Exuberant Color

Sew a row, design a row...........

2013-06-17T05:00:00.000-05:00

The rows on the left are sewn, the ones on the right have just been designed to continue the rows. I have to decide how big this quilt is going to be. Right now I'm leaning toward a center of a medallion quilt or a small lap quilt with all triangles. I will be working on this as my creative fix as I continue to find things for the garage sale.

This bunny was on my front sidewalk a couple nights ago.

He (she) sat there and ate the weeds that grow in the crack of the sidewalk. Some bunnies are nice. Last year one ate my flowers in the pot on the lowest step.

Some variety..........

2013-06-16T05:00:00.000-05:00

The black tone on tone type prints are hard to photograph. They are much deeper color than they look here, but this is the group I chose to add. In the photos below, the one on the left is the same as yesterday's post and the one on the right has 8 new fabrics added into the black positions. I like scrappy quilts and all plain black is too predictable and stark for me as well as being boring to sew. The pieces are on a small 30" x 40" design wall so I think I'll start sewing the rows together and then transfer it to a large design wall.

Nothing happening here......

2013-06-15T05:00:00.000-05:00

I was looking for a photo of these pieces on my design wall to send to someone and couldn't find one so I took one. I had cut the equilateral triangles about a year ago from the Liberty prints recolored by Kaffe Fassett. I also cut solid black. I have a bunch of black/charcoal prints that I may try as alternates with the solid black. I worked on garage sale related things all day yesterday and didn't sew a thing. Last night I went over the list of my quilt tops waiting for borders and/or quilting and decided which ones I will work on over the next few weeks.

Testing a new die..........

2013-06-14T05:00:00.000-05:00

I went to our twice monthly sewing group yesterday morning and took cutting to do. I didn't feel like hauling a machine. After I got home I tested a new die that I got for my Studio cutter. I will start cutting for a quilt or 2 with it soon. I need to get ready for a garage sale at the end of this month so I'll spend a couple hours a day on that. I'm also reading the next in line Sara Paretsky book and got about half way through yesterday afternoon. Hopefully I'll make some decisions on a few of the 'in progress' quilts today.

Yellow/green comparison......

2013-06-13T05:00:00.000-05:00

I know that fabric looked yellow yesterday but it is really yellow/green. This comparison helps to show it a little better.

I have 2 pieces of that fabric so I put it up on the design wall and put the piece in progress on top of them. If you compare the center and the edge, there is definitely a difference. I'm still undecided so another day of it hanging on the wall.

My son is possibly making patterns for some parts for the restoration of a historic building in downtown Chicago. He had only seen photos of it so we took a drive down to see it in person. This is on the way back to the tollway as we passed the Tru*mp tower on the right. I took this photo with my phone while we were stopped at a red light. I couldn't get at the right angle to get the whole building in the photo.

We passed the Art Institute where the lions were wearing large Chicago Blackhawk helmets. If you don't follow hockey, they are in the playoffs.

The afternoon turned stormy with our tornado sirens blaring. That is the first time I have heard them in years. We got lots of heavy rain but missed getting any of the hail that fell in towns around us.

Am I done yet?...........

2013-06-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have added 3 rounds of green and am not sure if I'm done. It is about 37" square right now.

I have 2 pieces of this yellow/green which I have contemplated adding on all 4 sides and then I can trim this into a squarer shape. I will be gone part of today and part of tomorrow so I think this will simmer for a couple days.

Auditioning.......

2013-06-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

My green scraps weren't long enough for the next rounds on the sunshine/rainbow piece so I pulled candidates off the shelves of my stash. I didn't consider any batiks this time.

Then I pinned them up on the wall where I thought they might go and took a photo of them.

I imported the photo into my computer and used the software that came with my Canon camera to crop the yardage so I was just seeing strips. I may reconsider on a couple of the really dark greens and then I'll start cutting.

In my front garden everything is growing together. The balloon flowers started out about 18" away from this Husker Red Penstemon. The Evening Primrose just travels underground everywhere so some of that is in there as well as the Coral Bell plant reaching out to the sides. I hesitate to dig it all up and try to untangle it. Balloon flowers don't like to be transplanted according the my perennial book. They do however reseed wherever they want.

A few more rounds........

2013-06-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

I added blue strips Saturday but forgot to post the photo yesterday.

Yesterday I added some turquoise. Today I will look for the green strips to add. It is over 30" now. The colors are truer in the photo above.

This is the view from my studio window right now. The peonies are almost done blooming.

This is how much two of the porch pots have filled in so far.

This pot has some of the coleus that I saved over the winter in water. They are really getting big already.

Today is sewing circle at church so I don't know how much sewing time I will have.

16 patch top done, cacti new home...

2013-06-09T05:00:00.000-05:00

I worked on this top several times yesterday and finished sewing it together. It is so much prettier in person.

I guess that is because the prints show up when you see it closer.

I think this is my favorite block.

