cbott wondered yesterday in the comments what size my 'tiny' 9patches were. They are made from 1.25" strips, so they are 2.25" finished blocks. 

I documented the beginnings of them in this post. 

The quilt I'm making has 16 tiny blocks set with 1" sashing into a 12. 5" block. 

I've dug out the leftovers and made some more 9patches; I need 80 to make 5 more blocks and I have 53 now. Another few nights sewing and I should have all of them done. Then I can finish the larger blocks.

Another query was whether we work in centimetres. Australia mostly quilts in inches; there are metric quilting tools available, but I don't personally know anyone who uses them. Our cutting mats are printed with inches on one side and metric on the other, I never use those markings, I depend on the lines on my rulers for accuracy.

I was in high school in 1971 when the metric system was enforced in schools, so I'm bilingual in inches and centimetres😁. My daughter has gleaned enough knowledge from my quilt room over the years to know what us oldies are talking about when we say things like, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile". My grandchildren say, What's an inch? It's 2.54 centimetres actually.

The last month has been a bit of a jumble, with a trip to Adelaide for a family wedding and the school holidays necessitating a trip to visit the grandkids.  Before I left I was poking around in the sewing room trying to decide on a major project to concentrate on, but nothing really appealed. My 2" strip drawer was too full to close properly, so I pulled them all out and started cutting for these little blocks. 

They finish at 4.25" which is a bit of an odd size, but they used up nearly all the short strips from that drawer, so it closes nicely now. I have no plans for them; I might build them into a bigger block, or use them as a border for another set of blocks. I'm just enjoying making them in fragments of time. 

They take literally minutes to put together, so there's a box of them by the sewing machine and I just sew a few when I want to.

Speaking of sewing machines, my dear old Janome 6500 is starting to behave quite oddly. It had a new motor fitted a couple of years ago, and is still holding up well, but it's started to make a 'boing' noise when I stop sewing. Like a spring being snapped. Well that doesn't sound right at all. Mereth is now sewing on my lovely vintage Bernina after her machine died, and I started to panic that I would be stranded without a serviceable machine. Much as I love my antique ones, I find it hard to maintain a consistent quarter inch seam on them, and I've sewn quite a few of them to a standstill when their electrics break down. It's almost impossible to find someone to work on the really old ones, so I can't depend on them.

So that led to the arrival of Scarlett, a Janome 6650. 

I didn't want an embroidery capable machine, and she has lots of pre-programmed embroidery stitches that I will likely never use, but she's just an updated version of what I've been sewing on for the last 20 years. 

I was grumbling that I couldn't seem to find a perfect 1/4"  seam with her, and then I noticed this on her screen.

Well look at that. No 7 is a built in 1.4".  And it's perfect. There's a 7 mm seam too, if you were inclined to be metric, but like I said, I don't know anyone who uses that. Maybe those young ones who can't interpret the old ways?

I haven't graduated to using her exclusively, but I'll swap the machines over soon, and the 6500 can go down into our workshop. And I won't need to panic anymore.

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More surprises

A few days ago I opened a box marked Batik Stars and found this. Cool, all nicely labelled by Past Me.  But where are all the cut pieces, so that I could make a few more blocks? My mind drew a blank.

Then I opened this box to find it contained one Mosaic block (that's what EQ8 called it) and nothing else. I usually have a cheat sheet in with my projects, so I know what sizes to cut, but there was nothing there. I decided to work it out and leave instructions in the box.

While I was figuring and cutting and kitting and testing sizes a thought kept occurring to me. Surely I'd done this before? I remembered laying out blocks on the design wall and choosing that red for sashing or alternate squares. Where were those blocks?

Anyway, I kept on, till I had 25 blocks kitted, a cheat sheet written for the sizes and 3 blocks made. Mereth paid me a visit as I was tidying this up, and idly started looking in drawers to help me get organised. And she pulled this out of a drawer clearly marked UFOs.

