I found time to sew in the morning yesterday and made 5 new blocks.
I cut some more floral fabrics and sewed 6 new blocks in the afternoon.
All 39 blocks are up on the wall, not in any particular order, just up there so I can view them and decide what combinations to sew next. I have almost 2/3 of the blocks done that I will need. I am contemplating pulling out the lightest value blocks and making this quilt darker. That means I would probably sew the duplicate blocks that I have in a pile waiting to be completed.
I got the 6 strip sets sliced and sewn into blocks.
Then I went down to the design walls in the basement and took down the pink and green blocks and numbered the rows.
Then I was able to take the 28 blocks that are finished to the design wall and play. It is too spotty looking for me right now. I know I want to make more blocks that have low contrast between the 2 fabrics. I think I also will make more all green blocks. I may have to add the duplicates of each block for more consistency. This one is in the early stages so it may change a lot before it is done.
I got 6 sets of 4 strips sewn together and gave up for the evening. I'll slice them and piece the blocks today. I hope I can get to the design wall today.
It was another fun family day with more cousins and catching up on each others' lives for the last 9 months. In spare minutes I started another 2 tone dishcloth. I increase until I get to 30 stitches with cream color yarn and then tie on the remainder of the yellow variegated yarn. I'll end with a cream corner on the other side when I run out of yellow.
Yesterday was a wonderful family day. One of my brothers and my cousin had not seen each other since 1987. After everyone left I made 9 more blocks.
This is all 22 blocks sewn so far. I was too lazy to go downstairs to a design wall with them.
I have 14 duplicate blocks cut and ready to sew. I have been thinking about only having one of each block in this quilt which means I am making 2 quilts. I'll know when I start putting the blocks up on the design wall. I have 3 large bins of floral fabrics to work with if I want more variety.
I had some free time in the middle of the day yesterday so I had a therapy session. I got 5 blocks sewn and their duplicates cut but not sewn together yet. Four of these blocks have one batik fabric in them.
I have 9 more sets of 2 fabrics sewn together, 18 fabrics and only 5 of them are batiks. Maybe I can get the last seam sewn and then cut today.
My backyard is one big bird feeder. Do you see the goldfinch on the sunflower plant. He sat there and ate for quite some time. I saw hummingbirds 2 days in a row now in the backyard. I'm never quick enough to get the camera. I have to remember to put it in the kitchen so I can be ready.
I pulled out the tray of 2.5" strips that I cut at the same time that I was cutting my colorwash kits last year. These are regular quilting cottons but I think they will mix well with the batik 16 patch blocks.
I will go through and pick out the floral prints and pair them.
Out of state company arrived yesterday and some cousins will be visiting on Saturday. This means a lot of eating out and socializing.
I like this kind of leftovers though. I had a few blocks left to sew and then gathered all of the rest of the green leftovers. When I decide on a layout of the warm color blocks I think I will have 2 of them left over too. They are all seeds for another quilt, probably a multicolor garden theme quilt.
I never did get to the sewing machine yesterday but I finished the yellow and white dishcloth on top of the left pile. There are 30 dishcloths here and I have 3 locations that I am donating some too. Others will be used for gifts. It is so relaxing to knit them and they are pretty much instant gratification since they are done in a few hours.
The weather has changed, in the 50s last night. It sounds like open window weather for a few days.
Our local library called yesterday morning and said I was one of the grand prize winners in the summer reading program. This hard cover book was one prize. I also got a gift certificate to Aldi's and a family pass to a museum. I was surprised because I didn't hear about the program until it was half over and I only turned in 2 cards with my hours on them. I had forgotten they said they would be taking photos of the winners and I'm afraid I looked a little bedraggled.
Here are the 2 current dishcloths in progress. I didn't sew anything yesterday except tote bags at church sewing circle. We finished all 36 and started packing the coloring books, notebooks, crayons, and a few other things into them.
Today is church sewing circle so I am finishing up the last 16 tote bags for the migrant workers' children. Most are ready to press down the top edge 1" and do 2 rows of stitching.
The neighbor north of me moved earlier this month so she left her tomato plants with me. That is a 5 oz. paper cup in there so you can see the plum shaped tomatoes are small. There were 2 of the larger ones.
Here is what is left of the second larger tomato. It was really good!
I think I am happy with the distribution of the pinks now I'll probably look at it a few more times today to be sure.
Of course I need my matching nature photos!
I have been trying to clean up the front flower bed this year. There are 3 kinds of vine that are taking over so sometimes I think I should give up.
