Almost there...................

Another day of hand stitching, 4 corners done.  I still have about 45" to stitch on the last side.

It went from hot to cold yesterday as the front went through and the severe storms stayed south of us.

I will post this photo again in my monthly recap, but since it's the only other photo I took yesterday I'll share it today too.  These are my 11 littles finished in March.  I did 3 in January and 3 in February so there are 17 finished so far this year.  There was only one I didn't get quilted (that is ready) and I know I won't have time to do it today because some cousins are coming for a visit.

 

Binding again............................

I trimmed this quilt and cut the binding and got it sewn onto the quilt.  I have one long side hand stitched.  This is the last of the neutral batik 16 patch quilts and the smallest one.

I had a couple outside sessions yesterday since it was still warm.  I have the stalks cleared on the first of three Sedum plants.

I also trimmed off the old leaves from last year on the Lenten Rose plants.  I left a couple on the center plant because I was getting tired of bending over.  I raked out most of the leaves too.

In my inside garden the one lonely bud has bloomed on the white plant.  It looks mostly pink here but it really is mostly white.

 

 

It was an outside day.....................

It was in the high 70s yesterday so I decided to do some yard work.  First I raked leaves off the flowerbeds where the Brunnera and Lungwort are.  I only found one Lungwort plant in bloom but I'm sure several will follow soon.

The largest Columbine plant is growing fast.  I could see this one from the dining room window.  I got stung by a bee while picking up stacks of leaves in this flowerbed.

One of my Lenten Rose plants has flowers and more buds.  It is a burgundy color flower.  This is the plant that didn't do as well as the other 2 last year.  This year maybe it will be the overachiever.

I think the flowers on this Lenten Rose plant will be the pale green ones.  Maybe they are considered white but from last year I remember the green tint.  I need to rake the leaves out of this bed and cut down the dead leaves from last year.  Maybe this morning if the rain stays away.

I took down my bird feeders before one of our extremely windy days about 2 weeks ago.  I hung this one yesterday and within 15 minutes this raider was here.

Last night I sewed the binding on 2 more little pieces.  I consider the small one an oversized coaster (6.5"square) and the other a mug rug (a little over 8").

Here are the fabrics on the back of them.

I chose a binding for the next quilt in line to be finished.  I hope to get it cut today and sewn on to prepare for the hand stitching.

Tilda 16 patch..................

The photo looks the same as the last few days, but it is really a finished top that is pressed and measured.  It is 55.5" x 72".

A close up shows some of the variety of Tilda fabrics in this top.  They are from several different lines.

Since every other strip is turned upside down, the birds and mushrooms are facing both directions.

The same thing happened with the house print.  I could have avoided this by not using the one way prints but I chose to have the largest variety possible of the fabrics I had.

Here are the 2 leftover blocks.  Since I have one more quilt to make, maybe they will end up in it.

I finished another mug rug last night.  This one is 9" square.  Hand dyed fabrics on front and Kaffe dots on the back.

We're supposed to get up to 70 today and possible rain.  Another day to sew.

Top sewn........................

I sewed a few cross rows in the morning yesterday and a few in the afternoon.  I finished the rest last night.  It was 10:30 when I finished the staystitching around the perimeter so I'll get it pressed and photographed today.

I didn't have a lot of choices for fussy cutting the ladies blocks.  I only had a 10", width of fabric strip left and I needed to cut five 8.5" squares.  This one has the most faces and there are 2 of these.

The other 3 are similar to this one.

When I got home from grocery shopping yesterday I took my phone out with me to see if there was anything growing or blooming.  This old Forsythia bush only has a few flowers each year.  I would like to have the bush pulled out but I end up leaving it there because the birds love it.  I do need to trim off some branches soon.

I haven't broken off any of the Sedum stems yet but I peeked down into one of the plants and see that the new growth is starting.  I had to move a lot of maple leaves to get down in here so they were growing without sunlight, totally covered in leaves.  Light rain is predicted for this morning and tomorrow morning so I might not get to it until the weekend.  We are supposed to get up to 70 tomorrow and by Monday snow flurries are in the forecast.  It's still mainly in the 40s and 50s here in northern IL so it is early to be uncovering plants.

 

Final layout................

I added the 2 light leftover blocks back in and took out 2 darker ones.  Here is the comparison of Monday's layout with yesterday's layout.  The one on the right is the final layout.  I stacked and numbered the columns and brought them up to the main floor studio.  I got the seams all sewn in one direction and I'll finish the sewing today.

I finished hand sewing the binding on the second red/gray mug rug.

