More blocks and a layout................

I finished the 5 blocks I showed in progress yesterday and added them to the one left over from the table runner.

Last night I didn't have anything else lined up to sew, so I made 6 more blocks.  I will get them pressed and trimmed today and add them to the other 6.  They will all finish at 8".

While I was in the basement doing laundry I decided i needed to get the Marcia Derse fabric blocks up on the design wall.  I was a little disappointed with the result.  There were 2 blocks left over.

I took out the two lightest blocks and put in the two left over blocks.  It was a little better but I knew I wanted to move a few blocks.

I moved most of the darker blocks to the top and bottom with the lighter ones in the middle.  I'm still not positive it's the final layout so I didn't start sewing it together yet.  As I'm looking at the photos I think I like the second layout better but in person, I like the third layout best. 

 

My choice..................................

 My choice for the sashing and borders was the busy print.  Surprised?  I love busy quilts.  The binding will cover the outer edge so the borders won't look quite as wide when it is finished.  I'm not sure what color will go on the back but I'm thinking a red binding might be nice.  I ended up just using 4 blocks instead of all 5.  I didn't want to piece the long border strips.  It is 43" long.

I was going to sort and bag all of the rest of the scraps, but they told me they wanted to be sewn into blocks.  The largest ones are about 8" on the longest side.  I will will probably sew on some more strips today. 

From my kitchen window I noticed the Forsythia bush had a few blooms so I took my camera out and looked for more signs of spring.  This bush is an ugly shape, an old bush chopped off many times, but I leave it there because the birds love to fly back and forth from the bush to the bird feeders.

The Lenten Roses are small but they have their first flowers.  Last year's leaves are huge and dead so I need to get out there and clip some off so I can rake the leaves out of the bed.

The lilies are always one of the first plants to come up.  Lots of raking needed here too.

One Coral Bell plant has its first green leaves.  This plant gets huge by the middle of the summer and spreads a lot too.  I think I'll dig some out and put it in pots.  I might put one of them in my front garden.

I saw several Peony plants starting to grow and this was the most colorful one.  Somehow I missed cutting the leaves off this one last fall.

It got up to 78 yesterday, a little more than the high 60s that I was expecting.  It was still 67 at 11 last night.  Today the temperature will start dropping to 40s by mid-afternoon and tomorrow.  It might get down below freezing Monday night so I won't do any raking of leaves yet.

Down to three...................

I removed all of the fabrics that had a stripe pattern from yesterday's choices.  That narrowed it down to 3.

This one might show the best contrast between the light edge strips and the sashing fabric.

This is the original fabric I showed a couple days ago.  Now I just need to study these photos and make  my decision.

My niece was in town visiting her parents so I invited her over to choose a couple baby quilts for her first grandchild, a little girl.  This was her choice for the baby's house.

And this was her choice for a quilt at her house.

It got up to 74 degrees yesterday and today might be in the 70s too.   It was nice to have all of the windows open for most of the day. Tomorrow's high will be at midnight with temperatures dropping through the afternoon. 

Finding more choices...................

There were more black/irory Marcia Derse fabrics that I thought I should audition for the sashing on the table runner.

I put 4 of the 5 crazy pieced blocks on top of them.  I may have to remove the light strips on the edge of 2 of the blocks and replace them with something darker.

I turned the two with light edge strips to touch other fabrics.

I had pulled this fabric for the first photos thinking it was too dark, but I still had to try it with the crazy pieced blocks.  No decisions made.

It got up to 69 degrees yesterday at our local high school Weatherbug station.  Two more 60+ days today and tomorrow.  This is the right weather for the first day of spring for a change.  Usually it is a cold day.

 

A little sewing....................

I added some pieces to the partially assembled crazy pieced blocks, pressed and trimmed them.  This will be a long table runner with the blocks measuring 8": 5 x 8" = 40", and that is before adding sashing or borders.

I tried this Marcia Derse fabric as a possible choice for sashing and border. With both light and dark strips on the outside edges of the blocks it becomes trickier to choose the fabric.

I also sewed the six half blocks for the 'other 16 patch' quilt, 2 of each that are shown.  I need to press them and then I can work on a layout for the quilt.

 I trimmed this quilt a few days ago but haven't done any serious searching for a binding fabric.

We got up to find an inch of snow on the ground yesterday morning.  It got up to the mid 40s so it disappeared quickly.  The piles of snow from the previous storm are going down fast too.  50s predicted for today.

