Sorting......mindless work...........

Last night I decided to sort the triangles in the box of 3" Kaffe collective fabrics.  Since I cut them with my die cutter, and there are either 6 layers or 10 layers, depending on which cutter I used, there was a variety of fabrics in each pile.

Then I decided to divide them by stacks with less than 8 triangles and stacks of more than 8 triangles.  This photo is all of the ones with 8 or more triangles.  A sawtooth star would take 8 alike.

Next I paired all of the ones with less than 8 triangles and started sewing them.

Yesterday morning my son came by and he helped me take the flannel off all of the 1" foam insulation sheets that were design walls in the basement.  Then he loaded them in my van and I drove them to his business.  Now I have access to all of areas except one in my basement.  For any newer readers, I used to have 8 people who came for a workshop about every 8 weeks and I provided one 4' x 7' design wall for each of them.  I no longer have a need for all of those walls.  Some were in front of metal storage racks with fabric stored on them so I had to move the walls to get to the fabric.  

Then my son and grandson picked me up at noon for lunch at a local establishment I had never been to.  We used to call them taverns but I think most people just call them bars now.  This one is well known for their good food and they didn't dissapoint.

Very little sewing..................

I couldn't settle on a project yesterday so I decided to just sew some more components for the 4" Kaffe "parts" box.  I need to press the strips before I can cut them to make 4 patches.

I decided to check the 3" Kaffe "parts" box and I need to cut more light fabrics before I do much sewing with the pieces.  I don't have anything in mind for either box of pieces and hopefully I can zero in on a project today.

I can always trim the two Tilda quilts and cut the binding for them.

 

Twig border..................

The twig print border #4 was a good finish for this piece.  I started with the center block in July 2016.  Borders were added little by little over the years.  I wish now that the center was better looking.  I could unpick it and add something else in the center but I'll have to think about that for awhile.  It is 45.5" x 57.5" right now.  The overall size won't change if I decide on something else for the center.

I gave a final press to the other wild little quilt top.  It is 40" square.

The center section of this one was started in December 2015 and the center was completed in January 2016.  Then it waited for the next 2 borders to be added in a period of 9 years.  Ridiculous, I know.  This one is considered finished so I will get it quilted soon.

I had four 4 patch blocks leftover from the first quilt so I pulled out the box containing components for more 4" blocks.  There were some short strips left too so I can make some more 4 patches.

 

A finish..................

This quilt is all batik, made with 2.5" strips in a pattern I call "the other 16 patch".  The true 16 patch is made of squares.  There are 32 blocks each made with 2 different batiks so there were 64 strips total.

There is one full width strip and 2 leftover pieces from previous backings on the back of this quilt.  It is 62.5" x 70.5".  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and it was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

I mentioned digging out ditch lilies a couple days ago.  They are day lilies that grow wild along country roads.  These are about 6-8" tall and look at those roots!  It's no wonder they are so hardy and such a pain to get rid of.

I got the old growth broken off of the 3rd Sedum plant and when I raked the leaves I found the Hosta to the right of it already growing.

I worked 1 1/2 hours and am only about half done in this flowerbed.

Here are 2 more Hostas starting to grow.  I haven't seen any in the back garden yet, but with it being 63 yesterday and today maybe warmer, I'm sure there will be some by the end of the day.

I moved a couple pots into my garage for the winter.  It is about 55 degrees in there all winter so this Begonia wintered over nicely and has new leaves.  I have windows in the overhead doors as well as on the side of the garage.

I should have taken this photo at a different angle so you could see how tall they are.  These geraniums were wintered over the year before and then I brought them in before the first frost for their second garage winter.  I watered them about once a month.  There are 3 or 4 in this pot and this tallest one has buds.  It's too early to put them outside because we still have nights in the 30s and 40s.

I sewed the last twig print border on the wild Kaffe quilt top and will press it today and show it to you tomorrow.

 

Binding finished, and more to start..............

