Playing with stash................

This block is made from the other pieces on the Fractured Studio die.  I cut them a couple days ago and sewed them yesterday.  I have made a table topper in the past with these blocks.

I have had a quilt in the back of my mind for a few months, to be made with batiks.  I started sorting through them last night while I watched 3 hours of NCIS.

The pile in front is the pieces to be put back on one shelf.  Behind it is the pieces I have pulled for the quilt.

Even my knitting is green right now.

I wasn't ready to work in the basement yesterday but maybe today I'll get the Fractured blocks down there and play at the design wall.  I need to do a load of laundry because I'm running out of clean clothes.

Last night we got a little rain at 10 and more was predicted to come through overnight.  It is only predicted to be in the mid 60s today.

 

Miscellaneous.................

As promised yesterday I took a photo of the lock screen on my cell phone with my Canon camera.  This is the close up photo of one of my Peony blooms.  Before the last update on my phone I didn't see the possibility of using one of my own photos.  Now I can enjoy the Peony year round.

For several years I have been dropping photo Christmas cards, loose photos, folders from funerals, obituaries cut from the newspaper, etc. into the top drawer in the guest room.  I wanted to find my grandparents' obituaries to see how old they were when they passed.  By the time I was done I had everything out of the drawer and sorted on my guest bed.  I have a little more sorting to do plus figuring out a system for this drawer so it won't just be layers and layers, and layers...............

Outside yesterday, I planted my little cucumber plants in a large pot and also one more tomato plant in a pot.  I cut lots of leaves off Burdock plants.  I don't have the energy to dig out their huge roots.  I also cut down the new branches of a Tree of Heaven.  I have to cut it down at least twice in the summer, sometimes 3 times.  I haven't had any luck trying to get rid of it.

I only cut a few more floral squares for the current project.

I checked out a 2 tier box as I was cleaning off a table top and it has 2.5" batik squares in one layer and 2" batik squares in the other layer.  Nice seeds for a new project.

The weather people say we might get rain overnight into this morning.  I'm hoping we get some but I think the bulk of it will go south of us and into Indiana.

Backing and binding chosen.................

 

I didn't even have this top on my list of ones to finish because I thought I was going to add a border.  I made the decision yesterday to just finish it as is.  I chose a gray leaf print for the back and there is a pebble or mosaic type fabric on the left edge that I'm thinking will be the binding.  I need to carefully ditch quilt this one because I don't want quilting all over the top.  This batik top was made 5 years ago using the Hattie's Choice die from Accuquilt.  I have another top that also wasn't on the list and have chosen backing for it too.  I have 4 now lined up to quilt on my Pfaff.  The total number of tops waiting to be quilted is 17 and I'll be sending 2 to my longarm quilter this week.

Thinking ahead......................

I am thinking about making some more of the little still life projects with the 1.5" squares.  I'm wondering if I want to add some triangle squares to add a few angles instead of all square pixels.  It's never a loss to have pieces cut because they can easily make a different project if I don't want them in this project.  Those little stacks are 4 alike of about 12 different fabrics times 6 stacks.  That should give me a good variety to work from.  Do any of you use a program to pixelate a photo?  I did a search and there were so many sites I have never heard of and I was hesitant to open them.

Yesterday morning was spent going through the brown, rust, beige and green batiks and pulling some that I will be cutting this week (squares, triangles and rectangles).  It takes a long time to prep for a project. 

Mother's Day is cooler this year.  Yesterday was very windy so low 70s didn't feel that warm.

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.

 

Side by side.....................

I couldn't decide whether the strips should run horizontal or vertical so I made one of each.  I was making these to use up the 1.5" and 2.5" Kaffe strips that I had cut several years ago.  I did end up having to cut a few new strips to have enough for both quilts.  The spacer strips in the quilt on the left are in there because I needed a little more width and I didn't want to make any more blocks.  I'm not sure which quilt I like best because I like both of them.  These are made with all Kaffe collective fabrics.  Maybe I should use a different group of fabrics and make another one.

I spent a few hours yesterday cutting and piecing the backs for 2 more quilts, ironing them, and cutting batting.  I was glad I had large enough pieces in my batik stash for both of them.

