Miscellany.....................

This is the group removed from the blue batik shelf that are getting moved to the miscellaneous batik shelf.

Yesterday morning I renewed my driver's license.  I didn't have to drive this time. They finally changed the age from 75 to 87 where you have to drive as part of the test.  We are the ONLY state that has this funny business.  I had to drive the last 3 times to get my license since we only get a 2 year license after 80.  The bottom line, I still have my independence.

Last night I finished one long side of binding on the fall color 9 patch.  I'm not in a hurry to finish this one so maybe it will be done next week.

I remembered to get a daylight photo of the cactus that is blooming.  I the background is a bud on a red one.

Farther down on the same table are these 3 almost ready to bloom.  One is white with pink, one champagne, and one pale pink.

I went through another big bin of flannel and found some interesting things.  The triangles on the left can be cut down into half square triangles, and the one on the right have the grain on the long edge so they will be cut into quarter square triangles.  The other option is to sew them together first and then trim them down to the largest size that I can.

I found a small bag with these 2" finished blocks.  It looks like I ran out of dark triangles so I will cut some more.

I also found more strips in that bin so they are going in the bag of random size strips.

We are expecting a frost 2 nights in a row (Fri. & Sat.) so the last 2 days I have been picking tomatoes.  They range from ping pong ball size to a little larger than a golf ball.  Last year I ate my final ripened tomato the first week of December.  Some of these are starting to turn color already.  There are 4th of July, Early Girl and Rutgers plus the mismarked one that I think is an heirloom tomato. There are lots more of even smaller tomatoes on the plants but I doubt I will pick them.

My day in order of events...........

Yesterday I started with trying to get a photo of my Maple tree.  It turned color all in one day and now day 3 it is already dropping its leaves. It's hard to get a good photo of it because there is a Redbud tree directly in front of it.  I used to go into the neighbor's yard to get a photo from the other side but now there is a fence.

I chose the binding fabric for the fall color 9 patch and cut the 7 strips.

Next I took the big bin of flannel pieces and sorted them.  This is the pile of chunks that are going to be cut into a small tumbler shape.

I ended up with a pile of larger pieces in bright colors and kid print flannels and also a pile of muted colors.  I'll cut 6.5" squares from a lot of them.

This pile is all flannel strips, short ones, long ones, etc.  They are irregular widths and I'm waffling on keeping them or throwing them.  Since I have so much flannel yardage, it seems pretty senseless to work with these.

I sewed the binding strips together and sewed them on the quilt last night.

I started the hand stitching on the binding.  It was a productive day, maybe not exciting, but productive.

First quilt top finished in November 2026............

I got the last seams sewn in the morning yesterday on this pinwheel quilt made with Marcia Derse fabrics.  There are 4 sizes of pinwheels, with the least amount of 3", down in the lower right corner.

It is 50.5" x 70.5".

Everything matched perfectly in size except the little 3" pinwheel section.  I just trimmed off the extra half inch.

I'm going to use most of the rest of the 8" pinwheels in a table runner for my son's TV stand.  I may play around with the blocks to see what combination I like best.  I only need 12 blocks for it.

Last night I went through the the top shelf of the blue and turquoise batik fabrics.  The turquoises went to the middle shelf and the blues are on the top shelf.  I pulled off a lot that are more multicolor than blue or turquoise.  I have 2 other shelves that are mostly multicolor so I'll see if those pieces can be moved to them.

 

Almost there........................

I sewed until 10 last night and got this far.  I thought I was going to have to add a piece at the right side of the bottom row, but now it looks like I might need to trim it off instead.  Either that or trim the end of the 6" block section.  I'll make that decision today.  The camera is making the light fabrics a little too light here.  I hope I can get a photo with true color later today.

I noticed the first bloom on my cactus yesterday morning but it was overcast outside and I thought I would wait until a little later to take a photo.  Well, a little later turned into 6 p.m. so it was dark.  I took the photo anyway to have a record on my blog of the first bloom of the season.

Final layout.........................

 I made more blocks and played for a couple hours with the arrangement on the design wall.  This isn't at all what I thought I was going to do with the pinwheel blocks but I like it.

There were 4 of these parts to assemble.

There were also 4 of these to assemble.

I continued until I had 10 sections sewn.  Now I need to sew the 5 columns starting on the left side.   After pressing the 10 assembled sections I can also sew the column on the right.  I think I will need to make an adjustment on the bottom row but I won't know until I get the rest sewn together.

This has been a fun project but I'm ready to wrap it up at approximately 50" x 70".

October 2026 Monthly recap.........................

October just flew by and I was happy to have accomplished anything.  I had 2 finishes.  Nature's Colors is a 16 patch quilt with a large print cut into blocks sprinkled through the layout.  It is 70.5" x 87".  Zippers, a free pattern by Free Spirit Fabrics, has all Kaffe Collective fabrics in it and it is 58" x 80".  Both were longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

Shock Wave was the only top finished in October although I worked on a couple others.  This is made from one line of fabric.  I decided to make the blocks with one background fabric per block and multicolor for the darker value.  It's a big one at 72" x 90".

Four more dishcloths were knitted during October.

I need to spend a day cleaning up the studio.  I have a layout of the pinwheel blocks on the design wall and will begin sewing a few sections of it. 

Trimming another........................

My 9 patch quilt was next in line to be trimmed.  This one is smaller than the 16 patch with many of the same fabrics.

It is all trimmed and ready to choose a binding.  Looking at the front and back together, I think a medium brown or rusty brown might be best.  I need 7 strips so I need to find a piece that is at least 1/2 yard.

While I was in the basement to trim that quilt I also cut some more triangles for the pinwheels.  There are a few of all of the sizes and I sewed duplicates of some of them.

Today I will get ready for posting my monthly recap tomorrow. 

Rain was predicted for yesterday but we only got a few raindrops.  Most of the storms dissipated before they got to us.  I felt a few drops when I went out to check the tomatoes.