Sewing after the storms............

Noisy storms passed through early in the day followed by very strong winds.  I had the machine unplugged.  We got .6" of rain before 2 p.m.  There was a little more rain in the evening so I'll check the rain gauge again this morning.

I got this little colorwash sewn in spite of the interruptions.

Here are the two for comparison.  The top one has a yellow center and the bottom one, white or cream background light fabrics.  Working with the 1.5" squares has its challenges since I'm seeing the whole square when designing it and seeing only 2/3 of each square when it is sewn together.  There are pieces I can see that could be changed in both, but they won't be.  The are ready to be quilted and finished.

While it was storming and dark out I continued on my mission of going through piles and putting things where they belong.  Today I need to tackle the die cutter area.

 

Three hours of tweaking...................

I needed to cut a couple  more pink to lavender fabrics to fill in the last 2 spots on this new mini colorwash.  Then I started the serious tweaking, 3 hours of it.  At the left is after I put in the 2 pink pieces and then I started working on the light lavender area in the top center.  At the right is the final result.

Then I started working on the top right in the blue and turquoise area and the lower right side where green met brown.  I wasn't happy with the straight line between brown and green in the 3 versions above and I finally got it to a place where I was happier with it.  The three photos in the top collage were all taken in daylight from west windows.  This photo was taken with overhead lights at night.

I got the pieces webbed in one direction by 11 last night.

The rest of my day was spent with a load of laundry and putting away lots of things that have been lurking in piles for too long.  I have lots more of that to do in the next week.

Finished plus new................

This 12.25" colorwash has been pressed and is up on the design wall for its portrait.  I'm happy with it, so now I need to quilt it and finish it.

I started to clean off my table but then decided to start designing another 12" one.  I cut a bunch of brown and rust (which aren't in the first one) and this one doesn't have any yellow in the center.  It needs some serious tweaking but it is a good start.  I need to do some more cutting too.

It's really hard to get a smooth transition in a small colorwash.  12 x 12 layout is the smallest that seems to work for me but it's much easier to do a 16 x 16 layout.  I have made a lot of them in 15, 16, and 17 squares in both directions.

The shrinking colorwash................

Since the squares were 1.5" cut size, they lose 1/3 of their size when sewing them together.

Now shrinking in the other direction.  This little colorwash took me over two hours to sew, going slowly, matching each seam.

The corners were matching well until I got to the next to last seam.  I will have to pick it off and try again.

The sewn piece is laying on the same mat that the pieces were on the last few days.  It was 18" of cut squares, and after sewing and pressing I expect this to be 12.5".  The light/dark contrast is distorted by the camera and I think the transition between colors is better looking at it in person.

Even though I designed it as in the photo above, I think I like it flipped 180 degrees better.  I'll  take a better photo after I correct that one seam and press it.

 

Three variations......................

I cut reds and a few yellow, gold squares yesterday.  At 9:30 last night I thought I was done for the night playing with the layout of this mini colorwash.

Then I started adding a few pieces and took this picture to see if I was done.  On the right side I didn't like the way green met the orange.

I changed out a few pieces and kept at it until I had this layout.  I think it is ready to sew but I'll look at it again this morning to be sure.  I actually did change one piece after I took this photo.

In the afternoon I dug out some dandelions that were in my front garden.  Today I might dig out the white violets.

 

Trial colorwash...........................

By doing a trial layout of the 1.5" squares I can judge whether I have enough of each color cut.  I knew there weren't enough in the red before I started.  This layout is 11 x 11 and I wanted 12 x 12.

I analyzed where the problems were and moved the left and bottom rows out.  Then I started playing with a rearrangement.  I will cut reds today and figure out what else I need.

I spent over an hour outside yesterday breaking off all of the dead coneflower stalks and other stalks that were littering the back garden.  I also realized I hadn't trimmed the Annabelle Hydrangea in front of the house last fall.  it got up to 82.  We have had the most 80+ days for the beginning of a year up to this date in Chicago's history of weather records.  The closest contender was 2012 which had one of the hottest and driest summers in the records.  I hate to think we are headed for one of those again.

One decision made................

After a little prodding by a friend I realized I didn't want to find separator strips like I used on the original quilt I made 10 years ago.  Last night I sewed the three sections together.  After trimming the side points it will be about 46" x 62".  I'm thinking about adding a border, but we shall see how long that takes.

 I also cut 1.5" purple squares yesterday and added them to the few that were cut previously.  

It was warm enough to open all of the windows yesterday and low humidity.  We had a 1 minute thunder and rain drops in the middle of the afternoon, and then it was sunny again.