I'm Late, and Later Still

to post for Thursday and Friday - ah, me - such is life. But I've been puttering along in this very warm August in SoCal, and now it's Sept 1.  Some say I have it good - at least I don't have humidity with our 95-100 degrees like some parts of the South. And I'm praying for all in the path of Hurricane Dorian.

On the quilty side, I've been struggling to make the pieced units for my applique quilt. Yes, there are four - one for each corner and so far I'm struggling to make them the right size - 3 1/2" unfinished. I need nine for each block. I made a sample block with cut pieces - didn't come out too hot - when I sew them together I would lose the points - ugh.

I made it in the fabric I want to use for the blocks, but since this didn't work, I'm changing to scraps. 

Tried smaller seams - not working.   Then I decided to foundation piece the teeny pieces .

One came out nearer to 3 1/4" unfinished size and the other I don't know what went wrong - look at that top triangle on the right - Sighhh.

Why wasn't this working.  Sat back and started to think thru the process.  I went to print another sheet of templates when I noticed that my printer property was set to Fit to Frame. Could the setting be causing the problem?  So I printed one with this feature off and one with the feature on.  Made the units above - still not 3 1/2" square - arghhh.

So went back to where I made the templates - EQ6.  I brought up the square and printed the templates from the program instead of saving the page to a file.  There!  It worked!  I made the square and got my 3 1/2" unit.  WOOHOO!  And here it is:

Since I had measured the side of one template and it was 3 1/2" I was pretty sure it was going to work so I used the actual fabric for the block. One down, four to go.  I have a different unit for the four corners.

To keep me sane I kept looking at some photos from my last trip - something soothing, flowers of course.  I was going to show you these Thursdays, but that didn't happen.  Hope you like them.

beautiful tuberous begonias

lovely geraniums

gorgeous dahlias

giant hibiscus

sunny and bright - all from CSU's Test Fields in Fort Collins.

This one's from my kitchen garden. These 8 naked lady stalks followed the sole one two weeks before.

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?, I Like Thursdays, and Oh, Scrap! Go on by, gentle readers.

February Finishes That I Got Done

Here's my finished UFO - even has hanging sleeve attached - ready to put on my wall to right of computer.

Glad to have this 16 year old UFO done and out of my sewing room!  But I guess it was meant to take that long because it wasn't until last year that I took the free motion quilting challenge and also learned to do feathers at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Next - I have all the blocks of Easy Street done!  I'm doing these in a modified QAYG method, so they won't be assembled until I have the back ready to sandwich with the sections.

I've decided on a white border next to the center and a purple outer border. Should be around 58" square and make a nice lap quilt for our living room.

Last, I finished my third goal for February, but am saving it show you tomorrow (that's still Feb) as that is my Applique Thursday & Giveaway day and it is applique. Come back tomorrow to see it.

How did you do?  I'm linking to Melissa's A Lovely Year of Finishes and Judy's Getting it Done, and also Carrie's Nothing but UFOs.  Check out what others got done.

Progress Report

To keep me going, here is a progress report for this week.  I've sandwiched and quilted that first row of three blocks on DD's ufo.  It is here on the right: 

I like this method of QAYG since it lets me quilt right up to the edge.  These are mostly done with stitch in the ditch quilting except for the first one.   And here is how it looks on the back.  I'm so glad that my DD picked a busy print for the back - makes my advanced beginner quilting mistakes disappear.   I always fret over what pattern to use for the quilting  - would love some suggestions for sampler quilts.  I've also started sashing the next row of three which you can see in the first picture.  Now I have to go do a mission or two, and then I'll let myself quilt a little more today in what is turning out to be a dreary looking day.  It's not giving us much rain, but it is cutting the fire hazard in the local mountains and for that I am grateful.

 

And here is my rescued Log Cabin

Before the sun set I was determined to take pictures.  Alas it will be in the mail tomorrow.  I forgot I had a 4 hour stint scheduled at the library this morning. This was an interesting project.  Once I got the blocks separated (sorry I forgot to take a before picture), I knew I had my work cut out for me.  But I so liked these chocolate, tan and red blocks.  I'm thinking this may have been made in the 80s - I don't really know - could have been China for all I know - LOL.  Upon examining them, I almost decided to get rid of them, they were so different.  But on second thought, I decided to put them back together as a quilt as you go with sashing.  I kept the worst 2 for parts and decided on a 9 square quilt center.  The previous version (which also was a quilt as you go) had no sashing.  But to some I would have to add the last round, piece batting and back.  Above is one such block.  Phew!  that took some doing - I must have repaired 5 of them - and some I had to take apart to redo the 1/4" seams.  Actually went faster than I expected.  So here you have the front: 

