I was so hungry for rice the other day, and I had a package bought locally of a mix of rices. Organic, but not sprouted. I cooked the whole package and froze meal-size containers for later.
I control grains–though you would not know that with the amount of fresh corn I’ve been eating. All I have to do is walk past a rice package to put on weight. I just don’t handle rice carbs well it seems. But, of course, I love it.
I had roasted chicken on hand to use, so made this salad. I also love the tiny petite green peas and had some I had cooked on hand. Yes, another carb. I can’t do beans (which I also love) with the histamine intolerance, but peas are ok. The fresh herbs from the garden really increase flavor in a salad like this one. Ditto the really good Koroneiki olive oil.
I couldn’t find organic sprouted rice locally–not at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or the local grocery store (Harris Teeter). So I ordered some from Amazon.
I had to put the 5th set (of 6) of mystery quilt blocks on the rug upstairs as the half-square triangle quilt has gobbled up all the design wall real estate. These blocks were fun to make.
Here’s the big gal. “Bonanza”? maybe. The top border is mostly pinned–and I have only sewn three of the blocks on the left of the border together. I stopped to make more and more and more needed half-square triangles for the rest of the border.
I have no idea about a backing or binding yet. And that’s ok.
I’m sewing on the 3rd border for “the quilt from hell.” Yeah! And I laid out the last border parts to make sure the colors were ok for where each piece would go–in terms of where they would fit in with the quilt itself.
My coffee is gone now, so I’m off to run errands before it gets too hot. And today I’ll sew! Yesterday was too busy, which is rare for me.
I’ve been sewing every day. It’s great to have that work in the 90+ degree days we have been having.
Of course I have been sewing every day. “I sew” should be on my car’s license plate!
Here are the “Summer Camp” mystery blocks from last week, and I’m working on the 5th set of blocks now. (Next week is the 6th and final set and the reveal.) The bottom blocks, with their contrasting little “windows” nearly did me in. Every piece of that block had to be spot-on perfect for the block to measure out at 5.5 inches. Every piece, from cutting to sewing. That requirement is harder when you are working with a thicker solid cotton–which I am with mostly all Kona cotton. But…I persevered, though it wasn’t fun. And the green block with yellow “windows” is not perfect. I may redo it…later. It measures ok; it’s just a bit “wonkier” than I like. (Yes, I’m a perfectionist.)
With thicker fabrics, one must find the magic place where a skinnier seam accounts for the fold of the seam when pressed. Remember–it is NOT the making of a perfect 1/4 inch seam that makes a unit perfect, because a perfect 1/4 seam might not create perfection. You always want to sew, then measure your unit to see if you’ve hit the magic seam spot.
The Modern Quilt Studio “Summer Camp” designers are using a much thinner cotton (Bernartex Superior Solids) and are pressing their seams open–which makes a block like this difficult one easier. For sure. But each piece in the block still needs to be absolutely straight and perfect, or it will throw the rest of the block off. And let me just say that these folks make gorgeous quilts! I am so happy to find this web site. And I’m so enjoying making this mystery quilt.
But, I make, for the most part, functional quilts, so I don’t want to be pressing seams open if I can avoid it–as they weaken a quilt. My quilts get used and washed and dried. Or, I hope they do. And I have a lot of Kona solid cottons after four years taking the online “The Color Collective” class with Tara Faughnan, so I want to use what I already have on hand. And, in general, I’m not a fan of these thinner quilting fabrics. But, that’s just me.
Here’s a sneak peek at the corner where two sides of the border in “the quilt from hell” meet. I’m working on sewing together the third border side now. This darker border is so perfect for this quilt. But like everything else with this quilt, I’m sewing around the circles to install the border, which is…hard. But, I can see the end. And I have a backing fabric (a Ruby Star Society blender fabric) and a thinner batting in case I want to hand quilt it.
The Traverse quilt is all basted and ready for me to hand quilt it, which I will do when “the quilt from hell” border is done and installed.
