I chose 6 more combinations for 16 patch blocks and cut the strips. I started sewing them last night but didn't get blocks made. I pulled a muscle in my upper arm yesterday so I decided not to overdo it.
I went out searching for any sign of spring. We had a cold March so there isn't much coming up. I did see the first peony poking out.
One of my many Sedums was also starting to grow. It is on the west side of the house so it gets the warmer afternoon sun.
What is plentiful is this nuisance plant, wild onion is one name because the root of every blade is like a tiny onion. It is almost impossible to get rid of and I have about 30 clumps of it here and there in the back gardens.
This is one of the early Cranesbill plants that I uncovered last week. It doesn't look like much now but it fills a good size area eventually. I want to mention my current pop-up shop is down to the last 2 days closing tomorrow night at midnight EST. Why do I mention it so much? Because there are some people who only read my blog once a week and I don't know which day of the week. I don't want them to miss seeing it. There won't be any finishes for March this year. I will look tomorrow to see if there is anything to report as a recap.
I decided that before I make any more blocks I needed to check out all of the ones I had made so far. I can see I have enough with light fabric in them and need more low contrast blocks.
I looked through my Philip Jacobs large flower fabrics and decided to cut this orange background fabric with lots of pink flowers, both light and dark pink. I need to make a lot more red, pink, and orange 16 patch blocks. I think each large flower block needs 4 red/pink/orange 16 patch blocks touching it. Just today, tomorrow and Sunday and the pop-up shop closes.
I was gone all morning yesterday and when I got home I needed to bake a requested treat for a family member. Late in the day I got some 3" strips cut to make a couple more 16 patch blocks.
These are the bonus 4 patches made with the remainder of the strips. Three of these fabrics are older Kaffe's and the wild one is a newer one. There are still some batik fabric packs left in my pop-up shop as well as other items. The shop will close midnight EST Sunday.
Off and on last week I was looking for the box with the Kaffe triangles in it and yesterday I found it! Back in 2010 before I had a die cutter I rotary cut 6.5" squares and cut them in half diagonally. I made at least 3 quilt tops (2 of them were sold) and I knew there were some leftover triangles.
It is hard to cut the squares exactly on the diagonal so there was always a little variance in the size of the triangles. I decided to take the leftovers to my Studio die cutter and cut a 5" finished triangle out of them, 10 layers deep. You can see there was very little waste.
I love having the corners already nipped off for me.
In another box I have 5" finished squares which will work with the triangle squares.
I made 3 more 16 patch blocks for that quilt. I have a total of 32 now. They are 10" finished so they work with all of the above too.
There are some bonus 4 patches too and they are also 5" finished.
I chose one older fabric and two newer Kaffe fabrics for these blocks. The light color in both blocks is from one piece of fabric. There were horizontal bands of stem and leaves and another band of blooms.
I continue to knit dishcloths and finished 3 this month and started another. It was up to 50 degrees today so I went outside and did some leaf removal. In the fall I had restricted arm movement after my pacemaker surgery so I didn't get any of my leaves raked. They were thick on the flower beds and matted together so I did some cleaning up in the areas of the earliest plants. The Cranesbill is already growing.
I sewed on several things yesterday. First I sewed neckbands on 12 extra small preemie gowns. Then I gathered all of the half units of the Hunter Star off a design wall in the basement.
I sewed all of them together to make the quarter blocks. I probably won't put them back up on a design wall until I get some more sewn.
Next I cut some of the newer Kaffe Fassett fabric into 3" strips to make more blocks for that quilt.
Here is the second one I made. I only get one block and some 4 patches out of two 3" strips whereas I get 2 blocks when I use 2.5" strips. White Eagle, you are a NO REPLY. To answer your question: to sign up for my email list there is a form on my right sidebar or here is the link to sign up. You will receive a reply so you can confirm that you want to be signed up. If you don't receive it, check your junk/spam folder.
Yesterday was the last day to visit with my granddaughter's family before they move. They will leave this morning with a U-Haul truck pulling a trailer and the SUV for the 7 hour drive. I baked one more batch of Kringlas for them to take on the trip. When I got home from the last visit I looked for an easy project to sew and decided to keep working on the flannel preemie quilt tops. After getting these 3 done I now have 5 to put backings on and quilt along the seam lines and edge with a row of serger stitching.
This is what I was doing from noon Thursday to noon yesterday. A lot of fabric is on its way to the new owners. If you didn't check out the pop-up shop, it is open for everyone now. Click here to go to my website. Pop-up shop is a link at the top to click on.
Later in the day a friend showed me a new layout for Hunter Star so I had to try it with my scrappy blocks. I think this is the way I will make this one since I have a stack of squares already cut and only need to add some light ones. This will just be a throw quilt.
Last night I just wanted a project to relax with so I sorted all of the 3.5" flannel squares that I cut a couple weeks ago and then grouped them into piles of 48.
I couldn't resist sewing the first one. They will turn out a little under 18" x 24" when finished. They will be donated by my church to the preemie ward at a nearby hospital.
Back in February my daughter sent me this screen shot from my grandson's (Zach Burkhart) Vimeo site. It shows that my video has been viewed 20,400 times....wow....I'm a movie star! That is pretty exciting for little old me from a small town in the cornfields of Illinois. Go here and here for my grandson's video business websites (business co-founded with Dominic Sansotta). He does amazing creations for major big corporations as well as very impressive wedding videos. I am honored that he did my video 6 years ago. We didn't do a practice run.....he just said start talking. He edited it and added music..........I am so impressed with his talent. If you haven't seen my video it is available on my website now instead of on this blog. Here is a link to the site. Yesterday my website had visitors from every state in the US and 5 continents by 6:30 p.m. Thank you everyone!! This is amazing, this internet that connects all of us.
