March Madness

 It is going to be March so soon! I know that many of you are not done with blue yet, don't worry, there will be a catch up month later. For now though, do what you can before the end of the week and then think about digging into your yellow! Yes, yellow for spring. 

I started a rope rug this weekend. Everything started well enough, so far so good.

But then I got impatient, and I guess I thought it would all work out eventually. The rounded corners didn't want to lie down though. And so after a bunch of wrestling and stretching and swearing, I decided to let them fold back instead of lying down. It started so well, but this isn't how it was supposed to turn out. Not to worry, I will try again. I really do like the idea of a rope rug. I will pay more attention to the ends lying flat next time. Everything gets easier with practice, right? 

After I gave up on the rope rug, I went back to hand quilting the hexies. I have pink thread for the basket quilt on order, but I have almost all of the colors of thread that I need for the hexies. The quilting will be just straight lines thru the center of each row of hexies. It goes pretty quickly. I am finding hand quilting to be very relaxing right now. It is nice not to be in high gear from time to time. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Short Blue Month

Next Saturday will be March! That means just one more week to finish up those blues. There will be a catch up opportunity at the end of the year in case you aren't quite done yet. Blue is just one of those colors that keeps going. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is all about doing what works for you though, so don't feel like you have to "finish" every color every month. Every new quilt brings new scraps and the cycle starts over. I did a good job of using up the precut squares in blue, but not so much on making more. 

In general, I have been making good progress this week on using things up. I did a deep dive into batting on Sunday and came up with enough to piece together for the hexie quilt. 

It has a rainbow scrap striped backing as well, so lots of good use it up energy going on there. I have been watching youtube videos and thinking about making a jelly roll rug to put in front of the fireplace in Virginia. It seems to get grungy with ashes and bark. 

Then, while I was busy trying to make do, I ran out of thread right in the middle of hand quilting the baskets. I got an adorable sampler of 12 wt. variegated threads and the spools were tiny. I can't buy just the pink that I used up, which means I will need another sampler pack of 4. 

I will try to put the other colors to good use in the hexies though, so no need to worry.

When finishing up long-term projects, I always start to think about what is next. I was pondering a snake like arrangements of monochromatic hexies in a larger size. The rainbow diamonds are 3/4 of an inch, which made me order a cutter for the go that makes 1 inch hexies. They seem huge by comparison! I am not ready to start a new quilt yet, but it will be nice to have a portable project to carry along the next time we travel. Spring break will be in the mountains, but we have a trip to Alaska booked for this summer! It is one for the bucket list. 

Misterlinky is below, share your blue progress with us all. 

ScrapHappy Saturday Progress

 

The hexies quilt is getting so close to being done. All the light edges are done, it is just a few more dark hexies that I need to add to the bottom row of dark. Honestly it is just a few hours of work. I am thinking of making stripes of each color for the back. I want to hand quilt it with horizontal lines, so that should not cause too many problems. 

I am still chipping away at the log cabin blocks. I lay each one out of the floor and then double check the layout before sewing it together. There is only one so far that got twisted during sewing. What are you up to in the sewing room? 

Hand Sewing on Sunday

I am evening up the edges of the hexie quilt! The half hexies are different on the top than the bottom, which made me pause for a minute. Now that I am halfway done though, I have the routine down. 

 

I also have two and a half rows done on the basket quilt Baptist fan quilting! Look at that texture. I will be sure to get a bit more done during the super bowl tonight. Anna and Jordan came in for the weekend to go a birthday party and are just now back in time for the big game. Of course, after they showed up, it occurred to us that we don't have a television. Kurt and I just watch things individually on our own devices these days. We do have a projector though, that we got to watch Christmas movies with the kids. We will get that all set up and watch some sports during family game night tonight. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Catching up on UFOs

I got some more blue blocks made while I was working on a UFO. After finishing the basket quilt top last week, I dug out a log cabin UFO to figure out why it got stuck. I had started enough blocks, but then got stuck when I ran out of light colored logs. Once I cut a few more of those, I was good to go and quickly finished up enough blocks for the full sized quilt that is in my mind for the main bedroom at the cabin. 

I really wanted to a barn raising layout, but there isn't really enough space to lay it all out at once. Instead I settled in this alternating light and dark diamond layout. I can lay out a set of 16 blocks and then sew those together pretty quickly. The blocks finish at 7 inches each and I need enough for a king sized bed with a good amount of overhang which should make the layout about 15 by 15. What is going on in your sewing room this weekend? 

 

A New Hand Quilting Project

 

I got a couple of borders on the basket quilt yesterday. The inner border was a bit sketchy. The combination of a thin border on a stretchy bias edge was almost too much. The second border seemed to bring everything back under control again, but it was touch and go for a while. I ordered a Baptist fan stencil, it should be here tomorrow. I was kind of surprised that I did not have one. I love doing fans, but they are usually free form. This quilt seemed to want something more regular though. I also ordered some 12 weight thread in a nice variegated yellow and pink shade that I think will work nicely. I have been streaming The Last Homely House on you tube while sewing lately and Kate does a lot of hand quilting with that type of thread. Sew, I thought I would give it a try. I have used lighter weight quilting thread as well as heavier Pearle cotton, so I am hoping that this will be somewhere in between. I got the back ready and pieced together some extra batting, but I don't want to layer it all up until after the stencil arrives. I am going to mark it with frixion pens that I have been using for my planner lately. I usually use Crayola washable markers, but they do tend to rub off over time, so I will see if I like this better. I am a slow hand quilter, so it needs to be sturdy to still be in good shape years from now when it is done.