And oh my gosh!! This half-square triangle quilt continues to be so, so much fun. I need to make A LOT more half-square triangles to complete the border, which is gobbling up the solid fabric stash. This quilt has grabbed most of the design wall now. The center and outer border (that’s a midnight blue/purple color) are all sewn together now. The outer border is just pinned to the design wall. The quilt will be just under 80-inches square when finished.
The big red blocks are pushed to the side now. That’s ok. They will come before any other project. Yes, even the mystery quilt blocks after the reveal.
So, you see that I have, as usual, LOTS of fun projects happening. Five, to be exact: Traverse, the quilt from hell, big red, half-square triangles, and the mystery quilt. And, there are other projects stored and waiting for me. But I’m making a dent in those too. Big red is one of those stored projects.
I am reminding myself that the other 10 months of the year are delightful in comparison to July and August. The humidity is definitely a factor in the heat.
But everyone copes–we stay inside in the heat of the day for the most part. Or at least I do. And in the early evenings, everyone emerges and there are neighbor visits to enjoy while watering or checking the mailbox. My AC is mostly keeping up, though yesterday upstairs, the heat overran the AC system for a bit of time. The downstairs remains cool.
I’m quite happy grilling outside (which keeps the kitchen cool and clean) and puttering away at household chores and my quilty projects. So being inside is fine. I miss my porch at noon though. Yet, granddaughter Mina suggested we sit out there for our Friday night meal, and that was lovely.
At night I’m sewing on the second border row of the quilt from hell.
The papers are out except for the edges where I still need them in order to sew on the borders. Maybe this close-up will show you how tricky it is to sew these curves.
I can FEEL the end of this quilt top being finished–and the rest of the quilting process (layering, quilting) will be a joy in comparison to making this top. I’ll set up the third border pieces later today.
I’m off to run some errands before it gets too hot. And my morning coffee is finished now, so it is time to mosey along.
I’m looking forward to finishing the 4th set of the mystery blocks today–then it will be back to the half-square triangle quilt I’m so enjoying watching take form.
I’m working on the 4th set of blocks for the Modern Quilt Studio “Summer Camp” mystery quilt. Per the weekly video suggestion, I pulled a random sample of some of my blocks and put them on my “field” (background) fabric to see if my color palette is working to my satisfaction. I was worried about the dark magenta, but it’s fine. Whew!
I have found the videos really helpful, though I am good with color and have been quilting steadily almost 25 years now. And, sewing, in general, long before what I think of as my “serious” date where my serious quilting started. The video on selecting one’s palette stressed NOT to go darker in the palette than the field background fabric and to include some fabrics in each color family that are lighter than the medium fabrics chosen. I’m glad I included those lighter fabrics.
To remind, here’s my palette for this quilt:
Here’s something different than Maine that I have encountered here. Bins of fresh, local corn (and no, sadly it is NOT organic) have a table and trash can where one can strip off the husks before leaving the store. We all know how very messy this job is at home…
My Wyoming niece sent me this picture of her daughter’s quilt from me–which was held and gifted to her on her birthday a few weeks ago. Word is that she loves it. I named it “Wyoming Mountain Crossings,” and there is a blog entry on it.
My younger son’s family has now returned from an exploratory hiking trip to Tennessee–as I am no longer in Maine. They had a terrific time and will go back next summer most likely. There were lots of waterfalls on creeks that had deep pools that encouraged swimming–and crawdads to capture and inspect. There were also lots of caves and caverns that intrigued them. One day’s hike was 11 miles to and from a summit with an awesome view. Even the 8-year old did not get too tired. They are so active, this family.
My older son’s family is gathering for “Sunday Night Dinner” tonight, so I will go over late afternoon. Hopefully the traffic out to the island will be less intense by about 5 pm. It was last Sunday. Grandson Kelly made it home from Old Miss after getting stranded in Memphis overnight Friday.
Granddaughter Mina (16 this fall) spent most of Friday and the night with me. I taught her to make homemade mayo (with fresh herbs from the garden) and how to use it on a chicken salad, which we ate on the back porch, per her suggestion. It’s too hot most days to eat lunch out there.
Bonnie Hunter pioneered the “webbing” method for sewing units into a block.
