This is 48 of the 80 plaid and stripe Drunkard's Path blocks. This is the most predictable layout and one that I wouldn't usually choose but with the large variety of fabrics that I have used, it might be the best one. The other 32 blocks are duplicates of what is here on the design wall. I was too tired last night to try any other layouts. This is not a final layout by any means, just plopped up on the wall in the order they were in the pile after pressing.
I ended up using the 5 stripe pieces that are cut on the diagonal.
I am close to done cutting for 80 7" blocks. I just need 4 more pieces of the shape on the left. I decided to start pairing pieces and cut the last 4 when I know what I need.
I got 40 sewn last night and paired the rest. Now I know I need 4 lighter pieces to finish the cutting. Here is a post where I show how I sew curved seams. I don't use any pins now though.
I had to take the flannel off the design wall that I moved for better lighting and cut the board down 1". Then I put the flannel back on and set it up ready for the next project.
It was beautiful yesterday so I mowed the grass and planted one more tomato plant. I have a few more things to plant today before the rain starts again tomorrow.
Four times yesterday I went to the basement to find some squares for the corners of this block. I was sidetracked by something else each time and never did bring any upstairs.
I planted my two hanging planters for the backyard. I did red flowers this year. I'll take a photo after they have grown a little. I have tiny tomatoes on 2 of my plants. They like the rain we have been getting as well as the hot sunshine.
I planted my Elephant Ear bulbs and a couple more Canna bulbs. Carrying the 40 lb. bags of potting soil should be toning my muscles.
I sold a couple things on my Wandaful blogshop so I got them ready to mail and then went to the basement to do some cutting. I started with triangles to go in the Kaffe/plaid/stripe quilt.
Then using my acrylic templates I cut some more of the Drunkard's Path pieces. I thought I wanted the stripes on the diagonal but I cut some on the straight grain and think that is my choice instead. Luckily I had only cut 2 fabrics on the diagonal. I have a whole pile of fabric waiting to be pressed and cut for this quilt.
While I had the plaids out and pressed to cut triangles I decided to cut 7" Drunkard's Path pieces too. These are loose pieces on the design wall. I won't sew any of them until I have a better selection cut. Then I'm sending the leftovers and scraps of the plaids to a friend. You might remember my other plaid quilt top made in 2014. I will keep a few pieces in case I want to add the plaids to another quilt.
I need my basting tables cleaned off so I finished cutting preemie gowns and put away all of the leftover flannel. Now I can baste a quilt to quilt on the straight stitch machine with the new lights (see yesterday's post).
My straight stitch machine has new lighting, a Mother's Day present. I had to take the photo in semi darkness or the lights didn't show up. They are little LED lights on a sticky backed strip.
For anyone who wants the technical info here is the instruction sheet.
I had 2.5 hours of TV watching last night so I sewed some of the star blocks with the 2" finished triangle squares. I'll keep making them until I get tired of them and then decide what I am going to do with them.
I picked my first bouquet of peonies yesterday afternoon. I always keep the bouquet in the garage overnight to be sure the ants are all out of them. We had rain storms come through in the late afternoon and my rain gauge had 1.75" in it.
I moved one of my design walls to a different location in the eating area in my basement. It can't stay there when I have company but I can have it there for better lighting for photography the rest of the time. These are the Kaffe collective and plaid triangles, layout 1.
The design wall is 4' wide so you can see they are big triangles, finishing at 6" squares; layout 2
Layout 3
I was having a hard time trying to keep the shine off the pages for this photo. The top one is Kaffe prints, ikats, stripes and plaids and is in one of Kaffe's books. The bottom one is Kaffe prints and stripes and was in a magazine in 2006. I would have to delete most of my light fabrics to get this look. The mediums become the lights. I could also divide the fabrics and make 2 quilts.
Every time I walk past my Many Moons wallhanging in my living room I notice certain fabrics that really make the design work well.
