This weekend I am working on the El Camino/Summer swag quilt top. I started it about six days ago, with the star blocks. I thought the rest would go together quickly, strip piecing and cutting the 60 degree triangles was a bit more work though. Part of the trouble I had was not having full 42 inch strips of fabric to work with. Not all of my El camino scraps were width of fabric, some were FQ. A few of the triangles were made using individually cut trapezoid pieces, which can slow one down a bit. I put out all the blocks as I made them on a spare bed and then the floor, because my design wall wasn’t wide enough. As I made the blocks I was careful not to have the same combination of prints/strips. Also not to have the same fabrics touching – flashback to kids in back seat “He’s touching me!”. As I was sewing them together, I thought that I might like to fill in the zig-zag side borders. I figured out a size diamond to cut, and since I have a few yards left of the border print, I am going to use it to square up this quilt. I am trying to come up with a name for it, it reminds me of the flamenco dancers dresses. Flamenco is a Romanian or southern Spain thing, but also Mexican, and the fabric print is more Mexican influenced. Maybe Mexican fiesta quilt?

The Barn house project has been sitting in the field. I have been sewing x’es sporadically. I am finding the red rows of the building monotonous. I have to keep telling myself that each row is two stitches less than the last one. I think it should have a name, red house syndrome, how many samplers have a red house in them? The Heaven and Nature sampler had one (took forever to stitch) and the Pet all the Dogs one too. This Fabulous Houses sampler is all houses, should have thought of that six months ago. I made another cow, maybe I ‘ll do the right side sunflower next.

I am almost done with the Good Morning blanket, about one and a half more rows to go. Then I’ll have a weaving ends in session or two, there are 64 ends to weave in, yuck. I think I’ll have time to knit a few pairs of booties before the gifting in August. When I got the blanket kit, I was looking for knitted booty patterns, and the yarn was shown also used for the blanket. So I bought a separate selection of the yarn for the booties. There are a few yards of each color left over too, maybe a hat?

The Memory Tee Shirt quilt is on the frame and the quilting is going along well. The client picked the panto Kaleidoscope, and luckily for me I already had it in my collection. This quilt is a bit of a mixed bag of fabrics, satin, flannel, knit tees, and cotton prints. I also left a few pockets in place to make it interesting. There are some rhinestones and flat beads too. Those were a bit tough to stitch around, I thought the stitching was going to miss the flat beads, but ended up breaking a bead and a needle. The pockets I am able to use the masking feature on the computer to not stitch over them. The appliquéd Minkee backing is holding up well too. I attached it with the selvedge edges on the leaders, so the stretch is parallel to the bars. This makes the panto run top to bottom through the words on the back, but since it’s non directional and the quilt is square, it’s not a problem. I think I am going to bring the minkee to the front to bind it.

Be Kind.

I lost at playing thread chicken this past week. I was getting down to the last motif on the Strawberry/paisley fizz quilt when the Finesse brand spool quit. Luckily, I had a similar color way of Omni, no one will ever know :).

The Fall foliage top is together and I like it. I was thinking of quilting it with a raindrop panto because it reminds me of a puddle with autumn leaves in it. The purple sort of looks like asphalt to me, in a good way, the darkness against the colorful leaves. After finishing the foliage, I decided to pull out another pattern from Krista Moser, called Summer Swag. This one also uses the 60 degree diamond rulers. I still have a bunch of fabric from the Nancy Rink line called El Camino. You may remember the El Camino BOM, from a while ago, and more recently the Wall Flower quilt from 1/2022. There is still quite a bit of yardage left over and time for it to go. I started by sewing the stars together, a half hexagon, 6 triangle and two diamonds. What could be easier? I pieced and pressed and soon had the ten halves I needed. Only as I looked at them on the design wall, something bothered me. The yellow six pointed stars , oh no, not a design element that worked. I recently finished reading “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah, it is about two sisters during the German occupation of France. The book/story had an emotional impact on me, as one would expect, and those stars had to go. I took them all apart, and re-sewed them into multicolored stars. I am liking them much more now.

