I didn't make masks for my nephew - but that was because in-person schooling has been postponed. The fairings fix is also on hold - it turns out my sister's kayak is in better shape than mine was. I need different material to patch them, which is on order.
I have at least started the Sculpey project. I may actually finish it today, too. My biggest challenge will be how to prop it up to cure. And, unfortunately, I won't publish the finished work until Christmas. Sorry!
I continue to be obsessed with kite blocks. I finished with the little
flower kites mug rug - which I love.
Then I looked up at the string kites I have on my design wall and started to wonder what other patterns I could create with these. I played with some of the little ones I have. This has promise. I also have an idea similar to the strings one. So I at least have two more quilts I want to make with kites.
I love how this mug rug turned out. Even the border is pretty awesome. Working with the mini kites with such tiny partial wasn't easy. I'm not sure I'd want to tackle it again, but the results are stunning (at least I think so).
I free-motioned flowers over the colored bits. I had intended to quilt the black with a walking foot - either straight line or zig-zag. In the end I free-motioned zig-zag echos around the centers.
I have been really enjoying the Project Quilting challenges. This week's challenge was to create a quilt that contained at least one snail's trail block. I poked around and found a pattern I liked of four cats with their tails entwined.
I didn't want primary-colored cats and found a set of grey scraps I
liked. The pattern was for 8-inch blocks, which was pretty big. I
shrunk it down to 6-inch blocks and set it on point - partly because I wasn't
sure if I had enough pink background fabric and partly because it looked
neat.
The rounded corners were a last minute addition. I was squaring the quilt before adding the binding and the background fabric didn't quite cover the batting on one corner. Oops. Rounded corners fixed that! (And I got a chance to use one of my new rulers. Fun!)
A day off. How nice! I haven't had President's Day off in years. (Unfortunately, I worked a chunk of the weekend... but we won't focus on that.)
The Richardson's chocolates I got last week were delicious! Alas, by Tuesday they were all gone. They tasted as good as they looked.I was unable to see my mother and sister this weekend, but did spend some time playing Riven with my sister. This has worked out really well, each of us playing the game on our computers, exploring and brainstorming solutions over the phone. We squeeze in an hour here or there during the week.
After losing a chunk of my weekend to being on-call (whoa - that was an adventure!), I was able to play on Monday. I sewed.
Last month I mucked about with the little kites and rather liked this layout. This week I pulled out some black scrap (which oddly enough was used in another kite quilt) and decided there was just enough scrap to frame these little kites. Oh, I love how this looks. It's made from 12 blocks, each 3⅛" raw. They had partial seams with that tiny ¾" middle square. Right now it measures roughly 8x11". I may trim it down, so the out blocks won't be full squares, to cut down on the black border. We'll see what it looks like after I quilt it.
I'm working on projects in between projects. Here, on the left, is a pile of 2-inch squares; on the right, about 150 squares stitched together in pairs. Since I took that photo I've stitched together over 600 squares and the bag they came from still has a lot left! I can at least see I've put a dent in it.
Digging through the squares has been fun. There are a few scraps of fabric from my first quilts and all sorts of scraps in between.
I thought: of course it hasn't, I haven't written it. Wait. It's Thursday?!?
So let's see if I can write this in less than 15 minutes...
Part of the reason I hadn't written it was because I payed Riven with my sister last night. Each on the phone, our own copy of the game in front of us, and go exploring together. It's worked better than I thought and we've been enjoying it.
The pattern is for a 4-inch block. I enlarged it to 6 inches and changed the number of stripes on the lighthouse to match Nauset Light. The finished piece is 8¼ inches square.
I've had this sea urchin fabric for years. I love it although it never seems to go with any projects. This seemed the perfect place to use it. I thought it might be washed out against the brighter colors of the block so I decided to add in a skinny border. Somewhere in my thought process, I combined the borders into a very wide flange binding. I cut that binding fabric three times to get a neat row of sea urchins in the correct width. Sheesh. Then it was so wide I couldn't join the binding ends at a 45° angle - the cut would have been as wide as the block! I think the result was well worth the hassle.
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| Pattern designed by Quilt Art Designs - quiltartdesigns.blogspot.com |
The latest Project Quilting is Virtual Vacation. There's a lot of beautiful quilts linked up already. I had been wanting to make this paper pieced lighthouse for a while. The pattern is tiny - only 4 inches square. I expanded it to 6 inches for a mug rug and modified it to look more like Nauset Light.
I had a bunch of brown and cream strings that were the wrong colors to go in my string kites. So I continued my wavy string kick wit new blocks, adding in my urge to try out the new curved rulers. Result: a set of round mug rugs.
All but one had wavy strings. But even that one got the wavy treatment - I cut through the block to add in a color wave. I tried to realign the straight strings, but it came out wonky. The rusty stripe looked like a branch, so I quilted some bark and leaves and flowers growing from it. So I may not like how it pieced together, but I really like the end result.
Another mug rug had mostly neutral wavy strings, so made a wide strip of blue bias tape and appliqued that across the top. I would definitely do the bias strip approach to add a highlight before attempting to cut apart a block to insert a wavy piece.
Okay - so my January OMG wasn't really just one. February is shaping up the same way. I may not qualify for the OMG post, but I figured I'd share my plans, just to keep me focused.
I completed my January goals. Yay! I Frankensteined a bunch of batting, which is currently hanging from my design wall. I used some of it for my fussy-cut spot table topper and a handful of mug rugs.
I also wrapped up some more clothesline, finished a few selvedge blocks and worked on those string kites. Plus I calculated yardage for my next big quilt(s).
My cutting table is all cleaned up. Scraps are cut. I'm ready for my next projects.