I like the busier designs in the batiks. Neutrals like beige and brown make the brighter fabrics even prettier.
This light print was used several times and really gives the feeling of wispy clouds drifting past the moon.
I finished this in November last year and it has been hanging in my living room since then. This is the best photo I have gotten so far and it still isn't doesn't show the rich colors correctly. Why am I showing you this quilt? Because I have nothing to show for yesterday. I sewed preemie outfits for about an hour and a half yesterday morning, went to sewing circle in the afternoon, stopped at 2 stores on the way home, and then went out and dug up volunteer plants for over an hour last night. I was way too tired to sew or even cut anything last night. This week is going to be pretty hot so my cool basement sounds like a good place to be and maybe I can get one or two quilts started today and tomorrow.
I finished sewing the size small and large preemie gowns and blankets. I have to leave a little after noon for sewing circle so I'll try to get some of the mediums sewn this morning. The extra small ones are the least fun to put that ribbing neckband on so I'm leaving them for last. By then I will have a lot of practice on the larger ones.
I cut more plaid triangles, the pile on the right. I chose another group to cut later today.
I want to make more colorwash pieces. So what is holding me back? I only have one double design wall with really good lighting near it. I rely on the
photos taken during design time to spot trouble areas. I always
hesitate to tie up the best design wall for a long period of time but I have ideas for 2 new ones that I really need to start.
A large colorwash takes at least a week to design and sew (plus another 2 days to quilt the layers and finish the edge), and that is after cutting for several weeks to have the variety of fabrics laid out on trays covering 3 tables. The variety of fabric is the key to success with a colorwash. I have collected the fabrics over a period of 20 years to use in the colorwashes.
I have had some inquiries whether I sell my colorwash wallhangings. I have three (1 sold today) two for sale on my Wandaful blog shop site right now (including the one on the top left in this photo). Four of the pieces in this photo were sold last year.
The first peony has bloomed. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will see the ants busily working on the flower.
My dark Jack-in-the-Pulpits finally came up and are blooming.
I have at least a dozen patches of the star flowers all over the backyard. The patches of grass (leaves?) have died down and now the flowers bloom.
I have ideas for several new quilts but they all require a lot of cutting so I started yesterday with the plaids to go with the Kaffes that were already cut. There are a lot more fabrics to cut.
My Weigela bushes are blooming now. This one is just past its prime. I have 2 of these side by side and I cut the other one down to about 18" late in the season so it didn't bloom. I will cut this one back after it is done blooming and then it should set buds for next year.
This one is a really pale pink. I will cut it back too. I was warned when I bought them that I would be sorry if I didn't keep them trimmed. If I had a large piece of property I could let them grow but on a city lot there isn't room for their growth.
The red one is always last to bloom and just has buds now.
I dug another hosta last night. It was getting too large for its space. I was able to just dig one side and pop some babies off without digging the whole plant out. Today I need to mow the grass. I enjoy mowing while it is still cool but I will dread it when it is hot and humid.
My church sewing circle is going to be working on the preemie layettes for a local hospital on Monday. I do the cutting and sewing at home and on Monday the other ladies will run the ribbons through the neckbands and fold the blankets. Then a few of us pack the four sizes with a knitted blanket and hat in individual bags. I got the large ones sewn last night after cutting for a few hours during the day. (There is a link for the preemie gown pattern on my Label list on the right sidebar.)
My Amaryllis is in bloom. I had forgotten that I had one with double petals. I looked back in my blog and found that I had purchased that one in late fall 2013 and it bloomed Jan. 2014. It had a bud last year but never bloomed.
My sister in law gave me several tiny starts for Bleeding Heart last year. The squirrels immediately dug up some of them and they died. There are 2 that survived and probably won't have flowers this year. I'm just happy to see them.
A friend gave me some ferns a couple years ago and they are doing great. I need to do a little weed control around them. I was out pulling weeds yesterday afternoon in my back garden. I do a little every day now in nice weather while we have low humidity and no mosquitoes.