I didn't do any sewing last night because the storms rolled in a little after 7 p.m. so I had my machine unplugged.  There was small hail for awhile and rain.  The tornadoes were about 50 miles away.  More rain and small hail after 10 p.m.

Social time...........................

My grandson and his wife brought lunch yesterday and then stayed long enough to help me with a couple heavy duty tasks.  Afterwards I did some grocery shopping.

Last night I cut the last stratas into sections and made some more Kaffe 16 patch blocks.  I love busy quilts, and I'm sure a few of you wonder why I'm not using white as every other square to "calm" it down.  I love all of the patterns in the fabric running together.  There are 2 of each of these blocks, so 18 total.

This group of leftover blocks has been hanging around my studio too long and I'm tired of moving them from place to place.  I need to do something with them or put them in a box in the basement.  They are leftovers from making this quilt which hangs on the wall at my grandson's house in NC.

I have organizing and clean up to do in my main floor studio today so I'm not sure what I will work on tonight.

 

A new month, unlimited possibilities.....................

As usual at the beginning of a new month, I'm looking ahead to what I want to work on.  The last 18 months have been devoted to emptying storage boxes with partial projects in them.  9 of the quilts last year came from these empty boxes. The bottom supports on my drafting table are a great place to store lots of the boxes.

As I go through more boxes, I'm finding more pieces leftover from previous projects.  These 180 four and a half inch squares are left from the Double 9 patch quilt I made in 2008.  

These 72 green four and a half inch squares are left from a blue and green Double 4 Patch quilt also made in 2008.  I used a lot of the blue leftovers in 2 Bear Paw quilts.  In this post I was trying out layouts of the blocks.

In another box are these 204 batik four and a half inch squares.  A lot of them are leftover from a kit I sold to a friend for a Double 4 patch quilt, maybe from 2 kits.  Now that I have a record of these on my blog, I can refer back to this post if I find a pattern that I want to make that will take this size square.  I also have the 35 purple and green leftover portion of the 4.5" strips to cut into 4 squares of each.

I'll keep looking through things today.  I know I want to press the flannel scraps and cut more tumblers and squares from them.  If I can just get the pain in my back and leg to stop I'll get more done.  I have an appointment this month for a treatment that will possibly work.

Sewn, not pressed..........................

The top half of the quilt is folded up so I would have room to design the bottom half.  The blocks on the bottom aren't sewn in this photo.  I changed one because I had a light block where a dark block was supposed to go.

I finished sewing the top at 10 last night and even though the last seams haven't been pressed, I wanted to check it out and make sure I didn't have any blocks turned wrong.  Now seeing the photo I can see I have one dark block where a light one should be.  I'm not sure I'll change it.

These are the 4 leftover blocks.  

The second flower has opened, one more to go.  There is also another bud stalk growing so I have hopes of more blooms.

I chose a binding fabric for the quilt I trimmed.  I need to press it today so I can cut the strips.

 

Blocks are ready..........

 

I really thought I was going to have blocks up on the design wall yesterday.  I pressed the final batch, sorted them into 2 piles with one light block and one dark block of each combination in it.  Then I took other projects off the design wall to make enough space to design the top half of the quilt.  That was it, no more ambition to get anything done. I'm going to blame the cold weather for it.  We got up to 17 degrees yesterday, a couple degrees higher than they predicted.  We have had sunshine for 2 days in a row, producing a month with higher than average sunshine.  I think that happened in January last year too and then February had lots of overcast days.

While I was in the basement I put away the nine red and black batik fabrics.  They are also Bali batiks from the 1990s, like the black and white ones are.

2 projects...........................

It was time to trim the little strips that I sewed a few days ago.  For some of them the 2.5" ruler and the rotating mat worked well.  A few of them were too narrow so I had to move the ruler.

I got all three sewn together but haven't pressed them or squared them up.  They will be 3 nice little mug rugs soon.

I got one of each of the last four sets of strips sewn into blocks.  

Strips were cut for 3 more stratas and they got sewn last night.  I need to press them today.

