Do You Poop Out at Parties? (Edited 8/4)

I'm attending a baby shower this Sunday, so this past weekend I pulled out the remaining flannel pieces from this and this project (started five years ago in an effort to use up mask-making scraps). In with them was a hunk of corduroy, roughly 36" x 42", which looked to be perfect for the backing and also dictated the size of the quilt.

Broken Cross Check

That sounds like a reference app that's on the fritz, doesn't it? What I've really been doing is checking potential 36-patches for an inadvertent swastika image. I put up pairings for 20 blocks on the design wall, then took a photo and gray-scaled it for simplicity.

As long as there was a definite light frame around the center four dark squares, there was no danger of offensive misunderstandings in the blocks. Here's how they look in color:

Much more fun, yes? These are all "half pinwheels", in that there are only two pinwheel blocks used, paired with two plain 9-patch blocks. I have scores of plain 9-patch blocks already made; not so much with the pinwheel blocks, so in the interest of time I've opted to use what I've already got.

Just another Sewing Sunday

I've been wondering lately: why don't we use the term "sewyer" to describe our craft/hobby/skill set? I usually use "sewist/maker", but the -yer suffix is used to describe people who saw wood, people who make bows, people versed in law. Shall we start a movement?

I was moved to start pinning another quilt sandwich yesterday. In my "pile" of frankenbatts (all both of them; I got bored with that project and did something else rather than make more) I found what seemed, on paper, to be the perfect size. But when I did a dry run the edges fell short in several places, so I had an impromptu frankenbatting session right then and there, sewing a couple of long, thin batting cut-offs to two sides.

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:

Orphans

Nann's comment about my orphans being put to good use got me thinking about the origin (and number) of the patriotic blocks. It all started in 1998, and I blogged about it on whatever platform came before GeoCities.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

              Around the World

This block was made for a member of our quilting group as a going away gift. She left in July because her husband had joined the Army, so in the months before her departure everyone in the group secretly made a block using a Red, White & Blue motif. We presented her with all 12 blocks at her final meeting. As an Army Wife myself, I've spent many years living by the motto expressed in the center square!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It struck me the other day that our young military wife could conceivably be a grandmother today. How did 25 years evaporate so quickly?!?

Twin Hugs finished

I've uploaded the original photos, without reducing them to a standard 800x600, so this post is data heavy. You can click to see much more detail, however! They measure ~58"x68".

The block makers are: Anna (& Judy), Caroline (& Margaret), Jean, Janet, Terri, Gilly, Stacey, MJ, Carolyn (me), Carla, Marie, Diane, Nann, Arline, Ellie, Phebe, and Katie.

Quilting Stars

I've been busy quilting Thing One of the Twin Hugs. I commandeered the dining room table for the pin basting, then continued to hog the space until I finally finished the stars this morning.

I had a choice (one always does): keep the Brother in its spot

and clear out all this from around it (or risk having it swept to the floor),

or move the machine to the bar-height dining room table and sit perched on the edge of the chair for several days.

Perching for the win!

Progress report

All the signature squares have been sewn to stripes, and I'm halfway through sewing the rows together for the first back. I draped my progress on my cutting station for its photo op

because the second back is still taking up all the available room on the design wall.

I'm really liking Caroline's idea of inserting a Sairey strip between the rows.

I've decided to complete one quilt entirely instead of assembling and quilting them at the same pace, side by side. One of the hugs will be mailed to Canada for the binding, then mailed to the applicable twin. The other twin lives near me, so I'll assemble, quilt, and bind his Hug after the first one is mailed off, and they should both get them at roughly the same time.

Proof of Concept

 Well...it's a look, that's for sure.

Right now there are several blank areas at the ends of rows because they'll be filled with the cut-off segments from other rows. There'll be rearranging of fabrics and sig squares, but I'm happy with the concept. On the whole, I think the idea is sound.

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"

Quilted

 Again I say: Yay!

There's still the final strip of Glad Press'nSeal to remove, but I'm going to bring this with me on my daily visit with my mother and see if she'd like to tear it off. 

Dad's top, Mom's top

 About a month ago I unpacked and dismantled the only shirt of my father's I brought home with me. After it was "deboned", I made a very uncharacteristic decision: I'd make a quilt from it. Immediately. I wouldn't fold up all the pieces and stuff them into one of my shoeboxes of less-than-a-yard, fretting further down the line over whether the pieces cut from it were medium, light, dark, tan, brown, green, what-have-you. (I always fall into that trap, being swayed more by the 100% Cotton label than common sense.)

With limited yardage, I figured I'd treat the shirt as a novelty print (ideas for which I've been collecting for some time) and try to find something that would need large segments. That would eliminate yardage-loss-through-too-many-seam-allowances, and showcase the 'Hawaiian' flavor of the shirt fabric. The largest square I could get from the sleeves was 8". So the search began!

Roughly 8 patterns were selected and culled through, until this one stood alone:

I liked the idea of the large areas, but really hated the way the sashing broke the continuity of the lines. In fact, I saved it in my folder as "without sashing".

So I printed out this picture, cut out the sashing and taped the paper back together, then looked at it as a function of a large middle square (instead of the chisel shapes of the original pattern).

Essentially, it's squares and 4-patches set on point.

