It’s A Sunny Sunday

Yesterday I noticed that the carpet of brown Centipede grass is starting to turn green–after our last few rainy days.

How fun is that?

So now I’ll have to take just a little bit of time to remove the few weeds that have gotten purchase in my carpet of grass–which means joyful and contemplative time in the sunshine and warmer weather.

I’ve been in enjoying a batch of GRITS I made the other day–something I have not made in about a year. I make mine with raw milk as the liquid, and I soak them in said milk overnight. And I add raw butter when they are done–and an extra pat on the top when fresh or reheated. Leftover grits are also great made into patties and pan fried in a good fat. Here, I have a leftover Mahi fish fillet and various veggies and freshly cooked spring sugar snap peas. So far, no weight gain either, but I have cut fruit consumption back to 2 cups a day, per the new food MAHA guide.

Here’s the design wall now–there is ROOM again.

“Flower Pop” will have 9 blocks and 3 rows, which will make it 63 wide by 60 long. These blocks will likely move around as this quilt grows.

The colorful, bright solid fabric pineapple blocks are also growing. And that’s a whole “Pinwheel and Patches” Bonnie Hunter quilt on the bottom left ready to put on the design wall when I, again, have space. “XO” is ironed and ready for the longarm as soon as my nameless improv quilt is finished.

The quilt of valor is finished. Here’s a final picture so you can see the relative size of it at 64 inches square. Those are Cat’s Cradle ruler blocks.

I bound with the backing fabric, Marcus Fabrics “Liberty Island,” R261661D. I had enough to cut binding on the straight of grain, unlike the bias binding I usually make. And I discovered a whole new reason why I like bias binding–the raw binding edges don’t come undone in long strings until I encase the binding edges.

I won’t buy this maker again–Marcus Fabrics. There is something stiff about this fabric that did not wash out when washed–and this brittleness caused little white runs here and there with my longarm needle (a sharp, newly installed needle), my domestic machine needle while installing binding, and my very thin needle used to hand quilt the binding down.

Add in that I also had a similar problem with a stiff feeling Moda crimson wide back that would not stop shedding its dye. I washed it FOUR times (an hour each, but with soap only the first time), and it still shed its dye in a volume that made it impossible to use it in a quilt. I use color catchers when washing new fabrics, so I can easily see if there is a problem. So now I’m wondering if some fabric makers are using some new technology to make thin cottons stiffer? And if something about that stiffness can cause the little runs in the fabric or the shedding of some dyes????

From now on, if a fabric is stiff, I’m not buying it. I returned the Moda wideback to the shop owner, who was horrified and immediately refunded my money. She is investigating now.

I also finished hand quilting this 14-inch stretched canvas block and gifted it.

This pattern is “Best Buds” by Pen and Paper Patterns–and we talked about it some months ago. It is a cute block, and I think it would make a handsome quilt. Maybe that will happen…??? BUT, note that there are some errors in the cutting directions, so if you go this direction, make a trial block first. It isn’t hard to sew otherwise.

Have a great next week everyone.