This is where my cacti are residing for the summer. Now that the tree is gone in front of the house they get a little too much sun so when it gets really hot I'll probably have to take them inside and put them back out after 2 p.m. My other option would be to make some kind of cover for the rack early in the day.

5 people with no email links asked me questions last week. This is a reminder that I have an email link on my right side bar. If you really want an answer, email me. If you have a Blogger account and have made it private, there is no link. If you have Google+ there usually is no link. If you haven't enabled your email address in your Google account, there is no link. I have no way to contact you to answer your questions.

Getting there........

2013-06-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

The last 2 stars are sewn.

All 12 together, but I need to rearrange so the backgrounds are in a more pleasing order.

I took the 16 patch rows off the design walls and labeled them with row numbers.

I didn't get as much done as I thought I would. I only have 5 rows out of 12 sewn together so far.

Thursday's theme was "focus"..........

2013-06-07T05:00:00.000-05:00

I finally got all 108 blocks up on the wall and decided on an arrangement. I'll sew them together today. After a fun day with friends yesterday I was ready to focus on several projects.

Number 10 out of 12 stars is finished. I cut the star points for the last two blocks too. I also finished tearing out the paper in the rest of the Stepping Stone blocks in the second column.

I added two more rounds of strips edging my way out from purple to periwinkle. Next will be true blue, then turquoise and green. I think it is in the 22" range right now.

I thought I dug out all of the spiderwort when I was planting the last dozen or so of hostas last fall. The spiderwort dies down before the end of summer so the hostas will fill in the spaces.

This is the native plant Heliotrope. I know there is another plant totally different with the same name. The flowers are very fragrant. The plant is rather invasive so I have to keep it controlled. Since these are growing on my bark path through the garden I will dig them out when they are done blooming.

Here is a link to Sharon's blog for the shortbread cookie recipe (cookies that I showed yesterday). I mix mine with a mixer now instead of cutting the butter in with a pastry cutter and they still come out fine.

A super sweet day.......

2013-06-06T05:00:00.000-05:00

Two friends came over to play yesterday and one brought rhubarb crisp which we ate for brunch. The other has a broken oven so she brought a strawberry rhubarb pie to bake in my oven which we had as a mid afternoon snack, both with ice cream of course. Oh, and we ordered pizza for lunch. In case you are wondering, we did find time to sew too.

I made one more star block, 3 to go to finish the quilt top. I also picked out a square with a hole in it in my Boston Commons top and replaced with a good square. Then I continued tearing papers out of the stepping stones blocks. I have all of the first column done and half of the second column. It was a lot more fun to tear out with company to talk to.

I had baked a double batch of shortbread cookies the night before so I sent a bunch home with them. Now I have 3 desserts to choose from today.....yum!

3 more rounds............

2013-06-05T05:00:00.000-05:00

I sewed on 3 more rounds of strips yesterday. I think I'll add one more round of purple before I add the blue.

My neighbors have a mock orange bush on the lot line behind me. It is as fragrant as the peonies and lilacs.

This is the left back corner of my lot. The mock orange bush is in the center back. My gardens are like jungles. This is why I dig up the hostas every 3 years and wiggle the babies loose and pot them. There isn't room to let them get any bigger. I dug out a bunch of the day lilies so I could plant the hostas in the front and you can see the lilies are taking over again. I have a couple volunteer redbud trees at the left that I'll probably leave there since a large one to the left of this will probably die off in a few years.

The red wigiela bush is the last of the three to bloom. It is loaded this year.

The bush has never had a nice shape so I'll probably trim it way back again this year and see if it looks better next year.

Another color..........

2013-06-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have added my red/orange and red so next is red/violet. So far I have just used pieces from my scrap bins but I don't have any red/violet in there. I will have to go to my yardage and cut some pieces. Then will come violet and indigo which I have plenty of in the scrap bins. It is about the size of a placemat now. I wonder what size it will be when it is finished.

Very few seams.....

2013-06-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

I added 2 rounds of orange to the yellow piece I started Sat. night. It is about a mug rug size right now. My plan (I think) is to put all of the colors of the rainbow around it.

I don't have a cat (or cats) but this was the scene outside my kitchen window yesterday morning. The black and white cat and the gray cat are large and go through my yard quite often. I think they are males. The black cat is new to my yard this past week and I suspect it is a female. When I left for church the 2 males were in my front yard hissing at each other. Later in the afternoon the black and white one was in the flower bed outside my picture window and he had blood on his face so I knew they had fought. I want them to leave so my birds can come back to the feeders.

A little bit of sunshine..........

2013-06-02T05:00:00.000-05:00

The weather alternated between sunshine and rain showers yesterday. Late in the afternoon the sunlight looked so pretty coming across my small collection of pottery and the tree hydrangeas from 2 years ago.

I sewed a little piece of sunshine too from scraps 6.5" long and ranging from 3/4" to a little over an inch in width. I also sewed the last 2 seams in the Grandmother's Dream quilt top that I started over a month ago. Other than that, I finished my book, "Hardball" by Sara Paretsky. Now I can get the last 2 books in the series from the library.

