Thursday was basting day............
but since Thursday followed a 2 day migraine I didn't push myself very hard. I just tackled 2 small quilts and the top one is all basted and the bottom one is half done.
I made a sign for myself so I wouldn't forget the project of the day. As I complete each one that name will come off and a new one will take its place on that day. I saved the master copy in my computer so I can just bring it back up, erase one name and insert a different one and print a new sign. I print on the back of a used piece of paper so I am recycling too.

Are you a skimmer? Do you just glance at the pictures and leave? A few of my good friends admitted to me that they just look at the pictures I post and don't always read what I write. I have seen some blogs that have Wordless Wednesday on which they just post a picture. I'm wondering if I should become Wordless Wanda and not explain what the pictures are all about. Just wondering............

Today is the other strips 'n curves class. Pictures tomorrow......

Another successful day..............
I think my plan is going to work. I sewed all of the pieces and parts of the 9 patches for the Vanilla quilt. Here are 243 four and one half inch squares. I never could have done it though without ........
a gabfest with my 2 friends who came over to baste their quilts. One of the ladies was from my art quilter's group and she basted this one.

The other lady and I used to work at the same quilt shop. She basted this one and

also brought these 2 along.

My brother and I took my dad out to eat and when I got home I got some of the other fabrics for the Vanilla quilt cut and paired, ready to sew more 9 patches next Wednesday. Here are some more paired and ready to sew. Today is basting day in my weekly plan. I might also work on a binding for the last queen size quilt that I quilted.

Still on schedule, barely................
I taught my class and didn't get home until 3:30. I had a mild headache from the thunderstorms that went through in the early morning hours so I didn't get into the project until later in the evening. I started putting the pieces of the "Tuesday project" on my design wall trying to keep them straight this time. If you have never put a diagonal patterned quilt on a design wall you have no idea how hard it is to keep it straight.
This is the inspiration quilt in one of Kaffe Fassett's books. You will notice that he has 4 squares in the center and 12 squares surrounding it in each of his square areas. I have one in the center with 8 surrounding it. The main reason is I get 8 pieces across the fabric and would have to cut 2 strips to get 12 and then I would have 4 left over.

This is the book that it is in.

Here I have stacked the sewn strip sets and am cutting them off to make the 4 patches. I'm glad I had gotten all of the sets sewn on Sunday night.

Here is a string of 4 patches coming off the machine.

And now on to the results in the class today. This quilt will end up 5 across by 7 down so there are still more squares to be sewn.

The batik one is coming along nicely.

I didn't get a picture when she had the last block on the wall for this one. She got all of the seams sewn in one direction before she left.

This one is completely sewn together. Rather than make circles, she chose to make trails through the top. She has 2 borders planned for it.

Aren't they great? The other class is on Friday so I'll report their progress on Sat.

Day of the week quilts..........
I made my decisions that I mentioned yesterday, which quilts belong to which days.
Monday is the basket quilt, known by several other names I know, but it is still a basket quilt to me. Remember the indecision about which color setting triangles (link in yesterday's post)? I decided on the rosey one. To me the quilt blended right into this color and the blue looked like an add on. I know I am in the minority here because most of you liked the blue, but I tend to make my quilts blendy so this one worked for me. The top is all sewn together (successful day).
As a bonus I got the binding sewn on this little (28" x 32") cradle quilt.

The backing is a baby print batik.

Now onto the other days of the week:

Tuesday will be the Kaffe Fassett inspired beaded curtain quilt. Here is a link to the design wall the last time I played with it in June last year. Yesterday I showed the strips sewn to make more 4 patches. I also need to cut more batik squares. I will show a picture tomorrow of the quilt that inspired me but I am doing it a little different. I am teaching until 2:30 so I may not get a lot done.

Wednesday will be the vanilla 9 patch quilt, pieces pictured below, all sorted ready to sew when a friend comes over to baste a quilt on my big tables. I decided I needed company to be able to stick to this one.

Thursday I will baste 2 more of the many wallhanging tops I have hanging on hangers in the basement.

Friday I will work on finishing the 2 Strips and Curves small pieces that I used for samples for the class. Friday is the last day of the class so I won't be able to get to it until late afternoon or evening.

Saturday I will work on the Rosebud pink and green batik blocks I showed yesterday.

Sunday will be a free day to start something new or work on whatever I want (or to rest). Monday will start over again with the same projects on the same days until they are finished.

I think I see some finished projects in my future.

I just have one more piece to cut.............
for this little quilt. I only had one strata so this is how big it can be. They are 9" blocks so it will be 27" x 36" unless I add a border.
The binding is done on this little quilt.

I have decided to get out some of the unfinished projects and assign a day of the week to them. That way they will be worked on one day a week until they are finished. This will work well with my limited attention span. I got a head start on this one yesterday by piecing together several sets of 2 to make more 4 patches. I'll post the link later in the week to the design wall when I last played with it. This is another that needs to be worked on.