Mosaic blocks, but with the light and dark reversed. Complete with cheat sheet, a progress card, and an EQ8 mock up of the quilt I wanted to make. I was a bit gobsmacked. My memory wasn't completely wrong, but it was a bit back to front. Interestingly, all the triangle sizes I'd worked out for the new blocks were one eighth of an inch larger than the EQ generated ones. I've very much embraced the trim down method of patchwork, it's so much easier on my eyes and I get better results.

But she wasn't finished. This came out next.

My cut pieces for the batik stars!

I had no idea that I'd put them in that drawer. Anything else?

This project called Antique Tile, along with the EQ8 printout. That drawer was a little trove of forgotten projects. Thanks Mereth, for fishing around and finding all that.

I guess I don't need to tell you why I'm back to the tiny 9-patches. It was easier to give in gracefully.

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In which I am surprised by my sewing room

In the spirit of getting in touch with my WIPs I've been rummaging through the project boxes, often with surprising results. I had a big push early in the year to corral all the new starts, and make sense of the older ones. Note to Present Me; LABEL everything. Maybe posting here will help jog my memory.

I have two Log Cabin WIPS; a traditional one in 1.25" strips, and a Half Log Cabin in 1.5" strips. 

They obligingly eat up all my scraps in those sizes and, having a lot of new scraps, I thought I would cut some more pieces. I found the blocks easily enough. But where were all the precut pieces that I'd been working on?

I was opening a heap of unmarked boxes and lo and behold, there were all the Log Cabin pieces, nicely tucked away, ready for the next session. 

I have no memory of packing them away like that, zilch, crickets. It's a bit scary that it wasn't in the memory bank at all. But it was a relief to find them; now to refill the trays and stitch some more blocks.

Then later that day I shifted a box and found a little tray of baggies underneath. And in there were about 10 starts of the 1.25" Log Cabin, up to round 2.  At least I know where to store them, until I start work on those blocks again. Mereth's organising mantra is Like With Like, and I hate to admit that I don't follow that at all. Mine is, just find a space and slot it in there. And then apparently forget all about it.

I made a concerted effort to finish these blocks I'm calling Autumn Grannies. I'm not much drawn to black in quilts, but I just loved the way it sharpened all these colours; they're supposed to be sashed with more black. But then I ran out of that particular black fabric. It's been sitting in limbo ever since. I've accumulated more black that I'll ever use, trying to match it, but none of them are the 'right' black. I don't know whether to give up on it entirely and sell the blocks, or keep buying more fabric. The jury is deliberating.

Because I overcut every single time, I had enough 2" strips left to make this little wallhanging, with one of the rejected blacks. 

I got this far, and then I ran out of the black. 😒This one has a very blueish lean to it, and nothing matches so far. I would only need a quarter metre to finish it, but nothing has worked yet. Both Mereth and I have toted swatches into many many quilt shops, to no avail. I'll keep looking.

And a little bit of progress has been made on my Tiny Antique 9-Patches.I found a pink fabric for the sashing. I have 20 blocks made, and I was going to call it quits at that size. But it badly wants to be 25 blocks and I really don't want to have to make 5 more. We are at an impasse. Which is ridiculous, because I could get the 20 blocks into a top, and then debate the problem, instead of leaving all the bits to clutter up the room. 

Once I write all this down for the blog I can see how silly I'm being. Maybe it will encourage me to just get things done. Or it might not.

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Project tally

My official number of projects is 32. The real number is much greater, because I've been haring off the path, following ideas that I pick up from scrolling through blogs and Facebook. Thank heavens I don't do much on Pinterest, or I would have even more barely begun projects.

These blocks are the result of finding a partial jellyroll in a scrap bag. Not really my cup of tea, but they quickly became these blocks. I'm debating whether I need to make some more; it's 50 x 60" now, which is a nice lap quilt size. I'll come back to them later.

My purple Twirl Around is finished, I'm so pleased with how it turned out. It might be for a granddaughter, or I might sell the top. I haven't decided yet.