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.

Baby quilt #1

Update 9/15/2020:

From the mother: "And yes, he has already spit up on it. So it's officially broken in🙂"

(Original post on 8/9/2020):

No time or clarity of thought to come up with a (clever?) play on words--I'm off first thing tomorrow morning to do who knows what for who knows how long. I just learned of this change in my life this morning, and have been in a bit of a whirl ever since.

First thing to complete: get the finished baby quilt mailed to Baby Mommy!

The label:

And the cuddly texture after it went through the washer and dryer last night:

In the card enclosed, I expanded on the details in the label, pretty much repeating the thoughts I've written in this blog. 

I'll be out of state caring for my parents and helping all the sibs come to some decisions and actions. It's not going to be easy, and I have no delusions about anything I'm about to wade into (whatever it may be). 

I'll blog when I can, if I can. I've still got lots of pictures "maturing" in the Blog Fodder folder of projects I've completed in the past. If I can't, well I'll eventually be back home and settled into my real life again. 'Til then, stay healthy out there!

On Pens and Needles

Got the first baby quilt pin basted this morning (had to use painters' tape along one side because it was narrower than the pinning table) and decided to use one of my favorite patterns, the heart stipple.

It's a Full Line stencil that uses pouncing powder, but the light blue powder (I cut the blue powder with corn starch) didn't do a good job showing up on the light flannel fabrics. I basically ended up redrawing the whole design with purple chalk. It worked, but with twice the effort.

This stencil is the perfect size for these blocks. Two iterations of the pattern fill 3 blocks.

Details, details

I used to pride myself on my attention to details, at my firm grasp of numbers and how they never intimidated me, but rather danced for me under my pencil.

*Sigh*

Gonna have to give up that self-image, eventually, based on the continued deluge of contrary experiences!

I turned my attention to the 6" segments this weekend (built out to 8.5" blocks), determined to turn them into a 30" x 50" quilt.

Teal and checkered strips added to the photo so I could use them as fill options in my graphics software.

But no matter how I sliced it (figuratively and literally), I couldn't seem to get enough sashings out of the teal and checkered strips I had on hand.

Sunday Sewing Spree

Sometime between posting yesterday and waking up this morning, it occurred to me that a new mother with a new baby doesn't need something big. She needs lots of smaller, nearly identical things, so when an epic case of projectile spit-up occurs, Thing 1 can be tossed into the wash and Thing 2 brought in to replace it.

With that jog to my memory, instead of a 40"x60" toddler-sized quilt, I decided to make 2 baby quilts: a 30"x40" using a 3x4 setting with the ten 9" segments (trimmed to 8.5" squares),

and a 30"x50" using a 3x5 setting with the fourteen 6" segments constructed yesterday. If you're any good on your fingers, you've figured out that I need to make some more squares!

Wingin' It

After making hundreds of masks, I was left with a plastic shoebox full of flannel scraps (the denim scraps fill another box, somewhere). I've been shuffling that shoebox back and forth, up and down for months now, every time I needed to get to whatever it was resting on (lately, the tin holding all my 1" binder clips I use when pin basting).

On a whim, this afternoon I pulled it down (not just to shove it aside) and started sorting the contents, wondering if I could start sewing pieces together willy-nilly, and what might result. Since the masks I made required 9"x6" rectangles, there were a lot of segments that measured 6" or 9" on a side. Lots of long strips in there too, as well as some "chunks" (smaller than 6", but still containing a respectable square inch area). So I paired up all the 9s and sewed, then paired up all the 6s and sewed:

Most of these fabrics were scraps donated by a chorus member who made little girl dresses from them,
as you can see from the left-most column.

Ties That Bind

Last Saturday I put the final stitch into the binding of this,

Roughly 70" x 92"

wrote and ironed the label,

then flang it into the washer (hot water) then dryer (high heat) (I abuse the quilts before the owners get a chance, so I can assure them it's already gone through worse than they'll ever do to it). If I timed it right, I could get it delivered before my son went to bed (I had no idea what Jesse's schedule was, but I could see with my own eyes that Carl was still awake because he was streaming on Twitch).

Rather than try to fit everything into a label, I wrote my thoughts in a card. Lots more room to really describe what went into the decision to gift this.

Countdown to Completion

Sweltering through another day indoors, where at least the temperatures don't get above 86ºF. The A/C repairman is due tomorrow around noon. Fingers crossed it's a quick fix!

10 June edit: It was (new capacitor installed). In addition, the day has been relatively cool and breezy--all the windows in the house are open so we can enjoy this unexpected nice weather.
 

Today I'm working on the borders of Jesse's quilt, free-motioning this Feather Chain pattern. It might turn out to be my new favorite! The yellow AURifil thread blends well on this fabric, but the pattern itself is easy enough to eyeball and doesn't really need the extra 'help' of a busy pattern to hide my ham-handed efforts. Feather patterns tend to break my brain, but this one is so simple that I can execute it smoothly and consistently.

An empty bobbin called the end of today's quilting. Just 2 sides of the yellow border to quilt, then the final black&white border. I just remembered, however, that I've got to create a label and get it sewn to one of the unquilted corners! Then I can finish the quilting on this and get it bound, washed, and delivered.