Today at noon EST my new pop-up shop will open with a password for everyone on the mailing list. Everyone else can visit it starting tomorrow at noon EST without a password. I know I have a lot of readers who admire my quilts made with batik fabrics. Some of them are pictured above. Some people call them scrap quilts but I don't necessarily use all scraps. I do cut off yardage too because my favorite quilts are made with around 100 or more different fabrics. All I need is a small amount of each fabric but I keep adding fabrics as I get bored with the assortment I start with. Many of my readers also admire my stash.........and wish they had a great selection of batiks too.
That is how I came up with the idea to make this a reality for many of you. I made stash builder packs of fat eighths (9" x 21-22") that are available in this pop-up shop. That is a large enough piece to cut the pieces you need for a block. So....I did the shopping for you, then washed all of the batiks with pure soap (no fragrance) and ironed them, then cut them into fat eighths and sorted them into groups. I hope you enjoy shopping and will find a group that pleases you.
You may have noticed I haven't been doing much sewing lately. It is because my daughter and I have been working frantically to finalize details, take photos, write descriptions for a pop-up shop that will open tomorrow noon. If you are on the mailing list you should get an email today telling you about it. In the photo: my pale pink cactus is still going strong. It has bloomed many times this winter. Some of my other plants haven't bloomed at all so I am really thankful for this prolific bloomer.
I have one last bud opening on the orange cactus. I won't give up hope though that some of the others might still set buds and bloom in April.
I'm still looking for a box full of Kaffe triangles so I'm looking through many boxes. One contained this assortment of 16 patches that I had been playing with in 2015. Here is the post where I was trying them out alternating with a large Kaffe print. I couldn't resist putting them up on the design wall one more time looking for inspiration. I have purchased a lot of his newer prints since 2015 so I could play with a new variety. There are some Martha Negley prints in these blocks too. Spring officially starts somewhere around 11 a.m. today and it is cold. I'm still waiting for the spring that has warmer temperatures. We are going to be below normal all week. I guess I have to be happy that it means there is more sewing time before yard work.
The two little great-grandsons entertained us again. The littlest one is 1 1/2 years old. His mom asked him if he wanted a Kringla and he looked up at me and smiled. He knows where they come from. I found some time to sew a fourth block with the Australian fabrics. I made the first 3 in March 2014. I just found the pieces for a 4th block in a box so I sewed it. I was going to use the first 3 in a table runner but now I think I will use all 4 of these and try to do a medallion quilt.
I also looked for binding fabric for this quilt and I wanted it a little darker than the sashing. I think this one looks pretty good.
We had an icy mix overnight into yesterday morning. This is the Forsythia outside my kitchen window.
When I went out to get my mail I saw the Goldmound Spirea bush was covered in ice too. Our temperature was just at freezing overnight and then warmed into the morning.
It is pretty to look at and nice that it didn't last long.
One of the batiks that I found in the green stack was this one with huge motifs.
Each one is slightly different in shape and color.
I have a yard of it so there are more of them. I must have bought this several years ago since it isn't the type I buy now.
For the first time ever I am going to make a quilt that is in a Kaffe Fassett book with the exact same fabrics as it is shown. A friend and I are going to work on them together. I am waiting for one more piece of fabric that I don't have enough of and she has ordered the ones that were missing from her stash. I will change the size a little though. It is only 4" longer than it is wide and I want a little more of a rectangular shape. That means I need to elongate the center rectangle and then re-figure how many strips need to be cut of each fabric.
I was looking for some triangles that are in a box in the basement and didn't find them but found another box with flannel pieces cut into 6" tumblers and bricks. I was disappointed to see that I didn't put a note in the box with how many of each I had cut. I know I was going to use them together something like this layout but I'll need to count and figure out a size before I start designing it on a double design wall.
I was going through green batiks yesterday and here are some of the mottles I found.
This is 2 pieces side by side that I think were probably the same order number but were obviously from 2 different bolts painted by different people.
This is one of my favorites. It is richer looking than the photo shows. I have 2 pieces of it also and they are obviously from different bolts too. This is the prettiest of the two.
Remember these blocks? It has been awhile since I showed them and they were in a spot with poor lighting. I decided to separate the blue and purple blocks out like a border and auditioned a few fabrics for the 1" strip. I'm not positive now that the bright pink was the best choice but it is going to stay. I think the binding needs to be the same color but a darker shade.
Here are three mottled batiks that I found yesterday. I really need to come up with a project that will use a lot of them.
I was about half done cutting the squares for more preemie quilts on Sunday so I decided to just go for it and cut ALL of the scraps. The box is EMPTY! I have enough 3.5" squares cut for 14 little quilts with 48 pieces each. The bag behind them is all of the scraps ready for someone who makes dog beds. I also pieced 9 backings from larger strips and I have a enough yardage for 3 more backings.
Last night I was back at going through my batik yardage and pulled more mottled batiks. I still have to do my greens, purples, browns, oranges and yellows. We had a little mini whiteout yesterday but didn't end up with any accumulating snow. Chicago however got 2 - 3" in several areas.
Yesterday morning I finished 3 of the preemie quilts and delivered them to my church sewing circle. I forgot to take photos of the finishes. I was exhausted after my afternoon out (driving through 3 construction zones each way in the 23 miles) so I didn't work on any projects last night. Instead I took piles of batiks off the shelves and went through them one at a time and pulled out most of the mottled fabrics.
This one is a little deeper toned than it looks in a photo.
This one is one of my very favorites.
This one has a more spread out design than most of the others.
There were a few like this that are more consistent in one color range and will be easier to cut up and use. I love my stash! Pure entertainment right here in my house after the stores are all closed for the day.
