Lots of progress................

A new needle finally made it into my longarm machine after days trying to avoid doing it.  I loaded this solids and prints Star quilt and got it quilted.  The thread broke 3 times but it is the So Fine which I hadn't had any luck with for a couple months, with it breaking 5 or 6 times while quilting a small quilt.  I may try adjusting the position of the needle and see if the next one goes even smoother.

I decided one loop in each square would be an easy way to quilt it.

I used a beige thread so it shows better on this block.

After I finished quilting I cut the binding for Charley in the Forest, sewed it on the quilt and got 85" hand stitched last night.  This one will take me at least 3 more days to finish.

 

One more fabric............

I found another Kaffe print in the same red/orange as the button fabric for a possible choice for binding. I have to check all around the edge and make sure that fabric wasn't used in an edge block.

I spent all morning yesterday sorting my brown/rust/gold fabrics.  They had been displaced when I started moving things around in the basement.  I love the rich earthy tones but they don't seem to be very popular with most people.  These fabrics were formerly on a shelf unit where my black and whites reside now.  I can move these boxes to an area where I don't have to walk around them now.

A lot of the quilt tops I have made so far this year have been projects that were cut or started in previous years.  I decided to pull out another partially cut and pieced project that was started in July 1996 in a class I was teaching.

I love all of these fabrics even after all of those years.

This is the book I was teaching from.  I went to a week long seminar in Chicago that was offered by Mary Ellen Hopkins in the mid 1980s.  We each made a sample from this book during that week.

This is the one I made.  I like all of the fabrics in this one too.

It's a little hard to see the X blocks because the fabrics are too close in value.  It's prettier in real life.

When I was out in the garden yesterday I noticed the violets are filling in between the Lily of the Valley.

The batteries for my mower aren't holding a charge so I ordered new ones.  My neighbor was kind enough to finish my mowing in the front and also mow my backyard.

Charley in the forest trimmed...........

Yesterday I trimmed my Charley in the Forest quilt.  Then it was time to search for a binding.  I thought I wanted red but most of the reds were more of a pink tone and most of the fabrics on the front are a red/orange.

After auditioning several Kaffe collective fabrics, this one seems the best.  It is also used on the front of the quilt.  In the photo above it is the background of the tree at the left.  I will look again today to see if I can find anything else that works.

This simulates how it will look if I use this one.

 I still had 2 bags of last year's rhubarb in my freezer, shared by a friend, and I needed to use some of it.  Yesterday I baked a rhubarb cake, a recipe that I found on the internet.  It will be good for breakfasts for a few days. 

 

A quilt top for April.................

I really like this quilt top, but then I like all of the quilt tops I have made with these neutral color batiks.

This one is 55.5" x 72".  The next one which will use the rest of the blocks will be larger.

Here are 3 of the others made with most of the same fabrics and a few different in each quilt.  Unfortunately the lighting on the one on the right is bad and I sold it so I can't take another photo.

I mowed grass for a half hour and then went to the garden center and got some plants so I didn't get anything else cut to sew last night.  I just continued with the 3" 9 patches since they were already paired and still on my sewing cabinet.  It got up to 65 yesterday but Wednesday is supposed to be in the 40s.  I'll keep my new plants in the garage for a couple weeks.  I have 5 windows in there so they will get plenty of light.

Family party..............

Some out of state family was in town yesterday so we had a family gathering.  I made frosted creams in the morning to take with me.

I dug 3 Sedum plants to send home with them today.

While I watched 2 shows on TV last night I sewed 8 more 3" nine patches and paired fabrics for an additional 8 blocks.  I didn't get the neutral quilt top pressed so I'll do that today and post its photo tomorrow.

It was 28 degrees when I got up early yesterday morning.  I didn't see any frost on the grass and the flowering trees in town seem to be okay.  We still have a chance of a frost up until Mother's Day so no tender plants will be put into the ground yet.

63 blocks on the design wall..............

I sorted the 174 blocks into matching blocks and couldn't find 63 different ones so there are a few duplicates in this layout.  After I took this photo I sewed the top together but didn't finish until almost 11 p.m. last night so I'll get it pressed some time today and post it tomorrow.

We were in the freeze warning area last night so I'm hoping the Redbud blossoms can withstand the cold.  It usually gets the coldest around 4 a.m.

 

Decision made.................

I made these neutral color 16 patch blocks in 2018 and there are 174 of them.  I had been trying to decide if I should make one almost king size quilt or 2 smaller quilts.  I did some figuring (for about an hour) last night and decided on one quilt 72" x 96" and another one 56" x 72".  There will be 3 blocks left over.  Now I can start playing with layouts.  I think I'll start with the smaller one because it will fit on my design wall on the mail level.

This is a quilt top I made in early 2018 with a lot of the same fabrics.  I made at least one more quilt top of the same fabrics and I sold both of them as tops.

When I went out to get my mail I knew I had to capture this view in a photo.  We have the frost/freeze warning for 2 nights so I'm hoping the blooms on the Redbud trees will survive.

 

Busy hands, happy life..............

I like to keep busy with fabric whether I have a project or not.  I have 2 project boxes full of Marcia Derse scraps and I keep looking at them and they don't look inspiring in the mess in the box.  I decided to loosely sort the strips by several lengths and slip them into plastic bags.  The odd shaped pieces will go in another bag.

