Black and white, and a little color.......

I'm playing with border ideas on the black and white piece I showed yesterday.  No decisions yet.

I picked the first tomato from the 2 plants I have in pots.  It is Early Girl and they are a medium size tomato.

I purchased the large diamond die for my Studio die cutter.  So far I have just cut from scraps.  Now I need to get into the yardage.

Here is one idea for them in Kaffe's book "Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts".

I bordered one diamond to see how I like it.  I pinned the yardstick up there so you have an idea how big this is.

Not a stitch all day........

I couldn't get  motivated yesterday to do anything so I'll share some photos I took last week.  I have a box of pieces and parts that maybe will be made into something, maybe not.  I had made a strata of 6 fabrics white to black and then made 2 different kinds of blocks from slices of it.

I think I can safely say that I made the strata and blocks more than 15 years ago so I think they have aged properly.  I decided to lay out both kinds of blocks together since there weren't enough of either to do much.  After I took this photo I sewed them together and it is about 18" x 30".  I think it might become the center of a baby quilt or small lap quilt.  I thought I would just play around with borders.  I hope it gets finished before another 15 years though.

cutting again........

I couldn't get motivated to sew on a project yesterday so I cleared off another table by cutting the corduroy scraps into 8.5" squares with my Studio die cutter.  Now I have 46 jeans squares and 59 corduroy squares.   I have a couple more pairs of jeans to cut and then I will start cutting some homespun plaids to add to the mix.

I have a pile of corduroy scraps leftover that are big enough to cut squares from 3.5" to 8" or they could be used in the irregular shapes that they are.  If anyone is interested in the pile I would just ask that you pay me back for the postage.  They have all been washed.

This squirrel is barely tolerating the bunny eating under the same feeder.  He already scared another bunny away.

Doesn't this bunny look like the Easter chocolate rabbits?  He stood like that for the longest time.  He is one of the skinny baby bunnies.  By winter the bunnies are quite fat.

Even though I am only about 60 miles from Chicago we only got a little shower while they got 7+" of rain yesterday morning.  Another storm rumbled through about 11 p.m.  We still have high humidity but we did get a little cooling with the light showers the last 2 mornings.

It's a quilt top.......

I will take another photo with more light on it next time.  Some of the stars are dark, but not as dark as they look in this photo.   The quilt top is 38.5" x 48.5".  I will work on some borders next. 

This is my favorite star.

The lime green and blue flowers are all from the same print.

Checking out the flowers......

I have had the 3 big pots that sit in front of my garage inside for 2 days.  I decided to put them back out last night because it sounds like today might be partly cloudy.  You can see on the purple leaf to the left that this plant got sunburned.

The lilies don't seem to mind the hot weather.

The yellow lily hasn't bloomed well since I moved it 3 years ago.  This year however it had a lot of blossoms.

I got my hair cut yesterday and went to embroidery club.  Then I finished reading the last half of the last Harry Potter book.  Now I can go see the movie.

Jelly Roll Race a/k/a Random Plank quilt

Some tips to figure out how big your quilt will be and whether the strips are vertical or horizontal.

Here are the 3 quilts tops I made in one collage photo.

Measure the length of all of your strips sewn together and divide it by 32 (the number of strips in one direction on every quilt).  This will give you the measurement in the other direction after sewing 5 seams.  The 32 needs to be multiplied by the finished width of your strips (2.5" = 2", 3" = 2.5")

Here are some average sizes if you pieced it Random Plank (straight joining seam) like I did.  If you want to do the original diagonal seam shown on the video, it will be a little smaller.

2.5" strips--- If the number in the left column is smaller than the one in the right column, the strips are horizontal.  When the left column number is larger the strips will be vertical or lengthwise on the quilt.

40 strips = 52.5" x 64"

50 strips = 65.5" x 64"

55 strips = 72" x 64"

60 strips = 78.5" x 64"

65 strips = 85" x 64"

70 strips = 91.5" x 64"

3" strips

40 strips = 52.5" x 80"

50 strips = 65.5" x 80"

60 strips = 78.5" x 80"

70 strips = 92" x 80"

80 strips = 105" x 80"

Disclaimer:  I am only human, I hope I didn't make any errors, and the numbers above are approximate.  Mine came out a little narrower than planned because my seam was a touch wider than 1/4".

3 more blocks, and it was all I did........

It's a good thing I already had a bunch of triangle squares sewn so I could finish the last 3 blocks.  I am wiped out with this hot weather.  I guess it is the high barometric pressure that is really doing it, not the heat.

I put the blocks up on the design wall but didn't have the energy to rearrange them for better color balance. (or to even decide if they need rearranging.)  The 'cold' front is supposed to come through later today so I hope it brings me some energy.  This cold front basically just means scattered storms and then back to heat the next day.  I am re-reading the last half of the last Harry Potter book before I go to see the movie.  I want to be able to compare how closely it follows the book.  I have heard good reviews for the movie so I'm looking forward to it.