There was a retirement party at work on Friday for our guidance clerk. She has always been so sweet and supportive of my quilting, so I just had to find a quilt for her to take with her. I chose a bullseye quilt which was one of my RSC22 quilts.  I am happy for her, but still sad that she will be gone. It is nice when people really want to help the kids. 

I have a draft of a paper that is due tonight on constructivist learning theory and educational standards. I will just give that a quick final edit and then make my way back down to the sewing space. I am thinking about pulling out a log cabin UFO that could be my next flimsy finish. I hope that you are finding time to sew something on this lazy Sunday. It is good to rest up before a new week comes on full force. Be sure to take some time to see what other slow stitching is happening at Kathy's Quilts before the weekends slips away. 

ScrapHappy Saturday - Bold and Blue

I haven't put away the pink bin quite yet, but that will be first for today. The blue bin is a bit overflowing and will take some time to sort out. There are a few new blue blocks on the leader and ender project that is new for this year. I had a couple of random four patches lying around that got worked in as well.  

That all happened while I was webbing the top together for the basket quilt. You can't do simple stack and sew of of blocks with a diagonal setting like you can for a straight set, so it was a slow and steady process of sew a row and then check to make sure it is good before adding the next row.  I think some kind of border would be good. I would like to use the pink, but I pulled a 3.5 strip out of the scrap bin for the cornerstones and I think that is mostly used up. I will do a bit of digging and see what there is. It is a small quilt, so it won't take much. 

Even though it was a busy week at work, it looks like a nice calm weekend. I am thinking about loading another quilt on the frame. I think I have several with backing already pieced and I have a fresh new roll of batting to use along with some new spools of thread. Ah, the possibilities!

Sunday Slowdown

When I was clearing out and organizing for the new year, I found these hand applique baskets that have been done for quite a while. The last time I rediscovered them, I planned a layout and I figured out that I needed 4 more. I made the 4 more, but then set them aside again. I don't know why. 

Yesterday I submitted all of my work for grad school. It was an easy week. A very short paper and a presentation with a script. Easy and fast. So today I get to play before I start on next week's work. There were not a lot of choices for sashing, because it needed to read as solid. There was enough of the teal and so that won. Most of my yardage is for backings and borders. I usually work from the scrap bins. The cornerstones came from the pink scrap bin because it is still January and that is the one that is available. I don't know if you can see the backgrounds, but they are all different pastel dots. I had some multicolored dots for the setting triangles and so this one is ready to sew together. I tend the make the setting triangles extra large so that they can be trimmed up later. I think this will be one to hand quilt. Maybe a nice Baptist fan? Definitely something nicely traditional. 

Yesterday I went to a luncheon for Cuban missionaries. My friend Linda was organizing it and my friend Sherie was there from a different to support the cause. We used to work together and had so much fun collaborating. She retired though and we fell out of touch. Everyone who retires seems to be loving life all the time. Every so often I wonder why I keep working. Work is a tomorrow problem though, today, I will start sewing some rows together. Right after I go and visit Kathy at Slow Stitching Sunday to see what other handwork people are up to this week. 

Last Pink Saturday!

Where has the month gone? I got some pink blocks done, but there are still a lot of unsorted pink scraps. I got a new gift of scraps from my neighbor on Thursday, and it looks like there is some pink in there to add to the collection. I am mostly done with my graduate school work for the week, so I should have some time today to play with pink some more. Next Saturday will be the first of February and time to dig into blue.

Because Monday was a school holiday, I had an entire day to quilt! What a treat. I got the t-shirt quilt quilted and bound. There is just a tiny bit of binding to hand sew and I can get this back to its new owner. 

Donna at Mama Llama asked about what heat press I use for my t-shirt quilts. She is coming up as a "no reply" blogger for me, so I thought I would answer here. The exact one that I bought two years ago isn't available anymore, but this one is the most similar. The 15 x 15 size works well for t-shirts and you just sandwich the rough cut blocks with lightweight fusible interfacing between teflon ironing sheets like these. There are lots of good Youtube videos to learn how to use it. I think I have made three or four quilts for other people with it and have easily covered the cost of the machine. Having a press makes the process of t-shirts quilts so much more efficient. Stabilizing the shirts is the most time consuming part, and getting it done faster makes the process go much more smoothly. The only down side is that it is pretty bulky to store if you are not making t-shirt quilts often, so thinking about space can be a factor for occasional t-shirt quilt makers. 

I know that I should not say that it has been cold here, because I have seen how cold it is everywhere else. But is has been unusually chilly for us. The snow did not reach this far south in Florida, but the kids in at FSU were having snowball fights on campus for the first time in their lives. UF did not get snow, but they still cancelled class just in case. We just aren't good at cold weather here and people really freak out. It made for a chilly first day of the new metal detectors. It will take a bit of time for the kids to get trained on how to go through more efficiently. After that, it will just be a big time commitment for the staff who has to supervise them. Everyone who spends an hour every morning watching kids walk through metal detectors is not doing the work that they would normally be doing to help the kids learn. We are all pretending to have a positive attitude about keeping everyone safe, but really it is just sad that it feels necessary to do this. 

Misterlinky is below. I can't wait to see how your pinnk projects and blocks came together this month.

Saturday - Sewing Day?

 

I hope that you get some sewing time in today. I am enjoying a quick visit to the mountains to visit snow. 

Kurt came up a day early to to plow the driveway. We got a blade that attaches to the back of the UTV. Isn't he a sweetheart? He is up here for a couple of weeks in a row in the bitter cold and snow, so I am glad to get a weekend here.