This section used to be crowded with tiger lilies. I moved all but this one clump out to the back garden plus giving away a bunch of them. I have the pot sitting on a flat stone. I remove it and then I can walk in a little bit to do the weeding.
I think this plant is called Jacob's Ladder but I'm not positive. It looks the healthiest it has ever been this year.
I made enough blocks to finish this out at 8x10 blocks instead of the planned 7x9. I still need to do a little rearranging. I have 64 warm color blocks still left so I can sew that quilt in the 7x9 configuration.
If you click on this photo you can see that the coneflowers are all across the back garden. The large green leaves are one of the sunflower plants. The other patch of orange tiger lilies is hidden by the redbud tree.
The small sunflowers were turned to face the house today so I had to take another photo. You can see the huge sunflower plant better in this one. The squirrels tried to knock it down so it is leaning to the left but still getting ready to shoot out more blooms.
I made some blocks with a combination of pink and green hoping to make a transition from the all pink blocks but there is more tweaking to be done. I think maybe just the combination blocks might give me the effect I want. So I need to play some more...........
I transplanted orange tiger lilies to my back garden in the spring so they are blooming just a little later than usual. This is the first blooms but I have lots of buds.
Everything is lush and green with our wet spring. There are a lot of small sunflowers (volunteers from bird seed) blooming along with the cone flowers.
I went out last night to water one hosta that I had transplanted a few weeks ago and decided to cut some of tall weeds close to the ground with my clippers. I wasn't watching what I was doing and got one sunflower and a coneflower. I wonder if the sunflower buds will open in the house in a vase.
By noon yesterday I had 6 more blocks completed to go with the 10 from yesterday. I moved them down to the basement on the same design wall as my warm blocks.
From the time I started making them I knew I wanted to try some of the deep pink blocks mixed in like flowers.
I continued sewing and completed all 27 blocks and the 27 duplicate blocks while I watched some "Bones" episodes on Netflix.
I took out the deep pink blocks and put all 17 blocks up on the wall. I need to chose 5 more pairs of fabrics to complete the 63 blocks.
I even got all of the leftovers trimmed into straight strips. It was so hot and humid out that staying in and sewing was the only sensible thing to do.
I sliced the 10 stratas I showed yesterday and made the first 10 blocks. I can see I'm going to like this one a lot. I hope to get at least 10 more blocks done today. Just like the last two 16 patches, this one will have 2 blocks alike of every combination.
I got all of the green strips sewn into pairs and then got these 10 cut in half and sewn into sets of 4 and ready for slicing.
It was a hot and humid day yesterday and the rain in the afternoon just made it more humid. Tues. - Thurs. are supposed to be the really hot days so more sewing is in the picture.
This is the pile of trimmings from the strip sets of the warm 16 patch blocks. I trimmed them into nice straight strips whatever width I could get out of each of them. I'll probably make mug rugs or journal covers from them.
This little plastic drawer cart contains all of my 2.5" batik strips. I have been cutting them off any batik I'm currently working with for about 6 years. The top 3 drawers are one layer deep and the bottom 2 are 2 layers. I estimate there are probably 1000 strips although I have never counted them. I have pulled all of the blues for my 16 patch quilt (108 strips) and my warm color 16 patch (73 strips). Last night I pulled 53 green strips and there are still this many left in there. I think I will revise my estimate to exceed 2000 strips.
I finished reading a John Grisham book yesterday, worked a little on the bark path through my garden, did laundry, and then just wanted some mindless sewing. I started my green 16 patch. I just didn't feel like working on a current in progress project.
Yesterday I spent 4 hours outside cutting volunteer trees and pulling weeds and I'm feeling it. My little helper came at 3 and we have a huge pile of volunteer trees at the end of the driveway and the bark path through my back garden revived. While inside cooling off around lunch time I sewed 6 more blocks, these 3 and their duplicates.
I have enough blocks made now to make this 8 across by 9 down instead of the 7 across that I had planned. This is one half of the blocks and I need to still do a little rearranging.
Yesterday was a busy day. I mowed my grass in the morning. The 10 year old girl and her friend came by to say they had to do chores in the morning so we decided on 3 p.m. for them to help me. Between the 2 of them they vacuumed the van, cleaned up the branches from 4 bushes that I trimmed, and the whole time were telling me all of the other things they could do for me. They have more energy than I have so I told them we would have to save the next project for this afternoon. I mowed the back yard in the late afternoon. Then I got my reward for the day, making 8 more blocks, the 4 shown and their duplicates.
This dishcloth is a patchwork of colors, 4 different yarns. They were all ends of balls of yarn that I wanted to use up. I like it!
