I spent a few hours cutting initial blocks, creating custom templates,
remeasuring and testing the plexiglass templates. I felt I wasn't
getting anywhere fast, but I knew I'd start making progress.
Cutting the strips just an eighth of an inch wider and using the template let me stitch together and trim down to perfectly sized diamonds. Success! I also figured out how to consistently get the points to line up (well, 13 out of 14 - not bad). Took way too long to do those...
however ...
I started the test block for the Midnight Garden quilt and soon realized it might be tough to keep the pieces square and true. One way to helps this along is to cut some of the pieces a little large. That requires them to be cut down to size before they all go together. So I made a set of four templates to help with the process (they're hard to see - but plexiglass to the rescue!). One triangle to help with the fussy cutting, another to enlarge; the diamond will to trim those pieces down the size and the big triangle will ensure the block will be square.
Now that I've finished baking holiday cookies and got most of my cards sent, I'm hoping to spend some time working on this!
A quick little I Like post full of cookies to share with Lee Anna's
I Like Thursday.
This year Thanksgiving weekend was focused on cookies. I made cookie
dough before Thanksgiving, baked cookies the day after Thanksgiving, then
attended the family cookie swap party on Sunday.
I dusted off an ancient recipe for date filled cookies to swap. I
remember the cookies were always really big, so I worked to make three smaller
rolls. I had to make extra filling to accommodate the larger surface
area - but they came out quite nicely. The other goodies will be gifts -
stuffed figs, caramels, berger cookies and white chocolate dipped ginger
molasses cookies.
Buttercup left us a week ago - adopted to be a companion to another guinea pig
that had just lost her cagemate. I had some apprehension about splitting
the trio. Buttercup was the most person-oriented of the bunch, often
hung out with Blossom and forced Bubbles to split her time harassing the two
of them. We had a very noisy week once she left. Bubbles
constantly pestered Blossom and Blossom had no qualms screaming at her.
Poor Blossom spent a lot of time getting ousted from cuddle cup, cozy, hammock
and hay simply because Bubbles could force her to move (not that Bubbles
actually wanted any of those things).
Lots going on, lots to like this month, not a lot to share.
We had a pretty sunset a few weeks ago - lots of blue and purple. There is a crescent moon hiding between the trees in there somewhere, too.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, with good food and family love. It will be quiet this year - just my mom coming over. But I'll be grateful all the same - there's a lot of good in my life.
Next up on my project list is a black and white king. Sometimes the biggest
hurdle in starting a new quilt is all in my head. What if I make
mistakes? What if I don't like how it turns out? Am I ready to put
in the focus it takes? Ugh.
So I start in small pieces, slowly. First up, wash the fabric. For this quilt, that was a project all on its own. Just look at the pile of it on my ironing board! Ironing all that took over two hours. It gave me a chance to know the fabric - feel the weight and the texture, see how well it behaves. Now it's flat and folded and ready for the next step.
Most of my quilts are inspired by other quilts or entirely my own design. Usually I jump straight to cutting and sewing blocks once the fabric is prepped. Midnight Garden has instructions. On a quilt this size, I need a test block to ensure I'm cutting all the pieces the right size and that they'll fit together. Nothing worse that cutting large amounts of fabric and discover it's the wrong size (especially if the pieces are too small!).
I bought the
fabrics having an idea of the grayscale values in the pattern and a guess of
how it will all look together. Sometimes what looks good next to each other doesn't look right when pieced.
The foster guinea pigs from Dakin Humane have learned to rule the roost. Ah, yes, the good life.
Blossom (the one with the black and tan butt) is amazingly insistent whenever anyone is in the kitchen. We are there only to serve her goodies - there is no other option. In contrast, she's also still the most timid of the trio, almost always bolting when I come near the cage (unless, of course, I have food in hand - not sure how she knows that).
It was a quick evening project to wire them together with a bit of florist wire.
Sharing with:
Quilt Schmilt - To Do Tuesday
My Quilt Infatuation - Needle & Thread Thursday
Buttercup has learned that scritches are good - she doesn't run away quite so often and leans into me when I scritch her head and shoulders. Oh, yeah, right there is good.