It turned out about 40" square.  There was nothing I liked in my stash that I could use for borders, so I did buy a yard.  It had to be flannel because that was the only fabric that had the color I needed for this quilt.  It looks darker than it really is.  It's more of a

chocolate color.  And this is the back:

I've got about a third of the sleeve sewn down.  This is going to be a wall hanging unless it's used as a table topper.  Lastly, here's a close up of the border and the quilting and you can see the true color:     



Design Wall Monday 10/4

Here it is monday again, and I had to clear my design wall of everything and start on a quilt I have to have done by 10/8!  Here's what I have to work with-- bought a bag of material at a yard sale and there was a remnant of a quilt in it made from these blocks.  Looked like the quilt was mangled by something or torn by a dog - so was able to salvage 11 blocks from it and they were pretty rough.

They were put together as quilt as you go blocks, but very oddly.  Some were cut to remove bulk at the seams (sigh).  They look like they started out as 10 1/2" blocks  maybe.  Well, off to work on them as I want to get done by 10/7 so I can ship off to a birthday girl.  Wish me luck!

PS:  Since I bought this bag 2 years ago this will be UFO #16?? Will have to go bakc and check.

Orphan Block Not!

I was working with the weathervane block seeing if I could change it to see if it looks more like a flower.  I put a light center square, a circle for the stamens and pistol.  And curved corner blocks on the 4 central blocks.  The green corners I tried to quilt in a leaf pattern.  What do you think?

Well, I think I like the regular pattern better, but it was worth trying - and since I didn't want to have an orphan block, I finished it into a little quiltlet.  I'm thinking if I wanted to make it into a morning glory block, the center would be white not gold and I could use a blue batik for the flower parts and the center square in a white blue batik.  I'll see as a real morning glory has a star with 5 points radiating from the center.

Well, enough - the computer is in the "hot" part of the house and I can't stand it any longer.  Since I had a spell of heat exhaustion in 02, I start to feel nauseous when it's over 100.  This part of the house has no ac, so back to the living room I go.

Stay cool!

UFO #12 is done

This was a disappearing 9 patch that I made with large squares (8").  LOL - I started it when the D9P pattern first came out.  And all the fabric came from my stash.  The back is a cute puppy dog fabric from Robert Kaufman.  I quilted letters in the large squares using the letters in the word - Baby.  Now I need to work on a backing for #13 as it is a set of blocks from 2009.  The last ufo I started in that year. I'm happy to report I haven't started a new ufo in 2010!

Organizing Report #1

Okay, decided to attack the small top of a three drawer cabinet. It was pilled high with a file box, stabilizers, clippings, fabric and other stuff (the basket being one). Put away the fabric which included charm packs, put away clippings, stored the stabilizers, tossed some junk and found 2 ufos. Here's one of them - 16 crumb blocks with border now added and even bound.

The second ufo [really not mine] - I inherited it from my neightbor's stash. She passed away two years ago May. She had joined this bom at one of our LQS, and didn't complete it. Somehow it wound up on my shelf. 3 of them were still in the cut pieces. Ive put together the three, but for some reason they don't call to me, so I'm going to enter them in our orphan block swap at the next guild meeting. I'm going to keep two of them and make something out of them Maybe a lap quilt for my son, Frank's Dodge Charger since the color of it is black. We'll see.

For Anne Mary

Here's a baby quilt I made for my daughter's sister-in-law's new baby. Anne Mary was born Oct 1st. I'll try and get a picture of her soon. This quilt was made with left over 9 patches and with the quilt as you go method that uses a solid back. It is 30" square. That's my size for a baby's lap quilt.

Quilting in 09

Our local quilt guild issued a challenge for us to finish some of our UFOs (unfinished objects). I submitted a list of 13 which is a fraction of the UFOs I have. I figured if I did that many I would get a small start toward completing some of them. Madly quilting on the first one and I'll show a pic when it's done. In the meantime, here is a photo of the last one I finished in January. This was a baby quilt for my grandson, William, godfather's new baby named Sebastian. The parents decorated his room with a jungle theme, hence the bright fabric in the squares. Sebastian was born at the end of January.