Crooked Cobblestone finished..............

The binding was finished around 7 last night.  I think this is #13 of the total Crooked Cobblestone wall hangings and #12 of batik ones.  The blocks in this one were made in 2016 and this was the selection left after making #12.  I finished designing and sewing the top in January 2024.  I started quilting it in March this year but put it aside for awhile before finishing it this week.  It is 36.5" x 57.5".

I took my camera outside yesterday afternoon after the sun came out.  We had rain in the morning, but only enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge.

This is the first Ox-Eye False Sunflower bloom.  It is small, about 1.5" across.  There will be lots of them soon in the back garden.  This one is next to my garage.

Also along the garage, and all across the back garden are the invasive bell flowers.  Yes, they are pretty, there are just way too many of them.  I have already pulled lots of them but the rest will be pulled out after they bloom.  Even though they come out bare root, there will be lots of them next year.

Going around the corner of the house I checked out the tomato plants.  Two of the 4th of July variety tomato plants have little groups of tomatoes.  The largest are no bigger than a ping-pong ball.

This is the group on the second plant.  I also saw 5 little tomatoes on the Early Girl plant.  Altogether on 6 plants I counted at least 35 tomatoes.  These photographed here will be a little larger than a golf ball when ripe.  I like the small tomatoes better than large ones.

Continuing on by the backyard garden, there are still lots of Evening Primrose blooms.  I just let them grow wherever they want to be.  You can see they are surrounding the Hosta plants.

The pots in front of the garage are doing well.  The Coleus won't like the high 90s so I may shelter them inside the garage starting on the second day of the heat wave.  I think the petunias will be ok as long as I keep them watered well.  

More of the same.................

Are you tired of seeing this binding?  Me too.  I didn't spend much time on it yesterday but did get a little over half of one long side stitched.  That leaves half of a long side and a short side left to stitch.

I checked the rain gauge yesterday morning and it had .6" in it.  Not enough for our suffering lawns.  Now we are in for a week of mid to high 90s, cooling off to mid 80s, all starting tomorrow.  Also very high humidity will accompany it.  

Meanwhile the basted, next in line to be quilted is laying on the sewing table.  It will be a good project during the heat wave.

I saw one Ox-eye false sunflower blooming yesterday and didn't have my camera with me.  I forgot to go back out with it later.  Maybe I'll take some nature photos today.

 

Binding more................

My binding choice is looking good on the Crooked Cobblestones wall hanging.  I finished the long side and also finished one short side and turned the corner onto the next long side.

While my daughter and granddaughter were visiting we went over to the next town to the furniture store and sat in many recliners to choose one that fits me perfectly.  My old recliner was at least 31 years old and just not comfortable anymore.  The furniture store is family owned since 1886 and they offer free delivery and free removal of the furniture you are replacing.

We finally got some rain, all day yesterday and into the night and there was still only a little less than 1/2" in the rain gauge.  Towns only 20 miles away got over 2" with some getting 3".  I'm hoping when I check it this morning that it will be over 1/2".  

Binding started......................

Yesterday afternoon I put the very first Crooked Cobblestone quilt on the design wall and put the new one next to it (before binding was started).  I was pretty sure the new one was longer.

Later in the day I sewed the binding on and started the hand stitching.  I have one long side almost finished.  It will probably take me at least 4 nights to get the hand sewing done.

I checked my tomato plants and there are 22 little tomatoes on the three 4th of July variety plants.  There are blossoms but no tomatoes on the Rutgers or the Early Girl.  Rain predicted for late last night into today.  I hope it is only rain and no hail.

 

No more markers......................

Do you see any safety pins marking centers not quilted?  No, I don't either.  I finished all of the quilting yesterday.  Now I need to trim it and hopefully the piece of fabric for the hanging sleeve is still where I think it is.  Right now I'm thinking some shade of green might work for the binding.  That would go well with the backing fabric too.

I found 2 more small Peony blooms while roaming through the backyard garden.  I didn't remember that I had a white one over by the southwest corner.

I'm seeing buds on the Purple Coneflower plants as well as the Oxeye (false sunflower).  

