Two friends who I hadn't seen since November came over to sew yesterday. While they worked on their projects I worked on the final cutting of the half hexagons with my GO die on the Studio die cutter. I cut 32 fabrics into 86 more pieces so now I have a total of 321 pieces. If my calculations are right I could make a quilt 81" x 104" with them. That means I couldn't fit all of the pieces on a double design wall. I think I will separate out one piece of each fabric, design that section and sew it and then repeat until I have enough sections for the whole quilt.
Last night while I had 3 hours of TV to watch I decided to try a Kaffe colorwash with the 200 pieces I have already cut. It is too choppy in several areas so I have to decide whether to dismantle it until I have more cut or specifically search for the fabrics to make it work and cut them next. It is the end of the month and I have only finished one very small project this month. I'll have to decide today whether I can finish anything else by midnight tonight or whether I really care if I do or not.
I added another 99 plaid and stripe half hexagons cut with my GO die on my Studio die cutter so I have 235 cut so far out of 64 fabrics. There are anywhere from 1 to 8 pieces from each fabric with most of the fabrics having 4 pieces. I have another 30 fabrics that I need to press and cut today. A couple of the plaids are from the 1970s and a few are Thimbleberry plaids from the 1990s. The majority however are the Roberta Horton fabrics from the 1990's.
There was a good size piece left after cutting 4 half hexagons so I cut 2.5" squares out of them.
Then I sorted them by color. I have seen a colorwash done with plaids but I don't have a good enough variety to do that.
I cut 61 more half hexagons with my GO die on the Studio die cutter yesterday. When I brought them upstairs to lay them with the others the sun was shining through the west windows. It almost felt like spring yesterday but this is northern IL and I'm sure we will see a little more winter. I have more fabrics pressed ready to cut today.
Isn't this a beautiful batik? I had to have a half yard of it. I have no idea what I will do with it other than smile every time I look at it.
As I was looking through the huge blanket box for plaid scraps mixed in with yardage I decided to cut another quilt. I think the half hexagons cut with my GO die on my Studio cutter is the way to go. I have only cut 78 so far and I need over 200 so this will be an ongoing project. Here is the post where I show the half hexagon quilt made with Kaffe fabrics. That one is a large couch quilt but I want this one to be twin size or larger. I think I will leave out all of the plaids with white in them but I have a lot more bright colors to add. More than half of the fabrics are the old Roberta Horton plaids and stripes from the 1990s.
I didn't really work on any specific project yesterday. I did a lot of picking up and putting away of stuff on the tables in the basement. I can make such a mess. I have been knitting a little more in the evenings while catching a few events on the Olympics, mostly ice skating.I have knitted all of these since I showed the last batch on January 15th.
While I was eating lunch I noticed this crow strutting through the back garden. They very rarely come into my yard so they are a novelty. I really don't want the whole tribe here though. They are such noisy birds.
I like a project to unwind with after a busy day. Last night it was sorting scraps from a zippered bag. I will be giving a crazy piecing workshop here in Sandwich IL on April 21 and I promised I would have scrap bags to sell. I divided this bagful into 4 groups, itty bitty, short strips, long strips and not strips (odd shapes). This is the group that was leftovers after cutting this log cabin quilt top. On that post I talked about the backing but I ended up selling it as a top.
Here are the rest of the plaids and stripes that are lightweight (not flannel or heavier homespuns). I know there are more scraps mixed in with the big pieces. That sounds like another unwind project, looking through all of it.
I pulled out my boxes of strips that are cut from Kaffe Fassett fabrics to choose a few to try the piano keys border for the butterfly quilt. I pulled just partial strips out.
I put a few strips up there to simulate a piano key border. I don't think I like it so I might just choose one of the large prints from the collection and do a border with it. Maybe one of his dotted fabrics would look nice.
I decided to try making colorwashes out of just cool colors and just warm color fabrics. The smaller pieces are harder to design than large ones but I thought they came out pretty good. I might have to design a larger one of each out of my collection of 1000+ different fabrics cut into 2.5" squares.
Two weeks ago I posted a photo of the pieces of the quilt on the right pinned on a piece of flannel since 1996. Yesterday I got out the Bakers Dozen Doubled quilt (on left) that I made in the late 1980s. The one on the right is made the same way, designing each round as you go. I have quite a bit of several of the fabrics in it so I don't know how big it will become.
I pinned the only fabric in the group that I haven't used yet down in the bottom corner. I'll look at this for a couple days before I decide what I'm going to add.
Yesterday afternoon I sewed on the rest of the sashing strips and then sewed the Kaffe butterfly quilt top together. The border on the pattern is big chunks of Kaffe fabric. I thought maybe piano keys would work but it may be too busy.
Last night I started sewing a colorwash wallhanging.
I took another photo of the orange cactus on top of the desk and got it in focus this time. Our warm up (50s) starts today so the snow should melt fast. Tomorrow might hit 60 and then we go back down to the 30s again for 2 days.
We have had a few days of melting snow and then yesterday the snow came down with big flakes for a couple hours. The roads melted off quickly and it is supposed to be 60 and rain by Tuesday. This looked like the snowman building type of snow the way it built up on all of the tree branches and on this Rose of Sharon bush outside my kitchen window. Our previous snows were light and fluffy because it was so cold when it snowed.
My inside garden is still blooming though and froggy is taking care of my orange cactus. The one on top of the desk is blooming too but my photo was blurry so I can't show it.
My favorite pink one has a bloom and a bud ready to open soon plus some more buds on the other side that will open later in the week. There are only 10 more days left in February so I had better choose a quilt top to finish into a quilt before the deadline.
