On the left is the X block piece and on the right is the original signature piece from a Studio die. I actually got a quote from Accuquilt for making the die for the piece on the left in 2 sizes. It was a little more than I expected and I couldn't order it at the time but I told them they should consider making it in several sizes because it was a wanted shape for many blocks including the Kansas Dugout block.
Fast forward to their new product a couple years ago. The QUBE came in 4 blocks sizes. When they went on sale at the end of last year I purchased a couple sizes. They ended up taking out the Drunkard's Patch dies and put in Bow tie dies in the new packages. So now I know why they had them at half price to get rid of the original packages. This is not the size I'm using in the blocks, it is from the 8" package. When I bought the ones on sale they were called Classics. Now they call the new package Corners.
This one from the 8" package makes a 4" finished block when you add two 2" finished triangles on the sides. That was perfect for my 10" X and + blocks. I can use the thinner GO! dies on my Studio cutter with an adapter that raises them to the right height. I can cut 10 layers with Studio dies and 6 layers with a GO! die.
I will post my June recap tomorrow.
I sewed piles of pieces for the X part of the blocks. I now have to cut the + pieces and make blocks. I am cutting these pieces with GO! dies on my Studio die cutter with the adapter.
I had my last physical therapy session for my shoulder yesterday. I now have a full range of motion and no pain. This is the first time I have ever gone to PT. Now I just have to continue doing the exercises to keep the shoulder strong and hopefully never injure it again.
This quilt pattern is in Karla Alexander's Color Shuffle book and she named it Out of Line. When she designed the ruler to go along with it she called it Straight Out of Line. I made one of these with Kaffe fabrics using just the directions in the book and then made this one using the ruler. The angle is deeper with the ruler. It ended up at 61" x 86".
I had planned a different backing fabric that had a creamy background but then I found I had enough of this fabric with a white background ant it looks much better. I usually have trouble with the camera making all of the purples blue but this time the color is true.
Here is a better look at the backing fabric. All photos will enlarge twice if you click on them.
I started on a new project over a week ago but I wanted it to be something new for my art quilters to see before I put it on the blog. On Pinterest I saw some x and + blocks with all the same light background. When I made my first quilt of this pattern I used both dark and light backgrounds. This method makes a grid pattern on top of a background.
Here is the first one I made and I finished it in 2015. It looks more scrappy with both dark and light background triangles and my eye wants to stop and look at every individual block. In the new version I have started my eye goes to the overall grid rather than to each block.
You can see I'm using all Kaffe Fassett collective prints for the dark and medium fabrics and a very nice black on white script fabric for the light triangles.
I have the final borders sewn on Sunlight in the Forest. You may or may not remember the inspiration quilt and name come from a quilt in Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Sweden. I only had 7 of the 15 fabrics he used in his quilt so I improvised with my Kaffe collective stash. It is 69" x 87" right now.
After the art quilters left I worked on the hand sewing of the binding on the purple quilt I quilted last week. I have 2 sides done now and a start on the third one.
Here is a view from my dining room window last week on one of the rainy days. The 2 red spots on the left are the short Asiatic lilies and the purple to the right is the compact Beebalm. There is a path made of bark that goes around the back of this tree. 2 of the Columbines are in front of the tree with their seed pods where the blooms had been. Diantus is in front too and had bloomed for almost 2 months and it will rebloom again.
I have had the borders cut for several days and just kept putting off the sewing part. Of course it didn't take long to sew them on. I have the second borders ready to put on too.
I mowed the grass in 2 sessions yesterday afternoon. It was a little hotter than I thought it would be.
It is black raspberry time again. I picked these 2 days ago and have been out to pick twice since then. I baked cookies for the art quilters so for my evening meal I had 3 cookies and a dish of ice cream with raspberries on top. They say life is short eat dessert first. Instead I took it one step farther and all I ate was dessert.
I decided to do the binding all by machine on the Australian triangles quilt so it became a finish faster. It ended up 57.5" x 79" after quilting. I'm usually trying for something near 60" x 80" for my throw quilts; long enough for a tall person and wide enough to wrap up in.
I have started on the hand sewing of the purple binding. I have part of one short side done. This one is 61" x 88" so it could be thrown over a twin bed as an extra cover.
I noticed the one Coral Bell plant has many different color leaves. So pretty!
I decided that the binding for the Australian triangle quilt should be one of the prints that didn't work well in the quilt. In this case this one just looked like gray and didn't add anything to the piecing.
I think it will look great as a binding.
It looks good with the backing fabric too.
This was my alternate choice. It was neither a light nor a dark when I tried to use it in piecing the triangles so it didn't get used. It would make a good binding too but I think I might find another use for it where the other print was just going to sit on the shelf forever.
I have a cute little baby bunny who is trying to eat all of the clover and weeds in the grass. He is nestled right in there with the gray rocks.
He finally came out a little farther to reach the next batch of pclover.
We ended up with another 2" of rain from 9 p.m. Thursday night to 11 a.m. yesterday. That is 3.5" in a little over 24 hours. Finally we are going to get a few dry days before the next batch of rain on Tuesday.
I didn't bother to set the timer yesterday for my one hour on an older project. The day was broken up by appointments so I just worked on things when I had time. In the morning it was my pacemaker nurse appointment where she downloads 6 months of information from my pacemaker. She can pinpoint to the day and hour when I had heartbeats that were irregular which was only twice in 6 months this time. She also can tweak the way the pacemaker works so she did something that will possibly give me a little more energy.