I often find these two hanging out on the third level. Blossom is always in the cozy and Buttercup camps out as close as she can to the cozy, but never in it.
I'm always so impressed with the decorations. This buffet was my favorite. A ghostly twisted Mad Hatter tea? Down the street from them is a rocking graveyard which is always fun to see.
One more I Like Thursday post this month. Crazy, right?
Ooh - what do you think of this crazy-elegant Halloween lady with her pearls. Totally styling, right?
Mmm... black and white. I spent Saturday buying yards and yards of
black, white and grey fabric for a king sized quilt I'll be making. How appropriate for October - I'm terrified to tackle this project and yet I can't wait to start working on it!
I planned out the quilt, crunched the numbers and triple checked the yardage (I'm notorious for not getting quite enough). I usually linger over that step of planning for a while, coming back several times to review my work with a fresh head. On Saturday I was ready to take the plunge and buy the fabric... and came home with nine pounds!
I was lucky enough to snag a large sheet of plexiglass on Freecycle.
Woot! I was imagining all the quilting templates I could make from
it. First, though, I sliced off a piece to replace the rusted third-level grids for the guinea
pig cage.
Whew! Lots going on in the last two weeks! So many great things to
make me happy. Let's see -
the Powerpuff Girls
are settling in. There's been much loafing when they're not fiercely
demanding treats.
There really is a guinea pig in that photo... the first week Bubbles tried to hide under everything.
They're learning to beg properly and they're enjoying the three level cage - everyone has favorite spots. And they were pretty excited to check out the cleaned cage.
Lo and behold - an occasion presented itself. Several of my dancing hair clips are falling apart and I could use more that match other outfits. I thought these little flowers would be cute!
I've spent the last several days making these. I rummaged through my scrap fabric for colors. Then I had to recall how I made the first set of flowers. Now have a dozen flowers. Even though that's plenty, I'm ready to make some more!
Busy week! But I've managed to squeeze in a post to share with the I Like Thursday crowd.
On Sunday I attended the
Boston Pignic. Oh, loafy, wuzzy piggies. Always a delight. If you clicked on that link you see I'm now fostering a trio of guinea pigs. They're still settling in, but I'm sure there will be more photos soon.
Remember that little frog that we found hanging out between the window panes
last month? Well, either he changed colors and returned, or he told one
of his buddies to try it out. Rob found this one last week.
He stayed there about a day and then disappeared. I have no idea why that window sill was so popular.
Let's kick it off with a trip to Wellesley for the Fall Boston Pignic. A
delightful variety of guinea pigs show up, including two skinny pigs and a
skinny wannabe (lower left) that I fell in love with. Lots of loafy
piggies that filled the weighing bowl, and a few Abyssinians with
bed-head. The white and grey was my favorite.
Oh, squishy piggies!
All girl piggies attended this time - not a single boar. We haven't had the numbers so uneven since the early pignic days.
It was a beautiful sunny day albeit on the cool side. The girls didn't seem to be bothered - it didn't slow them down from eating all that grass.
My crumb containers were overflowing from scraps generated from several quilts. I spent the last week sewing them together. My last set of crumbs ended up in my Hexie Crumble quilt. This time around I lumped similar colors together: black, gold, purple, orange, red, brown, green, blue and cream. Some fabric doesn't fit into a single category the scrap already had different colors sewn together, so I have some multi-colored patches, too. Right now the green and multi-colored ones are biggest.
This year's cucumber harvest was disappointing. I had hoped to make more pickles! But this cheeky slice looks like it's winking and smiling at me. At least the few cucumbers I got were tasty.
My biggest like this month was spending the better part of a week at Cape Cod
hosting my annual Chick Weekend. We had beautiful weather every single
day.
Mostly likes to share with LeeAnna and friends at I Like Thursday.
Quilting cleanup projects are on deck, which are my favorite sewing projects
to work on. However, I'm not getting anywhere! Better weather has
lured me to spending time in the garden. I dislike the lack of sewing,
but I'm enjoying the gardening.
