This And That

I put the borders on This And That today, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. 

Using green in the borders brought out the green in the patchwork. It feels good to be able to cross this off the list.

I'm working on those Fancy 4Patch blocks, I'm up to 16 finished and 10 kitted. I make all the HSTs first, then I cut the 1.5" squares for each block and bag them up. 

I'll decide later if I want the 2.5" squares to be the same fabric or something different.

One night I saw the Periwinkle project box tucked away on a high shelf and pulled it down to see what needed to be done to it. I've chosen and cut the sashes, and I'll machine sew them, so I trimmed all 35 blocks to be an accurate 9.5" square. They weren't bad for hand pieced blocks, only a few had skimpy seam allowances. Now it should be easy to lay them out and get them sewn into a top.

I based this on a Grant Wood painting that was in one of my quilt books, and now I can't remember what book.  I found images of the painting, Spring In Town, online, but in all of them the pink and green quilt on the left has been cropped out. 

This was the best I could find, and the quilt is all smeared.  I'll keep looking for the image in the book; it will be an excuse to go through all my old favourites.

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Progress Report

One UFO has made it to finished top stage.

This took a few hours while I fiddled with how to finish the edges, trying to be fancy, but ultimately I was limited by the amount of fabric I had. I love how it turned out, and I love how vibrant it is with  the black linking the autumn colours, but I think I'm over using black for a while.     And I'm never going to start another black project without ensuring I have more than enough fabric.

Onward to another on the WIP list. I finished 2 more blocks on this scrappy project. It's called Scrappy Dappy Do on the YouTube video, but I refuse to use that name. I'll call it Strippy Diamonds I think.

I'm sewing this on my dear little Pfaff, which is just the sweetest machine. I think she has a touch of dementia though; when I turn her on she takes a lot of fiddling to make her sew normally. She responds with a gathering stitch no matter how many buttons I push, until I'm ready to give up, and then she relents and gives me a normal stitch length. I thought, at least she's a later model, I can have her serviced, but then I find that she's actually 24 years old. So almost vintage. A motherboard fix might be expensive or not even possible. 

I got busy and sewed up all but 5 of the little cross blocks that were my leader enders. I have 76 now, I will do some experimenting and see what they might become. I'm thinking a border in a medallion quilt. And yes, there are some blocks in that photo that are a new start.

My 2.5" repro strips were bugging me, so I cut out a pile of these blocks to get rid of them. I don't like 1800s blocks with that size strip, so I cut these blocks from any that were long enough. They're fun to piece, so I'll make up what I've cut out and then see what I can do with them.

My other leader ender is the Spinning Rectangle.  I now have 55, but I will need hundreds of these 4" blocks, so a long way to go yet.

I'm actually cutting pieces for them as I go through the 2.5" strip drawer, and making kits. I'm really terrible at the whole random thing, so having them all bagged up is a time saver. No trying to find the perfect bit to use, and wasting time that I could spend sewing.

There was another trip to the craft shop sale. More $11 fabric, and the floral was $6 a metre. The sale is only for another 3 weeks, so we're excusing our purchases on the grounds that in 3 weeks he'll have shut up shop for good.

I have seen bloggers post about pretty granny square blankets they've found in the op-shop and I must admit I've been a bit jealous. Yesterday I found one of my own, in a bin marked Dog Blankets.

Sometimes these crocheted rugs are covered in pet hair, old lady hair, dirt, holes and stains, and yes they should be used for pets. But this is perfectly clean and undamaged, so I rescued it.

I will use it to keep warm while I crochet my own version this winter.

Mothers Day, and my favourite flowers are in full bloom. One of my favourite flowers, I have so many. I appreciate chrysanthemums so much more because they are a once a year treat. Such a generous display of beautiful flowers!

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Working On Several Projects

I had already chosen the fabric for the alternate squares for these blocks, and I'd even cut the squares, so it was an easy job to lay them out on the design wall.

