Why Can't Carolyn Count?

So, back to the Arkansas Cross Road blocks and project.

From this layout of all the pieces . . .

. . . I carefully sorted everything into two piles, making sure the blocks with the bright orange squares were equally split between the piles. It doesn't look like it here, but the bright orange really flashed out to me in person, and I didn't want them all grouped in one border or area.

Proof

I woke Friday morning determined to see if I could make the inner star of this pattern, and if so, was it worth it?

It was! It wasn't difficult, and Proof Of Concept was rapidly achieved.

Busy Fortnight

It's been 2+ weeks since my last post, a quarter of which was stolen away from me by flu--the old-fashioned kind that requires a clear path to the toilet at all times, and a bucket in hand! It seemed to be a 72-hour bug and I'm back to my old self now.

Winding Ways went from a gleam to a finish in these past 16 days! Before being felled, I had added borders (finding the perfect fabric in the CF!Q legacy stash, as I'd hoped), made a back from the blue dot fabric that didn't work in the front (including a couple more FQs from the CF!Q stash), sandwiched the lot and outline-quilted all the inner blocks. Contrary to all teachings and advice from time immemorial, I made the borders to the size the blocks should measure, not what reality might dictate. As a result, the sandwiching involved quite a bit of careful pulling and close pinning so nothing shifted.

Hide and Seek

As I grew out of childhood and into my teens, I remember thinking how tedious this game was, especially as The Seeker.

Its allure continues to dim the older I get, logarithmically I'd venture to guess.

As I close out August staying inside and away from the punishing Texas heat, chipping away at several piles in an effort to get them from over- to merely whelming, I find myself seeking things that "just a minute ago" were right there at my fingertips.

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.

Another finish . . . ish

Last month the CF!Quilters were asked that we not wash our quilts before donating them, as it created some question as to whether they were new or used.

I like to wash everything before it leaves my house, because not only does it get rid of markings, chalk dust, cat dander, and general griminess (that looks like it should really be spelled "grimyness", but the red squiggles under the second spelling suggest otherwise), but it also sends the message that 'Yes! This can be washed just like your sheets and towels.'

Apparently, that message wasn't being received.

So, when I put the last stitch into this . . .

. . . I threw it into my new dryer and put it on Air Dry. Remembering my research into dealing with a down comforter (2021, helping out my parents), I threw in 4 tennis balls to keep things agitated (and, I hoped, knock some of the chalk markings out of the top). It also gave me an opportunity to learn what the dryer thought was long enough for Air Dry (30 minutes--now written on the control panel with a black marker). After an hour there was a satisfactory amount of lint in the trap, and no discernible chalk lines.

Gemischt

Yesterday (Friday, my day "off") and this morning were quite productive. I expect Fridays will be my 'mainly me' days going forward, as I've gone back to the Dreadful Tuesday mindset from my working days. I was at a point in my job that I could take a paid day off each week and I chose Tuesdays because it usually took me hours to wind down from Monday night's chorus rehearsals. To give focus to those days, I started designating them for those tasks I'd been dreading (for days, weeks, months), steeling myself mentally for the hard slog ahead and dedicating the day to plowing through whatever onerous black cloud had been hanging over my psyche.

These days the dreadful trifecta is: clean the litter boxes, take my blood pressure, catch up on chorus and/or Mom's finances. Other tasks pop up occasionally; I'm certainly not looking forward to dealing with Mom's 1099s again, but that's what Tuesdays are for!

Back to the present. This happened yesterday.

I've received many compliments on the 'acid wash' of my denim coat. That's not acid wash--that's 30 years of legitimate wear and tear!

Double the Pleasure

These were made (made), sandwiched (sandwiched), and quilted back-to-back (time-wise, not fabric-wise), then finished (= washed, dried, photographed) yesterday:

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!

Unexpected

Yesterday's day off, which was to be devoted to cleaning, oiling, and lubing The Rocketeer 503A . . .

. . . was unexpectedly devoted to an in-depth audit of the chorus's financial books. I'm scrupulously honest, but the audit this time pointed up places where my monthly reports needed to have a page with a clearer breakout of income and how it's categorized and shuffled about between accounts. It was a solid 6 hours chunk of time and I was exhausted by the time I got home.

This morning I arose with renewed energy and started on the Rocketeer right away. Small wonder why it's called a Slant-O-Matic!

New start

It's funny how other ideas filter in once the troublesome parts of a current project are resolved. I finished all the feathers and added some cross-hatching to the dark borders around the appliqued blocks in Hubris. Currently it's wadded up and stored on the table of my Viking mid-arm, ready to be finished up with a cone of King Tut "Sphinx" thread over all the neutral fabrics. Haven't decided on a design yet, but after all the feathers, anything is doable!

Yup, my studio is as crowded as it appears. The Guest Room used to hold a goodly portion of all this, but it's actually being used by a guest (our youngest son) at the moment!

