Batik strips.................

I opened a drawer....and there were these matched 4.5" strips and 2.5" strips.  I knew they would work for double 4 patch blocks.  I have been needing a mindless sewing project for TV time.

I pulled all of the purple and green sets and started sewing the 2.5" strips together.  Each pair of fabrics will make 4 blocks, 2 dark and 2 light.

I retrieved the bag with half rectangle triangles for yesterday's project and found there were 20 in the bag, but they all faced the same direction.  I need both lefts and rights so I need to cut 20 that face the other direction.

 

Die cutting...............

I went through the small pieces of Wishwell Weather Report fabric to cut some half rectangle triangles for enlarging a quilt top.  There are 44 pieces in these piles.

I will need 20 of them to add one column of blocks on a side, and I'm doing both sides, needing 40 of them.  I have a little bag of leftover triangles from when I made the top, but it was in the basement when I was writing this post and I didn't want to go down there to get it.  I don't think there are more than a dozen pieces in the bag.  I still have a layer cake of this fabric line so I can pull out all of the light fabrics from it.  I want to add a double row across the top which will take 64 pieces.  This top is only 41" x 59.5" right now and adding these planned columns and rows will increase it to 47" x 71.5".  That is close to the 50" x 70" size that I like to make.  I could increase it to 50" with one more column.  I'll just do more cutting and then decide.

It was -2 yesterday morning and it got up 7 degrees by 1:45 p.m. when I had to leave to go to PT.  Wednesday will be our heat wave at 30 degrees and then back to the deep freeze. 

Little things.........................

These 2 little mats have been sitting in my studio waiting for the stitching around the edge for at least 6 months.  All it takes is changing to a topstitching needle and filling a bobbin with the heavier thread.  I kept avoiding doing that.  Finally last night I got them done.  They have one layer of batting and one layer of a stiff heavier interfacing (not as heavy as Peltex).

The backs are Kaffe fabrics too.

They are close to 8.5" x 11", one a tiny bit larger than the other.

There was one more top already pieced so I cut the batting and interfacing but haven't found a back for it yet.  It will be quilted and then edged with a close zig zag like the other two.

We are in for a cold week, some days below 10 degrees.

Finished!...............

I didn't want to deal with keeping pink checks or plaid straight for binding so I used the gray one that had enough yardage.  This flannel baby quilt is 32" x 40".

This little quilt has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it.  I used white thread to quilt it on my Pfaff 7570.

This pile of mail that I have received in 9 days is 19 solicitations for money.  There is even 2 from each of 2 organizations, like I didn't react soon enough so I need a 'reminder'.  Obviously some charity sold my address to some data base that other groups can access.  I have never even heard of half of these organizations.  I feel obligated to open them and pull out magnets, special "coins", and any other object that shouldn't go into paper recycling.  I'm sure some of you are experiencing this same dilemma.

Machine quilting again..................

The machine ditch quilting is done on this flannel baby quilt now.  The squares are 4" and that is the recommended maximum space with Hobbs 80/20 batting.

The backing is a cute diagonal plaid.  I haven't decided on binding yet but will look for it today.

It's going to be cold over the weekend so I'm glad I don't have anywhere to go.

Table runner and black and white...........................

 The hand stitched binding was finished last night on this table runner.  It is all Marcia Derse fabrics.  The back is the same fabric as the binding.  It is 14.75" x 40".

You might find the rest of this post boring, but since it is my diary/journal I use it to document some things.  Today I am documenting the batik black and white fabrics.

Yesterday I sorted them by more than a quarter yard, quarter yard or less but full width, and chunks/small pieces narrower than full width.

I would estimate that 85% of them are Bali brand batiks.  They aren't as silky of a batik and some of them were only 40 inches wide.

The largest percentage of my Bali batiks were purchased 1991 - 2000.  Batiks were new to the quilt shops in the early 1990s and Bali was one of the first brands available.

Hoffman batiks were more mid 1990s in the area I live in.  They might have been available in other areas sooner.

