I finished hand sewing the binding and this quilt is finally finished. It is a little under 41" square. There are African fabrics, Australian fabrics and batiks in this one. This makes 20 finishes so far for 2017. My goal was 26 and I was on track until August. Now I'm not sure if I can finish 6 more by Dec. 31st but I will try.
I did some die cutting with my Accuquilt Studio die cutter yesterday too. This is a stack of 104 half hexagons for a project I showed one day last week. I have only cut from my large scrap box so far so now I need to dig into the Kaffe yardage. The largest percentage of this stack fall in the light category so now I can look for some medium and dark fabrics.
Today is the last warm day for awhile, the mid 60s. By the end of the week we will be in the high 20s. Big difference!
I spent a half day free motion quilting on this quilt with black thread. About 2/3 of the blocks have black in them and I was just following the printed design for the quilting. Then I did the border which was basically meandering around and between the motifs in the fabric. I still have beige, orange, green, and red left to quilt.
I sewed the triangle squares for a border for this quilt (which has been on the design wall in the main floor studio for almost a year) in January. Last night I started sewing them together in groups of 10, 8, and 12 for two borders that need 38 and two borders that need 32. Now I need to press them and then decide which group goes where and complete each border section.
The Marcia Derse fabric Drunkard's Path top is finished. I decided it won't have borders. It ended up at 48.5" x 69.5". It is mostly scraps from cutting this quilt with only a few extra fabrics added.
I made a slight miscalculation on how many small squares I need. I must have figured only a single row instead of a double row. In any case I need another 63 small fussy cut floral squares. I don't mind repeating fabrics. Some people making this quilt have used all different fabrics for every square. The inspiration for this quilt can be found here.
The tiger lilies are starting to bloom.
The Rudbeckia in front of the tiger lilies is almost ready to bloom.
I have lots and lots of green tomatoes but none on the big plants have turned color yet. I have 2 little bush tomatoes that had small tomatoes on them when I bought them. The squirrels have gotten 2 of them, I have eaten 2 that ripened and I have 2 more ready to eat. I also have 2 on the windowsill in the kitchen to ripen, well away from the squirrels' sharp little teeth.
A few days ago I mentioned the path through my yard, a shortcut for teenagers. My block is about 3-4 blocks long, no side streets so the kids cut through yards. Several people asked if it was a right of way and whether this was a normal practice. It isn't a right of way; it is my private property. I live in a small town and I guess the kids feel comfortable doing this. There is a pile of boards at the lot line with the neighbor. I asked my neighbor lady in her late 80s if they were her boards and she said yes she put them there to discourage kids cutting through. Well, they just step over them so that didn't work.
I was home all day yesterday and spent 3/4 of the time in my studio. I cut 41 more small squares for the Seed Packet quilt......I mean I fussy cut every square one at a time. No speed cutting there. If a fabric had more than one kind of flower I cut several from that fabric. I think I have enough now for the double row around the quilt.
But first I need to get this quilt off the design wall. I cut more pieces and sewed the rest of the blocks, moved a few around to new positions and started sewing it together. I have just four more seams to sew and the top will be finished...unless I decide to add a border.
I need to get this quilt off another design wall and I'm still undecided on sashing fabric. I put the one on the left up there yesterday. It is kind of an apricot/gold with a mum design on it. The one on the right is one of the original fabrics I tried and is a beige print. I'm still undecided.
I cut more pieces from the graphic squares fabric and just laid them on top of already pieced blocks to try to get an idea of how many I need to get a balanced look. I am going to have to piece more of the small blocks which aren't as much fun to sew. Meanwhile I have to take a break from this to do my "homework" from church sewing circle on the tote bags we are making. Also I have cutting to do for a friend before Tuesday. I may get a few Drunkard's Path blocks sewn but there won't be any major finishing this weekend.
The Rudbeckia in the front garden is starting to bloom. In the backyard it gets a little more shade so it will be a couple more days before that blooms. I took this photo at 8 p.m. so the green looks pretty dull. It is prettier than this.
The Dahlia has four blooms now. They are still fairly small. I have another plant that looks like it will be yellow blooms. The other 2 don't seem to have any buds yet.
The Begonias that I brought in for the winter are doing great. They were rather spindly all winter but they have really filled out now.
I sewed some blocks with the graphic squares print and I think I like them in there. I need to make more of them though so they can be evenly distributed.
Out in the garden: a Hosta getting ready to bloom in front of the Annabelle Hydrangea which is huge this year.
This Hosta with the small green leaves has the most showy flowers. I have about 5 of these and 3 are in bloom right now.
The Rose of Sharon bushes are starting to bloom. I have three different colors of them. They are coming up everywhere.
These are on my way to the tomato garden so I pass them a couple times a day.
I am reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and am almost done with it. I think I read for 4 hours yesterday but it was too hot to be outside anyway. It is hard to put a book down when you are getting near the conclusion of the mystery.
I started cutting pieces for the Drunkard's Path quilt I showed yesterday. The light background with squares is one of my older Marcia Derse fabrics and I'm not sure it will work but I wanted to try it. Some of the others are newer pieces I bought at a clearance sale.
I did a tour of the backyard yesterday morning. The Cannas are approaching 2 feet high.
Some of the Hosta blooms are pretty insignificant but I thought these were nice.
The Purple Coneflowers are almost all in bloom now.
There is still a carpet of Creeping Charlie all across the very back of the garden. I pull a little out each day.
I asked this bee to pose on the bloom for me.
Yesterday I wanted to get back to cutting my Kaffe fabrics in 2.5" squares. I had 45 more fabrics already pressed and cut into strips ready to cut so I got that accomplished. Then I decided I needed to lay out one stack in color order so I can tell when I'm ready to do a colorwash with them. The two rows on the right in the bottom tray are multicolor, no specific color could be determined.
