Lately it seems like I have been doing all three math related activities. The past three quilt backings I have made were too small. Only one was discovered to be short while quilting though. Two were added to, and the third is still waiting for the fabric to get here. Two of the battings used were franken-battings, I really need to do something with all the cut off batting pieces I have accumulated. I buy most of my batting by the roll, either 90 inches wide or 45 inches wide. King size batts I like to buy already cut to size, as I usually use poly-batts due to the weight of cotton batting. I have gotten better about saving cut off pieces too. I no longer save anything less than 12 inches wide.

The Unity quilting was going along smoothly, or so I thought, until I took it off the frame. There were two whole rows that had rail-roaded bobbin thread on the back. There was a lot of stitch subtracting going on yesterday. The stitching came out fairly easy, partly because of the loose tension of the top thread and partly because of the panto, it was pretty simple. Once I had the rows 2 and 6, unpicked, re-quilting it was pretty simple.

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The multiplying fabric strings is a bit of a mystery. Where did they all come from? I recognize most of them from past quilts and projects, but why did I save them? I don’t make strings specifically while I am cutting fabric for a quilt. Maybe I did at one time? I don’t remember. Usually I cut a bunch of 2 ½ inch squares, I have a bin full of those too. It’s not like I use a lot of 1 ½ inch wide strips either, but that’s what most of them are. Sure there were some Log Cabin quilts, but not that many. It is a big pile and as I make the Serpentine blocks, I think I am making a dent in it, but there always seems to be more in the bin. I do have another bin of extra binding pieces, which I have not opened yet. Maybe I’ll make the binding for this quilt from some of them. That’ll be a yard gone out of that bin.

I made another batch of blocks this weekend. I chain piece them, doing 12 block parts on a chain. I cut the yellow kites and glue them on, then start adding the strings alternating left then right. I have a sharp pair of scissors near me to make the strings short enough, or a bit narrow-er. These blocks are fun to make and I can make five or six in about two hours. I realized today that I’ll have plenty of strings to make another quilt top (or two) once this one is done. Maybe it is time to make the Lego quilt. I am wondering if I can do it without making all my strips 1 and ½ inches wide. Probably, even though most of them are that wide. Just the thought of cutting all the strips makes my wrist ache.

I just don’t want to put them back in the bin and let them multiply anymore. I have been wanting to make the Bonnie Hunter string quilt called Emerald City since last year. I was supposed to have a class with her at Asilomar, but Covid wiped that out. Anyway, I have a whole bunch of greens that I collected to make it, but I “feel” that I need to make use of these scrappy strings first. There aren’t enough greens in the string bin to make that quilt, so it’ll wait. I’m going to look at Pinterest, and see if I can get any ideas for this never ending pile of strings.

Linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday today.

Be Kind

Scrappy Squirrel is a quilter’s superhero, really. She digs into the deep stash and finds new and fun projects that appear at the speed of a sewing machine going pedal to the metal. It started out as a simple chore in the sewing room, clear off a pile of stuff that had accumulated on top of a set of drawers. There was a shoe box with fabric in it, a bag of bonus hsts from Summer Solstice (circa 2014), two large blocks made in a class (circa 2005?) and a Hawaiian quilt block from earlier 2000, parts of a storm at sea, and a bunch of triangles cut from strip sets.

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After much head scratching, I remembered where they were from. In early 2000, I was part of a yahoo group that did various block swaps and group efforts. These blocks came from one of them, the project was to make a strip set of a bunch of strings 18″x 8″ (I think) and cut them into HSTs and attach them to solid triangles. Somewhere along in the past twenty years, I cut them into triangles of the pointy kind and made a few hexagons, and abandoned them in the box. I put them on the design wall, trying to randomize, but it was too eclectic, and kinda ugly. Hmm. I looked at them for a while and that’s when Scrappy Squirrel showed up. Bonnie Hunter was the answer, the quilt on the cover of her book String Frenzy , Serpentine Web. It has lots of triangles and was the ultimate in scrappy goodness. I grabbed the book and looked at the pattern, Yellow, lots of yellow, would it work with these uglies? I had three yards of yellow solid in the stash, yeah, not too bad. The center kite shape, didn’t I have an Accuquilt die that was this shape, yes! The die was slightly longer than the one from the pattern, but I could make it work. I cut a pile of newsprint triangles, yay, paper piecing.

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I made one block, it was fairly easy to do using the triangles and the precut kites, most were 6 seams, square up, and done. I like it, then I grabbed the bin of strings I had ironed this past summer, lots of colors and prints and oldies in there. I was off and running. The former orphans were used up in no time and the pile of strings is being chipped away at. The pattern calls for 50 or so blocks and each block has four kites, I have 10 here. I’m thinking maybe thirty whole blocks, there are half blocks to complete the rows for a throw size.