I quilted the Australian triangle quilt last night.
I did lines around an inch apart, some a little more, some less than 1" apart.
You can see the overall effect better in this photo. Now I have two to do binding on. The art quilters are coming Monday so first I need to sort and put away all of the stuff I have on the tables in the basement and do the vacuuming. I will work on the bindings a little at a time which makes it not so boring.
The Veronica is starting to show more color in the blooms. For some reason I thought they were going to be purple.
I don't remember if this will bloom all summer or not. It was a new plant last year and I don't think I have ever had one of these before.
It rained off and on all day yesterday. I had a little over and inch and a half in my rain guage. We got a nice rain Tuesday too so I shouldn't have to water anything for several days and the weeds will pull out easily.
During my one hour working on an older project I loaded another backing and batting on the longarm. Then I cut a border for a quilt and sewed the binding on the purple quilt. I didn't start the hand stitching yet. On new projects I sewed one more strata for my Kaffe Trip Around the World. I now have 4 of 5 stratas sewn.
Later in the early evening I went out for my weed pulling session. I went back in for my camera when I saw that the other Asiatic lilies are getting ready to open.
I was looking for the fourth plant and finally found it under a few volunteer Redbud trees. Now I know the color of the last 2 plants. I cut a bunch more volunteer trees out of the flower beds and deadheaded a lot of the peonies. Then I planted a couple more pots with the last of the plants I bought a few weeks ago. It is supposed to rain quite a bit for the next 2 days so I probably won't get any more weeds pulled until the weekend.
In my one hour of working on an older quilt, I got this quilt off the longarm and trimmed and I cut the binding. The camera says the binding is blue but it is really a purple leaning to the red/purple side. I also pressed 2 border fabrics.
It has cooled off but the humidity was 100% last night at 10 p.m. I got the lawn mowed in 2 sessions yesterday afternoon. While out there I noticed the compact Beebalm is in full bloom now.
I love the shaggy blooms. Maybe I'll find another one in a different color on clearance this year.
And just because I like them so much, here are 3 more with lots of partial blooms in the background.
Yes I did spend a little more than an hour quilting this but it is the timer's fault. I have this little clip on timer which I set for one hour. I bumped into it at one point and heard it beep and looked and it had added 2 minutes on. What I didn't know is that I had to hit the start button AGAIN after that so I just unclipped it and quilted.
I just did a large meander which goes rather quickly so now it is ready to come off the machine and be trimmed. I'll look for binding today.
I went out last night to cut more volunteer trees out of the flower beds and I always check the tomatoes while I am out. First I noticed the one on the left that is just starting to turn and I knew I had to pick it before the squirrels did. Then I looked at the plants along my driveway and there was one almost fully turned. They are very small but I think the later ones will be larger. It hasn't been a good start for the tomatoes with the 2 sessions of 90 degree days already in the growing season. They don't like that kind of heat.
I decided that the no guilt way to start a new project is to set a timer for 1 hour and work toward finishing some quilt. When the buzzer goes off the rest of the day can be spent on a new project. I did some creative piecing on a backing and got it pressed and rolled onto the longarm.
Then I cut some other pieces to try for the insert in the border of Sunlight in the Forest in case I want to do it like Kaffe did. I don't have either of the fabrics he used. I'm still not sure on this one but the buzzer went off and I went on to spend a few hours cutting for a new project.
This pot in front of my garage is so pretty.
The Stello D'oro daylilies continue to bloom in a front flower bed. One more day of intense heat and then some relief but still very warm. I hope we get some of the rain they are predicting for tonight into Tuesday.
In addition to the Sunlight in the Forest awaiting borders, the 2 quilts above are also waiting. The butterfly quilt just needs a border of the same background fabric and the other one has its border fabric next to it. I don't have to make any decisions, I just need to cut the fabric and sew it on.
This one from 2016 is also waiting for a border but I have to decide what it is going to be on this one. I'm sure if I looked through the tops on hangers I might find another that is waiting for borders too.
And then there are all of the quilts waiting to be quilted. So what do I want to do? Start another quilt of course.
If you look at this photo long enough you will see 4 tall milkweed plants all around the hydrangea bush. They are all in bloom but no Monarch butterflies around them yet.
Only about half of the new perennials I planted last year survived the winter. This one is a compact Beebalm. It is only about 12" tall and just starting to bloom. Neither of the coneflowers came up. I have good luck with the native purple coneflowers, just not with the fancy nursery ones in other colors.
I only sewed one seam yesterday but I did a lot of other things: laundry, 30 minute brisk walk ending with shopping at the store - I don't want them to think I just come there to walk. It is very hot with tropical humidity here now but I went out and cut volunteer trees and 4' tall Burdock weeds down. At night I knit a little and I finished this dishcloth that used up the ends of 7 balls of yarn.
The Asiatic lilies are the dwarf variety that only get about 12" tall but have a bunch of blooms on top of each. This one still has more buds.
This view shows the 2 plants that are blooming. The other 2 are still tight buds so I'm still not sure what color. When I bought them at the end of summer last year on clearance they had already bloomed so I had no idea what colors I was getting. I need to clean out the violets and Creeping Charlie in this area but we are expecting extreme heat for the next 3 days and tropical humidity all 3 days too. I try to pull a few weeds every day.
I usually pull out this plant because I think it is a weed but I decided to let it bloom this year and then I'll pull it. It is a small plant. The leaves to the right are Sedum and the one to the top left is a coral bell with big leaves.
