Wisconsin

I've been back from my 5-day trip to Wisconsin/Illinois for nearly a week, and haven't sewn a single stitch since getting home! The main reason for that appalling lack of stitchery is that 18 hours after touching down, I was attending a rehearsal of a women's singing group (Women of Heartsong) and have made that my new singing home. There's been a glut of music to reformat and learn. Thursday I finally had enough of a handle on things that I could look at everything I brought home with me, pull out my camera, and start taking photos not only of some batik panels from Nann's stash that I promised to list for her on ebay . . .

. . . but 23 other pieces from the CF!Q stash I'd been setting aside over the last several weeks, also for ebay. Yesterday I stared at all those pieces again, comparing real-life colors to what my camera captured and tweaking as necessary (I could barely see straight after 9 hours of that). Today I'm determined to get the CF!Q listing finished, then do some sewing!

Another Floral Finish

Yippee, skippy!

72" x 91" (I've since cleaned off the smudge that makes that vertical strip look faded and blurry.)

Nothing finished, but plenty done

So we've managed to slide head-first into the first week of June!

After finishing the last log cabin, started by someone else and supplemented by me, I wanted to make another one right away using Elaine Adair's "Scrappy Rebuilt Log Cabin" pattern. It's intrigued me for years. I also had a drawer still crammed with scraps and strips gleaned from the CF!Q bins during The Great Reorganization, and felt they'd be perfect for this kind of project.

Many days were spent cutting 1.5" strips into the proper lengths for a traditional log cabin block. Having just worked with 40 blocks that seemed to have been constructed using the 'sew it down then trim it off' method of building, and not being terribly impressed with the results, I wanted to make blocks using known lengths.

Racking 'em up

For many years, due mainly to being away from my home for 2 months out of 3, most of my flimsies were hung 2- and 3-deep on seven over-burdened dowels.

As mentioned recently, most of the N1Cs had been finished and donated, the last one was the project at hand, and thus was exposed this Bright Hopes flimsy

which I put in this box

for Size Reduction Treatment. I then took some time to take a closer look at what was left on my storage rack.

Binding thoughts

I've quilted the sandwich featured in the Gemischt post (I am LOVING my new weightlifting system!) and am in the process of sewing down the binding. I decided to use up ALL my 1.75" binding scraps, acknowledging that would mean having to sew the binding down by hand, but also relishing the fact that those scraps would be GONE, never to be replenished. I figured out some time ago that 1.75" was just a little too narrow for comfort, double-fold-binding-wise, and have been cutting bindings at 2" for several years now. Yesterday I simply decided I'd use up the narrow ones, once and for all.

There were some long strips but LOTS more short strips. I briefly worried about and wondered how to avoid seams in the corners, what with all the connecting of the itty-bitty pieces. Well, DUH Carolyn: plan the corners and put the long pieces there! And as long as I'm planning the corners, I might as well use the dark scraps so the mitered pattern would shine without competition.

Right on schedule

From my blog post of 7/21/2023:

"Yesterday morning was devoted to determining a layout for Celia's Kaffe Fassett project. I'm currently sewing the black borders on the final full diamond block (bottom row, blue center), so I need to plan the half blocks that will fill in the bottom and side edges, and the quarter blocks for the corners.

Lots of black border overlapping happening here so I could fit everything on the design wall. There are really two lines of black hexagons between each block.

"After several hours of pinning and arranging I was content with this layout and have selected pairings for some of the half blocks. Once those are complete and added to this mix, I'll figure out the final pairings. Based on my sewing rate of 2 months to complete a full block, I should be revisiting this in another 6 months."

Wow. That was prophetic.

Happy Little Clouds

Quilting has begun. After pondering several designs that I could possibly accomplish without a stencil, I finally decided to just do wavy lines back and forth.

Talkin' Trash

I've been immersed in a ... new? continuing? ... project these past several days: making car trash bags (although I use them elsewhere too). The bags in their various stages are stashed have taken over all areas of my studio, as well as the dining room.

These 4 are done:

Massive Time Suck

This happened Monday:

Look at that poor, taped-together power cord on my old laptop!

My old laptop hasn't been playing nicely for years, crashing frequently and taking 5-7 attempts to reboot successfully each time. I've frequently been denied access to websites (or their features) because my favorite browser was no longer supported by my Operating System (or some variation thereof). So I plugged these two into an outlet for the long haul, introduced them to each other via our wifi, then left for a chorus performance that evening.

Tuesday, Do-sday

I went to bed last night with the following To-Do list on my mind for my "day off":

1: take pictures of the completed baby quilt

2: figure out which block to add to Celia's starting 6

3: measure and sew the borders on two N1C (Not 100% Cotton) flimsies

4: complete more Frankenbatts, if there's time left in the day

To address #1:

blergh

Well, a cold kinda caught me, enough to make my ears/teeth/throat ache, my eyes itch, and saddle me with tiredness and ennui, but without (yet) the coughing and blowing. Despite the fact that it didn't feel COVIDish (symptoms being mainly, except for the tiredness, above the lungs), I just took a test. It confirmed what I thought--just a nuisance Summer Cold. I hates 'em (and now my nose is irritated too).

