Whither September?

... and when I looked up, it was October already!

 That's how I felt when I realized I hadn't posted anything since the end of August. What the heck, September?? Where did you go while I wasn't looking???

I wasn't idle, that's for sure. This orphaned piece from a year ago . . .

. . . was finally reconstructed, recreated as a wall-hanging, and donated at the September meeting (along with the Sunflower quilt from the previous post):

As near as I can remember, 30" x 36"

The Community First! Village can sell it in their Marketplace or at their annual Holiday event.

A couple of months ago, in response to some general moaning and groaning of various people about the difficulty of getting time on the long-arm machines available to us (for free when working on a quilt for CF!V), one of the Community First! Quilters reminded us that simple, straight-line quilting done on our DSMs was perfectly functional and acceptable. Not every quilt needs fancy-schmancy quilt designs! I took her reminder to heart when I started thinking about quilting this, pulled out a spool of Sulky embroidery thread, and knocked out the quilting in very little time.

The bobbin was plain green Aurifil to match the backing fabric (also used for the binding strips).

At the end of July, this post from Cathy showcased the quilt she'd finished:

I really like the dancing motion of the black segments and how this could be easily adaptable to any size strips. Cathy used 2.5" (raw) strips for a block that finished at 4" wide, but I quickly realized one could accomplish that same 4" width using various combinations of 1.5", 2", and 2.5" strips. After a bit of playing with numbers, trying to get to a 70"x90" finish, I figured out that I could make half the blocks finish at 3" wide by using 2" strips. Twenty rows of alternating 4" and 3" blocks would give me the 70" dimension, and making sure each block finished at 10" would easily fulfill the 90" dimension.  

At some point in the past 6 weeks I gathered up all the homespun scraps that miraculously managed to resurrect themselves (like mushrooms--the spores never really go away). I thought I'd seen the last of the homespun fabrics, and yet! I had lots of black scraps and yardage, so I started in cutting. Eventually a top was born (one quarter of it shown here).

Black segments cut 2.5"x4.5" or 2.5"x3.5"

The black fabrics:

I had to wait for the September CF!Q meeting to find enough homespun to flesh out a backing. I'd pieced quite a few scraps and pieces from The Great BOM Hoard, but it wasn't quite enough. There was a 2-yard piece in the CF!Q stash that fleshed it all out. Now all I need to do is sew these hunks together and get a sandwich started. There's a greater need for gender-male or gender-neutral quilts, and this one will fill that bill nicely.

With the "final" (HA!) scraps, I embellished the label that'll eventually be added to the back.

It's even all the way around In Real Life, honest.

The design wall was filled as well as I worked my way through hundreds of 2" squares. Sewing 2" squares together is my default Leader-Ender if I don't have anything else planned for that role, and I keep the results in my favorite set of kitchen canisters on the shelves next to my sewing table. Eventually they become 9-patches, but currently I have a plethora of 9-patches with no particular plan. I also have been wanting to do this pattern that I saw on Nann's site:

Nann's design wall, June 2025

MY design wall, September 2026

My choice of fabric for the 2"x5" rectangles was (I'm sure) partially influenced by Nann's project, and partially influenced by the fact that I had exactly enough of that teal batik to complete this top. This is another gender-neutral project that should please any new resident at Community First! Village, eventually.

And finally, in September I sandwiched another strippie quilt destined for Sleep In Heavenly Peace. Still heeding the suggestion that "Straight is Great", that's what I've been doing with this one. With a novelty fabric like that, how could one not?

A long ruler and a white pencil made marking the quilting lines (in the red and black fabrics) easy. I'm not using my DSM here, so I'm getting plenty of practice free-motion-quilting straight lines with this one. (More accurately--staying on the lines!)