Mindless sewing..................

Yesterday afternoon I cut the large triangles for the Flying Geese blocks to match up with the leftover light triangles of Australian fabrics.  There are 50 here with another 30 or so left to assemble.  No plan for them right now, just mindless sewing because I was too tired to do anything else.

I forgot to take a photo of the other Lenten Rose until 7 p.m. yesterday.  I would call it green but maybe this is really considered a white flower.  Whatever color it is, it is pretty.

Yesterday morning I raked leaves onto the backyard grass and ran the mower over them for nitrogen for the grass.  There is more to do back there but I decided to mow half of the front yard instead.  

I did a load of laundry while I was in the basement cutting triangles and I can see there is another load to wash today.  I'll probably do more cutting while I'm down there.

Chicago has had three 80+ degree days in a row with one more predicted.  60 miles away in farmland country we had 79 a couple of the days.  Monday is predicted to be 42 degrees.....spring in northern Illinois.

Lots of little things............

Last night I sewed the borders on this Australian fabric bars quilt.  I haven't trimmed the ends of the wider strips yet so I'll give measurements when I get it pressed and trimmed.

In the morning I did my grocery shopping. 

In the afternoon I trimmed off the dead blooms from my Annabelle Hydrangea in front of my house.  There were already leaves growing on it.  I'm usually farther ahead of this stage with my trimming and actually I usually trim it in the late fall.

In spare minutes a few times yesterday I was reading my new Kaffe book.

The Lenten Roses are starting to bloom.  My photo of the one on the left was blurry so I'll try again tomorrow.  This bloom is on the middle plant and the next photo shows the outside of the bloom.

This one has pale pink edges on the petals.  There are several buds on each of these 2 plants.  The third one which bloomed last year doesn't have any buds yet and is smaller than the other 2 and that surprised me.  I really expected it to be twice the size that it was last year.

Border audition............

I pressed the top and am trying the long leftover strips as borders for this Australian bars quilt top.  The pieced top is 46" x 64.5" before borders.  The narrow side borders would add 5" to the width and the wider top and borders would add 8" to the length.

The first 2 quilts with the Australian fabrics were the 16 patch which created the leftover border strips and the Hole in the Barn Door/Churn Dash which created the leftover triangles and the remainder of the strips which the border pieces were cut from.  The zig zag used all of the triangles with more cut to fill in.  The unfinished top in the first photo uses the remainder of the pieced border strips and maybe will use the leftover border strips from the 16 patch.  So...2 quilt tops became 4 quilt tops...which may become 5 when I use the remainder of triangles.

My niece from the west coast was in town yesterday so I invited her to come an choose some quilts for her family.  I vacuumed the carpet so we could spread them out.  I was going to post all of the photos individually but I was feeling pretty lazy last night so I just have the photo of them all on my floor. They have all been published on my blog previously.

Top sewn, not pressed............

 The top took a lot longer to sew together than I thought it would.  I'll get it pressed today and take its photo.

I spent the morning yesterday in the garage flattening cardboard boxes that had accumulated all winter.  It was 78 degrees yesterday, the first day the garage warmed up.  Today is supposed to be warmer.

The front flower bed was the next project of the day.  It doesn't look like too much right now but it is coming to life.

The Hostas are coming up.  Each plant has its unique growth.

This one has curly leaves and is variegated.  I think I stepped on it a few times while I was raking leaves.

This one is many, many little parts peeking out of the ground.  I like to have the hostas growth recorded on my blog so I can go back and check the previous year or two and see if they started growing at the same time.

This Coral Bell stayed green all winter.  It had a lot of maple leaves around it protecting it.

The Sedums are growing fast now that I have all of the old flower stalks removed and leaves raked away.

The day finished with a beautiful red sunset.

A few more blocks...........

The last 2 strips sets that were already sewn had white backgrounds in the light fabrics and I wasn't sure they were going to work.  I went ahead and cut the 7" segments and then pieced one more set to have enough blocks to finish.  I wanted to be sure I like this before I sew it so I took the photo and brought it to my computer where I could analyze it.  I'll take another look at it this morning and make a decision.  This one is calculated to finish at 45" x 64" so it is small.  I could use those border strips (leftover from cutting the border for the Australian 16 patch)  on this one and increase it to approximately 50" x 72".

More Australian fabric fun.............

First up, I sewed the zig zag quilt top, pressed it and did the staystitching around the perimeter.  It is 36" x 45".  

Then I moved something and discovered a tray with more triangles.  I remember I had put it aside because I needed more dark ones.  Oh, well, there will be another quilt top because the one pictured above is done unless I decide to add the borders.

Next up was using the remainder of the strip sets I used for the border on the Australian churn dash quilt.  There was 29" left so I could get four 7" cuts out of each strip set.  There will be one more column added.  I need to sew a couple more strip sets first.  This is not the final arrangement, just a mock up of the design to see if I liked it.

I did another hour of outside clean up late in the afternoon yesterday.  Now I need to rake all of the leaves out of the front flower beds.  My plan is to mow over them so I'm hoping that is good for the grass in the spring.  I know it is recommended in the fall.

4 more seams............

I got a late start sewing this top together.  I spent time putting away fabric and have a couple more days to get it all done.  That's what happens when I don't do it for 6 months.  Then I went outside in the 60 degree weather and did some raking of leaves.

I have 4 more seams to sew and then pressing the top.

 Before I started sewing the blocks together I auditioned the fabric pieces that were leftovers from cutting the borders for the Australian fabric 16 patch.  There are 2 strips of each of the 2 kinds so I have plenty if I decide to add them.

While raking I uncovered some Peony plants.  There are lots of them coming up, some just barely peeking out and others about 6" tall.  I only worked outside a little while.  I know from previous years not to overdo on the first day of clean up.

There were 4 Sedum plants totally covered with leaves along my back lot line.  They will grow fast now that they are uncovered.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it.  We are lucky this year to have a warm day predicted to be in the upper 60s.