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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Getting there

I'm gradually getting back to my sewing, just short bursts of activity until my eyes start hurting and I literally can't see straight. At the machine I'm using a pair of 2.5 readers that I can look over, because my old glasses just don't work anymore. I had to remove one of the lights I was using by the machine because I don't need it to see what I'm doing now. It's mostly good, including not needing any glasses to cut fabric or work on the computer. It's pretty amazing.

I made another 4 Housetop blocks; 6 more needed, but I decided to take them off the design wall for now. I need that space to see what my other projects look like.

I had a stack of Log Cabins by my machine since before the surgery, and finally got them done. I now have 26, and I can see that I like the effect. I'm trying not to use very dark strips; the medium and medium-dark fabrics give more movement than uniformly darker fabrics.

I have 18 of the Half Log Cabins finished. I'm not sure I like this setting, but I'm just going to keep making them and I'll decide later how to put them together. The strip drawers are emptying out nicely now, and I may even have to cut some more pieces before too long. 

Once I have the 1.5" and 1.25" strips under control I want to go back to working on the UFOs. All I've done so far is add to the project tally, which is somewhat counter-productive. 

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Almost Ready To Sew

 5 days after surgery, and I'm almost ready to resume my sewing. There was a bit of drama on the day after surgery, when I reacted very badly to the iodine they used; a quick trip to the hospital for antihistamines and pain killers and flushing my eye with lots of saline and I felt human once more. Poor Mereth had to wait on me that day; I'll have to buy her some fabric as a thankyou. And when she has her cataracts done she knows to answer YES when they ask her if she's sensitive to iodine.

I've been reading dreadful novels from the library, and catching up on blog reading with my one good eye. Today my vision is starting to get back to normal, so I spent some time in the sewing room. I went through piles of magazines and ripped out pages to keep; the rest are going in the recycling. The op shops here are full of magazines, and no-one wants them anymore. Everything is online, but I have some favourites from the old issues, so I'll make a scrap book of them. 

I did some sewing too, about half an hour, but it was giving me a headache so I'll wait a little longer before I go back to that. I'm not supposed to be in a dusty environment till my eye heals, and there is so much fabric dust around my cutting table. I'm trying to be good and do as I'm told, but it's an effort!

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Heatwave!

Oh my goodness, the last 5 days have been dreadful. 41° (105° F) and the night time temps above 25°. Yech! The weather didn't get the memo about summer being over already. It hasn't been too hot this year, so I didn't really miss my AC, but this heatwave did me in.  It was miserable. It's cooled down a bit today, and so of course I got a phone call saying my new AC has arrived and will be installed tomorrow. I'm just happy that it's here and ready for the next hot spell; we often get nasty hot weather into April here.

While the world outside was sweltering I stayed in our shop with the AC running, and tackled even more scraps. 

The scrap boxes at home are my patchwork scraps. The ones at the shop come from Op Shop bags, leftover backings, donations from friends and customers who are cleaning out their stashes. Most of it is modern children's patterns, there's a fair bit of Oriental themed stuff and Australiana, plus panels  and metallics. None of it is my cup of tea, but here it is, clogging up the shelves. 

Seeing as I was incarcerated for the duration I got stuck into the children's fabrics, cutting for Happy blocks and I-Spy hexagons. 

Very quickly I realised there weren't enough large pieces to make a 5" square for the centre, or a hexagon, so I started string piecing 5" squares from the scraps. I'm actually loving it, which surprised me because I've always been on the fence about string piecing.

 I like that it uses up every last piece of some tiny scraps, and everything finds a home somewhere, but the mess is so annoying!

This time I'm coping with the mess by tidying up every few hours, which means all the un-useable strip ends get weeded out, and all the remaining strips are sorted into various lengths and colours, and then I start making a mess again with new blocks. The tidying up is a bit zen, it interrupts the intensity of shoving fabric through the machine and I don't feel overwhelmed by the chaos.

I'm loving these bright colours for a change; it's so not me, but it's fun. I'm aiming for 30 or so blocks, which will put a dent in the boxes, and then I'll decide what to do with what is left. By that time the temperature might have cooled down enough for me to go back to my sewing room, and my regularly scheduled programming.

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