Prepping for quilting.............

It was time to prep two more quilts to be sent out for quilting.  This quilt top is only 53.5" wide so this 58" black and white fabric is sufficient for the back.  It was nice to not have to piece a backing.

I had already searched through the Wishwell Weather Report fabric and found 2 pieces that would work for the back.  The apricot is full width and the green is about 14" wide for this backing.  Batting was cut for both quilts and then I turned on the iron and pressed the 2 backings.

I knew I had already cut the black strips that will border all of the placemats.  It didn't take long to find it and I think I have enough cut for all of the projects.  Now I just need to get busy.

 

Sample block...................

Another thing I want to do this year is make a test block for all of my dies and hopefully one a week.  I started yesterday with this Pine Burr die.  I remember a friend of mine made a quilt with this pattern back in the late 1990s and I liked the quilt.

I decided to use some small chunks of Cherrywood fabric for this one.  I didn't have the gold fabric lined up quite right for the cut so it is short on 2 of the outside edges.  I think I may be able to trim it  into a square in spite of that mis-cut and I could make a mug rug with it.  Mainly I want to see if the die is accurate and how long it takes to make a block.  This will help me decide how large of a project I would want to make with the die.  This one is a 10" finished block.  I might test all 10" blocks first and they could be used in a sampler type quilt if I stick with the same kind of fabric.

We're in the midst of a heat wave....it will get up to 44 today and in the 50s by Thursday.  No icy pavement on my walk into the PT building. They did mention snow later in the week but rain to follow it.  

Yes, it did snow................

This was the scene around 9:30 yesterday morning.  I think we had around an inch of snow when it was all done.  The good part is how fast it will melt today when it gets close to 50 this afternoon.  We may get a little snow Thursday morning too, the first day of spring.

The good news yesterday was the Amaryllis saved from several years ago is blooming.  I was happy to see it was a double white one.

A few days ago I thought it only had 2 buds but when it finally all opened up there are 4 buds.  The other 3 bulbs I saved over the summer just have leaves so far.

I trimmed the Kaffe blue pinwheel quilt and decided on a binding fabric.

This photo shows just a little edge of the binding choice.  I'll get it cut today.

I got the binding on the last 2 "littles" last night.  The two zig zag ones are 6.25" square, the blue one 6.5" square and the large one is a tiny bit under 8" square.  They will join the pile of small pieces for gifting that I'm finishing this year.

The backs and bindings are all hand dyed fabrics too.  It's hard to believe these were just waiting for their binding for over 10 years.

Small bits of time..............................

I don't like days with an appointment in the middle, breaking up time to work on anything.  In the morning before I had to leave I was looking through this bin of Cherrywood hand dyed fabric.  It is all from broken up packages of gradations, usually 8 quarter yard pieces.  I plan on grouping some of this for my destash next week.  The back story of why I have so much of it: Dawn Hall, the inventor of the process of Cherrywood dyeing, was the niece of my friend who owned Quilting Books Unlimited.  I went to Houston in the late 1980s to the big show to help my friend selling books and Dawn's fabric was introduced to the world of quilters at our booth.  I bought almost every pack that Dawn dyed in those early days. I used some of it in this quilt.

Then I left for another town and stopped at a big box retailer for 2 eight foot fluorescent bulbs because 2 are burnt out in my main floor studio.  Then on to my appointment and finally home 2 hours later.

Later in the afternoon I started looking through my larger pieces of batik fabrics for possible backings for 3 throw size batik tops.  I see some possibilities and will do some measuring today.

I went out and pulled more of the creeping Bellflowers that are past their prime, more to do yet.

Today my grandson is going to stop by and hook up some new equipment that Comcast sent to me.  For what I pay every month I would think the company could come hook it up.  Oh, they will, for $100 a visit.  Oh, and a little more rant.  As I'm carrying the 8 foot bulbs to the front of the store to check out I find the only lanes open are self check.  I stopped in front of the "pick up" desk where 2 people were working.  Finally one of them looked up and asked if she could help.  I told her I couldn't self check while holding 8 foot bulbs.  She very graciously offered to help then.  I told her 83 year old ladies should be waited on from the time they walk in the door.  Then she said you don't look like 83.  Well that made my day.  Rant over.

Looking for backings............

I spent a couple hours looking through my larger yardage pieces for a batik mottled fabric to use for borders and back of the latest quilt top.  There is only one piece that is large enough and it is either navy or charcoal, not sure which.

Then I switched to going through things in my main floor studio and found a box with these die cut pieces from 2010 before I had my die cutter.  Another person cut the pieces for me with her die cutter.  I have made one small quilt top with the blocks and now I have to decide if I really want to sew any more of these and add to the top.  It looks like there are pieces for another 16 blocks and I have at least one leftover block in the basement.

