Several people mentioned that the block I used in the quilt design yesterday was called Perkiomen Valley Block and an internet search showed that both the block as found in the antique quilt and what I call a split 9 patch – one with there’s a half square triangle also in the center block where this one just has a square – are both being called by that name. Maybe I’ll pull out my block encyclopedias when I finish with this isolation and see if both variations are called by the same name

My scans and appointments went fine today without any issues and we got home about 1pm. I didn’t feel great but I went to my isolation room (Keith’s office where we have a daybed), ate a little something after the prescribed time on clear liquids and then took a nap. I’m feeling better this evening so I pulled out the iPad and drafted another quilt using the same block. It’s similar to a log cabin in that you can lay it out in a number of ways, getting different results just by rotating the blocks.

When I eventually get around to piecing one of these, I’ll have to think about how to press them and if the pressing plan gets too complicated I’ll press the seams open. I prefer my seams to be pressed in opposite directions but when I’m working on a quilt where the blocks are being rotated in all directions, sometimes it’s easier to press open rather than risk seams coming together where they’ve both been pressed to the same side – I find those very hard to line up accurately even with pinning.

Thank you all for your emails and comments. I appreciate all the encouragement and prayers. This has been a long drawn out process but as I said in the beginning, I’m lucky that thyroid cancer is very treatable and by this time next week I’m hoping that I’ll be done with everything except the ongoing follow up to monitor for any future problems. I’m also having less symptoms from my thyroid replacement hormone so it feels like life is going to get back to normal soon.

I have 3 days of appointments … yesterday wasn’t too bad, about an hour an a half and I was done. I even went for a massage in the afternoon. Today I have 2 appointments again but I have to wait 4 hours between my Thyrogen shot and taking  a diagnostic dose of radioactive iodine needed for the whole body scan tomorrow morning (not to be confused with tomorrow afternoon’s therapuetic dose which requires all the precautions and isolation). So as I sit here and wait …

I had to send Debbie a text thanking her again for the woven shawl … it’s freezing in here!

Since I brought my iPad along today to pass the time, I looked at eBay for some inspiration … if I can’t be quilting, then I can at least look at quilts. This one appeals to me.

I don’t know if the block has a name but I’m calling it a variation of a split 9 patch and opened up TouchDraw to see if I could draft a veteran quilt.

Quilt size is 62 x 80 – you could leave the borders off for a quilt that is 54×72

Block size is 9 inches finished (9.5 inches with seam allowances) which means your squares and half square triangles need to be 3.5 inches with seam allowances. You will need 48 blocks set 6 blocks across and 8 rows down.

Inner red border is cut 1.5 inches, outer blue border is cut 3.5 inches.

Normally I’d make the background scrappy but I might have enough of  a light print that will work.

 

 

I’ve not had time to sew but I did go into the sewing room yesterday after everyone else went to bed and started sorting through my Green bin. The larger stack on the right are the ones I’m planning to use and I’ll pull more fabric from my stash as needed.

In addition to the brown and green Easy Flock of Geese, I think I’m going to go ahead and cut flying geese while I’m handling those fabrics. (I drafted the original quilt in RWB).

We also had more fun in the pool today … and Adam cooked us a wonderful dinner. I’m feeling very spoiled by Keith, Chris, and Adam!

Everyone left today including Keith so it’s just Finn and me. We slept really late and have had a lazy day! I do plan to get upstairs and work on my half square triangle blocks and maybe even get a backing pieced for the next t-shirt top that I plan to quilt this week.

I’ve been looking at my GO dies and there are a a number of them that I haven’t used yet. The 3×6 inch finished flying geese is one of them and I’ve been thinking about what I could make with it. Maybe a border? But I also like the idea of a woven geese quilt using two colors and a background. Normally I go scrappy even with two colors using lots of different fabrics but this could be really quick in just 3 fabrics – a blue, a red, and a white.

Using the 3×6 finished geese die, it would make a 12 inch finished block. If you like smaller blocks you could make your geese 2×4 inches finished and that would give you an 8 inch block but you’d have to make more of them.

The side strips would be cut 3.5 x 12.5 for the 12 inch blocks and 2.5 x 8.5 if you were making the smaller 8 inch blocks

I noticed when I was pulling neutrals for the RWB quilt that my brown scraps are outgrowing the bin they share with the neutrals. Since I seem to be hooked on half square triangles right now, I thought I’d play with a couple options for the browns.

I can’t decide whether to pair the pink or the green with the browns so maybe I’ll have to make both quilts.

These drawings only give me an idea of the color choices … neither have the correct number of blocks. If you’re interested in making an Easy Flock of Geese quilt, I have some brief instructions posted on the website at the link above. I love the top I pieced in May and hope to get it quilted in the next month or two. Of course, I need to finish the RWB half square triangles first.

I saw this vintage quilt on eBay and while it has more borders than I typically like adding, it has a strong visual appeal.

So I decided to draft it out. I don’t know if I’d ever actually make it but it would make a nice veteran’s quilt.

Quilt size is 72 x 84

16 Patch blocks are 12 inches finished, set 3 x 4, and are made from 3.5 inch squares or strips

Borders are cut 3.5 inches

I don’t think I shared that I bought a new laptop a couple weeks ago. I kind of hated to buy it because I don’t use the laptop very often since the iPad is just so much more convenient but there are some things I need to do on the computer and the screen on my current one was doing a lot of flickering and I’m just waiting for it to die completely.

Since I’m having problems with all my technology these days, it’s not surprising that I couldn’t seem to get EQ7 loaded and I was a bit frustrated – can you believe that I have 3 copies of this program? I’d bought one for my computer, one for Mom’s computer because I did so much work there for her, and then a downloaded version because I couldn’t put my hands on the disk when I needed to add it to my computer the last time I bought one …. and I couldn’t get any of them to work so I walked away and decided I’d figure it out later.

Later turned out to be tonight and when I went to open the program, it worked. Weird.

To test it out, I drafted a Friendship Star quilt. I’ve been wanting to make another one for years and since I’m currently obsessed with half square triangles this one might actually get made. By now you know I’d make my quilt scrappier but it’s faster to design in just a few fabrics.

I’ve put some quilt notes on the website if you’re interested.

RWB Friendship Stars