Here is the link to the design wall for this one. I also got the basket quilt out and cut the setting triangles and have some of them sewn on. That will be my project today to finish the top.

Today I will decide which day is devoted to which project. I am teaching Tues. and Fri. this week and Monday next week so there will be limited hours to work on projects those days.

20 blocks, not necessarily the final layout.............
A lot of these fabrics have gold on them so they reflect and don't look as deep toned as they do in person.
I pieced 16 more fabrics into a strata. Here is choice one when adding the two 8 strip sections together, with the light fabrics meeting in the middle. This means that most pieces cut from the strata will be mostly light.

Here is choice 2 with the dark fabrics at the center.

After analyzing what I already had cut from the previous strata, I decided I needed more dark pieces so this is how I sewed them together. The color is more true in the picture above.

After cutting out some pieces I have sections like this left over.

I can then bring the 2 long edges together and sew them together and cut some of my template shapes from it.

This is the advantage of having your strata end with the same value as the beginning. If you start with light and end with dark, you can't join the leftovers into a usable piece.

On the way to the mailbox.........
I came back in and got my camera after I got my mail. We had a nice rain last night and today is gorgeous out. Here is a little twig table that my neighbors had out by the road last weekend with some other stuff with a FREE sign by it. I went right over and got the table because I had been looking for something like it already and hadn't found anything I could afford.
The tiger lilies are just starting to drop petals so I thought I had better get some pictures of them.

If you click on the picture you can see this "in your face" blossom in detail.

Have a nice Saturday everyone.

More student's work...........
Here are a lot of pieces cut from a beige/brown/soft rust combination.
And here are 2 blocks ready to sew. She added the brown batik with horses in it.

This student had a lot of kid prints and added the black background prints as some of the plain (not pieced) sections. The orange dotted fabric was a nice addition too.

More of her design wall. This group of fabric has some soft gold tone light colors and slightly rusty red in with nice browns. This is what they did in the beginning, just cut lots of shapes from a strata. The next step is to start putting pieces together on the design wall to simulate blocks and then to sew the favorites right away. The not quite favorite ones might still get one piece changed out for another.

The fourth student just returned home from vacation in the wee hours so she just visited the class but didn't bring her project. I will get some pictures of hers next week.

I finished cutting all of the Christmas strata and pieced 4 of the blocks together. I'm still contemplating making another strata to make more blocks. I got a little more of the hand sewing done on my batik binding. I took Cathi's advice and changed to a new needle and it is going much better. It is just so hard to throw away a needle that doesn't have a bend in it even if the point isn't as sharp any more. I guess this goes back to the fact that there was usually only one needle or maybe 2 in our household when I was growing up (non-sewing mother) so it was like you kept the same needle forever because there wouldn't be any to take its place. Old habits die hard.

Binding started..........
You can see that I am doing a multicolor binding on this little pinwheel quilt. The binding fabrics are batik and tough to sew through so I didn't get very far on the hand stitching.
This is the strata that I cut the pieces I showed yesterday out of. I only made one strata to use for demonstration purposes but I may sew another strata now. It will be all different fabrics than this strata because I will just use more of the strips that were cut 10 years ago and I had only cut one from each fabric.

Today the other 4 students will have their first Strips 'n Curves class.

A good time was had by all.............
It was really good to see my friends yesterday. We all used to work at the same quilt shop and we have tried to stay in touch over the years. We always get pizza and then everyone brings something else. We had a great lunch!

I was showing them the Christmas Strips and Curves that I have started to cut. I need to save the rest of the strata to demonstrate at tomorrow's class with the other 4 students.
I have been looking through my huge stash for soft dusty colors that will go with the beige blocks and I have found three dusty roses (2 with beige in the print), three lavenders and three greens. I think they will keep the quilt soft looking but add a little interest.

I will keep looking for more fabrics in my stash while I am piecing the rest of the beige blocks that are already cut. I may add a few new beiges into the 9 patches with the new colors. I'm looking forward to working on it now.

Student's work...............
Here are the colors my 4 students were working with at the Strips 'n Curves class and some of the pieces they had cut and arranged on their design walls.
Rainbow colors with 2 prints added.

Turquoise and purple with lots of fabrics in the strata.

All batiks. She has 3 stratas so this one could end up twin size.

A 2 color strata like I did in my lilac version. It was fun watching the progress and had me itching to make another strata to cut up.

Last night was wildlife night in my backyard. When the security light came on the first time I just saw the bird feeder swinging but didn't see any animals. Then it came on again a few minutes later and the whole raccoon family was there, 2 adults and a baby. I scared them away and a few minutes later the light came on again and the opossum was out there. It makes me wonder if I should have bird feeders out there.