A Smorgasbord of Stuff

I'm still here....still sewing and trying to finish my projects for the quilt show.  Of course, lots of other stuff is going on as well, most of which is too boring to go into.  You know, all that day-to-day stuff we all have going on.  But that's not why you're here, is it?

Remember my Traveling Round Robin?  (If you missed the blog post about that, you can see it here and here.)  Well, my Robin has come home to roost!  This is all my blocks when I got them back.  Aren't they awesome?  Everyone did a great job on the blocks.  In fact, they were all almost the perfect size.  In about 10 days, I had them all put together into a quilt top.  It is currently being quilted.  I forgot to take a photo of the flimsy, so you'll have to settle for this photo for now.  Of course, I'll show the finished quilt when it's done!  I'm getting excited to see it!  

The first weekend of August - over a month ago now! Time flies! - my DH The Potter had one of his big art shows of the year.  Of course, it was blazing hot.  But we survived and sales were good.  This show is put on in a beautiful garden that I always enjoy visiting.  I got a  couple of photos that I want to share with you.

This garden is full of vignettes of fun yard art.  This guy enjoying the teeter-totter was right near where we were set up.  Isn't he fun?

And this is Mt. Rainier, photo taken across the neighboring farm's pastures.  The next day the smoke came in and you could barely see the mountain.  This is the least amount of snow we've seen on the mountain in the 8 years we've been here. There's snow up there now though!

Once I got "My Lucky Stars" to flimsy status (see previous post), I took a break from what I was supposed to be doing to get this little baby quilt put together to flimsy status.  I had inherited two of these columns of patchwork, and enough left-over bits to make the third column.  So I put them together and they looked pretty good.  I'm not quite sure why the ends all came out different lengths.  It should have worked out.  Oh well, the baby won't be a critic.  I found this yellow plaid and it worked pretty well.  Now all I have to do is get this quilted - someday.  It was a nice break from all the "have-to's".

Last month DS found a nest of baby bunnies in the yard.  We watched them for a week or so, and when they were big enough to venture out on their own, he caught one of them.  We petted him and talked to him and then we let him go.  He was so soft!  And very sweet.  I've never been that close to a wild bunny before, although they are in the yard a lot the last couple of years.  They're not very afraid of us.  That was fun - bunnies are some of my favorite animals.

If you've ever seen the movie "Field of Dreams", you'll recognize this take on the tag line for the movie.  This cracked me up!

Here is a harbinger of Autumn.  We've had some fairly cold weather lately (a high of 61* today) and some of the trees are already starting to show color.  It seems early to me this year.  Oh, and the wild geese are already heading south - actually, they have been for weeks now.  

a sneak peek!

"My Lucky Stars" is back from the quilter and is getting it's binding put on right now.  Photos soon!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Round Robin - Part One

We're almost at the half-way point in this block exchange.  I've done 7 blocks, and there are 16 of us in this exchange.  I thought you might like to see how things are shaping up so far.

You can see my first post about the Traveling Round Robin here.  So, we've all been making blocks and passing them on to the next person.  We haven't followed the list exactly, as some people have been ill, some have been traveling, and so on.  But they're all getting done, and it's starting to get exciting now.

Here's what I've done so far, along with that person's total blocks that were in the passed box.

First, here's my block I made for me:

This pattern is a Sister's Choice variation.

Now I get to make the same block for everyone else, in their fabrics. 

 The first block I did was B's.

P's block.  Sorry, no photo of all the blocks.  I was hurrying to get this done in time for the next "pass event" and forgot to take the picture.  Duh!

 N's block.

All of N's blocks so far.

C's block.

All of C's blocks.

K's block

And all of K's blocks.

D's block

All of D's blocks.

I'm happy with my block because it "works" in everyone's fabrics.  Deciding on fabric placement within the block can be challenging, but so far I like all the ones I've done.  

This has been fun!This is kind of like dating different people - trying out all those different styles of fabrics with no long term commitment!  *grin*  So far, I like everyone's fabrics too.  It's interesting to see how each person's fabric choices reflect their personality.

Our goal is to have them done for the quilt show in October, but I'm dubious we can get them all "done-done" in time - you know, quilted, bound and quilt-show-ready DONE.  Fingers are crossed!

Some Bits of This and Bits of That

I've been sewing!  I'm starting to feel caught up on a few projects I'm working on, but I'm still behind in others.

I've been working on the Traveling Round Robin.

my block for the Traveling Round Robin

I've completed my block.

B's blocks

And I've completed B's block as well.  Here it is with her first block.  So now I'm ready to pass these on and get the next ones.  B tells me she has 2 to pass to me.  I get them Friday and have 2 weeks to get them done.

Last Friday I went and sewed with friends.  I'm keeping the black & white blocks project (see it here - you'll need to scroll down a ways) with my traveling machine and I worked on those. 

I'm 1/3rd of the way on making the blocks.  I have 8 of each and I need 24 of each.  I'm liking them so far.  I'll only be working on those with my traveling machine (my Brother) because I get a different 1/4 inch seam allowance on that machine as compared to my Bernina.  Why is that??  Both machines have a 1/4 inch foot, but no matter what I do, the seam allowances are always different.  So I've decided the easy answer is to just not switch machines in the middle of a project.

What with being sick, going to Florida and then just being busy, last week was the first chance I had to lay out all the Big O blocks I won from the Block Lotto in December.  As you can see, Dunkel was holding down the pesky blocks for me.  This is not my plan for how I will be setting the blocks.  You'll just have to wait and see!  (insert evil laugh here)

I have a 'secret' project that needs to be done this month and it's only in units at this point.  I really need to get busy on that!

