I have been a quilt piecer for a longish time, but those two words, finished size, still trip me up. I have been working on the Reflected Harmony quilt top this week. All of the block instructions give sizes in unfinished size, simple and consistent. I started to cut out the pieces for the 5th installment and noticed that it was a cats cradle block. I thought “I have a (Creative Grids) ruler for those!” I dug it out and the smallest size on it was 4 ½ inches. I really like this ruler/template because the blocks come out perfectly, and all the measurements for the pieces are on the ruler. I needed 64 CC blocks of one color way and 8 each of two other color ways. I spent a few hours making them and when it came time to combine them into the larger blocks, I saw I had a problem, the Cats Cradle blocks were too large by an inch, they were all 5 ½ inches square. Thankfully, I had had enough fabric to make them too large, but it took me a minute or two to figure out why. Ugh, right there on the ruler were the words ‘finished size’. In this case the finished size was 5 inches, which was my needed unfinished size. I calmly turned off the machine and left the room to work on a different project. The next morning I set to work cutting the blocks down to the right size. The CC blocks made with this CG ruler are quite forgiving, no points were lost and they are all very square and the correct size now. The next installment is Square in a Square blocks and flying geese for one of the borders. I have a CG ruler for the SinS too, and I have triple checked that it is the finished size I need. I even made one before cutting all the pieces, its all good.

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I worked a bit on the Newcastle cross stitch last night, I challenged myself to finish the basket. I did, and it looks pretty good. Now to branch out and start another flower, there is one needed to the left of the basket.

Yesterday I got two more rows quilted on the Hampton quilt. I knitted on the Curling mist shawl while the stitch out was churning along. Each row of the quilting takes about 30 minutes, even though it is a relatively simple design. I am not very pleased with it, as there is a bit of drift, and the rows don’t exactly line up sometimes, mostly on the ends. It is not that noticeable, because of the busy-ness of the fabrics and design, certainly won’t win any awards for LA quilting. Speaking of, a friend was asking me about PIQF, and wanted to know if I was entering a quilt. I hadn’t really thought about it. Usually the entrees are due at the end of August, I went to the web site and saw this:

We will be Celebrating Thirty Years at the Pinnacle of the Art of Quilting at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in 2021!

IMPORTANT NOTE: At this time, the 2021 Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF)will be held October 14-17. Under the proposed future restrictions in the state of California, this show should be green-lighted to take place onsite at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

Recognized as official Quilt Week in the city of Santa Clara, PIQF is proud to announce its thirtieth year! Join us as we celebrate the art of quilting. Whether you shop the aisles of the Merchants Mall for the best fabric, learn a new technique in *workshops taught by an outstanding faculty or admire the beauty of the artwork hanging in the quilt competitions and special exhibits, take part in the excitement that is the Pacific International Quilt Festival.

*Some workshops will be held virtually online.

So that’s promising. Further searching on the site didn’t yield any info on the competition though. There was an entry form button, but it wasn’t active. Mr Google gave no help, and the Mancuso site was super slow loading. I gave up for today.

Be Kind.

Its not really a new BOM, but a new start. I bought this BOM “Reflected Harmony” as kit, all at once, a few months ago, or maybe last year, it’s a bit of a blur. The fabrics a very pretty, a line from Kaye England called Rhapsody in Red. I initially thought I could do one part a day, until I started the third one. Lots of little pieces (49) in these blocks, flying geese that finish at 2 x 1 inch, and making twelve of them slowed me down a bit. Thankfully the fabric provided is plentiful, I am pretty sure its discontinued and unavailable. Still I check and recheck my measurements and cutting, just to be on the safe side.

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I made more progress on the Curling mist shawl, I am at 50 percent done. I decided to gift this to someone whose birthday is coming up. Which means I need to get it done in the next two weeks. The final stitches per row will be 270, and I have about 120 more rows. There are sections of garter stitch in-between the cabled sections, they go pretty fast. I have learned how to do the cable on the working needles, which is a game changer. Not having to use a separate cable needle to hold the stitches while making the cables is easier than I thought. Although these are simple single cross one cables, I don’t think I am ready to try a larger, say an 8 stitch cable. There is a point in working it that you have live stitches off the needle, very easy to drop and loose.

My stitching on the Newcastle bouquet is continuing, I am making progress on the basket and I got a few more leaves started. I would like to start on the lower border, but I think I need to do it in the morning when I am a bit more focused. My before bed stitching time is more for mindless filling in and not serious counting to make it fit.

Be Kind.

Yesterday I worked on all four of my current projects, Hampton Square quilting, Halloween Figs, Curling Mists Shawl and Newcastle cross stitch. I also did four loads of laundry, not as fun, but productive. I felt like I had a lot of time yesterday, it was like one of those never-ending days, except that I did things I wanted to. I am at a point where I don’t have any deadlines, challenges, or commitments hanging around. It’s a nice way to start the month of June.