Top sewn and a little nostalgia...........

2013-06-01T05:00:00.000-05:00

I was determined to get this top sewn together yesterday. I had 4 vertical rows to sew on and then 8 horizontal seams. It measures 56" x 71" right now so I could finish it as a couch quilt as it is.

I was cleaning off a shelf in the basement yesterday. These belonged to my mother. She did crafty things.

Do you remember when this was popular in the 1950s? That is assuming you were even born yet.

Here is something from the early 1960s.

Do you remember when socks were called anklets and most people darned the holes in them? Obviously I didn't follow the rules; the package is unopened.

I love the prices on these items. However at that time we got paid 50 cents an hour to babysit and were lucky to make $1 an hour at a steady job.

Buy a new shuttle? I'm not sure if I understand that.

I'm wondering if these were from the days that treadle machines were popular. The needles have a flat back on the shank and I don't know if treadle machine needles did or not.

Where are the finishes?...........

2013-05-31T05:00:00.000-05:00

I meant well, thought I would finish several pieces in May. I quilted one and still haven't put the binding on. I finished sewing this one together last night (57" x 68"), so one quilted, one top sewn together. I'm still tearing paper out of the Stepping Stones quilt blocks. Well, I still have today left to get something done. My book is too good and I can't put it down so that is one reason.

In the mail............

2013-05-30T05:00:00.000-05:00

I was chatting via email with Cathi from the blog Quilt Obsession and mentioned that I had an antique doll bed. She loves making miniature quilts all pieced by hand. Check out this post where she shows the blocks with a ruler to show how small they are. Also she shows the backing fabric and the block she used for the label. On this post while the quilt was in progress, she shows the wrong side of the patchwork so you can see how neat the pressing is. I am so happy to be the recipient of this wonderful quilt. I would never have the patience to make blocks that small.

Usually the peonies start blooming before Memorial Day and some years they are all done by then. I only had one flower this year by Monday but yesterday 2 bushes were in bloom. My lilacs are the late variety and they are in bloom too. The backyard smells heavenly. It almost makes mowing the grass a pleasure. I even enjoyed pulling weeds while enjoying the fragrance.

108 blocks.......

2013-05-29T05:00:00.000-05:00

Pictured here are 1/2 of the 108 blocks. There are 2 blocks of each combination so I figured putting one of each up on the design wall would help me figure out the combinations for the last group. If I didn't repeat any fabrics there are 108 different fabrics in the blocks. I think I may have repeated 2 of the light fabrics though.

I finished one more dishcloth last night. This one had too much counting in it so I won't be using this pattern again.

3 projects......

2013-05-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

I decided it was time to start sewing the rows together. I was shocked at the secondary pattern. Stare at one of the setting squares and you will see 4 dark triangles connect to it in a water wheel sort of pattern. I didn't see that when the blocks had the little crack of white between them as I designed the quilt. Other than that I like it better sewn than as loose blocks. I think the binding needs to be the hand dyed fabric.

I also chose the last 12 blue fabrics and got the strip sets sewn last night. I'll slice them and sew the blocks today.

In the last two days I finished three of the four dishcloths I had in the works. I knitted 12 rows on the one still in progress and started another new one. I need to do the machine embroidery on the dish towels that will go with these when I donate them.

Memorial day......a day of reflection....

2013-05-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

Today we reflect on the phrase "Freedom is not free" as we remember all who have fought for our freedom.

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I completed 30 more blocks, 2 each of 15 yesterday. I think I'm up to 96 blocks out of 108.

I had my zoom lens out to the max so the photos are a little fuzzy. I finally got the cardinal pair together in a photo.

This is where one is passing a seed to the other.

The bunny was keeping an eye on the cardinals while he was eating bird seed. I need to dig out that little redbud tree so I have a better view.

Planning ahead............

2013-05-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

I paired 10 more groups for the 16 patch quilt. I have added some that are more turquoise in tone with this batch.

I had a pair of ring neck doves under the feeder yesterday. I had seen some earlier this spring but they didn't pose for a photo like this pair did.

I have a cardinal pair that visit all the time now. The Mrs. was over under a different feeder when I got this shot. In the background is a mourning dove. It was in the 50s yesterday with light rain a couple times. I got another hosta dug up and pulled it apart into 3 separate plants. It was getting too big for its location. I lost a few hostas last year with the drought so I replaced one of those from this plant. I wanted to get this done before the rain tonight and tomorrow.

Setting triangles cut........

2013-05-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

One small step at a time......the setting triangles have been cut. I'll have to look at it several times today to decide if any need to be rearranged before I sew it together. I didn't do any sewing yesterday. I did a load of laundry, went out to eat with friends, wandered into a couple antique/junque shops with same friends, visited Dad and read my book. I'm near the end of the book so I'll find out who dunnit soon.

Finished the pinwheels.......

2013-05-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

I made the last four pinwheel blocks and rearranged the blocks a little. I still haven't cut the setting triangles so maybe that will get done today.