Then if I decide to make blocks similar to this mock up, I will have an easier time selecting the strips.  Sorting is an easy job while watching TV.

There were a lot of pieced sections left over from other projects and from previous playtime.  They will be bagged separately too.

Yesterday morning I found another stack of 1.5" batik squares.

That meant I had to sort through them and find 4 alike of as many light fabrics as I could.  There are enough sets here for 40 more 3" 9 patches.  The dark fabrics will be assortments of fabric because there weren't any fabrics with 5 alike.

I'm working on a major reorganization in one area of my basement so I'm not sure when I'll start an actual project.  I do have a box of 16 patch neutral color blocks, enough to make 2 throw quilts so I could start playing with those to break up the work time.

I took a few garden photos from inside the house yesterday.  Look at the buds on this Coral Bell!  I think this one is called Snow Angel.  I have 2 or 3 of them.

This is the group of Tiger Lily plants in the back garden.  All of the green around them is the rampant roving Lily of the Valley.  At my age there is no chance of me being able to dig them all out.

It's hard to see the little flowers here but the Lungwort/Pulmonaria plants are getting big and bushy and full of blooms.  I'll probably dig some out and pot them and give them away.

I can't help it, I have to take photos of the pink buds opening on the Redbud trees.  They are talking possible frost/freeze early Saturday morning and early Sunday morning.  

Surprise, surprise!.  Look what I spied when I was opening the blinds yesterday morning.  This is part of an older cactus with white flowers that used to bloom at least 3 times in a season.  The plant was not doing well so I saved 3 small sections that were healthy and planted them.  This is the second time for this one to bloom.

 

Layouts...............

There are more little 1.5" batik squares to make more 9 patches but I decided to play a little with layouts.  Edge to edge isn't very spectacular.  Since the blocks will finish at 3", this would only be 12" x 18", about the size of a placemat.

Spacing the blocks out with plain blocks between would stretch this to 18" x 24".

With the blocks on point they measure about 4.25" across so this would be about 21.5" square.  After sewing 400 of the 4.5" 9 patches I'm not very anxious to sew a lot of these little blocks. I may sew a few more of them and then save them for a possible border of a future quilt.  They can rest in the batik orphan block box.

I have a stack of 32 mostly brown toned 16 patches so I'm looking for a fabric for some alternating blocks.  I had this print laying out to try.

This photo shows the fabric better.  I only have a yard of it and that might yield 20 squares.  What I need is 33 squares.  I can make more 16 patch blocks.

This will make the quilt very dark which isn't all bad but I'll keep looking through my stash.

More tiny 9 patches............

I went through all of the piles of 1.5" squares and matched 5 dark/4 light for another batch of blocks.  In some there are 5 of the same fabric or 2 similar fabrics and others are 5 different fabrics that look good together.  The same is true of the groups of 4.

We had storm warnings last night which turned into nothing in my area so I sewed blocks.  This is 23 blocks, 8 of which were made the day before yesterday.  I haven't turned on the iron yet to press them.

The Redbud trees are pinking up quickly with all of the 70's and 80's the last few days.  Now we are going to cool down a little and only one night is going to be in the 30s if the predictions are correct.

A finish for April 2024...............

Brown Bear Paw is finished.  I made the decision to use the border fabric for the binding and it is all finished by machine.  It is 68" x 82".

This will be a raffle quilt to raise money for Prader-Willi syndrome  which my youngest granddaughter's first child was born with.  It is very rare and most of us had never heard of it.  She is organizing a fund raising walk in mid-May and is including several raffles.

Here is the spectacular back.  Having a stash is so wonderful.  I had all 3 of these fabrics, no shopping required.

Cable crashed last night a few minutes before 9 p.m., no internet, no TV.  It didn't come back on until 10:20 so I started sewing the little 3" nine patches.  I don't think I'll make a lot of them so they will either be a small project or go into the batik orphan block box and someday get used as filler blocks to make everything fit together.

Sorting..............

I didn't have anything lined up to sew last night so I sorted 1.5" batik squares instead.  I sorted into colors and into light value.  Then I went through the light squares and pulled all of the ones that had at least 4 alike or 4 similar.  I have over 30 light groups ready now to pair with 5 darker squares for 3" finished 9 patches.  This will be TV night sewing.

I was going through a closet to find my father-in-law's slides to give to my son.  In there was a box of nostalgia.  In the 1940s and early 50s we got award certificates for certain things.  I had perfect attendance 4 out of 8 grade school years.  We didn't have kindergarten at our one room schools so I started with 1st grade.

There are perfect spelling certificates for grade 2 - 8.  I'm assuming we didn't have spelling in first grade since it was our first year in school.  We were only learning to write the alphabet.  What a change from then to now.  Kids nowadays are probably learning to write the alphabet in pre-school. 

I still haven't made a decision on the binding for the Bear Paw quilt.  This is what the sashing fabric would look like.  The border fabric (my other choice) would just continue black out to the edge.

I spent a lot of time outside yesterday with garden and yard clean up.  It was 68 degrees on Saturday and 83 yesterday.  I was actually too tired to do much inside after that.