A tale of two sunflowers - both of these were planted at the same time.
The one near the house took off - the head must be about a foot wide.
The one closer in the photo struggled and the seed head is maybe three
inches. It's pretty, though!
Major dislike - my phone flaked out. I spent tons of time working on it,
thought I fixed it, then three days later it randomly shut down and refused to
reboot. A week later I spent another two days setting up a brand new
phone. Lots of teeth gnashing. Not fun. I'm aggravated over
learning a new UI and sound setup. Ugh.
My mother and I looked at several beautiful quilts and interesting arts and crafts. There was a huge cathedral windows quilt (that I didn't think to photograph). As we were admiring it, the woman who made it stopped by and asked if we had questions. Oh, yes! We found out it took 12 years to make. I can believe that - there were so many little squares. They were hand pieced, then machine sewn together.
Let's squeeze in some more likes this month to share with LeeAnna and friends at I Like Thursday.
I spotted this in the way home from an evening kayak. I'm not sure what
caught my eye first, the antique truck or the mini-church. I stopped to
get a closer look.
I'm finally posting my quilted jacket. I finished up the stitching in
May except for a set of buttons. Turns out adding said buttons was
harder than I anticipated. Third time is a charm! I found a set I
like last weekend and wrapped it up. Just in time, since I plan to
submit it to the local fair.
Hmm... I guess I didn't post much on the process. This was one of those sweatshirt jackets in which you pull apart a sweatshirt, quilt fabric onto it, then reassemble it. I found a couple of tutorials, had a rough idea of of fabrics and a design and I took the plunge.
Ooh - a mid-month I Like post! I finally got around to hitting the highlights of my trip to Cape Cod the last week in July.
It was a great time and the weather mostly behaved. I brought my kayak and got out a couple of mornings. Sunday morning was so calm and still - would you believe this photo was taken out in Cape Cod Bay? It was quiet, too: I could hear the water lapping on the shore. The water was clear enough, too, to see my shadow on the sand below.
Birds of a Feather is finished and was gifted this weekend. I put the last stitch in on Saturday morning then I handed it my cousin and his new wife on Sunday morning. I'm bummed I didn't get more time to admire it on my wall, but it was nice to be able to give it to them in person.
What a sprint to the finish! I spent every free moment I had last week to complete it. I got up early to work on the quilting before going to work and then sat right down again after dinner. It all went smoothly until Monday night, when suddenly my bobbin nested and the top thread snapped three times after only stitching a few inches. I panicked. I had quilted not quite half the quilt and it had gone so well! No skipped stitches; no broken thread. How could this happen? I swapped out the needle and the bobbin and cleaned all around the plate and mechanism. Don't know what fixed it, but I was able to continue along. Whew!
It's Thursday - time for some the things I liked this month! Not so fond of the of hot, steamy, wet days so far. I'm hoping for a little less humidity for the next weekend. We'll see. But lots of things that perked me up this month!
Ghost (the deer) stopped by a few times. One evening a fawn trotted up
to Ghost and tried nursing, much to Ghost's surprise (and annoyance).
What is this little pipsqueak trying to do?!? I hope the fawn found his
mom. I've seen him a few times since.
I shuffled around a few feathers but
mostly kept with my original layout. Nearly all the feathers were cut from strip blocks, which resulted in six
feather pieces that had the same color layout: three from top-to-bottom
and three bottom-to-top. When I pieced left and right together, I got a
set of unique feathers. I was amused, though, that after I stitched them
all together, I can see two sets of rights and two sets of left next to each
other. I guess that means this is truly random.
Ooh - feathers all over my floor!
I spent a few hours over the weekend digging in the garden. Then it got too hot, humid and rainy so I switched over to sewing. I have 25 completed feathers! That's one more than I need. I'm in the layout stage. What fun!
The feathers went together so smoothly and consistently. In my last post
I had questioned if I printed the pattern correctly; given how nicely
everything lined up, these have to be the correct size. Pretty, aren't
they?