I stitched a bit on the Rose of Sharon blocks, and got another one done. The MinaB block did not get appliquéd yet, maybe today. The lure of the new Summer Swag top may supersede it though. I am feeling a little like I should get another block of Simple Days done too. What I should do is get the Memory quilt loaded on the long arm and stitch a Simple days while the computer does its thing. First I have to get the client to pick a Panto, I think they may be feeling overwhelmed with choices. I gave them a few search terms and sites to look for the designs, and haven’t heard back from them yet. I think I should have sent them two or three to choose from, I forget that not everyone is comfortable choosing quilting pantos. Speaking of, while I was running out of thread the other day, I started to sort all my digital designs with the new to me software. I have close to 2400(?!?) designs, and its gonna take some time. Thankfully it’s a “select, drag and drop” process, coming up with all the categories requires a bit of thinking though.

The next Fabulous House was released yesterday, the Light House. I really like it, and would consider making it as a stand alone piece. The Barn is growing, I stitched the cupola last night, and the outline of the roof. I think I am about half way done, the rectangle that forms the body of the barn is 36 rows of 70 stitches, which is 2520 little X-es. Phew.

Okay, enough writing, time to get sewing. Today is a stay home day, its blissfully cool and foggy this morning.

Be Kind.

This week is our second heat wave of the summer. I stayed in yesterday, only went out to get the mail and water a few potted plants before the sun came up. I got a lot done in the sewing room though.

I finished block 13 for the Message in a Bottle BOM. As I was looking for the next block, I realized I had more blocks done than I thought, and crossed them off on the white board, small victories. The next block, 16, is prepped and ready for appliqué. I think there are five more to do and various machine sewn accent blocks. All the fabric is here, even the backing, so I have no excuses not to finish this before 2025. I started this BOM in 2023, fell off the assembly line about half way through. Probably because I had too many BOMs going at one time. I can honestly say that I have not signed up for any this year. I want to finish MinaB before I start the Tilda birthday quilt. Which reminds me of another UFO, the Alzheimer quilt project, “Rose of Sharon” from Sharon Pederson. I have the Accuquilt die cutter for those flowers. I should un-earth the UFO, I found this video from 2010 (!?!) Sharon Pederson presents Rose of Sharon . It’s all coming back to me now, I have the book too, wow, I really should finish this.

The art bin has everything in it, the fabric and book, 7 blocks done, and two are stitched. I can’t believe how much I have forgotten about this quilt. It is machine appliqué and Accuquilt cut, easy and fast. I can’t seem to find anything more from Sharon Pederson after 2015. I have a bunch of her books and even took a few classes with her at PIQF back in the day. Maybe she retired, she was a very lovely person and a wonderful teacher.

I received the Mini Diamond Creative Grids ruler yesterday afternoon, and promptly got to work cutting the background pieces. I also measured the few I cut with my tiny diamond, and they were a bit too small. I guess I am thankful for my frustration, as I would have wasted a bunch of fabric if I had persevered with the tiny diamond. I got four leaves together before quitting for the day. They go together so nicely, the diamond point cutting off really makes lining the pieces up easier. Pressing the seams open too, is essential to not having piles of fabric at the intersections.

The barn-house got a few more X’s added, and the Good Morning blanket a few more rows as well. I also made a big bowl of potato salad for today, I’ll be attending a party later. This recipe is very similar to my mom’s tried and true one. The addition of vinegar is interesting, and I hope the flavors have melded overnight.

Be Kind.

Diamonds aren’t really my bestie lately. I am trying to cut out all the pieces for the Fall foliage quilt with a Creative grids ruler. What is slowing me down is that it is a mini size one and not the regular size one. That and I am too stubborn to buy the bigger one. My ruler only cuts up to a 3 ½ inch diamond, and I need 4 ½ inch ones for this pattern. I do have a different ruler that measures up to 4 inches, and one that does 6 inches, but no 4 ½. I am wrestling with myself to go see how much Amazon would charge to have it here tomorrow – $23.00. Is it worth the time and frustration I will save? Yeah. As I was perusing the Amazon Creative Grids collections, I realized I have the tiny diamond, not the mini diamond ruler which is called for in the pattern. Also there are lots of cheap knock-off acrylic rulers for sale out there. I will put the cutting on hold until I get the ruler.