I've been trying to decide what to make for my mother's August banner. A week or three ago this might have been in the running (with the heading "Summer's bounty").

The black rectangle would've been filled with a fabric that looks like a woven basket.

 

Yesterday as I quietly worked on Celia's hexagon project I decided to go simple--a couple of FPP sunflowers bookending 4- or 9-patches made with fabrics from the Kitchen Sink project. I'll still use the heading, though. I find there's a very real "danger" of trying to make subsequent banners more eye-catching than the last. Crazy-making, to be sure.

While working on Celia's project yesterday I decided its name: "Joie de Vivre". I finished the last full block and started sewing together a corner block, plus basted numerous black hexies (my mom felt like staying in bed most of the afternoon). Very soon I'll be joining blocks together. There are several residents and their daughters who've been closely tracking this project. Celia's joy spreads ever on!

General progress

My eldest son (Thing 1) was true to his word--when we went over to his place for a visit (I played Beat Saber on his VR device), he had 3 zigzag cams for me! He'd made them on his 3D printer from different types of filament, each having its own advantage. This one fit best right away (and even better once I scraped a little out of the middle).

I'm a happy camper now with a plain zigzag stitch at my fingertips!

Celia check-in

It occurred to me recently (as I was making a new 'busy bag' of hand-sewing projects) that I've been shuffling a lot of Celia's GFG blocks back and forth, but haven't really taken any kind of accounting as to how many I've made over the past year and a half.

And, as I type this, I realize I never blogged about this project in the first place!

Celia, March 2020

The Next New Thing

These (there are two--one is pinned over the other) arrived recently and safely from Nann. She's got pictures of both tops on her blog. They're hugs from The Magpies to the surviving twin sons of our founding Magpie, Sarah.

58" x 68"

Past Project

Mary's obsessed with bookshelf quilts, and while I've never made one, they remind me of a "bug (or canning) jar" wallhanging I made for my mother's Christmas gift in 2008. I just happen to have some pictures on my laptop I can share.

Original pattern from which I got some ideas.

Trippin'

 As I was working on the mindless string blocks, another project landed in my lap: Trip Around The World.

Not the most flattering of shots, but a true capture of her joie de vivre. That's me in the background, holding the bolt of the "awesome" doxie fabric that ended up in my prototype TATW block.

Last year one of our Magpies flew from this mortal coil. In memory of her, the Nest is making a quilt for her granddaughter--to be given at her Bat Mitzvah--using fabrics from her stash. Her cousin and fellow Magpie is coordinating the effort and getting fabrics to all those who've volunteered to make blocks. I had thrown in my hat when this project was being discussed; I knew I could manage to make 4 blocks during my time home, but that would have to be the extent of my contribution.

While waiting for my allotment of fabrics, I figured I'd get familiar with the tube technique Bonnie Hunter shares on her Quiltville website for a Scrappy Trip Around the World, which is what the Magpies decided to make. Pulling all strips that were 16" or longer from my 2.5" bin, I built this:

Not much WOW factor in this, because it turns out I don't have many long 2.5" strips!

The technique is easy (although I made a tweak to Bonnie's instructions that eliminates the unpicking of one column per block*) and the results are fun.

Sashings and Backings

After deciding on a comfortable size for my lap-quilt-to-be (~36"x77"), the initial prototype proved to be unworkable.

It doesn't have the 1:2 ratio of height:width I'd like in the finished product. At 33"x46", this is more of a 3:4, so some designs need to be cut out of each column to create a 5th column, and thereby more width.

Strips from Stripes

Two years ago in July the Magpies flocked in Maine (wherein I was put to work within an hour of my arrival).

My first experience at a pick-your-own farm.

One of the many hot spots we visited that week was the much-talked-of Marden's. This place seems to be a Mecca for those wanting quilt-store-quality fabrics at bargain-basement prices (and you'll find exactly that here!) From what I understand, they buy up outdated or 'out-of-fashion' fabrics from local quilt stores trying to clear their stock to make room for the latest lines.

A Mischief of Corvids

Except for a 5-day respite in February, I've barely been away from my various machines for anything other than meals, chorus rehearsals, and sleeping.

The respite was the advent of the biennial flocking of the Magpies, when we all landed in San Marcos and spent some glorious time together at the QuiltCon in Austin, on the Riverwalk in San Antonio (the Alamo was evacuated and cordoned off due to an undisclosed package), watching cattle roping in New Braunfels, with plenty of down time thrown in just for chatting and schmoozing. For each group of uninitiated 'Pies, trips were made to the nearby Buc-ee's as well. (I just don't get the allure!)

POUT drawer, the last reveal

There was one more project to be uncovered in the POUT drawer:

This was in the process of being hand-stitched together, and I distinctly remember working on it in an airplane.

The big picture: