Quarantine Quilting

    It’s been three years since I posted on this blog and it took me a bit to even recall HOW to post (don’t count your chickens, it’s not posted yet). I thought of the blog in the first place mostly because I was working on a quilt project from the past (WAY past) and I wanted to know when it was that I started it. I knew I had posted a few times about working on it because it was sort of following along with a group that was doing New York Beauties, so I started poking around. Turns out that it was April of 2012 that I started the project. This is the original post. Well, I finished 16 blocks at the time and it hung on the design wall unfinished for 8 years while I got my MAT and started teaching high school - that was pretty much the end of regular blog posting. 

    Of course, this spring everything was turned upside-down with the stay-at-home order and teaching classes from home and generally not going anywhere.  Like many, I have had more time at home than usual. I spent some time organizing the sewing room, filing and sorting fabric, and due to this strange new world, making masks with some of that cute ‘orphan’ fabric not suited to other planned projects. I also have been working on some of those old projects, including the one that was still hanging on the design wall that I mentioned above. It now has its borders and has been quilted. The irony is that the borders themselves required 12 MORE NYB blocks in a tiny size that I had to draft the patterns for myself. I guess I remembered how to do it alright (actually came up with a new system for organizing all the tiny paper pieced parts that works great) because I think they turned out rather well. The next task will be to make and apply the binding. 

Back on the design wall after quilting because I am used to seeing it there by now! 

This was while I was marking the quilting lines

This is the back of the quilt with the label. It is interesting what you will resort to when trying to use up some of the yardage in the original set of fabrics for this quilt, in this case a set of Quilters Candy semi- solids. 

This stormy blue and grey and sea green lovely is a quilt top I put together from a set of fabric I set aside even longer ago when I made an identical baby quilt (for a kid that has likely graduated college by now) I always loved the quilt and wanted to make another just like it. When I was going through fabrics stacks In April I found the set and the printed panel and figured it was about time.  I have no babies in my life at the moment to make it for, but I finished the top, made the backing and binding and they are all hanging together in the closet with all my other flimsies, awaiting the right occasion for quilting. 

I have many more projects on that to do list. Maybe I will keep a record of things I am working on, as an once did, so that when I finally get around to finishing them I will have a place to go look up what dates to include on the label!

Monday, Monday

Good Monday, everyone!  I had lots of time for sewing this weekend (thank you for a day off mom duties for mother's day), unfortunately I didn't actually finish anything. I am beginning to think I have a real problem in this department. Partly the culprit this weekend was the super clearance batik precuts I ran into on Friday. I mean, 22 2.5" strips of batik for $3.50 I just couldn't turn down. I even knew what I wanted to try with them and started cutting almost right away on Friday. I have one set all cut up and sewn together (I bought three) and found some strips I had left over from a different batik project a while back and cut those up for a little more variety and incorporated those as well. I don't know if I am going to have time to work more on this before the end of the school year for the kids, all that cutting is tie consuming. I think I like where it is going, although it is still a little hard to tell at this point. I am using Judy Laquidara's free Peaches and Dreams pattern - although this looks NOTHING like her original!






I suppose I have decided on the final layout for the New York Beauties. I should have worked on getting those sewn together and decided on some borders, but I didn't. They are pinned and off the wall next to the sewing machine - maybe later today.** Edited to add a natural light photo of the blocks all pieced together Yea! it is all together!**

I did get the HST quilt I have posted about before all pieced together. Now I need to decide what I want to do with it. It does look smart all sewn together and the secondary pattern of diagonal stripes really comes out more strongly than it did before it was all condensed. Any suggestions for additions to this one? It is only 36" x 36" as it stands and I think it needs more, but I can't think of anything that would still allow the HST's to be the focus. What about a total departure from the pieciness of the HST's ... like a band of houses and trees and town buildings all facing the center... call it Cross Roads or Town Squares.

I also pulled a fabric out of the stash that I have been saving for a One Block Wonder wall hanging, got it cut up and got all the hexies sewn in halves. This one I will take with me this summer to play with the placement. This was a first shot just to see what I have. I wish I had more, although I was so grateful to only have this many when I was piecing and pressing them last night! I also have a fish one all in half hexies that I may take to play with too. It just never got put together. I have a little more of this fabric, maybe two repeats worth and three fabrics that are the colors contained in the print so I should be able to put something together.

So that is what is up on my wall. I need to get busy cleaning the house and doing the laundry and beginning to get really organized for the migration in a few weeks. Check out lots of other great design walls over at Patchwork Times.  Have a great week.

