, I will do some experimenting and see what they might become. I'm thinking a border in a medallion quilt. And yes, there are some blocks in that photo that are a new start.

My 2.5" repro strips were bugging me, so I cut out a pile of these blocks to get rid of them. I don't like 1800s blocks with that size strip, so I cut these blocks from any that were long enough. They're fun to piece, so I'll make up what I've cut out and then see what I can do with them.

My other leader ender is the Spinning Rectangle.  I now have 55, but I will need hundreds of these 4" blocks, so a long way to go yet.

I'm actually cutting pieces for them as I go through the 2.5" strip drawer, and making kits. I'm really terrible at the whole random thing, so having them all bagged up is a time saver. No trying to find the perfect bit to use, and wasting time that I could spend sewing.

There was another trip to the craft shop sale. More $11 fabric, and the floral was $6 a metre. The sale is only for another 3 weeks, so we're excusing our purchases on the grounds that in 3 weeks he'll have shut up shop for good.

I have seen bloggers post about pretty granny square blankets they've found in the op-shop and I must admit I've been a bit jealous. Yesterday I found one of my own, in a bin marked Dog Blankets.

Sometimes these crocheted rugs are covered in pet hair, old lady hair, dirt, holes and stains, and yes they should be used for pets. But this is perfectly clean and undamaged, so I rescued it.

I will use it to keep warm while I crochet my own version this winter.

Mothers Day, and my favourite flowers are in full bloom. One of my favourite flowers, I have so many. I appreciate chrysanthemums so much more because they are a once a year treat. Such a generous display of beautiful flowers!

Working On Several Projects

I had already chosen the fabric for the alternate squares for these blocks, and I'd even cut the squares, so it was an easy job to lay them out on the design wall.

The hard part is deciding how big to make the quilt. 7 x 7 blocks would be 56" square. Not big enough. I know I want the blocks to be in the corners; either I make a square  quilt, or one that is 16" longer than it is wide. It will have 4" borders too. I can't make up my mind; it's either going to be 64" x 80", or 80" square. I'd better measure my bed and see if I can even use an 80" quilt. It's definitely staying with me, I love it.

My inspiration photo was this:

from this book.

I loved the green and the plain quilting, and the farmhouse feel. I didn't love the blocks, and I thought my Cat's Claw blocks would be perfect. (I know they're called Devil's Claw, but I don't like that name, and I modified it slightly so it's not a regular 9patch in the middle, so it's called Cat's Claw instead.)

I'm sewing rows of 7 together, just a few at a time so I don't get jaded about it. While I sewed I made some more Spinning Rectangle blocks, and assembled some more Fancy 4-Patches as well.

I checked on Instagram and they're up to week 8, 4 blocks a week, so I'm aiming for 32 and then it can go away till next month. I have quite a few kitted up, so I think I can finish them in a week or so.

One night I worked exclusively on these little cross blocks. I finished 6, and put together the cross part for another 20. I started these as a way to use up 2" strips of 1800s fabrics, and they cleared a lot out of the scrap drawers. I need to decide how I want to use these, because I don't know that I have many more pieces in the scrap drawer that will be suitable.

We're finally getting some cold temperatures, mainly at night, the days are still pleasant. My tomato plants were pretty well dead, so I stripped off anything remaining on them. It's not a big harvest! I'll make some spaghetti sauce and get a few meals from it, but that's it for the year. Next up is planting spring onions and silverbeet, and that's enough for a winter garden. Plus some pansies. And a gerbera or two.....

Advance - My Word For May

 April seemed to just vanish; I know I did some sewing and organising, but not as much as I would have hoped. My trip away took up one third of the month, so I wasn't very productive. I've chosen a word for May, one that I need to consider every time I sit down to sew, or wonder what to do next. Advance; what can I do to advance my projects closer to a finish. I don't expect to have a huge amount of tops done by the end of the month but I do want to see that I have worked on my stalled projects and brought them closer to a finish.

I have several tops that are at the border stage, and I've moved on to something else rather than finish them. My sewing set up is a bit cramped and that puts me off wrestling with a whole top, but I do have an ideal space at the shop. I need to spend more time there and get the tops finished.They include This And That, Fox And Geese and the black and autumn grannies made from leftovers.

I went through so many fabrics trying to find 'The One.' Eventually Mereth made me try a wideback we've been hoarding, and it does look nice. 

This print annoyed me because the pattern slopes down across the width of the fabric, and it's very noticeable. I cut 4 strips lengthwise, because I have many metres of it, so hopefully it will go together nicely.

This has been in time out because I couldn't match the black fabric. It's a very blue black. When I was going through a scrap bag I found a half metre of black with a midnight blue swirl, and decided it would do, because this top really needed to be finished.

I've also started a lot of block collections to use as leader-enders. It always works best when I just have one leader-ender, but I get side-tracked so easily. I'm sewing the Spinning Rectangles, 

but also the little cross blocks. When I run out of pieces I swap to the other one instead of cutting more pieces. I'm surprised I don't have a third one in the works.

I want to work on my blue and green scrappy project this month. I only want 12 blocks, and they are very easy to sew. 

I need to make some more Fancy 4-Patches, because I've not been keeping up with those. I have no deadline for them, but if I never touch them then I never make any progress.

This collection of blocks also deserves some attention.  I have 37 made, and I imagine that's enough for whatever I want to do. I would also like to make more Triple Treat blocks, and more Four Patch Fun blocks. I have so many kits prepared for them, I need to pull out a few of them every week and get them further along.

I'm not aiming to get everything finished, but I do want to be able to say that I didn't waste my time this month. It's so easy to get distracted these days. I'm going to have to limit my computer time, so that I don't get ideas and start so many new projects. And stop buying so much fabric that tempts me even more.