While my 2 friends worked on their projects yesterday I was determined to empty a bin of pieces, parts, and partially made quilt tops. These are leftover triangles from a couple of my Prismatic Garden series quilts. I had all of these up on the wall to see how big of a top I could make and then I found...............
under another project were some already pieced blocks. I decided this would made a nice side of a tote bag.
This could be the other side of the tote bag. There are a couple left over blocks that could be used as pockets in the lining.
There are also 5 more blocks that could be used in the small quilt layout above to make it a row longer.
I also found a partially made quilt top which I showed last on January 28, 2009. At that point I said I had made a decision so I could finish it. Well.......that was a little over 10 years ago. I think it has aged enough, it is ready. I'll show it tomorrow and hopefully it will be all sewn together.
Below are blooms on my Weigela bushes. They are so pretty. We cut back the darker pink one drastically last fall so it only had a few branches with blooms on them. It will all grow back and be big and bushy again next year.
I finished sewing this quilt top together last night. It ended up 40.25" x 54.25" so it is a small throw quilt. It will need just one width of fabric for the back which makes me happy.
I saw a black and white bird chasing some other birds away from the bird feeder and wondered what kind it was. Then about a half hour later I saw the red and knew it was a Rose Breasted Grosbeak.
It is so hard to hold the camera still for the extra zoom feature on my camera but this didn't turn out too bad. I thought all of the Grosbeaks had continued on their migration by now.
The Columbines have finally opened and are so pretty. These are pale pink, almost white.
The blue ones are right beside the pink ones. In the background you can see I finally got some hanging baskets for the backyard. I also got some tomato plants. I'm really late getting them in this year but we have had so much rain and cold weather.
The insurance adjuster came after lunch and looked at my roof. He was turning in a hail damage report but because my damage isn't severe he said it may not be approved so it is a wait and see thing now. If I were selling my house right now new buyers would ask for a new roof because there is obvious damage so I would really like an insurance settlement.
I made 10 more blocks to add to the quilt blocks I showed yesterday and added a lot more light value batiks in them. I thought it was a little dark. They are 8" blocks so it is 40" x 48" if I sew it right now.
I am thinking about adding a batik stripe border on the top and bottom to lengthen it to 54". I folded and pinned the fabric to the bottom and I do like it. It is folded 4" wide but I think 3" would look better.
I have an insurance adjuster coming today to check out any damage I have on my roof and downspouts. My last roof was put on after a hail storm in 2003.
As I was cleaning up the trays of rectangles and re-sorting them I came across a lot of rectangles that I cut 15 years ago that really don't work for colorwash. There weren't as many batiks available in the early 2000s as there are now so I was cutting from a lot of the 1990s batiks.
I decided to make blocks using 8 rectangles and put them up on my design wall edge to edge. I happen to like busy quilts so even with this odd assortment of fabrics I really liked it. I know there are some people looking at this and say "Ow, that hurts my eyes".
I decided I should try some other layouts. This one just has the blocks separated with the design wall flannel making the sashing. It is trying to tell me each block is pretty and needs to be showcased.......but......they aren't pretty blocks. This layout is OK but not my style.
I decided to try columns and I could live with this layout. I would need to make 8 more blocks to make it a little more rectangular, longer and narrow like a body shape that it would cover.
This project is just a busy work project because I didn't have my next project lined up ready to sew and I had an hour of TV to watch. I actually made these blocks on the last 2 evenings.
For all of you who still have http:// as the beginning of your blog address, this isn't safe any more. Blogger has already set it to https:// for everyone but you need to take one more step. In Blogger go to your settings in the Basic page and change the HTTPS DIRECT to YES. In Bloglovin my blog came up as Not Secure until I changed that setting to YES. You don't want the bad guys getting into your account and messing with it. I'm visiting a lot of blogs that still come up with the Not Secure at the beginning of the address and you need the setting enabled to forward your visitors to the secure https:// setting.
It's a quilt top! It ended up 36" x 45".
I used some wild and weird batik in this colorwash and a lot of the pieces are from 20 years ago. The center is more blendy in person than in a photo.
My small Narcissus flowers are just ending their blooming season. I had a lot more flowers than I normally do. My peonies are bigger and bushier and have more buds than usual this year too. I guess that means they all liked the long winter and cold spring.
We had a wonderful family gathering yesterday at a local restaurant. When I got home the sun was still shining so I mowed the grass.
Last night I finally got to the sewing machine and it took me 2 1/2 hours to sew the first 8 columns together. It is a little slower process than sewing squares when I make a colorwash with rectangles. I now know it will be 54" tall.
I have lots of Jack in the Pulpit in the back garden.
I love the contrast of the Red Penstemon against the green Lily leaves.
I changed many rectangles all day long and played a little more with it in the evening. I filled in the half rectangles (squares) at the top and bottom edge. The center looks smoother in real life than it does in a photo. I think it is ready to sew but I can't say for sure I won't still change a couple pieces. Students in my colorwash classes might wonder why I put turquoise next to rose since they aren't next to each other on the color wheel. It is because I had 5 rectangles that have a mix of turquoise and rose and they became the transition area between the 2 colors.
Kevin the Quilter was in the area doing a lecture and workshops so he stopped by to see me on the way home. We are just coming out of the Bull Moose Bar and Grille in this photo. I "forced" him to take home some scraps from my studio. I hope he has fun with them.