Here is a photo of the piece that is sewn together.  It is about 40" x 47".  It would look nice larger but I'm not sure I want to sew any more of those blocks.  I'll think about it.

 

Digging deep...........

Since my other finish this month was from 12 years ago I decided to dig deep into the box of works in progress for another oldie.  This one is from 10 years ago.  I planned the layout back then and had had the rows clipped together and numbered so all I had to do was sew it together.  It still needs pressing and that is a pain with the bulk where the points meet from block to block.  It's going to be pretty chilly here tomorrow and I haven't turned the heat on yet so pressing might be a joy after all.  

If you like to search the history, here is where I posted about this last.  I see I had more blocks in that post than in this quilt so I guess I'll look for the rest of them.  

The block is Winding Ways and a friend cut the pieces for me on her die cutter the year before I bought my Studio die cutter.  

The hand dyed fabrics are a combination of all of the ones I had purchased from 1993 to 2010.

Here is a nature photo to match the quilt top.  The asters are in full bloom in two colors.

Choosing fabrics......

I didn't do any sewing yesterday but I did play with fabric.  I have been cutting quilt kits for a friend this summer and this is the next one.  Luckily all of these squares and strips were cut a long time ago and just needed to be co-ordinated to work together.  Now I need to cut the strips to the right lengths.  I cut this same kit for her last year and she enjoyed making it so much she wanted to do another.  Here is the block instructions.

I got a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday, a fabric postcard made of hand dyed fabrics from my friend Vicki W.  

It was nestled between bills.  I wonder if my mailman read it.  I'm sure it is a novelty at my small town post office.

Top sewn...and next in line..........

I sewed this top together while I watched Scorpion last night.  It is 48" x 60".  I think it needs a yellow back and a yellow binding.  Part of the back will be the fabric with the white background and squares of yellow in the print.  The yellow with white dot will probably be a strip to make it wide enough.  If you go back to this post you can see the one in the book that inspired me.

Yesterday morning I found the backing for this quilt and chose the thread to quilt it.  The piece to the left is all that is left of the backing yardage but there will be a long piece to cut off the side of the backing after quilting.  You can go here to see the full shot of this top.  Did you notice the date on that post?  This one has been waiting a long time to get quilted.

A gift..........

My friend Martha brought me a pack of Cherrywood fabrics when she visited me Thursday.  I love the beautiful intense colors.  You can check out her blog here.  She used to live in my town and took classes from me starting way back in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

I think I purchased the Cherrywood fabrics on the left the last time I went to the Paducah show and I think that was in 2005.  They are going to go great with the new pack.

I added 11 more fabrics to the Kaffe Fassett fabric catalog "page" on my right sidebar.

A chocolate soda to go............

My granddaughter and great-grandson were in town for a visit yesterday.  We spent the morning at my house and then we went to lunch (with my other granddaughter who had a birthday yesterday and my son) at my favorite restaurant.  Then we walked around the corner to the second favorite place and I got a chocolate soda to go.  I was surprised how many people I talk to who don't know what an ice cream soda is.  I come from the time period of soda fountains in the drugstores and this was always my favorite.  Now very few places around here make sodas.

I was the winner of the last day drawing last week at Vicki Welsh's blog.  The prize was 4 yards of beautiful hand dyed fabric (these are 2 yards each, 1 yard of each showing in the photo) and 10 yards of Mistyfuse.  You might want to follow her blog and maybe you will win some fabric sometime.  She has lots of great links to tutorials and has a shop where she sells the hand dyed fabric as well as hand made soap and glass items.  She has just created a new website that includes all of it.

I have been looking at this Viburnum bloom from my kitchen window and finally went out to take a photo of it.  There is always just one branch that has the blooms on it.

Last day of the year, working on last finish........

This quilt has been in progress since October 2010.  It was too narrow for me so I added more pieces as borders in April this year.  I added in a few star blocks too.

Just so I have a record of the backing too I took this photo.  The flowers don't look like they run in rows when you are looking at it close up so I was surprised when I saw this photo.

I'm on the home stretch on the hand dyed fabric quilt.  This is the back before I was done stitching lines.  (Backing dyed by Melody Johnson about 15-20 years ago).

I finished the quilting late in the afternoon and sewed on the binding.  It is from a gradation piece that went from turquoise to blue to purple, a Vicki Welsh hand dye like the other fabrics that are in the quilt top.  The quilt isn't quite this vivid.  The lights in my main floor studio aren't perfect.  

I should be able to finish the binding today early enough to get a full shot of this one and to do my end of year recap to post tomorrow morning.