I looked through the remaining Nancy Crow fabric and found this one that could possibly be some alternate blocks.  I have enough strips sewn for 54 blocks and 63 is the minimum number of blocks I like in a 16 patch quilt (56" x 72").  I have about a yard of this patchwork print and I need to measure to see if I can get 4 rows of 8.5" strips out of it, and whether I can get 5 squares across or only 4.  Then I can determine whether I would rather have 80 blocks in the quilt instead of 63. 

First quilt top for October 2025...............

It took less than a half hour to finish this little quilt top.  It is 34" square.  It will be put with next month's pieces to be quilted.

I had to clear off my table top so I sewed the last group of tiny pieces into 4 more strips.  This set isn't as colorful as the first 2 sets shown yesterday

Yesterday morning I did some more cutting for the Nancy Crow fabric 16 patch and for the purple Rosy quilt.  I started sewing the stratas for the NC 16 patch.  This is all 1990s fabric.  I have enough strips cut for 48 blocks so I need to do some more cutting.  The minimum size 16 patch quilt I make takes 63 blocks.

 

Sidetracked, or is it derailed.............................

There is a table in my main floor studio that I have been slowly cleaning off (we're talking piles here) and when I say slowly, it is like 2 items a day.  One of the items yesterday was a little 4" x 4" bag of small batik pieces.

The 7" ruler gives you an idea how small the pieces were.  They were all end pieces when I was cutting some project a few years ago and I couldn't throw them in the trash.

I decided to piece them into strips, 4 of which would make a little mug rug.  I haven't pressed anything here and they are overlapped by about a half inch.

After I sewed those, I could see there were enough to sew 4 more strips of them.  And guess what, there are still enough to make 4 more strips but I didn't do that yet.  I need to press these and trim them into straight strips before I can assemble them into mug rug tops.

That was fun but now I needed to get back on track and cut the triangles and get this baby quilt top sewn together.  I will need to press the center part  before I can sew on the 4 corner triangles.  I ended up using the same fabric in all 4 corners, and 4 fabrics for the 8 setting triangles.  

 

Not working......................

Sometimes you have to play with some blocks to find out what isn't working.  I had company yesterday so last night I just pulled out the baggie of 44 three inch 9 patches.  I placed them on my sewing table edge to edge to see if they would make a nice table runner top.  What I quickly realized is that there are lots of dark colors in these blocks.

I had a stack of batik squares in the same size so I just put them on every other block that was on the table.  My conclusion?  Neither of them is pretty enough to sew.  Back into the baggie they will go with the note telling me there are 44 of them. 

Number 3 of 3 dishcloths is finished.  Time to start 3  more.  

Just a little mindless sewing...............

I did my tomato plant trimming yesterday morning before it got too hot.  There should be better air circulation now through the plants.

After lunch I decided to use some 1.5" batik strips in a bag that were left from a previous project.  Here is that project on this post in 2009.  (I quilted the quilt in 2016.)  There were 170 strips originally in the bag but over the years I have used some strips out of the bag for other projects.  The strips are all half width (20" approx.) and I used 60 so far for this group of stratas.  These will probably be used for table runners since I didn't make any table mats or runners last month.

I finally had windows open overnight for 2 nights while the temperature and humidity both dropped.  Now we are going back to a string of 90s.  This morning the dew point will start out at 60 around 1 a.m. and by 11 p.m. it will be around 74.  That is a big humidity change, in addition to being close to 90 degrees.  We won't get relief again until next Wednesday.

Hot, hot, hot............................

I know most of the US is under this heat dome and it isn't fun.  It's the humidity that is the worst part.

I spent most of the day working slowly, some quilting, some knitting, a little organizing in the basement.  One good thing happened; I found my missing Kaffe Quilts in Italy book which has been missing for several months.  I sewed 2 pieces of batting together with the triple zig zag for a piece 48" x 58".  I will check and see if that works for any of the small tops waiting in line.  If not, I'll add one more strip to it.

Last night I decided to check out what's in this box.  I cut most of these strips 15-20 years ago.

This is the top layer.  It looks like I have a good variety cut.

Yes, there is another layer below, more light fabrics under this end of it.  There are probably enough strips to make a couple king size log cabin quilts.  No, I'm not making any more king size quilts!  I made some 3" nine patch blocks last year.  I could add to that pile.  I'm trying to come up with some easy night time sewing.