First, the Drift white roses are in bloom. How fun is that!
The “XO” quilt is off the longarm, at last. It got ignored for almost two weeks.
When they passed out visual conceptual genes, I didn’t get many. I thought this “XO” title meant an X block and an O block. Nope. The X blocks make an O block as soon as they are put next to each other.
Now this donation quilt is trimmed, bound, and is getting its binding sewn down by hand at night. I was going to machine sew the binding, but I needed some night time tv hand sewing. Otherwise I get restless and do things like making popcorn.
What has been fun is that I couldn’t throw away these larger half-square blocks made when one trims and sews the diagonal corners of the XO big rectangle. Each. rectangle produced two half-square blocks in the same colors. So, I made flying geese with them as a leader/ender project–and then made this little table topper piece.
The backing is a cute one of sheep that has been in my stash for years and years.
I am so enjoying this piece on my dining room table. (So far I have not killed that poinsetta gifted to me at Christmas.)
I made several table toppers these past months, and I have enough now to change them out seasonally. Or when I get bored with one.
But first, the XO quilt is on the longarm now, where it has been for the last week with no action happening. Maybe this upcoming week…
Here is an XO block on the longarm–from which I saved the triangles cut from the corners…
…and which I used to make this small piece that I quilted with straight lines on my Janome. Each XO block made two paired half-squares when trimmed. I suspect it will become a table topper. I normally don’t save triangles like these, but these were too large to ignore.
And here’s the design wall, which is once again…full:
That little bit of stacked fabric on the bottom left is a leader/ender donation quilt ready to sew together–when I have design wall room again to lay it out. And the stars on top of “Flower Pop” are blocks made with Leila Gardunia’s “Scrappy Stars” patterns which are so fun to make,
The pineapple ruler blocs will finish at 10 inches, and I’m thinking 6 by, maybe, 6 or 7 long–or 60 by 70. It’s using up a lot of my solid stash “bright” fabrics. I didn’t see that the block would make circles, which is so fun.
“Flower Pop” is made with a speciality ruler from the Sew Kind of Wonderful quilters. It is fiddly with a big learning curve, but I’ve got that down now and the blocks are going faster as a result. It will be three rows of 9 blocks, which finish at 7 inches by about 19 inches. Have you noticed that flower blocks are all the rage at the moment?
So, I seem to be working on five quilts with one in the pipeline ready to sew finished blocks together. I can safely say that I am not bored!
And now to go seriously clean my screen porch “outdoor room.” The pine pollen has finished for the year, and it is warm enough to deal with getting wet as the hose will be involved.
Tara Faughnan called her month 6, the final month for this year’s Blocks3 class, “Shift.” I liked this hexagon variant best–there was a simpler rectangle form of “Shift” as well–but I made this hexagon form that springs from the simpler rectangle in big and little sizes.
This hexagon block form is so cute, but is also fiddly, but very doable. The foundation paper pattern involves extra pieces that form the stars around the hexagon.
As I was drawn to the stars that form around the hexagon, I kept the background one color to show the stars. If one uses various colors, different patterns form in the work, and that outcome didn’t call to me as I was called to the stars.
I made the larger gold color background piece first, and it’s ok, but I thought the piece would be much more graphic, and it isn’t. Perhaps the issue is that I needed to use at least one lighter color as all these colors are medium density, so the whole piece kind of gets “knocked back.” I added a darker field fabric for the second piece and a lighter piece in the blocks, and that is working much better.
The next dilemma I had–a usual dilemma for me–is whether to do some quilting or to just leave the pretty block alone. But these blocks don’t really fit on any of my stretched canvas pieces unless I go big, and I don’t want a big stretched canvas right now. So, I’ll bind them and use them as table toppers. But…maybe some big stitch hand quilting first–and I hope it does not overwhelm them…
And here are the finished pieces:
LOL, I used the new Janome left-side bi-level foot on the small piece for the first time and felt it was successful, but on the bigger one, I forgot to sew the binding on from the back side, so I had to hand sew the binding. Oh well…
I don’t think I would want to make a bigger quilt out of this idea as it is…fiddly…but I never know…
***But first, a correction to the post on Leila Gardunia’s scrappy stars pattern. I paid $12, not $25 for the pattern I featured.
My youngest granddaughter asked what this quilt’s name was, and I told her I didn’t know yet. She suggested “Shape-Shifter,” so there you have it. “Shape Shifter” it is.
“Shape-Shifter” measures 65 by 80, so she is perfect for a long bed or a long person. And did you know that if you “accordion fold” a quilt top for your bed you can just reach out and grab the edge to pull it over you if you are cold.
The field fabric is Kona Titanium, the thread is Oyster Shell by Signature, and the Pantograph is Check and Chase by Herione Agee. **Note how a pineapple block looks when one uses the field fabric for the featured non-color pieces. Hmmm…that is…super interesting, to me, at least.
The backing is “Celebrating 250 Years Blue Stars,” by Jessi Rose Fabrics, for Northcott.
This is my second fairly recent improv quilt, and I really enjoyed making this one. It was all about play–with ideas, with rulers, with block projects which I trialed. This project took almost a year, and I only stopped when the blocks outgrew their design wall space.
Here a recent improv quilt: “Improv Blocks” made from all the blocks made in an earlier Tara Faughnan “Blocks” class.
Here’s “Improv Sandbox” made in March of last year. I hand sewed these log cabin blocks from scraps while watching tv. I saved it for one of the grands to choose. It’s more of a baby size.