The binding is finished on the batik quilt and I'll take photos today.  This is the time of year when the sunshine coming in the windows warms up the house and the heat doesn't come on.  That makes the basement quite chilly.  Since we are still going down in the 30s at night, the heat will come on in the morning and that's when I'll go down there to take the photos.

The two Tilda quilts are back from the longarmer and I have chosen the binding for both of them.

This is the last Sedum waiting for clean up.  I was surprised how much it is growing with all of the leaves still packed around and on top of it.  This weekend is supposed to be in the 60s so I need to get out there and get it done.  I need to rake this whole front flower bed.

 

4 patch borders..................

I gave up on my idea for a new quilt and used all of the 4 patches for the border for this quilt top.  The sides were about 1/4" short for the 4 patch borders so I just trimmed the 4 patch on the end of the border.  It is 39" x 51" right now.

Now I have to decide if I am going to add one more twig print border around it.  Each border is wider from the center out so this last one (if I use it) will be 3".  The other option is to just have twig fabric as binding.  The collage below shows it before borders through audition for one more border.

I took my camera with me when I filled the birdfeeders.  From the kitchen window I could see the Scilla blooming and wanted a photo of it.

It was so nice out (sunshine and 53 degrees) that I stayed out and dug up the volunteer orange ditch lilies that had survived my digging the last 5 years.  I'll never get rid of all of them but there are about 20 less now.

The Lenten Roses are in full bloom now.  Two of the plants have 2 different color blooms on them.  This one is mostly pink.

The other is mostly white.  I'm hoping they will spread seed and more plants will come up.  

The third plant has lighter pink flowers.  

 

Surprise audition................

This is not what I had in mind for the 4 patches I have been making, but I had to try them as a border for this second busy little quilt top.  They definitely work and maybe I just need to use them and scrap my idea for starting another quilt top.  I could add another row of 4 patches on the top and bottom to make it more rectangular.

The early Peonies are coming up.  There is ne group slightly behind the birdbath and another group to the right of it.  There is a patch of jonquils or daffodils in front of the left tree trunk.  There is even a Forsythia bloom in the top right corner, out of focus because it is right outside of the window where I took this photo.

This is the strangest of all of the photos that came from my grandparents' photo collection.  Doing a little research, I think it is a Woodmen (or Foresters) group from around 1905 -1910.

In this closeup you can see they are all holding the handle of an axe.  Using a magnifying glass, I don't recognize my grandpa or his brothers in this photo.  I'm not sure why they had this photo.  Maybe my grandma's brother is in there.  I think he died at a young age so I didn't know him like I knew the 4 sisters (Grandma and 3 great-aunts).

 

Sorting, stitching................

I still had the bin of my parents' photos on the dining room table since the day my cousins visited.  I decided they weren't going to sort themselves so I spent 3 hours yesterday, making some progress.  Most are from my mother's side of the family.  I sorted into piles of 3 generations, my brothers and me, great aunts and uncles and their families, and one pile of "who is this?".  I will need to go back through some of the piles again but for now I can put them back into the bin with labels inserted into each bag.

I got 39 four patches sewn last night and have 13 cut and ready to sew.

I think the snow will stay north of us today but we will get rain and about 45 degrees, another good day to stay inside.

I can see some peonies growing in the back garden and the first sighting of pink in the Redbud trees.  I hope we don't get another freeze.

 

Mindless sewing..................

This is the view from my sewing chair at 9 p.m. last night.  I worked on the binding a little and earlier in the day cut some more batik pieces.  I needed a break from both projects so I gathered up all of the Kaffe collective 2.5" strips that weren't a full length and started sewing contrasting values together.  At this point I'm thinking 4 patches with one of two different ideas as their landing spot.

This is a better photo of all of the ones that are sewn so far.  I need to press them before I can crosscut them and make the 4 patches.

These are the pieces that are left, a lot of them needing a partner that isn't in the pile.

