Today was a productive day and I’ll even get some crochet in tonight after Keith goes to bed. First up I finished the 16 patch blocks. I’ll get the top assembled in the next day or two.
While I was working in the sewing room I had visitors … I love glancing up from my machine and seeing the deer right outside my window. I almost didn’t see the 2nd one.
A couple hours later, I saw SEVEN walking through the yard. I only caught 5 of them in this photos.
After finishing the 16 patch blocks, I loaded and quilted one of the group HeartStrings tops that AnnG sent me to finish. Pantograph is Blowing Leaves.
I think I’m going to like this one! All the star blocks are made and more than half of the 9 patch ones are done too. Considering how much time the cutting takes it’s going pretty quickly. This isn’t the final layout. Once all the blocks are made I’ll be moving some of them around.
Finn isn’t adjusting to my schedule very well. He’s been waking Keith up and wanting to come look for me. Wednesday night Keith gave up and brought him down after midnight which was fine because at that point I was just sitting and knitting but so far he’s stayed upstairs tonight.
I’m back on a stay up all night, sleep all morning schedule so I end up working a split shift – a few hours in the afternoon and then coming back downstairs to work after Keith goes to bed. It works for me when I don’t have any morning appointments but I’ll have to reset myself before my trip to Mom’s next week. Today I finished up the Friendship Stars and I’m ready to start the alternate 9 patch blocks – maybe that will happen tomorrow. Someone asked were the stars going to all be green. Nope – they’re all different colors and the 9 patch squares will be too.
Our power went out between 6 and 8:30 pm so I wasn’t able to cook dinner – we both grabbed something that didn’t need cooking and I’ll fix the pork tomorrow. While we were waiting for the power to come back on I played with another Friendship Star variation. I really got in the zone making these stars and maybe one day I’ll make a quilt just with them. I like alternating light and dark versions of the same block in quilts so I don’t end up with so much background fabric. I’ll save this idea for later.
After coming down and finishing the last few stars, I loaded and quilted another one of the HeartStrings group tops sent to me by AnnG. Pantograph is Seaweed – another favorite of mine for HeartStrings quilts. Lots of great texture. This leaves me with 2 to get bound and I’ll try to get them done before my trip.
I have plans to get two group HeartStrings tops quilted this coming week but since I finished up a few things on my August “to do” list I decided I would start a new quilt. I was tempted to grab a 3 yard bundle – so quick and easy but I wanted to make one of the many quilts I’ve drafted but not yet pieced and it had to be from scraps, not fat quarters or other precuts. I’m on a mission to try and tame some of the scraps around here and even though this will be my 12th quilt since the beginning of the year from the scrap and string bins, there’s absolutely NO difference in how full those bins are. I’ve settled on this Friendship star quilt. I’d intended to make a bedsize quilt from a large set of fat quarters when I drafted this so it will be downsized to a throw size.
Most of my scraps are sorted by color but I’ve got a couple bins of “mixed” scraps that coordinate so I started digging through them and cutting.
I’ve got a set of green scraps pressed and ready to cut when I get back downstairs later tonight. I’m cutting fabric for the stars first although there are extra squares cut from each of these fabrics that will go into the 9 patch blocks.
I should make the background scrappy too but I’m going to make it a little easier and use a single fabric. I’ve got to decide between these although I’ve pretty much decided the one on the left is too busy for this quilt.
The precut this month is Charm Squares. I don’t use them unless it comes up in the challenge but I do seem to collect a few here and there. These are the quilts I’ve done the last couple times they’ve been pulled out of the hat and I’ve liked how they all turned out.
The squares I decided to use this time had prints I didn’t want to cut and after looking around for ideas, I ended up combining several ideas into this … as you can see it’s not assembled yet but I did sew all the blocks today. I had to think a bit because half the blocks were directional and couldn’t be rotated but I think they’re all turned the right way. It looks a bit jumbled right now but I think I’m going to like it.
I did happen to have some of this print from the same line in stash and always intended to use it with the charm packs so it will be the outer border.
I know I won’t get it right all the time but this is the second pieced project in a row that isn’t turning out like I want. I knew the shade of blue wasn’t right … I like gray/blues for my veteran quilts but I ordered these and decided to use them anyway. Then, what I thought was a 2 inch finished HST die, turned out to be a 2.5 inch finished HST. Not a big deal since I had Thangles here which is how I usually make my 2 inch finished HSTs but after cutting a while, I realized I should have just gone with the 2.5 inch HSTs and cut the strips for my Rail Fence block 3 inches. UGH!
I don’t abandon projects that aren’t working out like I planned … I know that just because I don’t love a particular quilt doesn’t mean that someone else won’t … in fact Chris was begging for the square in a square top I just finished (he won’t get it, he’s got plenty of quilts and that one’s for donation) but he really liked it.
So, I’m going to finish these blocks and assemble the top but I am going to downsize it some by making fewer rows. I’m aiming for about 48 x 66 but it’s possible I might go 54 x 72. I’ll wait and see how it goes.
I’m not sure I’m loving this right now but I often have doubts at this point in a project. It’s busier than I’d like but I’m going ahead with it. I’m using a couple Jelly Rolls for it from BluPrint.
A while back, I’d bought a Jelly Roll kit and made a smaller quilt that used just one Jelly Roll and I always intended to make a larger RWB quilt using a Framed 16 patch block. I made a few notes at the time.
I haven’t gotten very far yet … and the blocks that are up on the wall will be moved around as I get more up there.
I’m sewing along with HeartStrings today. The WI/MN group is meeting to share progress and exchange projects in different stages and the theme for this meeting is guy quilts so I grabbed a “kit” I’d put together a while back and started cutting and making blocks. You’ve seen me make this one before – it’s the Five Yard quilt that I made for Caleb and I also used it with some other stash fabric. For those two quilts I made extra blocks and didn’t put borders on but I’m thinking I’ll do the borders this time.
Isn’t this a cute little puppy print? I’ve got enough of these fabrics left to make a Quick Strippie too. And since this is a project I’d kitted up a while back, I’m counting it toward my July precut challenge!
The pattern came free with my dinosaur bundle that I used for Caleb’s quilt but I searched online and did find the pattern posted.
Stephanie pulled kits for our July Precut Challenge. It can be a kit you bought or one you put together yourself …. we all have those don’t we? That group of fabric that you pulled intending to make a particular quilt. Maybe you even cut it out already.
After a lot of waffling, I decided to do a Craftsy kit called Stop and Go. Blocks are big so it’s going to go quickly. And since I don’t like using solid black because it picks up and shows so much lint, I substituted another black fabric from my stash.
I’ve been searching for my mail and packages for a couple weeks … I’ve forwarded my mail from Tampa but it had been misplaced by the post office here. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get it resolved and was able to pick it all up at the post office today. A small package from Sarah was in the batch that got forwarded, along with a nice note thinking me for my participation in the Hands2Help project this year.
I’ve been promising Adam a T-shirt quilt for years and had finally made a start on the design and layout about a year and a half ago when he brought me 5 additional shirts that he wanted in the quilt … back to the drawing board I went but the project kept being pushed down the to do list. I decided I HAD to get it made this year.
I laid the shirts out on the floor – some of them have been shifted around since I took the photo. There are 21 shirts and some have larger motifs than others so I need a setting that allows different size shirts.
I used my TouchDraw App to help calculate the width and length to cut the shirts. I’m building one row at a time and you can see the “sashing” doesn’t line up. That’s intentional.
The mess on the floor is slowing becoming a neat stack of different size blocks backed with a fusible, non-woven, lightweight interfacing.