Go Bonnie! I LOVE this method.
It took me a bit of time to understand this method because I was making it harder than it needed to be. It is pretty simple when you understand the concept, and it makes keeping units in a block in the right order and orientation so much simpler. I
am using Bonnie’s webbing method to make the blocks for the current half-square triangle quilt now on the design wall. OK, it has taken over the design wall and pushed aside the red quilt blocks–though I made a bunch of those yesterday. But, it would be SO EASY to get these individual units going in the wrong direction, which means unsewing activity. So I am grateful for Bonnie’s method.
First, lay out your units in the correct order. Then sew the top 2 units on the top row together, left to right of course, leaving aside for the moment the third unit. Chain down and sew the next two blocks (the second row) WITHOUT cutting the thread to the first row. Then do the next two blocs (the third row down). NOW you can cut the thread or chain piece something else so you can cut off your string of blocks that are “webbed” together.
Now, sew the third row down–the blocks that are waiting to be joined–BUT DON’T CUT the threads between the rows. See how the last block is just layed across it’s mate–which is just how you would sew it webbed or not.
Now you have your block all webbed together and ready to be sewn together.
Now I press the rows so the seams will but up nicely before I join the two rows. I am pressing the two outer rows one way and the inner row the other way.
Here’s a finished block, now sewn into its place in the quilt. It’s perfect, as you can see, after each unit was trimmed with the Bloc-Loc ruler.
Bonnie’s tutorial is for a 16-patch block. Do take a look as the 16-patch is just as easy as this 9-patch above is. And, it’s a fast method.
Online friend Wendy Currie (Wendysquilting) blogged about the Bloc-Loc rulers some time ago–before I moved to South Carolina. These come in different sizes and I bought a 3-size package–so I have a range of choices of which size to use. Wendy, by the way, is an outstanding longarm quilter who lives in Thunder Bay, Canada.
I LOVE these rulers! For this project, I’m using the middle-sized ruler. My resulting blocks are so perfect I don’t really have to measure my bigger units when I sew them together.
But, first, here are the 3rd set of blocks for the Summer Camp Mystery from the Modern Quilt Studio. There will be 6 installments, and the next set comes next Friday. After the 4th set, I may pin all the blocks so far to the design wall to just…admire them? Yes, admire and pet, but also to see how my palette is working together and if I need to make any changes.
The unit for the solid scrappy quilt on the design wall–is a 3 1/2 inch half-square triangle made from TWO 4-inch light-dark squares cut from my solid scraps, layered together. Tara Faughnan uses this method. I also love Bonnie Hunter’s ruler for cutting triangles from strips of fabric layered together, but here I am cutting from scraps too small to use strips, for the most part. And I want more variety than the strip method affords, unless one uses shorter strips.
I layer the two squares and use a quarter-inch ruler strip (I love these rulers too) to mark the sewing lines on the light square. This method is more labor intensive, but also makes a clean unit that never needs resewing as the trick is in the sliver trimming with the Bloc-Loc ruler, not in the perfect sewing of two triangle units.
I put the dark fabric on the bottom and the Bloc-Loc ruler’s ridged edge fits along the seam to hold the unit perfectly in place. You want the ruler lines to be just ON THE FABRIC–not off of the fabric. Sliver trim. I trim ALL of the units I’ve sewn on the dark side first, and rotate each trimmed unit so the other side is facing up. It is satisfying to see the pile growing as I trim each unit.
Turn the pile of units so that the remaining notch is on the right, pointing up, and the light, untrimmed side is down.
The ruler now fits so the name is upside down. Remember to put the ruler’s lines ON YOUR UNIT or your unit will trim too small.
And, voila, you are DONE and have a whole pile of new units to use.
I’ve cut a TON of 4-inch squares to get color variety, so will use them up in making half-square triangle units via chain piecing. You can see I’ll need to keep cutting for the light units. If I don’t use all of these squares, I’ll save them for another project down the road. Meanwhile, my scrap pile is disappearing. And there is a long way to go on the scrap quilt, so, yes, many of these squares will get used.
