Triangles mean...

Not a needle is stirring.

 

Triangles are strung on the ironing board with care.

 

This all must mean a big project was just finished!

Final Two

Two shopping days before Christmas, not that that's relevant to my life other than peripherally. Ninety-seven days ago someone on the Heartstrings group noted there were 99 days left until Christmas Eve, and wouldn't it be fun to challenge ourselves to complete a task a day? I chose to interpret that as 'make daily progress on something sewing-related and stay accountable by reporting it to the group'. In that time I've completed the Twin Hugs, my Mom's wall-hanging from my Dad's shirt, and my brother Steve's quilt started by my Mom. I've made progress on other WIPs and started a new top as well. But while I'm encouraged by and happy about all the forward motion this challenge produced, I'll be so glad to end the challenge and stop holding myself publicly accountable every day!

One of the Big 2 under the needles lately is my latest idea of what to do with my rolls of scraps. This is how that unnamed one stands right now:

It's 86.5" by 36.5" currently, seen here at right angles to my original idea in which this would be a middle panel with large sections above and below to be filled with something later, when I determine what that 'something' will be.

There's every possibility that I'll decide 86" is a nice length (instead of width) and will end up doing something completely different from my original idea.

Hubris revisited

Back in June 2020 I started in on the Hubris quilt, working steadily on its construction until I was called away in August of that year.

After all the quilts I'd recently finished for others had been delivered, this was what 'floated' to the top when I cast about for my "what's next?" project.

Back to pinning, pinning to back

The backing to my hubris log cabin was finally cobbled together earlier this week, and at the moment I'm taking a break from the pin basting I've been doing on it for the past 3 hours.

The wood grain section would have been much easier if I hadn't worried about the directionality of the (initial) two pieces of that fabric, but of course I did. I wouldn't be me, otherwise!

A finish, and more!

Steve's Ts is Steve's lap quilt now. These pictures aren't much different than the previous ones, other than the borders and the binding.

Taxing

Incoming!!!!

Sorry.

Income Taxes are due in a few days, and this helps relieve the stress.

The Loud and I do them together--we catch each other's misconceptions, mistakes, and general mis-ses that way--and that was our goal and achievement today. After that, my biggest accomplishment was to sew the top half of the design wall layout together, then put up the next stage of layout:

I had to turn this half 90 degrees to fit on the design wall, so here it is turned to its eventual finished position (give or take 180°):

These applique blocks are going to be dwarfed by the log cabin blocks, but at this point I really no longer care. They're being used, and I'm finally, finally! making a log cabin quilt!

Design Wall progress

All the Y and Z blocks have been constructed and the applique blocks fleshed out to 24.5", so I placed what could fit onto the design wall.

I see it. I just didn't want to lower the design wall, again, to fuss with that corner, again, before taking this shot.

Blue Hair

I (finally) noticed this during the last round of ironing:

but instead of being all

I just let Dr. Rick be my Parental-Life Coach (0:19 in the video): "We all see it. We a-a-a-all see it."

I'll let it exist without giving it a second glance. Zen and the Art of Quilt Construction.

Check please!

Just taking a quick reckoning after ironing the current round of logs, seeing how things are playing together.

The more the blocks build out, the more they look as they should. There's still a block in which I didn't replace the funky black & white fabric, and that's throwing off the curve by 3/8", but I'm not "mad" enough at it to rip it out. It's what it's.

Dithering

Now that the blocks are getting assembled and some problematic "neutrals" are being called into play, I'm taking a close look at things before they go too far. This medium-orange-ish log had me on the fence--could I convince myself it was light enough to count as a neutral, or did it lean dark?

I built out the block on the design wall to see how it might play with subsequent rounds of logs.

I took pictures (obviously), squinted hard at it, considered creating a black & white version of this shot, then realized in the time it took me to do all that, I could have ripped out the 3-1/2" of stitching and replaced that log with something that didn't bother me at all!

So I did that instead. 1441 logs cut, and counting.

Chain Cha-ain Cha-a-a-a-ain

Been matching and sewing in spurts of 56, small neutral units sewn to longer dark units, getting them all sewn before turning on the iron.

I don't like to keep the iron plugged in all day for a little ironing here, a little there, unless the project absolutely requires it. Even with the auto-off feature, it still draws power unnecessarily. So all these are hanging about waiting for the ironing marathon to follow.

1416

I rarely construct a quilt from a published pattern, so preparing all the pieces beforehand for my Hubris project is quite a departure for me. I cut as many 1-1/2" strips as I thought I'd ever need from several dark and neutral fabrics (scraps, FQs, and yardage), then stacked 5 strips and started sub-cutting into specific log sizes. To help me keep track, I made a spreadsheet,

crossing off each size as it was fulfilled.

This went on for days, and I was constantly going back to my black/brown/grey and the neutral fabrics to cut more 1-1/2" strips. After a couple of days of this I succumbed to curiosity and called up the total of columns B and C: 1,416 logs to be cut! At that point I was slightly less than 1/2-way through, but at least I understood why it was taking so long.

Hubris Project cut&paste

With one project in the binding stage and another in the basted-ready-to-quilt stage, it's time for me to turn to my Hubris squares and get those into a top.

With so many variations available in the pattern I've decided upon (middle right in the book photo above), I figured the old-fashioned method of playing with bits of paper would be the easiest way to figure out a good layout to showcase these applique blocks. Because they'll trim down to 18" squares, I had already done the math to resize the log cabin blocks from 12" to 18".

Inspiration from hubris

This is part of my view from my sewing machine:

I've been staring at these appliqued panels for years. I'd been thinking of turning them into pillows, but that idea never really took off. I'd also been thinking of sticking them on a back of a quilt, just to get them used, but that seemed a disservice to the hours of work I put into them.