My granddaughter and great-grandson were in town for a visit yesterday. We spent the morning at my house and then we went to lunch (with my other granddaughter who had a birthday yesterday and my son) at my favorite restaurant. Then we walked around the corner to the second favorite place and I got a chocolate soda to go. I was surprised how many people I talk to who don't know what an ice cream soda is. I come from the time period of soda fountains in the drugstores and this was always my favorite. Now very few places around here make sodas.
I was the winner of the last day drawing last week at Vicki Welsh's blog. The prize was 4 yards of beautiful hand dyed fabric (these are 2 yards each, 1 yard of each showing in the photo) and 10 yards of Mistyfuse. You might want to follow her blog and maybe you will win some fabric sometime. She has lots of great links to tutorials and has a shop where she sells the hand dyed fabric as well as hand made soap and glass items. She has just created a new website that includes all of it.
I have been looking at this Viburnum bloom from my kitchen window and finally went out to take a photo of it. There is always just one branch that has the blooms on it.
I only tried one fabric as a border (if I am going to border it). My idea was that a light border would continue the light triangles out to the edge and all of the darker areas would look like they are floating. This Kaffe fabric has a light gray background so it is as neutral as I can get. I know it is hard to get the idea whether it works when it is only on parts of 2 sides.
I had errands to run and planting to do so I didn't get back down to the basement. The fuchsia flowers are wave petunias. I haven't had luck with them in the past draping over the edge of the planter. We'll see if it works this year.
The lime green plant in these 2 planters is a new to me variety of sweet potato. It is already draping over the edge. All of the rest of the plants are Coleus.
The porch is looking like summer is coming. I love pots on the steps.
The third pot up is my geraniums from last year. I just pulled them out of the pots and set them all in a cardboard box in my heated garage for the winter. They had some green leaves and even a couple flowers during the winter. A couple weeks ago I pulled off all of the dead leaves and put the plants in a pail with water in the bottom so the roots could re-hydrate. They all got new leaves and one bud is ready to open. I decided to just plant them all in one pot and see what happens.
All I have left to plant is this tray of tiny Coleus. Maybe I'll plant some in the ground this year.
I spent a few hours cleaning up files on my computer. After that I didn't want to work on a big project so I just sewed 2 triangles together into squares.
The next time I get an idea for a quilt made of triangles I will have a large number of them already sewn.
It warmed up enough yesterday afternoon to finally plant the tomato plants. There are six in the raised bed and a grape tomato plant in the white pot. It is going to still be cooler than normal this week but it sounds like the rest of May might be back to normal.
Last week I cleaned out 2 drawers in a cabinet in the basement and these leftover pieces were in one of them. They are from a project about 3 years ago. I started playing with them to see what I could make with them.
I finally decided to just make mug rugs from them. The six on the right have all of the same fabric group in each of them. The 3 on the left have mixed groups. They aren't masterpieces by any means but they will look better when they have some matching fabric binding on them.
I am much happier with this quilt top with the extra rows added on. It is now 66" x 88". In the last few days I had to search through my Kaffe fabrics for 37 more pieces of fabric, press the fold marks out, cut a strip off each, cut a square off each strip and cut that in half diagonally for the 37 triangles I needed. Now I have that huge pile of fabric to put away. This is what makes my quilts unique. There are 384 different Kaffe Fassett fabrics in this top. I had one duplicate piece which I took out. Now I have one more decision; do I want to put a border on it and make it twin size rather than leaving it as a large couch quilt? I know some people would consider this twin size now but I like the quilts to come down far enough to cover the metal frame and also cover the pillows.
I got three of the 6 blocks sewn yesterday and also pulled all of the rest of the fabrics to finish the last three.
We got more rain late afternoon into evening yesterday. Now we have enough and maybe a little too much. It will be cold over the weekend again so I'm waiting until next week to plant my tomatoes.