The hard part is deciding how big to make the quilt. 7 x 7 blocks would be 56" square. Not big enough. I know I want the blocks to be in the corners; either I make a square  quilt, or one that is 16" longer than it is wide. It will have 4" borders too. I can't make up my mind; it's either going to be 64" x 80", or 80" square. I'd better measure my bed and see if I can even use an 80" quilt. It's definitely staying with me, I love it.

My inspiration photo was this:

from this book.

I loved the green and the plain quilting, and the farmhouse feel. I didn't love the blocks, and I thought my Cat's Claw blocks would be perfect. (I know they're called Devil's Claw, but I don't like that name, and I modified it slightly so it's not a regular 9patch in the middle, so it's called Cat's Claw instead.)

I'm sewing rows of 7 together, just a few at a time so I don't get jaded about it. While I sewed I made some more Spinning Rectangle blocks, and assembled some more Fancy 4-Patches as well.

I checked on Instagram and they're up to week 8, 4 blocks a week, so I'm aiming for 32 and then it can go away till next month. I have quite a few kitted up, so I think I can finish them in a week or so.

One night I worked exclusively on these little cross blocks. I finished 6, and put together the cross part for another 20. I started these as a way to use up 2" strips of 1800s fabrics, and they cleared a lot out of the scrap drawers. I need to decide how I want to use these, because I don't know that I have many more pieces in the scrap drawer that will be suitable.

We're finally getting some cold temperatures, mainly at night, the days are still pleasant. My tomato plants were pretty well dead, so I stripped off anything remaining on them. It's not a big harvest! I'll make some spaghetti sauce and get a few meals from it, but that's it for the year. Next up is planting spring onions and silverbeet, and that's enough for a winter garden. Plus some pansies. And a gerbera or two.....

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Advance - My Word For May

 April seemed to just vanish; I know I did some sewing and organising, but not as much as I would have hoped. My trip away took up one third of the month, so I wasn't very productive. I've chosen a word for May, one that I need to consider every time I sit down to sew, or wonder what to do next. Advance; what can I do to advance my projects closer to a finish. I don't expect to have a huge amount of tops done by the end of the month but I do want to see that I have worked on my stalled projects and brought them closer to a finish.

I have several tops that are at the border stage, and I've moved on to something else rather than finish them. My sewing set up is a bit cramped and that puts me off wrestling with a whole top, but I do have an ideal space at the shop. I need to spend more time there and get the tops finished.They include This And That, Fox And Geese and the black and autumn grannies made from leftovers.

I went through so many fabrics trying to find 'The One.' Eventually Mereth made me try a wideback we've been hoarding, and it does look nice. 

This print annoyed me because the pattern slopes down across the width of the fabric, and it's very noticeable. I cut 4 strips lengthwise, because I have many metres of it, so hopefully it will go together nicely.

This has been in time out because I couldn't match the black fabric. It's a very blue black. When I was going through a scrap bag I found a half metre of black with a midnight blue swirl, and decided it would do, because this top really needed to be finished.

I've also started a lot of block collections to use as leader-enders. It always works best when I just have one leader-ender, but I get side-tracked so easily. I'm sewing the Spinning Rectangles, 

but also the little cross blocks. When I run out of pieces I swap to the other one instead of cutting more pieces. I'm surprised I don't have a third one in the works.

I want to work on my blue and green scrappy project this month. I only want 12 blocks, and they are very easy to sew. 

I need to make some more Fancy 4-Patches, because I've not been keeping up with those. I have no deadline for them, but if I never touch them then I never make any progress.

This collection of blocks also deserves some attention.  I have 37 made, and I imagine that's enough for whatever I want to do. I would also like to make more Triple Treat blocks, and more Four Patch Fun blocks. I have so many kits prepared for them, I need to pull out a few of them every week and get them further along.

I'm not aiming to get everything finished, but I do want to be able to say that I didn't waste my time this month. It's so easy to get distracted these days. I'm going to have to limit my computer time, so that I don't get ideas and start so many new projects. And stop buying so much fabric that tempts me even more.

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