I have some of the sashing strips sewn on but the blocks aren't sewn together in rows yet. I did a little rearranging of the butterflies and think this is the final layout but just in case I change my mind I'll wait to sew the rows. The corner squares will be a little smaller once the rows are sewn together.
I'm looking through boxes in the basement again and I found this project that was started over 15 years ago.
It is paper pieced and here is the pattern. All of the printed papers came in the package. I was making my star points with 9 pieces instead of the 16 on the pattern.
Since I started it so long ago the batik collection I was using is also older and the newer batiks might be hard to mix in without being obvious. I counted the pieces I have sewn and I can make 8 points with just 4 pieces per point. If I want to make a larger star later with newer fabrics I have the printed pieces there in the package. I think the odds of me ever wanting to make another one are pretty slim though.
I can finally reveal the secret project I was working on. My friend has received it and she was totally surprised which is what I planned to happen. I made this one with 2" squares instead of my usual 2.5" squares. A few days ago I mentioned going through my batik scraps looking for the perfect pieces and this is the project they were for. It is just under 17" square. It is for my friend Diane who convinced me I should have a blog 10 1/2 years ago. She showed me some basics and then emailed me with suggestions in the first few weeks of my posting. Her friendship means a lot to me and I wanted her to have her very own colorwash quilt to enjoy.
I showed the back a few days ago when I talked about the folded squares at the corners to use for hanging. I didn't have the label on or the binding finished in the photo that day.
I quilted this one in the ditch in both directions with 4 different colors of Invisifil thread.
I had a busy day yesterday so I only got the sashing cut. I put a few strips up around the top left block to see how it is going to look with the spacing. Hopefully I will be able to make a decision on the corner squares today.
I hung this quilt on a backdrop stand so my niece could take a photo of it. I decided to take one too since most others that I have of it are too dark. This was taken with natural light from an east picture window. I have shown it and its story before in this post. It is also in this post with a picture of the book it is in.
I finished the last butterfly blocks last night. I think this is the final layout but I won't know for sure until I get the sashing strips sewn on. The pattern is shown here. It looks like they used the butterfly body fabric for the corner squares but I think I'll go with something more colorful. The fabrics are mostly Kaffe Fassett's and a few Brandon Mably's. I don't usually watch all of the winter Olympics but I had to watch Shaun White.....and what a treat it was!!
This is the first time I have used the squares folded into triangles as the hanging method on a small quilt. They are on all 4 corners so the rod can be placed on any edge. This way the recipient can decide which edge is top. I am still sewing the binding in place in this photo with about half of one edge to go.
I chose the pairs of Kaffe collective fabrics for the final four butterflies.
Two of them are sewn but not pressed. I will finish the other two today and then decide the order of the blocks on the design wall. If you are wondering about the pattern it is shown here.
We got another 4.5" of snow overnight Saturday into Sunday. It looks like it is just about ready to slide off the squirrel baffle on top of the bird feeder. Since Friday we have had about 14.5" of snow and there was already some on the ground from previous storms earlier in the week. Luckily there is snow removal equipment here in the north. I quilted the project yesterday that I am gifting and can't show yet. Then I had some computer work to do and then the day was over.
I cut out two more butterflies but before I could sew I had to wind some more neutral color bobbins.
This is the first butterfly with a Kaffe cabbage print for the upper wings and a Brandon Mably dotty fabric for the lower wings.
I used this upper wing fabric in another butterfly but had an extra set of large rectangles cut so I paired it with a different fabric for the lower wings. The large print has so many different flowers and leaves that the 2 butterflies don't really look alike.
I have 16 done, four to go. I'm going to see if there are any other colors I can use to finish. We got another inch of snow early yesterday morning and the last big batch of snow is supposed to come this morning. One prediction said 2.5". The other one said 4.5".
This is the view out of the kitchen window. The snow dome is on top of a squirrel baffle above my bird feeder. I measured 9.5" in my driveway at 2 p.m. just before my snow plow guy got there to clear it. That was 6.5" overnight into yesterday morning and the next 3" was during the morning and early afternoon yesterday.
The coneflower seed heads have snow cones on them.
I always leave my Sedum flowers over the winter and clean up in the spring. They always look like mushrooms.
I broke 2 pieces off one of my cacti one night last spring and put them in water. The other piece bloomed in December. Now this piece which doesn't even look that healthy is going to bloom.
This is the mama plant. The other broken off piece bloomed when this one bloomed in December and now the second piece is blooming at the same time as the big plant. It is almost as if there is a timer in the plant. This is the third blooming for this plant. My living room rarely has any lights on in it at night and the daylight is from the east so it seems to be a perfect combination for setting buds. I also have my heat turned back to 58 at night and I think they like that.
I'm working on a gift that I can't show until it is gifted and I needed to look for certain colors in the batik scrap bin. There is a wide variety of sizes of scraps in there.
I turned the stack up on edge to see the colors better. I always stack my scraps neatly and most of the time don't need to press them again to use them. I found all the pieces I needed and put the bin away.
I try to work on this cutting project at least 2 days each week. It is my Kaffe fabrics and I started with #1 and am up to #83 and I have them sorted by color in these trays. There is one section that is just multicolor. I am only cutting prints that are small to medium and skipping all of the larger prints. Since his fabric numbers up in the 160s now I guess I am almost half done. His new fabric for spring will come out in April so I better keep at this. The big snowstorm is supposed to start near midnight tonight and last for 24-30 hours. If it shifts north or south we could get less than the 8" they are predicting for us.