I was able to get the Rise and Conquer quilt kit together. There was a little bit of swearing then too, but it all worked out. The two and a half pages of instruction were just enough guidance to get this top together. There is a tiny bit of fudging, but it’ll quilt out. Yesterday, I was looking for a cool spot in the house to be. and decided to sew a few more rows on the Paisley Fizz top. I am calling it that, as it is a mash up between the fabric line name and the panto I chose for it. The paisley panto is from Wasatch Quilting a few years back. I thought it would work with all the negative space in this quilt. It takes about 30 minutes to stitch a row out though. Funny thing is that I stopped mid row to make dinner and forgot about it last night. As I was going to sleep, I remembered and went to finish it and shut everything down before retiring.

The House Barn is being built stitch by stitch. There are now two sunflowers and a cow, hoping to have this finished by the 15th, when the next one, Light House, is delivered. I have all the floss for that one, and the colors are a bit dull. There is a skein of Calderon (dark gray), which has me wondering if it is a black and white light house. Next one is a floating House, houseboat?

The Good Morning blanket is about 80% done. I have six more color sections, or rows to go. The fabric created by this cotton yarn is quite nice. If I didn’t have a few quilts around here, I would consider making one for my personal use. It’s mindless knitting, although the last section I managed to start on a wrong side and had to purl all the stitches rather than knit them. I flipped it over for the next row, so I am back to regular garter stitch now.

I am going to turn on the AC now, as the house is cool and I would like it to stay that way today.

Be Kind.

noun

whimsy

US   /ˈwɪm.zi/ UK   /ˈwɪm.zi/

unusual, funny, and pleasant ideas or qualities: 

Add a touch of whimsy to your room with these cat sculptures.

Yesterday I was starting to get a description together for the Mad Masquerade quilts. I did a cut/paste from a previous quilt, but it sounds a little stiff. How do you describe the funky, spooky, weird, mystical zombie-like things that J Wecker Frisch draws? They aren’t cute, they aren’t really Halloween, but the orange and black lends itself to that. Non traditional halloween? Ghoulish, not really, but sort of “uncomfortable” in an acceptable way? So whimsy comes to mind, weird whimsy? Serendipity? must think on it. I did get the two quilts bound, cheddar for the win/finish.

This week was one for finishes of all the things I have been working on.

• Sold and shipped four quilts
• Shipped completed client quilt
• Delivered completed dog beds
• Bound the two Masquerade quilts
• Finished memory quilt top
• Appliquéd memory quilt backing

Last night I cut the pieces for the blocks in the Shine and Conquer quilt. There are many 1 ½” strips to make the outer blocks. The instructions are bare-minimum, which I take as a challenge, others may not, this kit should have come with a warning, not for beginners, because if I was, I probably would have struggled.

I had a day of appliqué, for the memory quilt. After watching a video from The Fat Quarter Shop, I was ready to fuse and sew. Who knew you could fuse Minkee? I used lightweight wonder-under and a pressing cloth. They recommend setting the iron to synthetics, but it wasn’t hot enough on my iron, I went with the silk setting. I cut all the letters out and carefully lined them up, ironed them on and went to work sewing them down. I used a universal needle, 40 weight thread, and a blanket stitch. There was no tunneling, or stretching, which was my main concern in attempting this. Two of the most important steps were finding the grainline of the fabric and keeping the nap going in the same direction. I thought I would have to use tear-a-way stabilizer on the back, but it all worked out. Quilting this is going to be “fun”. Clients are choosing a panto, maybe sea shells.

Tuesday I did not stitch any “X’s”, I went to bed a little early and knitted a few more rounds on the Good Morning blanket. Last night I added a few more rows of barn, its mindless stitching (70 across), once I get the orange floral motifs stitched. Maybe I’ll stitch a cow today, break up the red stitching.

As I was packing up the sold quilts, I found the Morning Glory quilt, it is still waiting for a binding. Not sure how that happened, but I’d like to get that done this week. I seem to remember wanting to bind it with green. Maybe the green checkered fabric I got and didn’t use for the Strawberry Fizz quilt series. That leads to another tangent thought, I have a few more quilts to photograph and get into the store. I have been wanting to up-date a few of my listings with new/better photos too. That’ll be a project for next week, my DH is going out of town for two weeks. It’s going to be quilting retreat time for me, might even make a few crock-pot meals to last a few days.

Be Kind.