More Bonnie goodness. Bitcoin has been in progress several months. I wasn't going to do this pattern, but every single one I've seen has been gorgeous, so I succumbed. I know it's supposed to be random scraps, but I don't do random, so I've been auditioning the placement of the rows before I sew them to the body of the quilt. That makes it go slowly, but I'm happy with the overall look. Another thing I'm doing differently is instead of sewing strips together and cross-cutting them, I'm sewing the small pieces together as leader enders. I got so sick of never having enough leader enders prepared, so I just cut my strips to the required size and I'm building the columns bit by bit. 

My goal for October is to get in touch with all my projects. Literally to open every project box and container and find out where things are, how far along they are, and make a note of what I need to do to finish them. It's been very illuminating; I'm finding long-lost rulers and notions, combining bits that somehow ended up in multiple boxes, deciding that some things can become UFOs and be disposed of. My most important rule is to label it all. Future Me will be so grateful.

It's been a very disjointed year, lots of travel to see family or for medical appointments, and every time I come home I have to pick up the pieces of where I was when I left. So the labelling is super important. 

One of the reasons I had to travel was the arrival of this little fellow in Brisbane.

Grandson number 4, Alfred, Freddie for short.  Son Rhys and DIL Naomi welcomed him into the family in April. We planned for me to be up there in time for his birth, but he had other ideas and arrived the week before I did. So he wasn't quite brand new when I met him, but close to it.

He's in a good paddock, as we say of any little one stacking on the weight😁 and growing well. I think he's the last baby for this branch of the family, which makes me sad.  I've loved all the baby snuggles and the utter privilege of watching little babies grow up into children with their own personalities. So much love to share.

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Current Status

 I've been away for too long; having trouble uploading photos from my phone. I've updated the app, hopefully that's all that's needed to solve that problem.

This was clogging up the floorspace in my sewing room yesterday. All that fabric had to be put back where it belongs.

Same with this.

Ta Da!. Empty table, empty wash basket. It took a while to sort it all out, then stash it back in the drawers and shelves, but it was totally worth it. I have room to move now. 

The other big problem in my sewing room was ironed fabric draped over every surface. Once I've gone to the effort of ironing a FQ or yardage I feel that I can't fold it up and put it away until I cut out what I need, and then I still don't put it away because I have ideas to use it while it's still lovely and uncreased. I was drowning in bits and pieces draped over every surface. I've worked hard for weeks to deal with that and I think I've got it under control now, but I'm worried that it will lapse back into that state.

My new strategy is, cut out what I need, plus maybe a half inch extra, from the un-ironed fabric, then put the rest away. Right that minute. Then I can iron the bits that I need, cut out the pieces I need, and put the rest into the strip drawers.  If you already do that you won't understand why this is such a revelation to me, but I've always thought, I'll just do a bit extra, just in case, and it's the extra bits that are draped over open drawers and shelves and doors.  So from now on, no ironing extra bits, and put it all away when I've finished with it.

Off to the iron, and the remainder of the fabric is already back in the drawers. Fantastic!

I've made probably 20 or so tops in the last year, and sold them all. My family doesn't need more quilts, and I won't stop making them, so it makes sense to let them go to a new home.

I've been leaning heavily towards Bonnie Hunter's patterns as great stashbusters. This is the third Boxy Stars  top I've made, it's a favourite pattern,

The blocks are quick and easy, use lots of little scraps plus some bigger ones, and they look great. I'm sure there's at least one more in the works, seeing I found 18 block quarters while I was cleaning up

I'm using the larger Doug Leko Folded Corner ruler to clip the corners off, and it's brilliant. These blocks came out to a perfect 12.5" size, can't ask for better than that.

I'll keep posting the tops that I've made over the last 18 months or so, a few at a time.  It would be overwhelming to do it all at once. I've been busy.....