I'll get back to the binding today and maybe do some clean up on the table tops.

We didn't get any snow yesterday but Chicago got a little.  Last night went down to the mid 20s and maybe snow Wednesday and next Monday is supposed to be 70 for a daytime high.  From long sleeves to short sleeves we will go.

Cutting, sorting, binding.................

Yesterday morning I die cut 17 more fabric strips into rectangles and squares for Colorwash.  I had previously cut 43 fabrics and have 43 more fabric strips to go.  Since I usually use only one of each print in a colorwash this 100+ group of cut pieces are just a portion of what I will need.

While the washing machine was running I looked through some embroideries I have done in the past for these 2 pieces.  I want to do another quilt with this style block.  The one on the left was a sample block for a quilt I made for the store I was working at.  On the final quilt I used butterfly embroideries instead of flowers.  

Here is a portion of it at the fair booth for the store I used to work at.  The green checked fabric is a flannel and I want to do another one with flannel.

This is the store sample I made with the hummingbird embroideries (block on the right in 2nd photo above).  I think I mistakenly made the same block twice so it was a leftover.  This quilt is the same idea as the green one with 4 patches and embroidery.

Here are some of the embroideries I found while looking for those 2 blocks.

The only machine embroidery I have done in the last few years is the redwork blocks for 2 quilts and Christmas stockings for my great-grandchildren.

I did some more binding on the batik quilt last night.  I have about 17" left to do on a long side so I'm almost half way done.

Prediction for possible snow flurries around noon.  I think some areas in the south have had more snow than we had this past winter.

Cutting. hand sewing..................

I pulled out these 3 dies to start cutting a pile of batiks.  They are all pieces less than 1/4 yard wide, most between 3 and 6" wide

I pressed this pile of strips a couple weeks ago so it was time to do the cutting.  I'm doing 1 hour a day and have worked on it on 3 days so far.

There are 4 pieces of most of the fabrics and only 2 of a few.  These will be worked onto the trays of pieces that have been cut over several years.  As soon as the pile of fabric is all cut, I will start designing the next colorwash.

I worked on the binding's hand stitching for awhile last night.  I finished the short side I started the night before and got about 15" finished on one long side.  There is no hurry on this one, a little each night and eventually it will be done.

I ventured out yesterday and cut the flower stalks off one more Sedum plant.  One more left to clean up and raking of that flower bed is needed.  We are going to have a couple nights below freezing so I'll wait a few more days.

Quilting and binding...................

I had 2 sessions of ditch quilting around the light centers of some of the blocks in the Crooked Cobblestone quilt.  I have one more day on light centers and then can choose a different color to do.

I have 2 quilts to bind and this one was already trimmed so I started with it.  In this photo  have attached the binding by machine.

There are 3 fabric strips on the back of the quilt.  The one on the right was full width and the other 2 were cutaways from previous backs.  I have started the hand sewing on the binding and have part of a short side finished.

It was a chilly day yesterday so I was inside all day.  I need to go outside today and see what else is growing. 

Border......................

A little over a week ago I showed some pieced strips I found in a drawer in my studio.  This photo shows what is left after using some of them.

I also showed 2 possible small tops in progress that the strips could be used on.  This was the winner and I got all 4 borders sewn on Wednesday night.

To break down this design: I started with 4 star blocks and then added sashing made of Flying Geese.  After that I added Bow Tie blocks as a border and then it stayed in limbo for 4 1/2 years.  Now it measures 40" square and I think just a medium-dark binding will complete the quilt (after I quilt it).

I think I'm down to the last 2 blooms of my cacti plants.  This orange one makes me so happy.

The medium rose color bloom is so pretty too.  The color seems more intense on this plant this year.

I finished knitting a dishcloth last night, using up the ends of two balls of yarn.

A friend came over yesterday so I could help her with a computer problem and we spent hours talking about fabric and quilts.  She brought lunch from Subway and it was so good.  I hadn't had a Subway sandwich for almost a year.