 

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

A friend came over yesterday and we planned a quilt that we have both made before, both of us have gifted the quilts, and we both want another that we can keep.  We  had Subway sandwiches for lunch and had a lot of fun. 

I got 8 more centers quilted after I wrote yesterday's post and then got 10 more quilted last night.

I'm just adding 3 closeups of some blocks in the quilt because there isn't much else to show.

Now I have more than half of the centers quilted, 86 done, 76 to go.

I took this photo a few days ago and forgot to post it.  The roses have already died and I think the peonies will get tossed today.  That's the end of the peonies for another year.
 

 

Quilting and digging in dirt.................

I was spending a lot of time looking for the centers of blocks that needed to be quilted around.  I decided to mark all of the unquilted ones with a safety pin, all 94 of them.  Then I counted how many I have quilted around and there were 68.  I'm not even half done; I'm disappointed by that for sure.  Those numbers were after I quilted around 8 centers last night.

When I dug up the largest of the volunteer tomato plants yesterday, I found out it was 4 plants growing very close together.  I also dug up some of the small volunteers and ended up potting 4 of them and replanting the 2 largest ones.  I went out as the sun was setting and put the 2 tall cages around the 2 that I had planted.  Then I saw there was one more volunteer that I missed and it's not in a good spot so I'll put that one in a pot for now too.  My neighbor is gone for a few days so when she gets back I'll share some more with her.  We planted one volunteer in her large pot 2 nights ago.

A little quilting...................

I'm back to quilting my Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging.  I'm ditch quilting around every center of every block.  At the lower edge I'm ready to quilt 9 light color centers, quilting one and then dragging the thread over to the next, etc.  Then I will trim all of the connecting threads when I'm done with that area.  I'm using the backstitch feature on the machine and Invisifil thread so the tie off is almost invisible.

There are 3 tomatoes on this one plant and I got them all into one photo.  The sun shining on 2 of them makes them look yellow but they are really a light green.  There is one more tomato on another plant.

I found another volunteer tomato plant in the raised bed.  I will dig up the tiny ones today and put them in pots until they get larger and then decide where to plant them.

I promise I won't post a photo of the cucumber progress every day but I had to show it has grown a bit since Monday when I took the first photo.  Another is out of this view and I'm still waiting for the last 2 seeds to start growing.

It was nice to have a clear night last night to take another photo of the strawberry moon.  This time I did a better job of holding the camera still since it took a couple seconds for the click.

Looking for a backing...........

This quilt top is next in line for basting to prepare for ditch quilting.  I needed to find a batik for backing yesterday.  It is 37 x 58" so I need almost 1 3/4 yards of fabric.

The first place I look is the 2 shelves of multicolor and large design batiks.  Most of them are hard to use because the color changes so often in them.

When I first look through the stacks I'm looking for larger yardage pieces and pull them out.  The one one the left is more blue, not green as it looks here.

I think I used the one in the center for a backing of another wall hanging, maybe a colorwash.

Since the Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging top has a lot of orange and green I think the one on the right is the best choice.  

Today I need to cut a piece of batting for it and prepare it for basting.  If it's a good day, maybe I'll even get some basting done.

Binding finished..........................

I finished the binding on this quilt at 10:30 last night.  I'll take its portrait and post details about it tomorrow.

One more view.  I love this quilt.

I was looking at the Crooked Cobblestone 13 from my computer chair and decided to flip it 180 degrees.  I think I like it better this way.  If I remember right I flipped a couple of the earlier ones too after they were sewn.

I really like it both ways so it is a tough decision.

I made a collage of both views.   The photos were taken under 2 different kind of lights so they look slightly different.   I won't be quilting it for a few weeks so I have time to make a decision which way is up.

Pressed and trimmed.............

I went back through my archive photos and think this is #13.  One was sold as a top.

This ended up 37" x 58", almost 5 feet tall.  I didn't have to make any more blocks; they were all in those 11 plastic bags sorted by size.  This one is a little different than my previous crooked cobblestone quilts because of a smaller variety of colors in the blocks.

Here I am in 2012 at a gallery in NC with the first 10 crooked cobblestone wall hangings.  All have been sold or gifted except the top right and the cross quilt.