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Today I want to wash the windows on my house, maybe just the outsides. It’s about time too, our rainy season is over, well it won’t rain until September anyway. The windows are mostly dusty from the smoke of last years fires, oak tree pollen, and the general dusty-ness of this climate. What I really want to do is start a new project ;). I have a bunch of quilt kits that I bought from various people on ‘Sew Its For Sale’ the old Craftsy site, and other sale places. I feel the need for some mindless chain piecing. I did a bit of it this past weekend, I made 64 “scallop” blocks for the Halloween Figs quilt border. They were stitch and flip style, two different color combos and two sizes. The interesting part is that half were 4 3/8s inches and half were 4 ½ inches, this is so the border will fit better. Supposedly no stretching or smooching needed. We shall see. I have been working diligently on finishing the appliqué blocks for this top too, so its a “sort of goal” to have it done for this October.

Be Kind.

In an effort to use up more of my Julie Paschkis fabric collection, I have been working on this. It started with a panel of the animal prints. They were not a regular size, I ended up settling on 10 1/4 inch square. That made the alternating blocks a bit difficult. I made them 10 ½ square and cut slivers of the edges to make them fit. A few points were lost, but not too noticeably. I want to get the outer border on later today. It will be the white and red floral, 5 inch wide, I struggled with the two inner borders, but chose the black because it needed to be held together a bit. The orange was put in because I still have a lot of it and it brought out the colors from the inner top.

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I still have quite a bit more of Catkin and Folkloria left and a panel and borders of Chickadee. I might just squeeze out one more and let it rest a bit. I have a few other quilts I want to make in the queue.

I worked on the Halloween Fig appliqué last night. I received month 12 in the mail on Monday, the final fabric pack of the BOM. Sort of a kick or impetus to get me going on finishing this project.

I made a little more progress on the Curling Mist shawl, I’m about 120 rows in. The rows at this point go fairly quickly as they are only about a hundred stitches long.

I would like to get to quilting the Hampton Square quilt. I have it all set to go on the frame, but I can’t seem to choose a quilting design. I don’t want to do feathers, I thought maybe some kind of vine or leaves, or geometric. The geo design is problematic as the quilt it already linear, I’m feeling it may conflict or not add anything to it. Part of the problem is that I have hundreds of digital files and they aren’t really organized. There are 6 years worth, most are on the Dell computer that runs the robotics, some are on USB sticks and some are on my MacBook. Just getting to see them is a pain, I dislike Windows explorer to begin with, but getting to see what each design looks like requires at least three clicks. Maybe I could pay some one to do it LOL. This reminds me of when my DH decided to put all his CDs on a server. He had to do them one at a time, he has a lot of music, more than a thousand CDs, back then. He came up with an idea to pay my son to do it. Even with payment, he wouldn’t do it, too boring. The CDs did get transferred eventually, DH would do them a little at a time. Now most of the music is directly downloaded to the server via internet. I should just suck it up and start, my wrist is starting to ache just thinking about it.

Linking up with Denise at For the Love of Geese today, It is the 100th posting for the Put your Foot Down Thursday Link up.

I had the best intentions of completing the ten pumpkin seed blocks for the Halloween figs quilt. I got two done on the plane ride, one half way done on the way there and one fully done on the way back. A whole lot of reunion-ing and fun happened in between, so its okay. My eldest son got married this past weekend in Plymouth MA. It was wonderful and so GOOD to see and be with my tribe.

I feel like I accomplished something. All the build up to the event, planning and doing, now I am feeling like a new start is going to happen. I had been putting off starting anything large, or multi-parted for about a month. Now I feel free to do/start new things. It may be a subconscious thing with me, but I end up doing this kind of “limiting” behavior before major events, like holidays and vacations. It’s a good thing I don’t hibernate, as I would never get anything done. I now feel like I have a huge chunk of time to do things.

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One of those things is the Curious Handmade Shawl Society Knit Along 5. I have not picked up knitting needles in months. Cross stitching has taken over that time, and I sort of lost interest in the white shawl I started. I may even frog it, as I think I have a major error in it. Anyway, the first (of 6) patterns is called Curling mist Shawl, and I needed just over 900 yards of yarn. Last night I was shuffling through the yarn bags and baskets and found a package of Madeleine Tosh yarns. Remember a few years ago when they had an inventory reduction sale? I bought a bunch, and this one, called Patagonia, will work well for this shawl. I am thinking that I will have to use two skeins at a time, since the MT colors/shading can differ slightly from skein to skein. I should add a project to my neglected Ravelry page, but that can wait.

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I finished the Happy Cat quilt top, by adding borders. I had enough yardage to use this cat print border, its from the Folkloria line, not the Catkin line, but it’s not that noticeably different. The pieced center of the quilt was about 60 inches square, I needed to add corner blocks. I had one extra star block from it too, three more made it work. That was my goal for today, to finish this project. Maybe I’ll make it over to start the Hampton Square quilting too, it is all set up on the frame. I need to decide on an appropriate quilting motif though, too many options. I want to do something that will add texture, maybe an ivy or leafy panto. Although a geometric could work too, due to the top’s brick like pattern.

Be Kind.