I added extra fabric to the pieces of one of my test blocks, to make the finished 18 x 9" block. But the extra work and trying to resize the pattern pieces wasn't worth the effort (and it will be easy to cut that down to the same size as the other). Now that I am comfortable with the process, I'll be sewing strips and cutting feathers this weekend!
June is flying by (although the heat last week slowed things down a
bit). Lots of good stuff happened.
I've been really enjoying the garden. It's been a good spring for
growing and for the first time in two years the yard is not overrun with
ticks. I'm finally getting the hang of the garden's rhythm and I can
identify many more plants than I could when we first moved in.
I'm not the only one enjoying the yard: look at all that grass (and
clover) and one bitty bun. He's behaving better than the deer (who
decided to lop off two mallow plants and a sunflower that had been doing so
well).
Overall I've been really pleased with the yoga mat's performance. I have been using it sporadically at home the last several months and brought it to my yoga weekend for a good workout.
I had already made modifications to the grippy sections (by adding on those triangle sections above the chevron) after a week or two. The center tends to stretch because the block bias runs top to bottom. It would have been better with a different pattern and likely a solid, unpieced back. It creeps about on the rug a bit. That's fine at home, but I was afraid it would really slide on the hardwood/linoleum floors at Kripalu.
While I was there I placed my mat over one of their yoga mats, which stayed put really well. On the one hand, that kind of defeats the purpose of making my own mat. However, it made me happy to take my classes on such a colorful mat (and I dislike the way their mats smell).
This was my first time participating in a mystery quilt. I was intrigued when Joanne announced the two color mystery quilt on Canuck Quilter. I have always enjoyed watching others' progress with mystery quilts, but haven't had the time nor faith in my color selection to participate myself. But only two colors? Hard to go wrong with that.
Around the same time, my mother had asked for a wall hanging to cover the wall above her new full-sized bed. (Interestingly enough, not a quilt for the bed itself... how long before she hints about that? LOL) Excellent. I could join in on the mystery quilt and know what I was doing with it. I let my mom pick out two fabrics from my stash and set to making the baby sized blocks.
There's nothing like a weekend away at Kripalu (which I can't believe was a whole week ago). Beautiful area, great food, even better company and some yoga to top it off.
Each time I go there's always interesting things to discover and rediscover. This time
I found a tiny little shrine by the parking lot. I wondered how long it
had been there and I had just passed it by. I rediscovered a few places
that I love - swinging chairs and hidden shrines (although I found out a few shrines had been taken down). The hammocks were
new! I got a chance to spend some time in one of them, swinging in the breeze and watching the clouds. To top it
off, there was so much green! We usually come before the wisteria is in
bloom; I enjoyed sitting under the purple blooms.
It was great to see each of the Pig Patrol people in action. I was also
amused that my original Dustpan of Doom™ has been duplicated (and they both
came in handy). For those not familiar with the device: a human
should never stick a bare hand to separate guinea pig disagreement.
They're likely to come with worse wounds than any of the guinea pigs.
The dustpan can be inserted between the opposing parties, and as they wonder
how this blue wall appeared, one of the pigs can be safely scooped up or
convinced to go elsewhere.
Rob had been telling me of a covered bridge in Greenfield (after our
covered bridge adventure
last December). Friday's weather was so nice, he took me on a quick tour
along the Green River. We came across a lot of people enjoying the
sunshine and the cool water. I can certainly imagine plunking myself
down by the water for a quiet afternoon.
I'm still working on Mom's headboard. It's been really difficult figuring out how to quilt this two color mystery quilt. Even after deciding to straight line quilt it, I changed my mind about the pattern at least twice.
I got started last week. It looks alright, but not inspired. I'm hating the process though.
Save me. I haven't used a walking foot in ages, so the first two sections are all ripply. Probably need to rip those and do it again. I don't like the machine I'm quilting on (it's the only one with a walking foot). There's so many stops and starts. I can't wait to have
it done and I'm only halfway through it. Ugh.
May! Already so chock-a-block full I'm writing my Like post before
the end of the month! Time to share with LeeAnna and friends at I Like Thursday.
Ahhh... first kayak outing of the year. A beautiful evening, and early enough in the season the pond wasn't choked with weeds. I love being able to explore the nooks and crannies along the edge of the pond (and check out the beaver lodges).