Hoffman only had a few black and white batiks in the beginning, more being added in the last decade.

I mentioned yesterday that I had a lot more variety than what was shown in those 2 photos.  You can probably believe me now.

This is the end of the crisp black and white batiks in my collection.  I'm happy I'll have these photos to refer back to.

This group has a lot of gray tone or off white in them so I'll probably keep them separate now.

I think I may have shown this one when I purchased it.  I don't know how I will use it but I thought it was so interesting.  It is a true white in it.

This is the pile of the chunks, narrower than full width.

I have a lot of regular fabric prints in black and white too.  I posted this photo of them last year.  I had just rearranged some of my stash so it looks nice and neat.

A little bit of everything.................

I had a few things to take care of in the basement so while I was down there I got this little quilt ready for basting.  It didn't keep my interest though so I moved on.

My friend who visited on Monday wanted to buy some black and white batik fabrics for this quilt.  I had the fabrics in 2 bins and had large and small pieces all mixed together.

I want to sort through them now and get all of the small pieces in one bin and large pieces in the other bin.  There is a lot more variety than what shows in these 2 photos.

While I was still in the basement I looked for some pieces to audition for more borders on the medallion quilt.  The piece on the right is left over from a Trip Around the World strata.  I will keep looking for more options.

The binding is sewn onto the table runner made with Marcia Derse fabrics.  I decided I wanted to hand finish it. The binding is the same as the backing and is the same print as the border, with opposite background color.

 

Machine quilting................

The table runner made with Marcia Derse fabric has been nagging me to get finished.  Finally last night I chose this Invisafil thread and changed my bobbin thread and got busy.

I chose the easiest block to ditch quilt first.  Can't see the quilting?  That's the point with ditch quilting.  Of course you can find a couple places where I wandered a little out of the ditch.

The last block was the hardest to find a continuous line of stitching.  I had to do a few stops and tie offs to get the whole block finished.  I have the binding already cut, so all I need to do now is trim the piece.

The day yesterday started with grocery shopping and PT in the afternoon.  I also updated my finishing journal.  Usually I have 3 pages, one page for each size group.  This year, since I only had 19 tops to carry over into 2026, and the fact that I'm not making as many large quilts (81" or longer on the longest side), I was able to put the medium size and large size on the same page.  I would like to get down to 10 or less tops as carryovers for next year.

 

Second quilt top for January 2026...................

A friend came over to use my double design wall in the basement yesterday so I was down there pressing several fabrics, including the alternate block fabric in this little quilt top.  This ended up 32" x 36".  I am really pleased with it, especially since it used orphan blocks and a large print that was an impulse buy on sale.  It will get quilted next month.

Last night I pulled this basket off a shelf to take a look through it.  It is 2.5" batik strips, all shorter than full width (43").  It's almost overwhelming how many pieces are in it.  It is where I put all of the leftover binding pieces as well as remainders of strips that were used in a project.  I was tempted at one time to start putting them up on a design wall in columns of 85", then taking them down carefully and stitching them together and then sewing columns together.  It would be similar to the jelly roll race, popular about 10 years ago, but more carefully designed instead of so random.

Taking inventory.....................

After posting the photo of the red quilt with embroidered squares, I decided to take inventory of my 1930 reproduction fabrics.  The 4 quilts in this photo are some that I have made in the last 18 years.  The one on the left and the top middle were the first quilts chosen when I showed a prospective new owner a group of baby quilts.  The one on the right is twin size and I still have that one.

The first box has yellows and blues and 2 pieces large enough for quilt backs.  This box is about 10" x 15" and 10" tall.

This box (same size) has the rest of the colors.  The light fabric at the left is a large piece, several yards to use as the background fabric in blocks.  There are several different brands.  I started out back in the 1990s with just Marcus Brothers Aunt Grace fabrics.  Then a lot of other companies started producing similar prints so some of them were added.  The large light piece is a Moda fabric.  There was also a small bag of scraps.

