Playing with blocks.......................

A few days ago I showed some fabric that might work as alternate blocks sprinkled through the new quilt I'm working on.  I tried these 3 yesterday.

This is the one I thought would be most likely to work.  The idea is to have a print that blends with the blocks, not one that stands out as "here I am".  The purpose of the blocks is to enlarge the quilt without having to piece more blocks.

This one is still a possibility but I think it might be too obvious.

I thought ths one was too busy but I kind of like it.  I can get 16 blocks for sure out of a yard of fabric and on some could get 20, depending on how wide that white selvage is.

Then it was time to layer 10 stratas, staggered by 1" (following lines on the cutting mat) and cut pieces for the next 20 blocks. I actually did that twice and got the last 20 cut also.

This is one block each of the first 20 blocks (there are 2 alike in every combination) which equals 1/4 of the quilt top.  The lightest block is in the top row and I think it is going to be fine with the darker blocks.

I sewed a lot of blocks last night, with just 6 left to sew today.  I have a lot of decisions to make.  Do I want a quilt 72" x 88" or do I want to make 2 smaller quilts (and piece a few more blocks)?  I could add in more blues and greens if I made more blocks. 

Last two..................

There was just one strip to cut yesterday to complete the stratas.

This is all 40-1/2 stratas, ready for me to decide which 16 patch to make.

I decided to look through my larger print brown fabrics to see if there was anything I would want to use for a few alternate blocks sprinkled through.  This photo shows 22" top to bottom.

This photos shows 1/2 yard of the fabric.

This photo shows 22" top to bottom.  I think this might be the best candidate.

This is showing 1/2 yard of the fabric.  I think this one might be good too.

I didn't get any farther on decisions because I was invited to a family dinner at my son's house and had 2 little boys to entertain us.  They are 15 months apart in age and the oldest just turned 4 last month.

More sorting fun....................

Here is the whole rack that I showed a portion of in yesterday's post.  Yesterday I sorted the reds, what fun, and there weren't any I wanted to get rid of.  To the right of them is the overflow of Brandon fabrics (which you can see the edge of on the right) and a couple Kaffe yarn dyed wovens.  There is a pile of fat quarters in front of the stack.  So  the second shelf from the top was sorted Saturday and the reds on Sunday.  The 2 unsorted shelves are the Philip Jacobs prints.  On the bottom shelf is Laurel Burch fabric on the left and in the 2 storage boxes are black and white batiks and red and black batiks.  The very top shelf has 2 groups of Robin Pickins fabric and 3 boxes of scraps sorted loosely by color.  Also up there in a plastic bag is the remainder of the Wishwell Weather Report fabric.

Last night I got the rest of the dark brown strips sewn on the 15 ten inch strips for the Kaffe zipper quilt.  Then I knitted for awhile while I watched a cute movie on Prime.  It was called Sheep Detectives.

We ended up with 2" of rain on Saturday, much needed to turn the grass green again.

 

A visitor...................

For those of you who read Nann's blog With Strings Attached, you know that her power was off yesterday from the big storm on Monday.  She contacted me to see if she could visit...we had been planning to do this some day.  We had lunch and a tour of my studios.  It's always fun to meet a blog friend in person.

She brought me a gift.  She goes to estate sales, etc, and gets the best bargains on fabric.  This batch has an African theme.  A couple pieces are long enough to use in a pieced backing.

This group is all Nancy Crow designs.  I have some of the same prints but there were different colorways here that I didn't have.  Oh, what fun I will have with these!

I made a few more of the 3" nine patches last night and have a few more ready to sew tonight.

What a great day!

Binding cut...................

I had the iron on to press some other fabrics so I pressed the binding fabric and got the 7 strips cut.

While I had the fabrics out for the Snail's Trail I also cut a 2.5" strip off the larger pieces.  I needed a few more so I pressed some more fabric and cut them and now have 80 strips, 80 different fabrics.  Maybe they will become a 16 patch when I need some mindless sewing.

While I was at it I cut a few more strips off some of the fabrics and there are 71 in this group.  There are duplicates of some fabrics.  I don't have a plan for these right now.

Pressing...........

I had to turn the iron on yesterday to press the binding fabric for the current finish so I paired the fabrics for the Snail's Trail and got 4 pairs pressed while I was at it.  Hopefully I'll get some blocks cut today.

While outside checking on my tomato plants I noticed some of the buds on the Tiger Lilies are turning orange.  It won't be long now for the first few blooms.

Thanks to a friend, I had blackberries on vanilla ice cream last night for dessert.  Yummy!