Today I will do the dog bed covers that Scrappy Squirrel distracted me from yesterday. Really.

Be Kind.

I recently learned that in Cross Stitch land, an FFO is a framed finished object. I have another FFO, the cat head, or as the pattern is titled, Bright Eyes.

I got the frame at Michaels yesterday. I was hoping to find a square frame, but settled on the 8″ x 10″ one. I like the way the wood looks with the colors of the floss/design. I’m not sure if I’m framing and stretching my stitchery in the “correct” way, but they look okay to me. I’m sure there are hundreds of videos I could watch, but I got it done, and that’s what counts.

While at Michaels, I picked up the DMC floss I needed for the Heaven and Nature sing cross stitch. It was 62 cents, as much as I enjoy the beauty of the over-dyed floss, like Weeks, I have a bit of reticence with paying $2.50 a skein. I also picked up the scroll frame holder, I put it together and I am working with it, trying to find the best position. I think the fabric is supposed to be tighter, but I kinda like it looser, so I can stitch through only from the front if I like. I still have to figure out how to easily access the back, flipping the piece up is easy, but I need to lean forward out of my chair to reach it. It puts a strain, like doing sit ups – yuck, on my mid section, stitching is supposed to be relaxing.

I finished quilting my Unity quilt last weekend. as I was taking it off the frame, I noticed railroading on the back. Damn. Two entire rows are like this. I am going to take it out and re-do the quilting. I thought about washing it and seeing if the stitches would pull in, but I think the bobbin thread is too tight and it wouldn’t help. I want to finish the Farm Charm quilt on the frame, and hopefully the minky I ordered for the tee shirt quilt will be here soon and I can get that quilt done. Then I can work on getting Unity fixed, it’s not as difficult as it seems, just have to be methodical. I’m thankful that I chose a panto with no back tracking, so much easier to rip out.

Tomorrow I am planning on making two dog bed covers. A friend of mine commissioned me to make them, one is rectangular and the other is round. I got some rip-stop 600 denier fabric from Seattle Fabrics, along with some zippers and such. Simple sewing on a large scale. It shouldn’t take too long, famous last words, right?

Lastly, I discovered a new to me Floss Tube series. Craftie Emily is a British stitcher, with a lot of projects going at one time. She’s easy to listen too and does beautiful work. Craftie Emily showed a few Long Dog Sampler patterns she is stitching. I went and looked, now I want to do them all. They have one color pieces with so much detail, and samplers that are multicolors. The patterns are in PDF form, downloadable from Great Britain, at about $24.00 each. I really like this one, called Pilgrims Progress, after the book of the same name. Lots of detail, and tiny stitches.

Be Kind.

I did some retail therapy this past week. I visited my local quilt shop/Bernina dealer to buy some neutrals and ask about a needle set screw. I found a few neutrals, I was hoping to get ten different ones, a half yard of each to beef up my neutral bin. The store now has a one yard minimum for purchase rule, oh, I guess that’ll work. The selection wasn’t large, not much was enticing me, and I felt a little rushed. The store only allows one person at a time in, for 15 or 20 minutes. It’s not really conducive to browsing, in the end I got six different neutrals and the Minky I needed to back the tee shirt quilt. I also got a replacement needle set screw for the L890. They are tiny and I didn’t realize that they need to be tightened when not being used, the vibration and movement of the machine makes them wiggle free.

The Minky I bought was 60 inches wide, and I thought my tee shirt top was 72 inches wide. I say thought because I sort of measured it while it was hanging on the design wall. I cut the backing down the middle and inserted a 12 inch wide strip of scrap minky I had on hand and I thought I was good. I tried to load it on the frame and realized that the top was closer to 82 inches square. I needed to get another yard of minky, Amazon to the rescue. I am hoping it’ll be here soon, so I can get this quilted. In the meantime, I loaded one of the farm animal quilts. The backing on this one took me to the edge of crazy, as it took me a few tries to get it to be wide enough too. I ❤️ pieced backings, not really.

Another shopping spree was completed on etsy, in the cross stitching aisle, I write completed because it started in The Fat Quarter Shop. I have been eyeing the sampler called ‘Heaven and Nature Sing’, by Teresa Kogut for a few months now. I am working on the ‘Pet All the Dogs’ one now, so I thought it might be a good idea to have the next one I want to do ready. The FQS has a large cross stitch selection too, but I really was shopping there for binding fabric for the tee shirt quilt. I wanted shamrock print, but I’m too late for that, or they didn’t have any. I settled for green, but then found a few other fabrics I couldn’t resist. The chart in my cart led to looking for floss and linen. FQS has a pretty large selection of floss, but they are sold out of many colors. I put the order through and went to Etsy for the floss and on a tip from another blogger, saw some linen of the right color and count at Needlecase Goodies . They didn’t have all the colors of floss, which led me over to Hollis Hands Create another cross stitch shop I haunt. They had some more of the colors for Heaven and Nature, but not all. I was looking for substitution floss when I saw this cute line of samplers from Blackbird Designs. There were six different ones available, from the Magical Mystery Tour collection, I got Strawberry Fields. These are Beatle song themed, the Yellow Submarine one is obvious, but the others are a little more whimsical. The Long and Winding road, Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, and Octopus’ Garden are the others.

