Adding dots?...................

I have purchased Kaffe Fassett "Spot" fabric over the years as he keeps adding new colors.  I thought maybe they might work with the floral fabrics.

I guess I won't know unless I try it.  I pressed the fabrics and cut some triangles.

I changed out some of the florals with dotted fabric.  I have lots more cutting to do so I can think about this.  Any opinions?

There was a waste triangle at each end when I cut the quarter square triangles and it was the right size to cut a 2" half square triangle.  I will start a mini storage box with these triangles and no project is in mind for them yet.

Still searching and cutting................

I thought maybe I should add more light triangles for this quilt so I added a Philip Jacobs floral.

Here are the rest of the triangles that wouldn't fit on the table.  I only have enough triangles cut to make into 48 blocks so far.  That would only make a quilt 36" x 48" so I have a long way to go.

I went though more Philip Jacobs fabric and the group of Lille which Kaffe did the coloration for.  I think these 5 are going to work.

I spent about 3 hours outside yesterday picking the rest of the tomatoes (50 or more) and then cutting up the gangly tomato plants, pulling up cages and putting them in storage.  I was so tired last night that I just spent some time knitting.  I finished this green dishcloth and love how it looks with this Philip Jacobs floral.

Then I started a new denim blue dishcloth and knitted 10 rows on the variegated purple one.  I like more than one in progress and may start another one today.

Today is only supposed to go up to high 40s so I doubt if I will go out to finish up the tomato plant cleanup.  I had 13 plants this year.
  

 

Busy, busy.....................

Back in mid-June I was sorting my floral fabrics to prepare some for a de-stash sale.  I had 2 stacks that I was keeping and I finally got around to cutting them.  First I cut an 11" strip off every piece that was large enough.

There is enough length in this group to cut another strip if necessary.

This group was shorter lengths or had squares cut out of them from the time I was making my Kaffe Seed Packet quilt.  I can still get cuts from them, just not as many as I will get from the larger pieces.

One fabric has several yards and was too precious to cut.  It might end up being a border.

Last night I die cut 6" quarter square triangles from two 4" cuts off the 11" pieces.  There are 116 so far, not enough for a project.

This is what I am going to do with them.  I will cut more triangles from the small pieces of fabric first.

I kept calling this quilt pink/gray and comments kept coming in calling the dot black and white.  Here is the dot laying on a black background....see, it really is gray.  The camera wants to make a high contrast between the gray and the pink and that is why it was deceiving.  Sorry for the confusion.

Strata cut and sewn................

I sliced the strata that was sewn into a tube and unpicked a seam in a different place on each of the 20 slices.  This is the layout on the design wall before I started sewing them together.

I decided I will make 2 table runners and have sewn one together.  It lost 4.5" in width with the seams sewn (compared to the layout).

Many of my cactus plants have buds and I saw the first blooms yesterday.  This is a piece I saved off a dying white cactus 2 years ago.

I decided to move the other two that are closest to blooming over to the coffee table to join the white one.  One of them is a champagne color and the other a deep rose.  After I took this photo I moved a pale pink one over there too.

#2 finish for November 2024

"Memories - 1956" is finished, just a couple months after I made the quilt top.  The gray dotted fabric is a Kaffe Fassett fabric, "Spot", the pinks are Kaffe's and Tula Pink's fabrics.  It is 64.5" x 76.5".

The backing fabric is by Kaffe Fassett also.  The batting is Hobbs 80/20 and it was quilted by my longarm friend, Robin.

I think the stripe with flowers worked really well for binding.  It is also a Kaffe fabric.  I just realized I didn't rotate this photo.

I hadn't checked the tomato plants for a few days and was surprised how many tomatoes were ripening.  Most of these will need a few days on the windowsill.

I picked 2 large green ones from the Big Beef plant by the driveway last week and they are both ripening nicely now too.  I didn't end up working outside much yesterday.  I did a load of laundry and then I had a friend coming over to choose 2 baby quilts.  Afterwards I went out to buy bird seed because it was on sale.  I filled the bird feeders which had been empty for 2 days....empty because of the squirrels.  They have to work a little harder to get the seed now so I'm only having to fill the feeders about twice a week.

2 goals..................

I had 2 goals yesterday: renew my driver's license and finish the binding on the pink/gray quilt.

First the driver's license;  Illinois is the only state in the country that requires adults over 75 to do a driving (road) test every time they renew their license.  I was 78 the first time I had to do the road test, 82 the second time and now I will be 84 in a week for the 3rd time.  So I got a 4 yr. license the first time, over 80 they only give a 2 year license and starting with 87 you have to do the road test every year.

Now on to the fun stuff.  I worked on hand stitching the binding in three sessions and only have 11" left to stitch.  I stopped at 10:45 p.m. and will resume today.

When I went out to get my mail, I noticed the Violas are still doing well.  They like cooler weather and got some nice rain early this week.  The chipmunk or squirrel that digs in the pot has so far stayed over on the other side where there is just dirt.

The close up shots changed the yellow part to orange so even though it isn't accurate in coloring it is still so pretty.

Above normal temperature is predicted for the next 10 days. 52 is the normal high for today and 56 is predicted.  With sunshine that should feel warm.  I need to start picking all of the tomatoes and finish ripening them inside.