The backing on both of them is the same fabric as the binding.  They are 8.5" square.

I checked my cacti and I have a bud on a white one and another on the orange cacti.  On the white Amaryllis, one bud had dried up but the 3rd bud looks like it might bloom.

 

Layout.................

I did the layout of the Tilda 16 patch in two stages.  First I put up all of these blocks, of which there are 4 in each combination, spacing out the duplicates.

Then I cut 5 blocks from the remaining ladies print and removed 16 patch blocks to put them in the  mix.  The 2 leftover blocks are light so I may put one of them back into the bottom row.  I'll look at this again this morning and decide on the final layout and then stack and label the columns to prepare for webbing the top.

I quilted two more of the little pieces (no photo) and got the binding cut and sewn onto the two red and gray ones which are 8.5" square.

Today I'm hoping to sew the Tilda 16 patch top and get more binding sewn onto the little pieces.

 

Working on small things................

The binding is finished on this small piece.  It finished at 12.25" square.  The backing is the same as the one yesterday.

I found 6 more small pieces to finish.  I cut batting and backings for all of them.

I started the quilting with 2 that I could use the same color thread on.  I used a red/black variegated 12 weight thread on top.  

I used 3 different thread colors quilting this one.  It is 8" square.  I'll look for binding for these 3 today.

We had rain late in the afternoon yesterday.  I haven't put my rain gauge out yet because we are still dipping below freezing some nights.

I need to work on some layouts soon.  I have 2 piles of quilt blocks waiting, the floral star blocks from December and the Tilda 16 patch blocks.  

Table mat finish................

This wavy stripe was my choice for the binding of the 2 table mats.  It is a red purple although it may look brown on your monitor or phone.

It looks good with both sides of the mat.  This one is 15" square.

The background on this backing fabric is purple even though it may appear as black or navy on your monitor.

I have started the hand stitching of the binding on the smaller mat too.

I spent more time cutting a batting and preparing 2 backings for larger quilts yesterday, about 2 hours standing on the cement floor in the basement.  I'll find something kinder to my joints to work on today.  I need to continue quilting on the Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging.

Rain predicted today and in the 40s and 50s the early part of the week.  Maybe up toward 60 at the end of the week.  Our normal high temperature is 49 right now so we are close to that.

Quilting and border audition.................

I quilted these 2 table pieces last night and trimmed them.

Since the fronts are multicolor I'll probably choose a binding that I like with the back and it will most likely work with the front just fine.

A couple days ago I showed some leftover pieced strips that might work as a border on one of 2 quilt tops in progress.  This is the first one with the pieces on the right side and bottom.  I think they look good.

I tried them on this one too as top and bottom borders.  I think they are okay on this one but not especially exciting.  If I use these 2 borders on the other one I think I'll have enough for all four borders.  I'll use squares at the corners.

It was windy yesterday but I decided to do my grocery shopping anyway.  I really don't like to shop on Saturday.

A finish, more snow.....................

I finished hand sewing the binding late yesterday afternoon.  That gave me plenty of time to do the photography.

This quilt is 59" x 71" and has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it.  It was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

The 6" triangles (which were all cut with my die cutter), backing and binding are all Kaffe Fassett collective fabric.  There are some really old Kaffe prints in this one.

Here you can see the insert of the second print in the backing.  It matches so well it's hardly noticeable.

We woke up to just under 2" of snow yesterday morning.  It melted off the driveway and street by mid morning and by late afternoon most of the rest of it had melted too.  On the north sides of houses it will take another day to be gone.

The photo above was taken at 8 a.m. and this one was around 10.  The sunshine and blue sky helped to make it a good day.

The branches all had snow piled on them.  I should have taken this shot a little earlier because it was starting to melt here.

 

Blooms, weather, and hand stitching................

Yesterday morning I noticed the second bud has opened on the double white Amaryllis.  I hoping the last 2 buds will open too.

There were several storms rolling through yesterday afternoon.  The second one brought hail.  It is pea size and lasted about 5 minutes.  There was heavy rain too, and we need the moisture in the ground.

There is a corner of 2 roof angles meeting in the back by the dining room window.  When the hail shoots off the roof it makes a pile on top of one of my Coral Bell plants but nothing has sent up spring growth yet so it should be OK.

The strong storms moved east and we had sunshine and a rainbow.  More rain later but not severe storms.  We were in the 40s most of the day and last night snow was supposed to start.

It is a cold start for the first day of spring.....and it is also my second grandson's thirty-fifth birthday.

All I accomplished in the sewing department was one more side of hand stitching the binding and about 12" on the 4th side.  That leaves about 48" to do today.