When I finished that I decided I needed to look for backing for this top. I found one that I have 6 yard of and it is hanging over the arm of the chair. Then I took the top off the double design wall so I can start using it again.
My unfinished projects have been nagging me so I pulled this one out. I had stacked the rows when they were on a single wall for several months. I started piecing the blocks in August last year and played around with a design for them. I think I need to make some more blocks to make it one row wider and maybe one row longer. I'll start cutting them today out of some newer Marcia Derse fabric that I have purchased since last August.
Yesterday morning I noticed I had two tomatoes starting to turn red. I decided I would leave them until later in the afternoon and then pick them before the critters come and take one bite out of them. You notice there is only one here....yes, by the time I went back out to pick them there was a big bite out of the other one. I'm pretty sure it is the squirrels that do it but overnight it could be opossums or raccoons. I have lots of green tomatoes out there right now so I'll be keeping a good eye out for any change of color and let them ripen on the windowsill inside.
I started cutting Drunkard's Path pieces for a friend several months ago. I had to get the piles of fabric out and see how much I had done, how much more I needed to cut. There is enough for 78 blocks already cut and it looks like he might need 130 blocks for a large couch quilt. Luckily when I stopped working on it I tied the bundle of fabrics that were already cut and pinned a note on it.
I started deadheading my peonies last evening. I looked up whether I was supposed to do it and how to do it. I got about half done before it got too dark. It should still be cool enough this morning to work out there for awhile and finish it. When I came in I mixed 2 batches of cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator.
My daughter took photos of a few of my quilts with the natural daylight from the east window. Most of the photos on my blog are taken in the basement with daylight fluorescent bulbs. The ''real" daylight is so much better for true color and value changes. This is the Trip Around the World I finished in January. You can check back here as to how it looks with daylight bulbs.
Here is another one which shows the richness of the colors of the plaids and stripes. I finished it in March.
My daughter made the mosaic tile framed mirror on the wall behind me.
The redbuds are in full bloom now.
The cranesbill has its first flower. I have 3 different varieties of it and this is the earliest bloomer.
I dug up some hostas to share. There are 6 plants in that box.
I took a few more garden photos that I will show tomorrow.
Four more hours of hand stitching the binding and "Bouncing Balls" is finished. It is 54" x 70". The Roberta Horton plaids and stripes are lightweight fabrics. I used Hobbs 80/20 batting so the whole quilt is very lightweight.
I have mixed feelings about the back of the quilt but am glad I used those blocks and they are no longer staring at me waiting to be finished into something.
I am attempting to clean off the tables in my main floor studio and these blocks were in there. This is half of the blocks and I just wanted to see what they look like on the design wall. I will probably take them down again because I'm not sure what I want to do with them.
My first Dahlia bud is starting to open. When it gets totally open I'll hold a yardstick next to it so you can see the size. It is supposed to be a Dinner plate Dahlia so I'm expecting it to be big.
I added 8 more fabrics to my "page" on the right sidebar of my blog: Kaffe Fassett fabric catalog.
I finished sewing all of the Drunkard's Path blocks last night. I only cut from scraps for this bunch. I have plenty of yardage if I want to add more.
There are 68 of the 3.5" finished size and 38 of the 7" finished. I'm going to wait for the new Drunkard's Path variation book to see if I want to do something different with these.
Yesterday morning I helped a friend organize quilt kits for her winter in AZ. There was a little cutting to do and mini lessons on two of the quilts. Then we went out to lunch. The heat and humidity was intense when we left the nice cool restaurant. By late afternoon it was still pretty hot but there was a breeze so I went out for my daily weeding session. The peonies are starting to die back so I can start chopping them down.
I'm still sewing the Drunkard's Path blocks made from the Marcia Derse fabric scraps. I have all of the 3.5" ones sewn and have now started on the 7" ones.
Several people yesterday questioned why I want my Philip Jacobs fabrics in numerical order. If you have been a long time reader of my blog you have seen this photo before. It is just 2 of the boxes of Kaffe Fassett fabric in numerical order. If you are fairly new to Kaffe and Philip fabrics you may not know that there are collectors of their fabrics and the earliest numbers go for $30+ per yard and are only sold by the fat quarter on ebay. I have several people who contact me to see if I have yardage of some of the early numbers and they pay me big bucks for them. It is certainly easier to find them when they are in numerical order. I use the valuable ones too; I don't just collect them. I have every Kaffe fabric except #5 and I have most of the Philip Jacobs fabrics too. I'm sure some of you have favorite designers too and you probably have large collections of their fabric lines. Even though I will mix these fabrics into other groups in my quilts, I still like them stored separately.....and in numerical order.
I sewed some of the rows of the triangle quilt, made a few more of the small Drunkard's Path blocks, cut some pieces for a project for a friend, and cut more preemie outfits for church sewing circle. Add to that my hour of pulling weeds and it was a full day yesterday. Even though the humidity was down and it wasn't quite as hot there was no doubt it is still summer.
When I looked at my 2 photos (yesterday's post) I thought maybe a zig zag border would be a good idea. Gene came up with the same idea in his comment yesterday. I got all of the rest of the blocks pressed and this is now half of the blocks so you will have to imagine the bottom half as mirror image of the top. I haven't put the colors anywhere specific, just random plopping them up on the design wall. Since I have 4 alike of each I could group them together in the design. There will be lots more play on this one yet.
In my main floor studio which is just off the kitchen I got a little sewing done between other things. These are all 3.5" finished units. I still have 30 more to sew. I haven't started the 7" ones yet. There is a new book by C&T coming out with some variations of the Drunkard's Path. Maybe I should not put it together until I get that book and see if there are some ideas that would work with a scrappy assortment of blocks.
