First finish for August 2026.....................

When I first heard of William Morris many years ago, upholstery fabric and wallpaper were things associated with him.  I'm so happy they printed his designs on quilting cottons.  I didn't have a large selection to choose from but I think this Trip Around the World turned out nicely.  It is 62" x 76".

I wasn't sure I had anything for a backing that would be of the same style, and then I spied this Jinny Beyer fabric on my shelf.  I had over 6 yards of it so I have enough for another backing.

I think I have a piece of another color of this print too.

The binding is the same as the border since there was 3/4 yard of it leftover after piecing the top. 

I have published a full tutorial of how to make a TAW like mine on this blog.  On my label list (right side bar) it is Trip Around the World tutorial.  There is a yardage chart included.  I have one more installment to finish writing on fabric selection and order of fabrics, coming soon.  It will have the same label.  

I wanted all of my green fabrics next to each other in my order of fabrics and the reds are also together. The rest of the fabrics are used in value runs rather than color groups.

Here is a better view of the greens and the reds.

The center has mostly neutrals, black and gray predominate with a touch of coral.

I'm still thinking about which top to finish before the end of the month, lots of time spent on that yesterday.

 

Ooops!!!...............

I didn't see my mistake until I sat down at 5:15 to watch the weather report last night.  I was staring at the quilt and I saw a light square where it shouldn't have been.  I finally figured out I sewed in the bottom half strip wrong end up.  I didn't notice it in the photo yesterday.

Here is yesterday's photo and the mistake is at the bottom right, 3rd strip in.  I wasn't in any hurry to get the unpicking done, so maybe it will happen today.

I have 2 rain gauges, one on the east side of my house which I check most often.  The other is on the west side and most storms come in from the west.  I had 1.6" in the front gauge from Sunday plus another quarter inch yesterday morning for 1.85",  and 2.5" in the back gauge, which I think is more accurate.  That's the most rain we've had in 2 days for a long, long time.  We only had 1.6" of rain for the whole month of May.

Top sewn, waiting for border.................

The vertical seams are all sewn now and it needs its final pressing.  I fingernail pressed seams to the left in each of the 4 vertical sections as I was constructing this William Morris fabric Trip Around the World.

I started the day by walking to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper.  On my way back to the house I saw something was starting to bloom so I got my camera and came back outside.  I think we decided this variation of Rudbeckia is Gloriosa Daisy.  Several plants have come up from seed this year.

I think this might be the first Black-eyed Susan blooms.  

The birthday party for my 5 year old neighbor girl got started late Saturday night so I came home before they served the cake.  The girls brought me a piece last evening.  I added some ice cream after I took this photo.

I was out trimming low branches off the tomato plants yesterday afternoon and I noticed how dry they were.  Rain was predicted but we got so little from the Fri. and Sat. storms that I wasn't sure we would get any.  I decided to wait and water late in the afternoon.  Well, l didn't need to....we got a heavy rain mid-afternoon, 1.3" and then some more storms rolled through before 7:30 and there was a grand total of 1.6".  I won't need to water for a week.  The grass was starting to have brown spots so this rain should green things up again.  High humidity predicted for the whole week so we might get some more rain. 

Almost done.......................

The third section of 7 columns is sewn and I only need to unpick 4 more loops for the last section of 6 columns.  On the left is one of the red fabrics used in the quilt.  I plan on using it for a border, size to be determined.

The William Morris fabrics are so pretty.

I have a 3 yard piece of the light fabric to the right of the red fabric and I'll use it on the back.

Yesterday was a neighborhood day.  To the south was a graduation party which I was invited to.  I just went over for a short time and met the graduate.  To the north was a birthday party for a 5 year old.  I was out talking to several of their guests.  I delivered some tomato plants to the neighbor behind me and saw her little chicken coop.  She's not ready for the chickens quite yet.  It got up into the 90s with high humidity in the afternoon.

We got a tenth of an inch of rain yesterday early morning and the forecast looks like only spotty showers today. There is still hope for rain on Monday and Tuesday.

Half sewn.................

Two sections of 7 columns are sewn together now and that is half of the quilt top.  I unpicked the rest of the cut loops, and now I need to cut loops from the next strata.

I was in the basement doing a load of laundry and decided I should check the top shelf in the bathroom to see if I had any other older irons I can use.  Surprise!!  There was a new iron in a box.  I think I must have used my expiring Kohl's cash for it when there wasn't anything else I needed.  I'm guessing it has been on that shelf over a year.

I mentioned the new pots in my back garden line up and here they are.  Starting at the far right there are 2 black containers that I planted cucumber seeds in.  The square pot between them is a tomato plant.  Next left from the middle black container is the new tomato plant with 10 tomatoes on it.  The next photo will show the whole line up.

Starting at the far left is the dilapidated raised bed with 3 tomato plants + 3 tiny volunteers from last year's tomatoes.  Next are the 4 big pots with tomato plants.  Continuing on are the pots shown in the photo above.  My neighbor who mows my grass should be able to get fairly close to the pots and I'll just keep hand cutting whatever grows close to the pots and between them.  My son came over with his weed whacker last Saturday and cleaned up the area pretty well.

Rain was predicted for yesterday but we only got a trace, barely enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge.  Once again, areas around us got a half inch or more.  More rain is predicted for 3 or 4 days so I hope some of it materializes.  In the middle of next week they are predicting three 90 degree days.  I'm not ready for that.

TAW progress and nature walk................

I had 2 choices: move all of the pieces farther to the left on this design wall, or start unpicking bottom half pieces.  I will be sewing the top and bottom half of each strip together and then start sewing them into sections of 7 long strips.  I can then just hang the sections farther left on the wall to make space to do the rest of the unpicking.