I got the binding strips cut yesterday so I hope to get the binding sewn on the quilt today.  Maybe I'll hand finish this one.

 

I found one...................

It's interesting how many fabrics I looked past without seeing them when I made the first search for the backing for the floral stars quilt.  I think this one will be perfect.  It is from the same time period as the floral fabrics and I have 9 yards of it.

That was actually the second fabric I pulled out of the large bin and I first thought this might be a candidate.  It is a taupe type beige and is a Jinny Beyer fabric.  After I found the other one though, I realized this would make a great backing for the William Morris Trip Around the World quilt.  I have 5 yards which is plenty.

When I was outside in the garden 2 days ago I thought one of the hanging baskets only had white double impatiens but now I see they both have both colors.  This shot was taken from my dining room window which is the only clear view from the house.

I got my housework done yesterday so today I should be able to play with fabric.

 

First quilt top for June 2026................

This was my original plan, adding pieces of a variety of light color florals to the edges of the blocks.  This way a border was assembled while I webbed the quilt; no long strips to add to the center section.  But then I kept thinking I wanted it larger and that is where I got hung up for a year and a half.  I finally decided I would settle for a smaller quilt, 67" x 79".

After I took its photo, I decided to look in my backing fabric bins and see if I had enough yardage of anything I liked.  After seeing the photos together here, I don't think this one has the right flavor.  I have 5 yards of this one.  I think I need to make a green quilt specifically to go with this backing.

This was the second one I pulled out.  The blue in the leaves isn't quite as predominant in person.  I have 8 yards of this one.

Both of these fabrics are from many years ago.  I don't have enough of any of the 1990s florals for a backing.  I do have one 3 yard piece that I would need to add to so I'll keep looking to see what else I can find.

More sewing......................

 I'm still sewing stratas for the William Morris fabric Trip Around the World quilt.  Normally I lay out the order of all of the strips and sew it as one huge strata instead of sections.  This time since I had 4 different 'runs' of light to dark I decided to sew each separately (there is one more group to sew) and then play around with the order before they get sewn together.  I can't press anything until I have the whole strata sewn together because of the pressing method I use.  I'll show my play time for determining order in a couple days, maybe tomorrow if I get the one million other things done that need to be completed today.

Here is the original order of the strips as I was deciding if I had enough variety to make a nice quilt.

Someone asked if I could post today what size strips I'm using.  These are 3" but I also sometimes use 2.5" or 3.5".  It takes a little math, but if you choose your fabrics first (from your stash), and have around a half yard of each (or sometimes a little more), you can figure out which size strip will give you the size quilt you want to end up with.  In the following week or so I'm going to explain everything as I work on this one, but first I have a busy day today to get past.

Here is a collage from several years ago showing some of the Trip Around the World quilts I have made.

Wishes and dreams.....................

Wishes:  I wish I still had the energy and stamina I had 10 years ago.

Dreams:  I can dream about what I will make with my stash.

This is all of the 10" squares that had big blooms, some bigger than others.

There is a Kaffe quilt called "Bloomers" that has a layout that uses 3", 6", 9" and 12" finished squares.  I'll probably use the layout, but not the same fabrics as in the book.

Another dream:  I want to make a Trip Around the World with this assortment of Wm. Morris fabric.  I have been collecting  these for a few years, mostly ones I found on sale online.  I need to press the fabrics before I can cut the strips to make it.

I'm hoping to plant a couple of my tomatoes in pots today.  Rain was predicted overnight and maybe a little this morning.  I went out yesterday and pulled a lot of weeds around my little raised bed that is falling apart.  I'm not sure which year I bought the kit and put it together.  I searched blog posts and the farthest back I found it by searching for raised bed, was in 2016.  It already looked weathered in that photo, so it was before that.

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.

Play day on the first day of the month.................

I usually don't get started working on anything the first day of the new month, but yesterday I got busy.  First I found a backing for this table runner which I pieced several years ago.  I think it is the first project I made when I got the Hunter Star cutting die.

I decided to have a little fun looking through a collection of fabrics that I bought several years ago.  It is all Kathy Doughty fabric.  I have a couple of Kathy's books and have made a few quilts from one of them and one quilt from another one.

But...that wasn't all of them.  Here are a few more pieces that will work with the large bird prints.

And there are more......

Last night I decided to take the flannel 16 patches and put them on the design wall.  I have 38 blocks so there are 3 more on my table.  I need to make 2 more for another row.  My plan is to use the rectangles and squares as a border.  I think I'm going to remove the very darkest ones and use only the medium tones.

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.

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.