I think piecing is my most favorite part of the quilting process.
Girlie car is coming home tomorrow as of right now. So I’m off to put gas in the rental, have lunch on the porch, and…SEW. There needs to be a walk in the day at some point. Maybe late afternoon, with music, when the day cools off a bit. Temps are now in the high 80s and low 90s. Summer has arrived.
And today a painter is coming to paint the ceiling bases of these hanging lights over the kitchen bar. The bases are covering too-large holes in the ceiling. Painting them the color of the ceiling will help them recede and not stand out.
And after this fairly quick painting job is done, I’ll go pick up the raw milk and cream that I get every two weeks at Local Jo’s–and will deliver some to Mike’s family. I take a cooler with ice and frozen blocks in it to keep everything fresh and cold.
Then I’ll make my noonish dinner and will sew. It’s raining, so likely I’ll not be able to grill the two lamb chops I defrosted. Tomorrow: chicken salad with homemade mayo.
Alex is here mowing–between rain storms. The grass is now thick and happy–an apple green carpet that is soft and cushy underfoot. And it is growing like crazy. All the plants are also thriving.
Yesterday I got all the blocks I had set up on the half-square triangle quilt sewn together yesterday, and I’m loving what I’m seeing. I have not connected the 20-inch blocks themselves yet.
Now I’ll have to make a lot more of the units, and I have the sub-units (4-inch squares) set up to do that work via chain piecing. Plus I found a kind of pumpkin yellow orange for the sashing for the bottom left block. When all are done, I’ll have a top that is 60 by 60–and I’ll figure out what to do to take it out to the 70s range, width wise, and maybe 80s length wise.
I’m going to use Kona Thistle for the sashing between the big red blocks.
It is soft and does not compete with the outrageous Kaffe Fasset prints, but will separate, gently, them. I may use it as the binding too.
Of course I won’t position two green centers next to each other when the time comes to finalize the layout.
The next group of Summer Camp mystery blocks drops tomorrow–so there’s that work for the weekend.
Girlie will be done next Friday. How nice is that?
On Saturday morning I was getting ready to make a Costco run, which involved an ice chest in Girlie car’s back hatch, and while backing out of the garage, I smashed the rear window as I had left the hatch door open, and it didn’t clear the low garage opening. In my Maine garage I would have gone right through with the hatch door open.
It is interesting that my RAV4, which warns me of all sorts of possible events while backing up, didn’t make a peep about the hatch door being open.
It was one of those totally stupid life moments. And it left me with tiny pieces of shattered glass all over the back of the garage, obvious damage to the back door, and a case of the shakes. And a loss of confidence. For sure.
So, let’s skip to today–Wednesday morning. Son Mike came right away with plastic and tape and soothing directions of what to do and what to expect. (Son Bryan was away with the family.)
USAA, on a Saturday, set the required insurance in place, organized the repair, and got me a rental car. Better Collision had an inspection spot ready for me on Monday, and I dropped off Girlie there and felt she was in good hands. There was additional drama as we got a really bad thunderstorm, which I tried to beat in getting Girlie to Better Collision, as we weren’t sure the plastic would be totally efficient, and I got caught in it just 5 minutes or less from finding the repair place. But Mike’s plastic seemed to hold until Better Collision could get her under cover.
Enterprise car rental picked me up at Better Collision, and I came home with a bright white Toyota Corolla, which I can drive until Girlie is fixed and which will stand out in parking lots. And the best news is that Better Collision called yesterday and, assuming parts are available, Girlie will be ready to go again some time Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. And I can drop the rental car at Better Collision and Enterprise will pick it up there.
What has amazed me is that all these systems are so efficient and helpful. In all my years of driving, I’ve really never had an accident (knock on wood) that required this level of help. And I’d also like to say that there have been so many, many very nice people along the way who have helped me fix Girlie and to manage without her.
My nerves are another matter though! And my friends have been busy telling me of their car mishaps that they also classify as stupid moments that should not have happened. At least two friends have smashed hatch doors and the window backing out of a low garage. And, yes, that has made me feel much better. Accidents happen. And I think my own new rule will be NOT to open the back hatch door if I am leaving home unless it is OUTSIDE the garage.