I chose the binding fabric for the next quilt in line.  It had to be red and it had to be Kaffe fabric.  Since I have all of his fabrics starting with #1 I had a good group to look through.  I almost didn't buy this one because it was a tone on tone type but now I realize they make great bindings.

I got the strips cut and sewn on the quilt.  One short side and half of one long side have been hand stitched so far.

Sewn but not pressed...................

I sewed in 3 sessions yesterday and got extra pieces added to either the top or bottom of 6 of the 11 columns to get them closer to the same length.  I ended up putting the extra 3" column between columns 4 and 5 instead of between 5 and 6.  I sewed the columns together last night but haven't pressed it yet.  That comes next and then I will trim the bottom edge for a nice straight finish.  It is about 37" x 58" now.  There were 24 blocks of various sizes leftover after assembling this.

We are above freezing now at night as well as mid 30s in the daytime so the 12" of snow is disappearing pretty quickly.  We have had a little fog each day with it.  I went out to get some supplies on Thursday and saw one man in shorts and sandals.  I think he was jumping ahead a little too soon.

First finish for January 2024.............

Batik is so much prettier in person than it is in a photo.  The top was finished in March of 2019 so not quite 5 years waiting in line.  When I started making the blocks I hadn't really analyzed any pineapple log cabin quilts that I saw so I made both light and dark blocks, not realizing that most quilts were all light blocks or all dark blocks.  I'm glad I came up with a layout that worked and used most of the blocks.  It is 69.5" x 89" after quilting and binding.  It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it.  I used my accuquilt die cutter to cut all of the pieces from many containers of batik scraps.

Yesterday I decided to sew the columns of crooked cobblestones.  I added some more blocks to either the top or bottom of the columns to make it taller.  I have the tops lined up here and will need to fill in with some batik strips to make the rows all the same length.

Last night I was checking the leftover blocks and found enough 3" wide blocks (the 5 center rows) to make another column.  Since the columns in the above photo aren't sewn to each other yet I can experiment with its position in the quilt.  I think it might be inserted between the 5th and 6th columns.

Today I need to start stitching the binding of the next quilted quilt.  It will be easier that the batik one because it will be Kaffe fabric.

 

Binding finished..............

Like most batik bindings, this one seemed like it took forever but it was only 5 days.  The top was 70" x 91" before quilting so it was a lot of little stitches in the binding.

I folded part of it back so both ends of the quilt show, both the light end and the dark end.  I hopefully will get it up on the design wall for its portrait today.

I added more columns of crooked cobblestone blocks on my design wall yesterday morning.  If you look at the 2 side edges you can see I need to trim some of the blocks.  I ran out of blocks the right width.  This will shrink a lot when I sew it and I think it will be 36" wide.  I'm not sure about the height.

Here is the last bloom on the first stalk and the first bloom on the second stalk.  It's hard to see but this is the one with the thin red line around the edges of the petals.

 

On the design wall.....................

At the left are all of the rows of the Marcia Derse fabric quilt I was working on.  No decisions made on how to finish it.  I decided to put some columns of Crooked Cobblestone blocks on the design wall to see what I have available.  I used 5 different widths of blocks for this.

I spent the earlier part of the evening hand stitching the binding.  I have 3 corners done and 1/2 of a long side and 1/2 of a short side left to stitch.  Batik binding and batting make it a slower process of hand stitching.  I hope I can finish it today.  Then I need to start the binding on the next one but it will be easy to stitch with Kaffe fabric.

Old blocks................

While I was in the basement doing laundry I started looking for a bag of crooked cobblestones.  Since I have emptied 4 project boxes so far this month I thought I should continue looking for blocks already made in past years.

In the bag were all of these separate bags of crooked cobblestones that are measured and packaged by width.  On the sidebar of this blog is a photo of a Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging, the first one that I made.  Here is a post when I was sorting them by size, 2016.  They have been waiting a long time to be used.  I have a label Cobblestone Series in the label list on the right side bar with 79 posts in it if you are interested in any more info.

I hand stitched half of a short side on the pineapple log cabin quilt binding so now I am officially half done.