New patterns necessitated more floss, which after much clicking between three different stores, I was able to get most of the colors for the two designs. Today I got an email from Michaels, telling me I had $60.00 in rewards that was expiring soon. Really? This past year we have had a bunch of posters framed by them, but I never saw any rewards from those purchases. I even asked the framers if I should get credit for them, and they said yes. I checked a few times and nothing, then after the last poster framing, I checked and there was a credit, like 5 dollars. I don’t know how the credits caught up to me, but they did, maybe because I logged in on line, or triggered something. I spent my credits on a nice embroidery frame holder, with the credit it was $15.00. Well worth it, and I really don’t buy much at Michaels, besides frames, so I’m happy not to waste it.

Now I just have to wait for the floss and linen to get here, and the minky. I want to “kit-up” the cross stitch patterns so I don’t loose the floss colors. I think I can wait to start them, maybe.

I am thinking of starting another quilt kit I have, it is a BOM (reflected harmony) that I bought from someone on Sew-its-for-Sale. I also need to do the Holiday Snow village block from January. I’m not really enthusiastic about this BOM. I just don’t like the fusible appliqué pieces. I am trying to do something a bit different with the embellishments, but I stalled out on the first block. This second block is a restaurant, with windows that have a picture of chairs and a table in them. Might do something with cafe curtains or such, but it just doesn’t excite me.

Be Kind.

A very good friend of ours asked me to make a tee shirt quilt for him. I said okay, and he dropped off a large bag of shirts and a tattered flag. The flag had 48 stars, and was damaged from wind and sun and water. It belonged to his father, and had sentimental value. He wanted some of it incorporated in the quilt. My DH, -who is not a quilter, nor artistically inclined, as he will tell you – told him it would look bad, and how could he even think the two things could be mixed. As I was trying to calm him down, I told our friend I would be happy to work it in.

I started cutting the logos and prints out of the shirts and stabilizing them with Pellon sf101. I took a few hours, but I got them done. Then I looked at the flag, its cotton, I think, and the fabric was woven, almost like canvas weight, so I dry ironed it, and cut it into some squares and rectangles. I started to worry about the “legality” or the proper handling of the symbol of our country. In a way I could rationalize that I was preserving it, but still, I thought maybe I should be burning it in a ceremony or something. I am thinking of returning the scraps, and telling our friend to do the right thing with them. Anyway, once I got them cut, the stabilizer really helped the fabric to feel useable.

It was going along smoothly, until I realized that since I wasn’t doing a traditional layout, I would have to lay out the top on the floor. With three doggie helpers, this is a challenge, as soon as I started, they all came in and sat on the blocks. The floor in the sewing room wasn’t large enough, so I moved some furniture and spread it out in another room. The next problem was how to keep the dogs off and go back and forth between the rooms to sew it together. I figured I could get it sewn together when my DD came home from work, she could keep the dogs occupied. In the end I got it set up, but no sewing was done. I took a bunch of photos that I can use for placement, and picked it up before going to bed.

I got the first quarter or so put together and took a break. Sunday I didn’t even turn on my machine, I spent a little time in the sewing room though. I got a new ironing board cover and put it on my board. Its a miracle cover, made from fire proof fiberglass. My old one was fraying at the edges and when I took it off, I realized that the wool batting I use for padding was stiff with starch. Kinda gross, I must remember to wash the new one every few months. I also got a felted wool pressing pad last month that I have been using with good results. I really think it makes a difference with pressing blocks and units. My Grassy creek blocks were definitely flatter and a bit easier to put together.

Yesterday was also a no-sew day. Errands were run, I went to the grocery store near the bank I had to visit. I haven’t been in it in almost a year. It was a strange feeling, but everything was where it was supposed to be. I was out of there in about thirty minutes. Once home, I worked on my cross stitch, “Pet All the Dogs”. The house is coming along, I may get to the next floor today, but this is only the right half, middle floor.

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Knitting has resumed on the wedding shawl, only 3 ½ more months till that needs to be done. I started section “C”, it’s easier, lots of mindless knitting rows and one that requires counting. The puppy stole the ball of yarn the other day and ran through the house with it. I was so angry, and I think his little doggie senses have figured out that messing with my yarn is not a good thing. Lucky for him, the circular needles were long and there were no stitches lost. The yarn didn’t break either, I just had to wind the 10 yards back up.

Another rainy day today, I am going to try to finish the tee shirt top.

Be Kind.