I'm close to wrapping up a couple of projects.
Getting this jacket finished has been rough. I wanted to put pockets on the front of it, but I decided it was too short - the pockets would be just too high to use. So I've sewed up the sides and have most of it bound. I need to pick a binding for the sleeves since I ran out of the purple I used for the rest (oops). I plan to add toggle buttons, hoping to find some at Swanson's. Then that will be done.
This is becoming a thing: I find things on Freecycle, Craigslist or Nextdoor that come home with me to be refinished. I like the results, but oof - I keep getting sidetracked with impromptu projects.
My latest was a drop leaf table. Rob brought it to my attention and I thought it could replace the trestle table I'm currently using in my sewing room.
I could drop the leaves when not in use, but bring them up when I'm doing a
big project. The table was good solid wood, but in rough shape when I
brought it home. I don't think the wood had ever been finished - water
spots, dirt, spots of paint all over, a bit of mildew, too.
I removed all the hardware (after carefully labeling all of it) then gave everything a good sanding. It was impressive how much just the sanding improved things. The legs lightened up considerably, and I managed to clean off some of the paint and water marks. The only bummer was that the wood was soft and marred easily - so I ended up adding a few more dents and dings in the process.
I've finished my two color mystery blocks from Canuck Quilter's Two Colour Mystery. I originally made six blocks, but I really needed eight. The last two blocks were surprisingly difficult. Not sure why. I'm pretty sure I stitched them together the same way as the others. It would have been better if I made them with the rest. They're done now!
These blocks are pretty neat. I've been playing with layouts. So many combinations. I need the quilt to be slightly wider than four blocks. I will either add borders or sashing. Ha! Before I posted this, my mother has selected layout #4. Hmm... I could still do a border or sashing with that.
April! It's been another full-throttle month. Whew! Let's see what
I liked best...
It kicked off with April Fools Day. My local librarian celebrated the holiday with a sign that said "Please excuse the mess while I reorganize the collection by color!" Indeed, the first shelf is red, orange, green, white, blue and black. If you flipped the paper over it said "April Fools!"
The eclipse was pretty cool - no fooling! We chose not to drive up to Vermont to see the total eclipse, but instead hung out on our front steps to witness the 95% coverage. We played with the colander, marveled at the strange shadows and the drop in temperature (about 10℉).
We wished there had been more leaves on the tree to better see the funny
crescent shadows the sun produced. The pine trees gave us a bit of
little taste of it. And I had eclipse glasses, so we could look at the
sun. It reminded me of the Cheshire Cat as the slice of the sun got
bigger (a grin without a cat).
This week's clue for the two color mystery quilt was the block layout. It's a cool looking block. But boy, it was a struggle putting it together. Even when I had the pieces put the right direction, I still felt like I was doing it wrong. Lots of points. Matching point to point was straightforward, but some pieces aligned a straight edge with an angle. Those were trickier and it took me stitching (and ripping apart) a few pieces before I got the hang of it.
I'll leave that on the wall as contemplate layouts. I made the baby
quilt size, but this is to become a headboard for my mother's full sized
bed. I may need to make two more blocks to gain the width I want, which
I'm sure would also change the layout.
I'm riding a wave of finishes - and this was the quilt that kicked it
off. I'm late to post about it, though, because it was only recently
sent. (The package needed some Easter candy for ballast.)
This is called Rick Rack Ripples. My cousin asked for blue, green and yellow. I love the color combination.
I worked on my Two-Colour Mystery quilt. Week five consisted of mitered blocks. Following the assembly instructions produced a small stack of triangles, so I made a tiny stack of 1¾-inch squares. Don't know what I'll do with them, but I'm sure I'll think of something.
Easter Candy! This year I swapped out toffee (I've been struggling with the recipe lately) for caramels (some with pecans, some plain). Last year I tested out chai spiced cookie dough truffles as well as coffee buttercreams. Both were such a hit I kept them this year. I overdid the amount of chai in them this year (oops) but the coffee was perfect.