Designs on Monday

Wow, the spring is really moving right along isn't it? I have only a few more weeks to go before we pack it all up and 'migrate' for the summer. I taught a science club class about migration earlier this year and one of the things that inspires animals' yearly migration is the search for more hospitable weather. My son piped up at this point and said "So you migrate in the summer to get away from the heat?" The answer to that would be a resounding YES. I am NOT a hot weather person and if I stay in the south for the furnace-like months of midsummer I am not a person that anyone would want to be around. My husband understands this from experience and does not grumble too much when I pack up the kids and head for higher altitudes and a cooler, drier climate. Missing the 'me' that would be here in the summer would be like pining away for a half-crazed wolverine.
That being said, I am also away from all sorts of media... we have no TV, internet only at the library in town and, while we have a phone, I try my best to ignore the fact - we never had one when I was a kid and I keep it on a high shelf so it is easy to ignore unless it rings (and when there is a thunderstorm since the electrical activity in the air makes it sort of half-ring. We usually call out "storm calling!", it is sort of a standing joke.) We also have very little room in our cozy cabin and what room we have is shared and multipurpose. That all adds up to 'no sewing machine, no room to sew' and 'no posting on ones blog'. So sad, but true and worth all that I gain like lots of screen-less time with my children, lots of time for imagination and hiking and relaxing and nature.
So, I will spend the next few weeks preparing a few hand projects to work on while we are out there. The modern quilt I am appliqueing a border for should be high on the list - I did two of the three borders last summer and have only managed half of the third during the rest of the year. I hope to have it finished when we return. I also want to take the materials required to make the last My Tweets block so I can sew those into a top. Perhaps I will be ambitious and take what may be needed to make, er, begin and applique border for that as well. We shall see. So this is what is on my wall today.

In the mean time I would like to finish putting this top together because I doubt that all the blocks would still be clinging to the wall after a summer's worth of air blowing on it from the nearby vent. I believe I fixed all the placement issues for the blocks and sewed them all into rows together last night. Now I need to press and sew the rows together. I love this method of sewing a place sensitive top together... everything is connected by the threads that go between rows at each seam and there is no chance of getting things backwards back up on the wall.  I think I will keep this one square... maybe make a few rows of something around it to make it bigger... maybe I should pack some graph paper as well. These blocks are only 6" finished so this center will only be 36" square finished. 

I also finished amending a set of blocks for the NYB project I have been working on. They are still not my favorite blocks but that is as much re-doing as I am willing to do on them and I will live with the result.  Now I need to make some decisions about final placement. I thought I had my scheme all worked out, but figured I should at least give other layouts a chance. The top one is my original, the second is another possibility. I kind of like that one... which is your favorite? And am I crazy enough to make a pieced border? What about just NYB block corners and a striped border? I may leave those decisions for the fall unless I am inspired. No use rushing things (I have to chuckle at this... the thought of me rushing and actually getting something finished in one push is almost unheard of!) Ugh, the color is really washed out on these. My flash does this and I usually avoid that my taking pictures in natural light. The wall does not get much natural light and today it is dark and stormy so I have even less to work with. Forgive the washed out look and imagine instead vibrant intense jewel tones.

Do you see those two pink and orange blocks that have 8 rays, 4 pink and 4 orange? Those are the ones that were amended... the inner ray band is different in the second layout. That is the final form... I wish I had done the light pink rays in the darker pink originally, but it did't seem to have enough contrast. Unfortunately the light pink has TOO much and I don't have any of the background fabric left to redo them (and I am NOT picking out the tiny paper piecing stitches!) I may play around with which sets of blocks to use in the center together, but I like the 'order' of the configuration.

Finally, on the wall today are the first 5 blocks of a one block wonder wall hanging that I want to take with me this summer so I can play with the placement... we like to do puzzles on a rainy day and a one block wonder is certainly a kind of puzzle! I have done the cutting and was leader-endering these together while I sewed blocks together for that HST quilt above. 

To check out what is on other quilters' wall today hop over to Design Wall Monday. Have a great week!

A new week, but no new projects!

That should be my mantra... NO NEW PROJECTS! But I have made a teensy bit of progress on a current project. After sleeping most of last week because I was sick and finishing a queen sized quilt the week before which will be given to its new owner this week it was high time to get back to the New York Beauty project! So I finished up the second of two pink and orange blocks that I am still not sure I'm wild about and chose colors for the last two blocks of the set of 16.

Yes, I broke out the color wheel for this one because I apparently can't come up with a nice quad color arrangement beginning with purple without a little assistance. I even got a good start on them last night watching TV over the top of the couch... I could get used to this 'sewing machine in the living room' arrangement I have right now. I have a small composite board sitting on a milk crate to my left with some batting and muslin and my mini iron for the pressing and a tiny bit of cutting board space just to the left of the machine. Aside from being pretty cramped it works great for sewing in the evening after the preteen who shares my sewing room has gone to bed - with the added bonus that my husband does not feel abandoned (just ignored! ;-) ). 

So here is the progress on the last two blocks...

And the whole things as it is so far

My least favorite blocks are the pink and orange 8 ray pair that are opposite each other... I think they might be too light or something. Maybe I should replace the current green center with a darker green of the same hue? Would that help? I think I am also not a huge fan of the super narrow rays - I much prefer the 4 or 6 ray blocks. This pair is also one of the only blocks that does not have a solid band between the main rays and the center... maybe that throws things off. What do you think? Should they stay? Do they add something needed to the set or should I rethink the pattern for that spot? I was also not thrilled with the way they went together... too many areas that won't iron flat and lots of bulk at the join between the 8 rays and the 4 rays.- there are no actual puckers, but those areas won't press nice and flat. 

So there is my design wall today. What does yours look like? Check out Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times to see what everyone else in blog land is up to this week.