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.

A Finish and a Sandwich

This got bound, photo'ed, and tumbled in the drier today, ready for donation to Community First! Village. Diamonds and Pinwheels, finally ready for its new home.

71" x 90"

La Grande Expérience

"The Great Experiment" is what I'm conducting today. I've decided to deliberately pin baste two sandwiches, despite my experience last time, but this time using Bonnie's suggestion of raising the table a bit more.

A Third Pinning, and a Finish

After a few days my back agreed to coöperate and I got a third top pinned.

By this point I was fast running out of my bendy basting pins and had to scrounge through all the other sizes I've collected over the years. I eked them out and didn't have to resort to the diaper pins (or those equivalent in size) that I also have.

Pinning marathon

Maybe I woke this morning feeling invincible. Maybe I woke especially stupid. I know the two aren't mutually exclusive! But for whatever reason (perhaps because I had the batting already cut for me and I had two backings ready to go), I decided to pin two quilt sandwiches today.

My back is making sure I remember the consequences of that decision so that I never, ever think about doing that again!

The first sandwich was the intentional goal for today--the split-9 floral.

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.

Basting another!

Lookit her go!

 

ta da

Pinning! Yay!!

I made sure to include a peek at the backing--I'm very pleased with how that came out.

Starting a session of pin basting always seems so overwhelming that I find myself repeatedly thinking, "You're doing it, Peter!"* in order to keep my spirits up and interest keen. In reality it's a 5-hour process, which includes breaks and lunch, so it's really not the day-long procedure it always seems in my imagination.

Back to Back Backs

I finally sewed together the 3 panels and 4 strips that made up the backing for this (the panels were created months ago), and got it pin basted today. Another tick in the Yay! box.

Yay!

Pinning! That always seems like such a great landmark to reach in the construction of any quilt.

In all the strings and strips and scraps I pulled from the CF!Q bins last month before taking them to the retreat, I found lots and lots of the red-with-white-dots fabric, cut into wonky 2.5" strips, that I ultimately used to make the border (trimmed down to straight-ish 2" strips). I also found and grabbed four 10" squares of that fabric, fortunately, because most of one of those squares was needed to complete the perimeter.

I'm so pleased that all of this (except the batting) was created from the donated fabrics. Very tickled, indeed!

In Stitches

. . . but ain't nobody here laffin'.

I attached bunny's second arm last night. I generally will follow a pattern to the letter the first time I use it. This pattern instructed the arms be assembled by folding down the top edge, sewing the pieces together all around the perimeter (excluding the top), stuffing the turned arm, sewing the top closed, then hand-sewing it to the body.

Even before making the arms I was thinking "there's GOT to be a better way!" I knew darn well that it was going to be awkward sewing a stuffed something onto another stuffed something, even with the appropriate tool (see curved needle on bunny's hand).

Pinning another!

After running bunny through the (modern day) wringer, I still had my concerns about the beads for eyes so I reached out to the CF!Quilters leader for some guidance. I feared the Community First! Village marketplace would reject any stuffed animal out-of-hand if it had any potential choking hazards, even if a child would have to try very very hard to rip said choking hazard off the toy.

While I waited for a reply, I made a backing for another quilt--the Bright Hopes top I'd reduced from Double to Twin. This was a partial bolt donated to the CF!Quilters, and after opening it up for ironing I can see why. Firstly, there's a sun-damaged streak along the fold. Secondly, it's hideous.

A finish

This was pulled from the dryer yesterday morning and hung on our side fence this morning for its photo op (Thing 2 is in Columbia at the moment, unavailable for display purposes):

"front" ~ 72" x 90"

"back" (also ~ 72" x 90")

Stash

As soon as I saw the donated partial bolt of fabric I knew exactly what flimsy it was meant for, so I took it home with me after one of the Community First! Quilters meetings. The sheer amount of fabric made it a good candidate for trying the folding-and-pinning method of washing/drying (works wonderfully, and well worth the effort).

(I know, you feel like you jumped in at the middle of the story, don't you? It'll resolve soon.)

Recently,  after washing/drying the last couple of quilts and measuring how much shrinkage resulted, I padded the raw flimsy guidelines to 74"x94" (for a Twin). Suddenly, that perfect piece of backing yardage was a smidge too small, and I'd have to embiggen it with some of my stash.

My stash isn't huge; I'm not sure I'd even categorize it as "large", but in it I found two perfect pieces.

I'll show the resulting back in a future post, once I've finished quilting everything together.

This serendipitous find led me to ponder a few things, such as 1) how great it is to have a place (or two) to donate my handiwork, 2) how great it is to have a definite size (limit, in some cases) to work within, 3) how lucky I continue to be to have just the right fabric on hand for making/finishing these tops, and 4) would anyone care what my stash looks like?

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!

Eve of the Eve of the New Year

I finished the backing yesterday, so woke today determined to get everything pin basted before heading out to visit Mom this afternoon. And I succeeded (with time for a shower, to boot)!

In the past, I've pinned the outer edges very closely--end-to-end closely--but this time I dropped that step. It'll be interesting to see if that's a time advantage or detriment in the long run.

Back to Quilts

This sugar skull project has been a flimsy for several weeks now, but it's been bunched up on the end of my ironing board waiting for me to finish the October banner and get back to quilt making. I ironed the final 9 seams this morning, then flang it on the floor for its photo-op.

Cat scans improve everything. 70" x 90"

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:

The Main Event(s)

Leader-Enders, by their nature/description, presume a "main" project is being constructed, the L&E pieces merely spacers. To that end, I needed a main project so I could advance the Lady of the Lake blocks, my chosen L&E challenge this year.

Last month in a bin of 'please take and use this!' fabric at the Community First! Village Quilters meeting room, I found some peach fabric that I knew would be a great color to back one of the N1C (Not 100% Cotton) Trip Around the World flimsies I completed last year. There was nearly 4 yards of it and I hoped it was enough.

I also needed to add some borders to the flimsy to get it to twin size, and I found some cute pink heart fabric in my yardage drawer. It had come from Nann for the backing of a Magpie hug, and there were 2 hunks of it wrapped around the cardboard.

MixierMatch Blocks

Nann recently posted about some MixMatch blocks she dis/uncovered. Both Nann's and Shelly's versions required sizes that didn't exactly fit the scraps I cut and save, using Bonnie Hunter's Scrap User System.

So I wondered (and commented about) what would happen if, instead of cutting strips down, I used bricks I'd already cut to size. In Nann's version, resulting in a 5" (finished) block, she started with three 1.5" squares sewn in a row resulting in a 3.5" strip. To the top and bottom of that strip she sewed 1.5"x3.5" rectangles.

Well, my scraps are cut to 2"x3.5" bricks. What would happen if I used those instead? The following round in Nann's version would need 1.5"x4.5" strips. But I've got bricks cut 2.5"x4.5". What would happen if I used those instead?

So I did, just to answer that question: what would happen?

Three 1.5" squares flanked by two 2"x3.5" bricks, topped and bottomed by two 2.5"x4.5" bricks.