Pressing, cutting, sewing..............

I decided to take the larger pieces of Marcia Derse scraps out of the project boxes and cut 3" finished triangles out of them.  I pressed all of the strips and the other things piled on the ironing table.

Last night I sorted the triangles into piles of the same fabric.  I'll do lots more cutting before I decide a use for these.

I sewed these 3 stratas which will become half blocks for the 'other 16 patch' quilt.

After pressing the blocks I made on Monday night, I trimmed them to 8.5".

Yesterday afternoon I remembered there were 3 partially pieced blocks left over in December when I made the first table runner top.  It won't take too many strips to finish these blocks and I'll have my 5 for a new table runner.

This is the ruler I will use to trim the blocks so this one looks like one triangle shape and one strip will finish it.

It was another day in the 20s yesterday but 60s predicted on Friday and Saturday.

 

Sewing on two................

There was a large pile to press yesterday, including these 4 Marcia Derse fabrics for the last 2 blocks.  I will get them cut today.  I also pressed all of the finished blocks that were in the test layout yesterday.

I pressed the 14 stratas from the day before and got them cut into 2 columns.  Later in the afternoon I sewed them into blocks, so they are ready to press now.

I had 2 hours of TV to watch and nothing set up to sew, so I grabbed a box of Marcia Derse fabric scraps and started making crazy pieced blocks.

I got 2 blocks to the final stage by the time the news came on.

Both of these blocks will be able to be trimmed to 8.5".  I kept the tablerunner I made in January so I thought I should make another that I can gift to someone.  There is always the possibility I will want to keep this one too.

I check all of my cacti every day, and even though this one has been checked once or twice a day, it surprised me with a bloom close to the edge of the pot on the side that faces the window.  Not only that, but there is another bud too, also on that side.  This is the orange one although it may look like red in the low light.

 

Sunday sewing...............

Some of the pieced scraps from the orange basket got made into four 5.5" crazy pieced blocks.

They will go into this box of 5.5" batik squares.  I counted over 300 plain squares and about 30 pieced blocks.

I got a bunch of blocks made for the 'other 16 patch' quilt project made with Marcia Derse fabric and tried 2 layouts.  The blocks are horizontal in this layout.  I need to cut 6 or 8 more fabrics depending on which layout I choose.

I rotated the photo for a vertical block layout.  I will probably leave some future blocks as 2 halves so the rows can be staggered for whichever layout I choose.

I then continued on piecing the rest of the strips into this larger unit.  Now I need to press these and cut two 5" columns from each.

I was looking out the west picture window to check on the rain and I saw there is a Sedum growing.  The ones in my front garden still have leaves packed around them so I haven't checked them yet.  There is also a Dandelion growing there and what looks like the grass that has little garlic roots (and turns into star flowers later).

I brought in my rain gauge so it won't freeze and we had a half inch of rain by 7 p.m.  It continued to rain and changed over to snow at 11 p.m.

A little progress...........................

 I didn't do much yesterday, but did decide to make the 'other 16 patch', the one with rectangular pieces.  That meant I could cut the strip sets in half again and then sew the 2 pieces together.

I hope I'm going to like this.

After I cut these stratas into 2 columns and sew those together I'll know if I want to add more blocks and make it larger than my original plan.

These photos show all I got sewn last night.  I need to turn on the iron and press some more of the stratas that I sewed 2 days ago.

We're on another big weather change.  It was in the low 30s yesterday, will get near 60 today with rain, then temperature dropping into the high 20s and snow overnight into Monday.  They have changed the amount of snow we might get 3 times.  Last night they predicted 1 - 2".  The first prediction was 3 - 4".  It all depends on where the front stops.

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

This little orange basket was bugging me so I finally sorted through everything in it.  In the front left is larger pieces that I'm not sure why they were in there.  The pile next to the basket in the top row is pieces I will cut into squares soon.  Everything in the basket is batik fabric pieces.

The pile at the top right is all trimmings from making crazy pieced blocks and some strip pieced small sections.  This pile went back into the basket.

Some groups got labeled and put into zip top bags that I can keep adding to as I continue a clean up of the studio.

Earlier in the day yesterday I pulled fabrics for the other project I want to work on but I didn't get them cut.  Last night I cut the Marcia Derse strips sets in half and sewed them back together for a 4 strip unit.  I just need to figure out which 16 patch I'm going to make with them and I can continue on.