 

Sunday Only finished........................

I named this quilt "Sunday Only" because it was a project in 2022 that I worked on just on Sunday evenings.  I did do cutting of triangles on other days but all of the sewing was on Sundays.  If you check back to this post and scroll down you can see the antique quilt that was my inspiration.  I was about a third of the way into the quilt when I realized that all of the triangles in the antique one were marching right and I had been making them marching both left and right.  At that point I knew mine wouldn't look like the original quilt so I just did my own thing for the overall design.

The backing is one of my least favorite Kaffe prints but it was perfect for this quilt.  The binding is assorted lengths of many different Kaffe fabrics.  The quilt is 62" x 74".  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting and was quilted by my longarm friend Robin.

Last night I started the binding on "1956" and shown here are 3 different cuts of the fabric and how they look with no flowers, lots of flowers, and just the edge of the flowers.

 

Binding done, next in line.....................

The binding was finished a little before 10 last night.  I'm looking forward to seeing it open and checking out the scrappy binding.  Photo shoot today.

Earlier in the day yesterday I trimmed the pink/gray zig zag quilt and cut the binding.  I'll start prepping this one today for the hand finishing of the binding.

There was almost 2" of rain in my gauge from 3 days of storms.  I'll check it one more time this morning.  We really needed the rain and I'm thankful we got that much.

Many different fabrics in binding.............

I have about 60" left to hand stitch on this binding.  Six of the different fabrics in the binding are shown here.  There are 3 more fabrics in the last 60".  I hope I can finish this one today and then start on the binding on the pink/gray quilt.

I decided to open up the panel that came with the Charley Harper fat quarter selection I showed a few days ago.  It might end up as part of a backing for a quilt.  It is 36" x 45".

 

Backing, binding...................

I was happy to find I had enough of this print for the back of the butterfly quilt.  It is used as the large wings on 2 of the butterflies.

I trimmed the 'Sunday Only' quilt and found the group of partial width Kaffe strips.  Some are over 30", others as short as 10".

After sorting through them, this the batch I decided to use.  I pieced one long strip and when I sewed the binding onto the quilt, I didn't need the last 3.

I originally planned to sew the binding on this quilt all by machine, but when I decided to use a scrappy binding, I think hand stitching is the better choice.  I got one short side and part of one long side hand stitched last night.

Binding audition...................

This Kaffe stripe fabric is the one I had been thinking about using for binding on my pink/gray zig zag quilt.  I looked last night and found 2 small pieces of it.

I think it will work OK and just add to the quirkiness of the quilt which is titled "1956".  The pink/gray combination takes me back to my sophomore year in high school in 1956 (yes, I'm really that old!).  The flowers will be in parts of the binding and other areas might just have the gray/white wide stripe.  This binding will probably be hand finished somewhere near the middle of the month.

Yesterday was a pretty lazy day, I can't even remember what I did for most of the day.  I did some grocery shopping around 5 p.m., just before it got dark.  That is the last evening shopping I will do until it is light again at least as late as 6.  Daylight savings time ended at 2 a.m. today and it will be dark before 5 p.m. for several months.  I had a few clocks I needed to reset manually.  I'm glad the Fitbit, Smartphone and computer all update automatically.

New stash.................

One of Charley Harper's newest lines is Michigan Audubon.  I thought it was cute enough to purchase a fat quarter pack.  There is a panel included in the pack too.

Yesterday afternoon became a social time so most of my effort in the studio was cleaning off tables.  If I could learn to not make so many piles I wouldn't have to do the clean up so often.

I got this quilt back from my longarm friend Robin yesterday.  Since the quilt is so scrappy I'm thinking about making the binding scrappy too.  I have lots of 2.5" strips of Kaffe collective fabric that aren't full width that I could use.

 

October 2024 monthly recap.......................

It was all new quilt tops in October, no finishes.  I still have one more finish than new tops though for the year.

Kaffe Blue Pinwheels is 60" x 72".  These were the leftover triangles from the pink/blue triangle quilt.  I guess I cut a few too many for one project.

The butterfly baby quilt top is 35 "x 45".  I think I made those blocks about 20 years ago, maybe a couple years before that.  They were probably started to promote the book that the patterns were in.  It's publication date is 1993 and that is over 30 years ago.....so maybe the blocks are closer to 30 years old.  I pulled the blocks out many times and just couldn't come up with an idea of how to use them unless I made more blocks...and I didn't want to do that.  I'm just happy it's a quilt top now.

Fall batik quilt top is 64" x 72".  It was just a quick project to use some strips in 2 project boxes and to give me some stress free night sewing.  I do most of my sewing at night while I watch TV.

Yesterday I was searching for a backing for the 72" x 96" neutral batik 16 patch quilt top.  This piece was hiding between 2 others and when I pulled it out and measured, it was a 9 yard piece.  I got it pieced and pressed and now it is ready to go to my longarm friend.

I'm glad I got another photo of my maple tree 2 days ago because we have had a couple really windy days and lots of leaves drifted down to the ground.  We only got a quarter inch of rain with the wind but we have 3 days of rain predicted early next week.  I'll probably have a bare tree later next week.