Friday, November 11, 2016

And more cutting............

I went to a sew-in again yesterday and did some more cutting.  The two trays in front and the little piles next to them are all of the cutting from the last two Thursdays.  The trays behind them are the collection that I had cut earlier this year.  I pulled out my empty trays and sorted all of it by color and value and now have 14 trays of sorted rectangles, finished size 1.5" x 3".  Here (scroll to bottom of that post) is the colorwash that I made with this size rectangles.

This box contains all of the rectangle cuts.  The ones in the bottom of the box are 3" x 6" finished size and I used them when I made the colorwash church banner last year.  The 2 sets of trays on top are 2" x 4" finished and the pile of trays on the left is regular print cottons and the trays on the right are batiks. Here is a post where I showed several quilts I made with rectangles.
Thanks for all of the comments yesterday with opinions for the orientation of this batik colorwash made with squares.  This is the way it will be finished.  I mentioned I wanted the last seams to be vertical and that is because I ditch quilt in just one direction on most of the smaller colorwash wallhangings and I want that stitching in the vertical direction.  This keeps the ditch on the same side all the way from top to bottom.  If I stitch in the other direction the ditch will change position at every intersection.  If you have never done ditch quilting (or any quilting) you might not understand this so try it on a small piece and you will understand.
I'm linking to Scraptastic Tuesday a few days late.  Check out what everyone else is doing.

There were only 2 buds on this Christmas Cactus and one has finally bloomed.






This is the same bloom head on while I'm kneeling on the floor to take the photo.

11 comments:

Gene Black said...

Does ditch quilting vertically give a better presentation because of the way it reflects light?

Annie said...

The Christmas cactus flowers are beautiful. I love all your cutting...it's motivating me to cut some of mine up.

MontyBear said...

Great question from Gene. I'd like to know the answer too.

And this year is a banner year for the blooms on my Christmas cactus.

Mary said...

The colors in your blooms are so vibrant!

Linda Swanekamp said...

You keep squares and rectangles sorted! Wow, I am having a long time just filing the cut squares. The colorwash is stunning. One of my Christmas cactus is in full bore bloom, the soonest it ever bloomed. Thanks for showing the trays and the sorting.

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

you have been busy cutting for sure. Love your colorwash layout. My two Christmas cactus refuse to bloom have had them both for several years now - tried everything every one has mentioned - I will just look at the plants now and give up trying for blooms!

Needled Mom said...

I always love seeing your cactus flowers with their vibrant colors.

Nicky said...

Love the complexity of your colourwash arrangement from such simplicity of those rectangles and squares! Thanks for linking up to #scraptastictuesday

Anonymous said...

Lovely blossoms. Love your final decision on the orientation. Yes, please answer Gene's question on your blog. There are so many good questions and I'd love to see your responses to them all.

Tu-Na Quilts said...

Wow! You sure have been busy cutting! My Christmas Cactus started blooming two weeks ago and is covered. It will be dropping blooms before Thanksgiving this year. It's a tish early.

Sally Langston Warren said...

Maybe yours is a Thanksgiving cactus, although a bit early.