 

One done, still quilting...........

The hand stitching on the binding is done.  I'll hang it on the design walls today and get a full shot of it.

I did lots more rows of quilting and now I need to make a decision how many more are needed so I can call it done.  I want it to stay soft so probably 2 more rows in both directions in every row, 26 lines of quilting. 

Progress on two............

I looked at about 15 choices for binding for this quilt.  This seemed the most unlikely one but it worked the best.

I have the hand sewing almost done on three sides, one long side to go.

I'm quilting a little each day on this one, randomly spaced "straight" line rows of quilting.  My straight is pretty wiggly.

Quilting on two.......

I took the photo on the right first and the colors looked washed out.  I put the blue/gray fabric in the second photo and the yellows and pinks are truer colors.  This quilt is quite bright but you wouldn't know it by the photo on the right.  What I was taking the photo for was to show how pretty the backing fabric looks with the front.  This one is quilted and trimmed now so I need to look for binding.

Next I chose the Superior King Tut colors for the hand dyed quilt.  I wound bobbins of the dark pink.

I put in a few rows of stitching.  Notice the colors difference in the 2 photos of this one?  In the top photo I laid a gray plastic on the edge of the quilt to focus on.  Those colors are true.  The second photo is dull in comparison.

Top and bottom borders.........

I chose a fabric for the top and bottom borders of this quilt, cut them and sewed them on and also cut the binding strips from the same fabric.  I chose the backing, a 60" wide fabric hand dyed by Melody Johnson about 15-20 years ago.  Since my only Christmas party is on the 21st I hope to do some finishing of quilts in the last 10 days of the year.  I think this will be one of them.

A break from borders.........

No borders yesterday.  It was the twice monthly sewing day and I made 22 more blocks to go with the 20 I showed on Nov. 23rd.  The blocks are 8.5" and each insert being a 1" cut strip does not change the size of the block when it is sewn in with an accurate 1/4" seam.  It would end up 48" x 56" if I don't make any more blocks.  I'm thinking about stopping here with blocks and adding a 4" wide strip of hand dyed fabric on the top and bottom so it will be 64" long.

Almost all of the hand dyed fabric in this quilt was purchased from Vicki Welsh and a lot of it is from her stash packs.  I also cut one of the gradient half yards into the 8.5" squares.

Saturday happenings............

Since I missed the 2 Thursday sew-ins this month I decided to make some more of the blocks at home for this quilt.  This would make 2 great table runners too.  

This is what I have been reading.  The first day I thought I would read a couple chapters to just get into the story.  When I finished chapter 10 I made myself put it down.  Yes, it is a good book.  Yesterday morning I went to the car dealer for an appointment to get the lock on my driver's side door to work.  I figured it was a computer thing but I was way off.  If was a broken part and damaged wiring, $455 and 2 1/4 hours later I had read over half of the book and was on the way home.

I have finalized my fabric collection for the new quilt.  I took out a few that were in yesterday's photo and added a few.  Today I'll so some cutting and start sewing.

The new quilt.........

This is what I did with the 8.5" squares that I showed yesterday.  I decided it was so much fun slicing the blue and green blocks on this quilt that I wanted to do it again but slice as many times and wherever I wanted.  The fabrics are 95% Vicki Welsh hand dyes and 5% others that I have had in my stash a long time.  I cut all of the big squares from warm colors and the 1" strips are a wild assortment from all of my scraps of hand dyed fabrics.  I will save this project to take to our next sew in the second Thursday in November.

Today I want to sew my Drunkard's Path blocks together but I also need to get outside and cut down some more weeds and peonies in the gardens. 

I didn't want to do it.......

Today is our twice monthly sew in day and I needed a project.  I didn't want to carry my heavy machine so I couldn't continue on any of the 3 quilts in progress.  I didn't want to do it.....but I have to start a new project today.  I die cut 8.5" squares and pressed all of the scraps so I'm ready to go.

I have some kits of 2.5" squares of African and related fabrics on my Wandafulquilts blog.  There were 4 kits, now only 3 available.  I needed the aluminum trays that I was storing these squares on so I made kits.ALL KITS ARE SOLD!

Home again...........

I was at my friend's house for 3 days.  Yesterday morning her sister came over with her GO! cutter and my friend had her GO-baby.  I had wonder undered a bunch of hand dyed fabrics so we could all cut out shapes and have a variety to play with.  I took some dies with me that they didn't have.  I brought home all of the 'holes'.

When we were refolding and sorting my friend's batiks there were lots of small pieces and strips that we pulled out.  She surprised me by bagging them all and letting me bring them home.  I love pretty scraps!!