Now lots of the Evening Primrose plants are blooming.  They look great mixed in with the Hosta plants.

In another flower bed they are blooming near the first Stella D'oro Lily.  There should be more lily blooms if we get the rain that is predicted.  We are headed back into a drought with very little rain since the end of April.

The Petunias in the porch pots are filling out.  The self watering pots are working out pretty well.  I got 2 new little Begonia plants for 2 of the pots on the bottom shelf and got them planted yesterday.

When I was shopping for the little Begonias, I saw this tomato plant with 10 tomatoes on it and it was half price.  It had to come home with me.  I had just given away the last 4 extra tomato plants because I didn't have room for them. but...I made room for this one.

This was one of the special brand plants so half price was a deal.  I know the friends I gave 2  of the plants to read my blog, so they should get a chuckle out of this.

While I was at it I added 2 more pots to plant cucumber seeds in.  I'll have to get a photo of my garden row soon.

I planted the two red pots yesterday.  One has Coleus and the other has 3 different plants.  The pot in front with Coleus was a gift from the same friends I gave the 2 tomato plants too.  Coleus plants grow pretty fast so they should be filled in and growing taller soon.

One off the wall, another up......................

I needed one last photo of this group of blocks because I needed to take them off the design wall.  I can continue to cut more squares and when I have enough, I will put all of them up on the design wall again, and then it can be sewn.

I got the seam sewn in a backing for a flannel quilt and got the fold line and seam pressed.  Then I had 3 errands to take care of.

I took the 4 stratas for the William Morris Trip Around the World to my ironing table (30" x 60") in the basement and started the pressing sequence.  In the middle of the second strata, my iron died.  I bought that iron at least 15 years ago.  When I was teaching quilt classes in my home, I had 2 irons in the basement and one in my main floor studio.  I never cared for this particular iron but I started using it again about 11 years ago.  I use steam and this iron has always been a good steamer and has never leaked.  I have a fairly new iron to use now and it has to be coaxed to steam.

I flipped the above photo to make a point about the order of the fabrics.  In a TAW quilt I tend to like the fabrics to blend up from light to dark as in this photo rather than blending down as in the above photo.  This is a decision I make before I start unpicking a seam in the loops.  I have the seam sewn in one strata so I'll be cutting loops and unpicking today.

Deciding on order...................

I did 4 layouts of order of strips for the Trip Around the World with William Morris fabric.

This is the first one.

It was hard to get all of the strips in the photo and not have them crooked.

This is the second one.

The third one.

And this was the original layout with the folded fabrics lined up before I cut strips and sewed sections of strata.

The fourth one.

As I type this late at night, I'm favoring one and four.  As soon as I make a decision, I can start sewing the 4 sections together into one large strata and then talk about my pressing method.

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.

Sewing started.....................

The William Morris fabrics were finally pressed so I could cut the Trip Around the World strips.  My sciatica has kept me from standing for long times at the ironing table.  I got several bobbins wound for all of this strata sewing so I'm all set for mindless sewing.

I got those 3 strips sewn for all 4 stratas.

Today looks to be a beautiful day for all of the Memorial Day events.  82 degrees and sunshine is predicted.

Strata cut and sewn................

I sliced the strata that was sewn into a tube and unpicked a seam in a different place on each of the 20 slices.  This is the layout on the design wall before I started sewing them together.

I decided I will make 2 table runners and have sewn one together.  It lost 4.5" in width with the seams sewn (compared to the layout).

Many of my cactus plants have buds and I saw the first blooms yesterday.  This is a piece I saved off a dying white cactus 2 years ago.

I decided to move the other two that are closest to blooming over to the coffee table to join the white one.  One of them is a champagne color and the other a deep rose.  After I took this photo I moved a pale pink one over there too.

Possible layout.............

This is a possible layout for the butterfly blocks.  Now I just have to figure out what will fill in all of the blank areas.  I have enough of the background fabric to just use it but I think I need to do some piecing and add a little more color.

While I was waiting for the dryer to stop yesterday afternoon, I started cleaning off the table that I baste small quilts on.  There was a box with leftovers from previous Trip Around the World projects.  The back story on this one: when I worked at one of the quilt shops we cut kits for TAW.  I also cut 1.5" strips and sewed a small sample so people could see how the selections looked.  There were a couple of those groups that never got sewn because the kits sold before I could sew them.  This one was cut somewhere between 1995 and 2002.  I still have 8 more strips to sew onto this strata.  I think this will turn out about 20" x 28".  It is just a nice 'in between' project while I think about the butterfly quilt.

Photo session.............

I started the morning yesterday by moving the couch and spreading the quilts one at a time on the carpeting.  This one is a Blooming 9 Patch (Blanche Young, Tradition With a Twist) that I reconfigured by adding one more square down the middle and cutting the strips 2" instead of 1.75" so that it would fit a queen bed.

Speaking of on a queen size bed, I moved 38 wallhangings off the guest bed so I could take these photos.  30 of them are hanging over the back of a bench in my living room and 8 of them are rolled on 2 pool noodles and tied. This quilt measures 88" x 105.5" now.

It was sunny outside but I had to close the curtains on the south side because the light was washing out all of the color on the right side.

Then it was the Trip Around the World's turn for the carpeting shot.  It measures 85" x 104" finished.

And then on the bed.  

And one more closer shot of the center of the quilt.  It was quite a workout but I'm glad I have the wallhangings moved.  I will roll a bunch of the smaller ones on cardboard tubes that a batting roll was wrapped on.