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Dearie me, where do I start. It's been a long, long time since I posted here; way too much time to do a proper catch up on all the things that happened in the last year and a half. Suffice to say that my health is steadily declining, (chronic lung disease) and it's limiting a lot of what I enjoyed so much. No more gardening, or long walks, limited get togethers with friends. But at least I can still sew to my heart's content; I don't know what my state of mind would be if I didn't have patchwork and sewing. I don't even quilt as much as I used to, can't stand for long at the machine, and even more annoying, I can't see all that well either. But I can sit and sew, and I hope to document a lot of what I've done since I last posted.

I finished the Housetop blocks.

The top is waiting for it's turn on the longarm. It will probably be Baptist Fans, I intend to keep this, so I can choose whatever I want for it, and take my time with it.

I started working on this Twirl Around block from Bonnie Hunter's Addicted To Scraps book, and absolutely loved the clear colours and the vibrance of purple and green.  I'm being drawn more and more to modern, pretty fabrics and white as a neutral. I've been fixated on cream and stone and bone as my neutrals with 1800 repros, and it all feels much lighter and brighter with a modern palette. There's room for both in the sewing room.

And there's more time for jigsaws now too. Last Christmas our family had a jigsaw-a-thon. Photos flew back and forth between the various branches as each puzzle was finished. The kids got stuck in and did at least one a day, the oldest ones have graduated to 500 piece ones now. It was all great fun and stopped that post Christmas day slump that sometimes happens. We are collecting puzzles now for this years attempt. And it's not far away.

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Gardening

 The effects of my chest cold linger on, lots of coughing and very little energy. In spite of my lethargy I have managed to do a few things.

I needed to get my garden in order, mainly because on a trip to Jamestown I couldn't resist some seedlings, and they needed a new home rather badly. My garden has been reduced to a 4m stretch just outside my door. I'm not supposed to handle potting mix, or dig in the garden, but the gardening habit is hard to break. My flowers bring me so much happiness, I'd hate to do without them entirely. I wanted to help preserve the plants I have, which have survived several harsh summers, and scatter in some new autumn colour where I could.

The seedlings were shifted into small pots to grow on, and with Mereth's help I moved a lot of old pots around, chucked heaps of things that were just rubbish now, and tried to design a layout that would enable me to have the most garden in the least space. That meant going up, and I've stacked smaller pots on top of the largest ones, and made shelves from bricks and wood that elevate troughs so I can see what's happening in them. 

Setting up the infrastructure of a garden is time consuming, plus I didn't want to spend anything if I could help it.  I just gathered together all sorts of stuff that's been lying around, and gave it a new purpose. The terracotta pots we got for 20cents a few years ago, and when I trim my geraniums back I'll put the cuttings in those pots. They're on an old metal hospital table that used to go over the beds. I picked that up from the side of the road about 15 years ago, and it's had many uses since then. I've been at this for days but I think I'm close to planting out what I want, and that will be the fun part. I have to wear a mask when I'm near the potting mix but once it's all finished it will just require watering and fertilizing, and I'll be able to handle that.

Mereth has always loved growing vegetables best, and I am a flower grower. I do have a few things like spring onions and peppers, but it's the flowers that make my heart go pitter-pat. And while it's all been fun, I need to get back into the sewing room, because playing with fabric also makes me happy. 

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Back again

Where was I? Last time I posted I was busy rummaging in my scraps, then I had a flurry of quilting at the shop, then I had to go to Adelaide to help Seonaid's family before the school holidays. Seonaid organises the school sports day, all the fundraising and catering. It's not something I'd ever volunteer for, but she's been in Events Management for a decade or more, so it's something she's more than qualified for. I was just there to babysit kids while she did the work, and I'm still qualified to do that 😀.

I brought Isla home for 5 days, so we could sew and visit with family here. We made a pillowcase, and microwave heat bags, and a nightie, so Isla gained some more experience with the sewing machine. I had to ask her to thread the needle on more than one occasion, my eyesight being what it is. 

Then we went back to Adelaide, and I stayed a few days longer, so I could babysit the kids while Seonaid went to some meetings and a dinner. It's so much easier to look after older kids, thank heavens; they help get dinner, help clean up, shower themselves. Isla even reads to the younger two, so I'm just there to break up fights and make them brush their teeth, basically. And hold their hands while they go to sleep.....