There have been other improv quilts across the years, though they have long since flown from my house. I guess we can say I do like to make them.
Tara Faughnan called her month 5 block in this year’s 6-month Blocks3 online class “Pillars.”
My effort wound up to be part Tara Faughnan and part Maria Shell. I’m not sure how that happened. It just did. And it took me several sewing sessions to complete as it was a bit more intense due to the smaller strips and getting it all to fall into a pattern I liked.
But I like it. And I especially like the diagonal matchstick quilting as I think that making the quilting directional adds to this design.
This piece measures about 11 by 12 inches, and this piece is the first where I sewed the binding down on the front with my machine–using a Janome foot I ordered called a “left side bi-level foot.” This foot’s right side is higher than the left side, which allows the foot to run along the edge of the binding. One moves the needle to where it will hit the binding’s edge. (There is also a right-edge version of this foot.). I secure the corners by hand for neatness.
I need more practice with sewing on binding and with this foot, but this is the first time I have not removed machine binding stitching and sewn it down by hand.
I am…encouraged!
For now, my “Pillars” effort is on my kitchen bar under a flower vase.
Here’s my trial scrappy star designed by Leila Gardunia.
Leila Gardunia has designed many patterns for the center of this star block and surrounded the blocks with sashing and cornerstones. She has also made block sizes in every size you might want to make–from three inches to, I think, 12 inches.
I bought and downloaded this 8-inch size for $12. The patterns are designed for foundation paper piecing, but I will use Tara Faughnan’s folded paper piecing method as much as possible–some centers might need traditional foundations–but Tara’s method means no paper to tear away after sewing. And, one can reuse the paper foundations over and over.
The center of the 8-inch block is 4 inches finished–and I’ve already made one of my own design–a circle. But I have not yet sewn it all together, so more on that later.
Anyway, this project will be a leader/ender and “play” project for me going forward.
I don’t have a name yet. Something about…joyful…as I have had, for many months, so much fun playing with new blocks, orphan blocks, rulers, and Blocks3 (Tara Faughnan’s online class) ideas/methods.
I’m so, so, so happy with the quilting, and I love how the pineapple block looks using the same field fabric in its construction. How fun is that!
Now I have some hand sewing for night tv watching–the binding will take a while.
We are hoping for rain today, but the storm passing through the south today went mostly west of us. Our temps are dropping into the 40s tonight. Oh well, spring is fickle, even in the coastal tropics.
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.
It is cold here with freezing temps at night and high wind. But after Tuesday night, I think we will head into early spring here in coastal South Carolina.
My Quilt of Valor is off the longarm, trimmed, and ready for me to check how to organize the binding so I don’t play binding roulette.
And now almost two binding sides are done.
The improv quilt if ready to go on the longarm, and I got a backing last week. I’m thinking about what pantograph to use–something with some curves I think. I really would like matchstick stitching for this graphic quilt, but it’s a bit too long for me to manage with my domestic machine–and I’d still baste it on the longarm anyway. Doing straight line stitching on the longarm is very time consuming and hard to do accurately.
Now the XO scrappy quilt blocks are hogging the design wall, but I’ll start sewing them together today. This quilt block is a joke on me as when they passed out conceptual genes, I didn’t get any–which is why I love to work on a design wall. This block is NOT just an “X” block or an “O” block. When you make either block and put it next to another of its same blocks, it makes an “XO” block–which drives your eyes kind of crazy as they try to focus on either the “X” or the “O” form. How fun is that?
“Flower Pop” needs 2 more blocks for its first row–of a planned three rows, which will make a nice lap-size quilt. The 8th block has fabric ready to cut and sew.
The pineapple blocks are hiding under the “XO” top, but will soon have room to grow.
And then, on the lower left, leader/ender blocks are all ready to lay out for a small quilt. Maybe I’ll make it bigger.
But first, a camellia saga. Last winter the buds on this plant did not survive the cold weather, though I wrapped the plant to protect it. This year, it was loaded with buds, and one day a month ago I went out to check it, and they were all gone but three at the bottom. Deer!!! (And now I’m wondering about the buds from last winter. Deer LOVE flower buds.) But after almost three years, the remaining three blooms opened up. Can you imagine how pretty if the bush were covered with these pretty blooms? Nevertheless, I’ll take what I can get. Joy in the moment, you know.
I hope you can see where the quilt is and where the rug is in this picture. It’s the best I can do for the moment. I put it down to measure it to make sure it is square. It is a half-inch off on the bottom right, but the corners are all square, and the bottom line is true, so I’m going to call it a day. The longarm quilting process can gather up fabric during the quilting, so I think I’m good on this one.
I had such fun making these blocks. Many were the trial blocks for my online Tara Faughnan class, Blocks 3. Many were just playing with scraps. And many were made while playing with rulers I haven’t used in a while. I am especially intrigued by how a pineapple block looks with the neutral part of the block the same color as the quilt field fabric. I love how the colors float as a result!!!
You may remember the improv quilt I made a few years ago with the blocks from the Blocks 1 class. It now lives on the end of the guest bedroom bed, right now alongside the sewing supplies I’m collecting for the college granddaughter and the three younger granddaughters. Two sewing machines are coming for them in late March.
How did it get to be Wednesday already?
It is getting warmer here, and I put away my warm knit pants, though we will have another bit of cold weather at night early next week. Or so the weather says…
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