The End is Near

That's not as apocalyptic as it sounds. I'm nearing the finish line of my brother's quilt, at long last!

In the last 20 days I've been cross-hatching the borders, working around all the appliqued pieces which resulted in as much time burying ends as creating them. Once that was done, the edges were trimmed and the label made and basted to a corner on the back.

The hanging sleeves--I made two so there'd be a space in the top center where an additional hook or nail could be placed to prevent bowing--were basted to the top then the bottom edges sewn down. Finally, I attempted to determine a finished length for all the sides.

Disappearing Ink

There were only two borders to hide threads in, not three as I feared yesterday. It took about 75 minutes.

Three-fourths of the way through marking the cross-hatching yesterday, the blue water-soluble half of my marking pen just gave up the ghost. Against my better judgement, I finished the job with the purple air/water soluble half, figuring I'd start with those lines today in case they didn't last very long.

They didn't even last 24 hours. How very disappointing/disappearing.

This border was fully cross-hatched yesterday morning. You'd never know it today!

On the bright side, I wasn't very happy with the spacing of the final two lines and had done some fudging of the lines on either side of them to try to hide the problem. Now I have a chance for a do-over! I'll work on the other three borders first. Perhaps the blue half of the pen will refresh itself enough over the next several days to finish the marking job. In all likelihood, I'll end up buying a fresh marking pen between now and then. Can't trust that purple stuff.

4-patch quilting

There's been very little "fresh eyes" quilting this past week because I've been waking up with itchy, tired, burning, 'goddammit-how-did-a-cold-catch-me?' eyes. Today they were slightly better and I could get a start on quilting the spaces around the 4-patches on the Gift Quilt. Hours of thread burying along the vine were spent considering quilting options, some of which were to free-hand hearts in the negative space, or fill them with straight line echo quilting, or alternate the two ideas (heart-lines-heart-lines, etc).

I ultimately decided not to introduce another design element (the free-hand hearts). I cut down strips of painters' tape to 5/8" and after some trial and error hit on the most efficient way to get the quilting lines established (create right angle units with 2 strips of tape, then center that [with a ruler] in each triangle). I got one border quilted (and partially thread-buried) this morning and am very pleased. It seems to be the perfect amount of stitching.

A Yellow Runs Through It

Remember this?

I decided to bring this project to the fore as something to work on after my "fresh" eyes were used up every morning. 

Morning quilting has been down the center of the vine (branching into the leaves and stems), in the sepals of the flower buds, and within the center of the open flowers, followed by several days of burying threads.

Heading for the Border

It was very easy to pin-baste the unquilted borders--everything smoothed out nicely and there was no unfortunate bunching, nor areas where there was too much top for the available bottom. Whew!

 

Oh, crumbs!

 I don't collect "crumbs". I don't! I'm content to toss bits that measure smaller than 1.5" x 1.5" into the trash. Others might save those bits to stuff pet cushions, or sew them together to make "found" fabric, but I've better things to do with my time. And besides, there has to be a line, you know?

Except: guess what? I've been collecting crumbs for years and never realized it.

When I got to the end/bottom of my string blocks and string bin, I realized that the pieces I've been saving/rolling over from project to project, the ones that fell into the at least 3/4" x 2.25" category but under 4" in length, were too small to use in a standard string quilt but too big to throw away guilt-free. They were, in fact, crumbs.

Some of them could be used to build onto the rolling 2.5" scrap border.

I knew the shorter pieces could probably work at the ends of triangle blocks such as spiderwebs, but I had no immediate plans for that kind of string quilt (nor were there enough to really make a go of it). The thought of saving them without an ultimate, imaginable purpose was surprisingly stressful.

Sashings/Backings: Redux

When last we left our intrepid quilter, it was with this virtual layout

and a battle cry upon her lips: "What I really need to do now is get serious with a ruler and the starched pieces."

So that's exactly what I did next, finding all the actual widths, creating new puzzle pieces, narrowing the vertical sashings, and extending blocks where needed. The outcome of that virtual design play:

To the cutting table!

Surreality

I realized yesterday while I was listening to my favorite news programs, that it felt a LOT like listening to coverage of pending hurricanes descending upon far-off coasts--interesting, riveting sometimes, but only brushing the periphery of my life, if at all.

Sewing the first borders onto the Wonky Star top is my immediate reality.

Earning my keep

The Rail Fence quilt is finished, but before putting anything on the donation stack I like to take photos of the front, back, and label--the usual suspects. This one is a biggun', though, so I gave up trying to find a suitable surface at home and took it with me to this weekend's Chorus Management Team meeting (I was the scribe). I knew I'd find a couple of willing volunteers to hold it up while I snapped some photos.

Roughly 78" x 90"

More info about the fabrics in this post

What I had not anticipated was that one of the members would fall so completely in love with it that she'd buy it right then and there! (It was that Jinny Beyer Rose Garden fabric that caught and held her eye--the fabric I hadn't known what to do with for all these years.)