This one doesn't have any company name on the selvage so I'm not sure if it is a 30s repro.  This is where 2 pieces were joined at the factory and then the printing skipped a couple places.  I'm sure I got this piece at a deep discount.

I'm not sure of the era of these fabrics.  The one on the right is 36" wide and I'm thinking maybe 1950s.  

Now I have documentation of this group of fabrics.  I think maybe another couple quilts might be made with it but not soon. 

Choice made................

I decided to go with #3 choice from my previous post.  I not only liked it best, it is also one of those hard to use prints because of the size of motifs.  It will be perfect in 8.5" x 9.5" blocks.

While I was at it, I chose a backing fabric too.  This is a surprise project, not at all planned, started just by looking through drawers of sewn pieces.  I need to turn the iron on today and press fabrics so I can do some cutting.  I also sewed the top and bottom borders on the medallion quilt and need to press it too.

This is the quilt top I want to add to.  I have a few of the half rectangles leftover from making this top but need to cut a lot more.  It will be mostly light ones added.  Here is the post where I finished sewing this part together, with my idea of how I was going to finish it.

I'm not sure how much I'll add to it at this point.  I'll just start cutting and sewing blocks.

Here is another UFO that has been waiting for me to work on it.  I showed it just about a year ago and I still haven't made any decisions on it.  I finished the machine embroideries in December 2019.  I'm not sure when I started them but it may have been earlier that year.  Here is another quilt I made with a different size of the same embroideries.  I was going to keep it but it ended up going to a little girl in the hospital, the child of a friend of my granddaughter's.

Alternate block auditions.................

The blocks I showed yesterday could be used with alternate blocks of one fabric, so I was searching through my stash yesterday.  Fabric #1:  This is a cute little kid print and I have enough to use on the back too.

Fabric #2:  This animal fabric would work.  I have just one yard of it so I would have to look for a different backing.

Fabric #3: I realized as I got to this fabric that I should turn the bright blocks one turn so the narrow edge is going across the quilt and the longer edge is going down the length of the quilt.  I have just one yard of this fabric too.

Fabric #4:  Since the size of this quilt would be suitable for a baby, I'm not sure this print would be.  The colors in the birds aren't quite as bright as the alternate block colors.  I decided that was enough to think on for the rest of the day.

Last night I looked through the Kaffe orphan block box, hoping to find some small blocks to use in borders on the medallion quilt.  These 3 were the smallest in the box and the 4 patches could easily be trimmed down to a smaller size.

Today I think I will be doing a load of laundry so maybe I can get some cutting done while in the basement today.  I found a quit top while in the basement that I want to enlarge.  It was  finished top a couple years ago but I have been thinking about adding to it.  I'll take it's photo today.

I also hope to baste the pink and gray flannel baby quilt today.

The day that got away..................

Last night I was looking through the drawers in one of those plastic drawer units and I tried to think of what I had done all day.  I know I did a little clean up on my main table in the basement and cut 2 pieces to the right length for a backing but I couldn't think of anything else. I had PT in the afternoon but that is just 3/4 hour.

So what did I find in the drawers?  There were these 8 little pieced blocks 8.5" x 9.5".  I could make mug rugs with them, but I have a pile of them already.  Will they go back in the drawer?

I remember making this little piece, 8.5" square.  I had made a lot of little 2.5" pieced squares and I used the majority in a quilt top.  This was the leftover batch sewn together.  It is a mix of batiks and Kaffe Fassett prints.

Last night the power went out twice.  The first time I was in the middle of putting a new ink cartridge in my printer and luckily had a flashlight in my hand shining into the ink cartridge area.  The power came back on rather quickly but I had to start over with the ink cartridge installation.  The second time it was out for several minutes just as I was getting ready to eat supper.  My laptop computer was on so the screen gave me enough light to get over to the counter where the flashlight is.

It was still 59 degrees last night at 10:30.  We didn't get as much rain as areas east of us.  Some of them got close to 2" which is the normal total of rain for January in Chicago.  Now they are talking snow showers for Saturday morning, just normal weather for winter here, up and down.