I came back exhausted anyway, with yet another cold picked up from Finn. It takes me ages to get over a cold, so it's been very slow progress in the sewing room since then.

I'd left a stack of pieces for Log Cabin and Disappearing 4-patch blocks by the machine, so I sewed all them together when I felt up to it. Eventually I had 56 blocks up on the design wall, and I'm slowly sewing them in groups of 4. I considered just putting them in a container and going on to something else, but I would not look forward to arranging them all on the design wall again, so I'll just spend a bit more time on it and get it ready for borders.

The 1.25" Log Cabin blocks now number 80, and I think I might just put them aside for now. The blocks are 6.75" finished ,so they would only make a 54 x 67" top. I don't know if I'd be happy with that size, I usually like to make tops a bit bigger than that. I need more pieces if I'm going to make more blocks, I've done a good job of cleaning out the strip box; I will amass some more scraps and see how I feel then.

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I do love Log Cabins!

And I made a sample block with 1" strips, but I'm not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole just yet.

I had a bundle of rejected strips that I kept moving from place to place, so I sewed most of them into this 20"paper-pieced star. It's not something I want to make more of, so I'm going to border it with HSTs and a few more reject fabrics and call it a wallhanging.

And now that I'm in the process of finishing one project, and shelving another, I'm looking at concentrating on the tiny 9-patches.

I'm going to set them together with 1.5" strips, so they have a bit more breathing room. This makes a 12" block, and I'm really happy with how it looks. It's going to be hard to find a suitable sashing fabric, but I'll deal with that later on. 

Miss Isla is 8 years old now, and allowed to be in charge of the knife for the cutting of her birthday cake.

She's quite the young lady now; I miss baby Isla, but I've always loved spending time with her at any stage. Here's hoping she turns into my quilting buddy.

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Progress Report

I seem to have made the UFO situation much worse with my latest efforts to tame the scraps. I suppose I shouldn't call these UFOs, because I've only just started them, but I've added 7 new projects in a matter of weeks. I'm up to 40 projects on my Works In Progress list, and that's making me a bit uneasy. I don't really have the storage for that many projects, but it's been so much fun that I can't regret it, and I really have made a difference to the strip drawers.

The blocks on the ironing mat are 6 of the things I started in February/March alone.

1. Housetop blocks; I have 26,  need 4 more and I will have enough for a couch quilt. They've been put in a box until I amass some more scraps.          
   
   
                                              
2. Log Cabin from 1.25" strips; 36 blocks and counting.  These will be ongoing, I don't have enough strips left for the 120 blocks I want.                                                                                 
   
3. Half Log Cabin; 21 blocks and counting. I will need to generate more strips so that I can make the 120 blocks I need for this.                                                            
      
   
   
                                     
4. Antique tiny 9 Patches; 1 finished block, 80 9 Patches. The 1.25" strips I have left aren't suitable for this, so I have started in on the scrap pile to make more 9-patches, using Taryn's strip-piecing instructions.    I will need 1.25" strips for the little setting strips, and I'll have to cut those from yardage when I get to that stage.                       
   
   
                                                     
5. Disappearing 4Patch; 17 blocks, plus 64 cut out. I think I only need 56 for a quilt, so the extras will be the start of another top. I really like making these blocks, so they will be a go-to stash-buster like the Scrappy Mountain Majesty block.                                   . 
   
   
6. Black and cream chain blocks; 8 finished, more cut out.  Why did I start these? To use up a bunch of black 1.25"strips and some really insipid cream strips. I imagine I'll set these with alternate sampler blocks, and it won't be a big quilt because I'm not cutting more black strips. when they're gone, they're gone.                               

I hardly know which one to concentrate on first, and which to use a leader-ender. Maybe it's time to investigate the project boxes and see if something there grabs my attention. I haven't had a finish for ages.

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