I have removed the pieces of the half row at the top and the 6th row and sewed them together last night. I have 5 rows sewn together and 3 full rows and one half width row left to do.
The end of the month is here so I quilted a baby quilt. Go here if you want to see it when I finished sewing the top. I haven't trimmed it yet because the table I use is covered with my scrap sorting. I have a huge blanket box of scraps and I'm trying to create some order with them. My other 2 cutting tables are also piled with "stuff". I'll have to clean one off today so I can count this in my finishes for the month.
I had a large pile of scraps by my Studio die cutter after cutting all of the hexagons and triangles. Yesterday I sorted them into scraps large enough to cut a 2" square, then scraps to cut 1.5" squares, then scraps too small to cut squares, scraps shaped like an equilateral triangle, and larger scraps. The squares that I cut are in the photo.
I store the 1.5" squares in the bottom tier of a stacking storage bin. They are sorted by Kaffe, batik and regular quilting cottons.
The 2" squares go in the middle tier. They are sorted the same as the smaller squares. When the bins are full I will make something out of them.
I had church sewing circle yesterday so I did a little sewing in the morning and then again in the evening. I have 3 rows sewn together and I have sewn the triangles that are pinned to the hexagons in the row above. I will do a little each day so I don't get bored with it. The fun part of course was choosing the fabrics and then seeing that they worked well together as I played at the design wall.
Did you know that Kaffe has a line of cosmetics? They weren't available here in the US in the beginning but now they can be purchased from an Ulta store. There is one on the way home from church so I stopped and bought the tin. I was excited to find that it has a hinged lid.
It has hand cream, lip balm and perfume inside.
I love the Brandon stripe on the sides of the tin too.
It was finally time to start sewing the hexagon star quilt. The pieces were on a design wall in the basement but I decided to sew them on the main level since I had been sitting and socializing a good part of the day yesterday.
In this photo I'm showing that I pinned the 2 triangles onto a hexagon to carry them upstairs to sew. The row above has already been sewn to this point.
Next I sewed 2 of the hexagon/triangle parts together. I only carried pieces of one row at a time upstairs so I wouldn't get the parts mixed up.
I cut all of the pieces on my Accuquilt Studio die cutter with GO! dies. There are notches for matching so the sides are easy to line up.
My white cactus is the only one in full bloom right now. I have one bud on a couple other plants. Three or four of my cacti haven't bloomed yet this winter.
I moved a few pieces and this is the final layout for the hexagon stars quilt. Since the top of my design walls are near the light fixtures, the bottom of the quilt looks darker here than it is. There is a gold fabric with twigs in the triangles near the center of the quilt. The same fabric is in the very bottom left star triangles so you can what I mean about the light source. I still have to cut the quarter hexagons for the corners.
My basement is the warmest spot in the house in the winter but in the spring when the heat comes on less often it is cold down there. The heat comes on in the morning so it is comfortable down there until about 2 p.m. I decided to sew on the main level last night and started on the 6" finished triangle squares. I need 65 and I finished 22.
I started putting the triangles in place making stars and then realized that I could add a half row at the top and bottom instead of 2 rows on the bottom. I have the half hexagon die also. The half hexagons on the sides will have to be trimmed because the cut is going the opposite way in the hexagon and there isn't a die for that. I'll also need quarter hexagons for the corners. I can see a couple hexagons that I need to move and then I'll start sewing 2 triangles to each hexagon and they can be sewn into horizontal rows.
I caught up with my TV shows with ON DEMAND last night and counted triangle squares while I watched. This is all of the 2", 3" and 4" finished triangle squares. I need to make 72 more of the 4" size. I haven't looked for the 6" triangles yet. Since I made a quilt recently with all 6" ones I'm not sure if I have any cut.
I cut one more fabric into hexagons yesterday and put all of them back up on the wall. This will only be about 60" x 65" with this many. If I add to the length I have to add 2 rows to have a long row across the bottom. That would add 14.5" to the length. I'll have to think about this.
This is a shot of yesterday afternoon's weather. All morning it rained and then mid afternoon it started snowing huge snowflakes, almost sheets of snow. The streaks in front of the tree trunks are the huge flakes. All of the driveways and streets are clear because they are warm.
I cut more hexagons and triangles yesterday and need to cut lots more triangles before I design the quilt.
Last night I sewed another 140 triangle squares. There are 4 alike in each of these piles. I have 245 sewn now and need a minimum of 248 for the 2 quilts that I have planned. I'll probably sew about 50 more so I will have choices of which ones I want to use. I need to count how many I have sewn of the other 3 sizes too and make more of them.
I pulled out my medallion quilt yesterday afternoon and I will be sewing on the next borders soon.
I started the day yesterday cutting more hexagons and triangles while doing laundry but quickly realized I couldn't stand on cement one more day. Instead I went outside and did a little yard and garden clean up. Last night I wanted a project to do while watching the NCIS programs so I grabbed the 2" finished triangle container.