This was very strange labeling on a package of ground beef that I bought the other day.  Maybe because we're so close to Canada here?  The meat came from Oregon.  Any one else seen this on their meat packages??

We've had such a mild February that plants are thinking it is truly Spring.  The crocus and the daffodils are blooming.  Most of the fruit trees are in bloom too.  And the grass is growing too, much to DH's dismay.  This is my new trillium I just planted last fall.  I've never had a trillium before, and I'm looking forward to seeing it bloom.  It's supposed to be a purple trillium.

And don't hate us, East Coast people, but this is my camellia plant.  There were three blossoms on Saturday!  And more flowers about to pop open.  Crazy.  This plant/tree usually blooms in the April/May time period.  

I have a suspicion that Mother Nature isn't done with winter yet, in spite of the warmer, sunshiny weather we've been having. It was down in the 20's (F) last night.  I'm afraid we just might get a big snow storm one of these days.  It's not impossible in March or even April here.  But I have to say that I'm really enjoying all the lovely sunshine we've been having.  It is a welcome little miracle in the middle of our usually gloomy grey rainy winter.

Stay warm!  And I hope you get the time to be creative this week!

Decisions, Decisions

I'm going to be participating in a couple of projects that my quilt guild is doing this year, so I've had to make some decisions lately.  It's been fun but also kind of painful.  I have a hard time making decisions about quilting projects because I can get all wrapped up in the possibilities and then can't narrow it down.  Silly me.  And the worst of it is that I drive myself crazy when I do this!

My Mystery Quilt fabics

The first project we're doing is a Mystery Quilt.  I decided to shop my stash for this one, but I had to look at lots of fabrics.  I needed three yards of background, and two yards each of a focus fabric and an accent fabric.  I don't usually buy big chunks of fabric, so not all of them were big enough for this project.  But, after going through my entire stash, pulling out anything that looked like it might be big enough, I finally found a focus fabric I liked AND had enough of!  I even had enough of the dragonfly print background fabric as well.  Both the wild print and the background fabrics have been in my stash for a few years.  I did have to buy the green fabric, but that wasn't a problem.  *grin*

The second project the guild will be doing this year is a Traveling Round Robin. This is a different Round Robin than is usually done.  How this Round Robin works is this:  I decide which fabrics I want my quilt made from, and put them all into a box or a bin with my name on it.   I then decide which 12 inch block I want to make for everyone's Round Robin quilt. Then I make a block in my chosen pattern, using my fabrics, which I also place in my box.  Then I pass my box/bin to the next person on the list, and I also receive a box from another person.  For each box that I receive, I will make the same block in "my" pattern using the fabrics that are in their box, then put the block I made in their box and pass it to the next person on the list.  I'll always pass and receive from the same two people throughout the Round Robin. (As an example,  I always pass to Julie and receive from Bonnie.)  After the Round Robin is all done, I'll have 15 12-inch blocks for a sampler quilt, all in different patterns but all in my fabrics.  Then I'll decide if I need to make more blocks (I might want 20 blocks), how I want to set them together and then finish the quilt.

My Traveling Round Robin fabrics

I went to my LQS and spent about 2 hours looking at fabrics.  Nothing really captured my attention.  At least, nothing I really wanted a quilt made from.  So then I went to Ben Franklin's and looked around.  The only focus fabric there that I loved, I've already bought!  (you can see the pillowcase I made from this fabric here.  You'll need to scroll down a little ways - it's the pillowcase on the right in the photo, with the orange cuff)  So that's what I went with.  I bought another 2 1/2 yards of the fabric (thinking of a possible border) and bought some companion fabric and a bunch of solids.

The next, hardest decision was which block to make??  I would love to do something free-pieced or improvisational, but I don't think it would be the same sort of style as everyone else will be doing, which, to my mind, is important when you're doing a sampler quilt.  I spent hours (days!) poring over quilt books, trying to decide what block to do.  I used up some older scraps to make sample blocks.

The first block I tried is called "Album" and I found it in Judy Hopkins' 501 Rotary Cut Blocks.  Nice enough, but not really "it".

Another block from the same book called "Irish Chain".  I didn't even finish sewing this one together after I decided I really didn't like that yellow fabric - it's thin and flimsy.  I wish I had switched the position of the lights and the darks.  I could just switch the yellow triangles out for the blue, but I don't care enough to spend the time to remake this block.  Again, I like this block but it's still not what I was hoping for.  

So, I really thought about what I would be doing with the block, and decided that I needed a block that could use multiple fabrics easily, as well as look complex without being too difficult to do.  We'll be passing our boxes twice a month in order to have the quilts finished in time for the quilt show in October - hopefully.  So, I thought that complex piecing would make it difficult for me to do the blocks in a timely manner.  That ruled out blocks with a lot of triangles.  I knew I just wouldn't be happy making those.  So I changed my parameters for this and looked in some other books.

not too bad for scraps, huh?

Here is the block I decided on.  It's a Sister's Choice variation and I found it in Kim Diehl's book Simple Charm.  I can use up to 11 fabrics per block, those triangles are really easy to do, I don't need to worry about cutting off the points of the triangles on the edge of the block, and it has easy cutting and assembly.  This will work for me!

Now all I have to do is make my block with my fabrics and I'm ready to pass it on to Julie.  I already have Bonnie's box and I need to make this block with her fabrics as well.

But first, I have to deal with the disaster that my quilt studio has become. Ugh.  No room to work or even walk, so it has become a priority now.  Hopefully that won't take too many days.

Happy quilting!