To soothe my nerves and temporary loss of confidence in my sweet situation here, I’ve been sewing a lot since that Saturday morning. As always, quiet time in my studio restores me.
I’ve completed the second set of the Summer Camp mystery quilt (Modern Quilt Society) and am looking forward to the third round this Friday. These blocks are just so much fun. The blocks on the 3rd and 4th rows were made by cutting a set of blocks from the first set into two pieces and adding borders–a process I thought quite clever.
My backing/field fabric came yesterday, and I washed it last night. It’s a deep olive green and will be perfect. And the backing for the quilt from hell and its lighter batting came as well. The first of the 4 needed borders is almost done.
I’ve been sidetracked a bit with the half-square triangles made with solid scraps these past two days. OK, I’ve been side-tracked a lot. I am intrigued and engaged. Here’s where that project is as of this morning. I’m not going to use the dark green sashing I don’t think. I’ll put the aqua sashing in that spot. And there will be a third row. Then what? The blocks are 20 inches finished, and I’m loving how the secondary patterns are emerging. I’ll get the gold and light red sashing blocks sewn together today. But I also want this quilt to be more modern, so I may take the half-square units out on the top and sides in some way to be yet determined.
I took this picture of the design wall some time yesterday, so you can see the three projects I’m working on now. Then I stored the mystery quilt blocks. The red quilt blocks are stacked up together to make room on the design wall for the growing half-square triangle project–which is, by the way, eating up scraps like crazy.
I’m still wondering about the sashing color for the red quilt. I was thinking green, but I’m not sure. I don’t want it to remind of Christmas. I’ll try some other color choices later today. I don’t want pink. Maybe a soft lavender, like Kona thistle?
For now, before we get more rain, I need to take the rental car to the grocery store. I’m still not ready to make the Costco run though. But…soon.
Here’s the first set of blocks for the Modern Quilt Studio’s “Summer Camp Mystery Quilt”:
Each block has been measured and fiddled with if needed. The blocks in the 4th row, with the horizontal stripes, are used to make other blocks in the second set of block patterns, which I downloaded Friday. I did that work last night, and you’ll see them when I’ve finished the second set.
Each week we get a choice of eight blocks, divided into sets of two where each participant chooses one of the four pairs–so four blocks to make each week. But there are always multiple numbers of blocks to make for each choice–as you can see above.
So, now on to making the four blocks for this week.
I couldn’t resist the adorable blocks being made in the Modern Quilt Studio’s “Modern Mystery Quiltalong Summer Camp” taking place now. The participants are full of helpful assists and have lots of good humor.
I’m crazy. I know. There are two quilts on my design wall already, the quilt from hell, and Traverse waiting to be hand quilted. But at the very least I’ll print out all the directions.
However… I already have my cutting table covered with solids, so why not? I kept telling myself I absolutely SHOULD NOT start another project, but I really liked what I was seeing online (I found this group on a Facebook page), and I walked away and walked back for two days before I realized I was already putting together a palette and watching videos.
You can go online and see what has tempted me so strongly. I really like this organization and did review its lively patterns and mystery quilt results that people have posted on FB. There is an Instagram account as well.
I have been working in solids for these past 4 or 5 years, as longtime readers know, so I have a solid stash of colors. Here’s the palette I’ve made for this project:
I’m going to remove the dark magenta from this palette as I’m going to use a dark olive green for what is called the “field” fabric that will surround the modern blocks (Kona Juniper 409). The magenta will not show up on a dark green. Per the helpful videos, I’ve included some duller, lighter fabrics that will make the brights shine in the quilt.
The cutting and sewing are easy–and the block load coming weekly now is doable, for sure. I’m already learning some new piecing methods–and it is always fun to get directions for various blocks to make. Out of the initial 8 blocks, one chooses 4 to make. These first blocks are what I was seeing as people made theirs and shared.
Crazy, yes. But happy too. And energized with my creative work.
Here’s a little bouquet I cut when I pruned and deadheaded the other day.
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