I put them in piles of 10 so I could see how many were done. I have 2 quilts planned that each take four different sizes of triangle squares. I need to sew some more of this size.
Currently blooming: the white cactus. This is the second time this winter for this one.
In July last year I started pulling a selection of Kaffe and friends fabrics with a purple/greenish gold/rust/brown theme. I have had them stacked there waiting and waiting for me to cut them. My plan was to use the 8" hexagon die and the matching equilateral triangle die. My 2 friends came over yesterday so I decided it would be a good day to start cutting and playing with the pieces on the design wall. I need to do some research and see how other quilters have arranged the colors and values with this pattern. I have more cutting to do so it will change many times before I'm done.
I got about half of the 3rd load of African fabrics ironed. I'll finish those today. I think I need to do a quilt that will showcase the different prints so it will need large shapes for the large prints and smaller ones for the small and medium size prints. I think maybe it will be a modular style like this one.
I always wash my African fabrics because some of them are really stiff and lots of them have gold printed on them. I want to know how they hold up after washing. I had participated in another trade and also purchased a few new pieces last year and hadn't washed any of them in addition to my new bounty that I received in trade on Saturday. I divided them by color groups into 3 loads. When the second load went into the dryer I started ironing the first load. I have most of the third load left to iron today. In the photo are all of the 5" squares. I threw them into the washer too and none of them raveled.
On Friday March 11 I posted a photo of several trays of 1" colorwash squares. One of my readers contacted me and wanted to know if she could trade me some African fabrics for them. This is part of my bounty. There were books with an African theme in the box too. I figured I had seen almost every African print already but she had lots of different ones that I hadn't seen. I am thrilled with the trade.
It was supposed to go down to freezing last night so I went outside to take a few photos of our beginnings of spring. This Forsythia is in the backyard and it only has a few little branches with blooms.
The Periwinkle Vinca even blooms in the winter so I probably shouldn't count it as a sign of spring.
The Pulmonaria/Lungwort is in bloom in one sheltered area. I got my rake and cleared the leaves in the other area where I have it. Some of the plants were up over there but no blooms on them yet.
While looking for all of the pieces in suitable sizes for the mug rugs I also pulled all of the small mindless piecing stash and put it randomly up on a design wall. I need to do a lot of playing around with the pieces, turning some in the other direction. It will be similar to the one on my right sidebar that I call my second favorite but it will be larger.
When I went through the kitchen late yesterday afternoon I saw this crow walking on the path around the tree that I created in my back garden. The crows rarely stop here and it is amazing to me how huge they are compared to the other birds that do stop at my feeders.
Here are more photos of potential mug rug mini quilt tops.
This is the only group that is batiks today.
This group is 6" or smaller so they will need some additions.
I think this group is around 6" also. These are a mix of batiks and regular quilting cotton prints in each block.
Leftover dotted fabrics from an all dots quilt that I made in 2006.
I added strips to 13 of them and then pressed and trimmed them. I just cut them as large as I could so they vary anywhere from 6.5" to 10.5". Most are rectangular.
My favorite pink cactus is blooming again. The sunlight was coming through them this morning.
My 2 friends came over for a day of sewing and lunch out yesterday. I worked on several things, none far enough along to take photos. Last night while watching TV I went through my pieces and parts drawers and pulled out everything that is a potential mug rug top.
A lot of them just need one or two more strips added to be large enough to square up.
Most of the pieces are made of batik fabric.
I would say that most of these pieces were made between 3 and 6 years ago.
I will probably work on these in the evening and my other larger projects during the day. I'll show some more pieces and parts tomorrow.
I had a busy day yesterday with lots of errands that needed to be done. By late afternoon I got to the sewing machine and sewed on the black with white borders. It ended up 44" x 50". I have mixed feelings about this one; glad to have the blocks finally used but it is not so great from a design standpoint.
Last night as storms rumbled through the area I sewed the last 3 columns of the neutral quilt and got it all sewn together. I think it resembles marble tiles. The final size is 54" x 62".
I think maybe it needs to be turned 1/4 turn to be a wallhanging.
It was a fun day with the art quilters yesterday. I had them vote on whether I should use the white background or black background strips between the columns and the majority liked the white ones. I sewed this part together last night and now I have to piece the black strips for the borders because they aren't quite long enough. I am glad to have these blocks off the shelf and finally made into something.
I also finished cutting and designing for this one and sewed 2 more columns together and have 3 columns left to sew. I have decided that it will be a wallhanging and will have facings instead of binding.
I needed to move this quilt over to a single design wall so I sewed the first four columns together. Then I moved the loose pieces over by it and also sewed the last 6 blocks. I haven't pressed them yet and I'll finish designing this after the art quilters leave this afternoon. It is only about 62" long so it is definitely going to need a border.
I also cut the white with black print into strips and tried them in this piece. (All black background shown yesterday.) No decision made and I removed the pieces from the wall so I could use my lint roller and clean 5 design walls. Cookies are baked.
