I am back from a great weekend away with friends. It was the silly kind of weekend where you laugh so hard that you almost wet your pants.
We did lots of sewing, and even had a birthday celebration!
Barb shared this beautiful quilt made by her mother. She found it wadded up in the back of her dad's storage unit. It cleaned up beautifully.
I love a good quilty weekend with friends.
Thanks ladies!
Spring is taking it's time.
I seem to make more knitting progress on little things. I finished one of the ladybug picnic mittens.
And I'm more than halfway through a new pair of socks for B. With my new nine inch circular needles I can knit MUCH faster. I knit the entire foot of this sock during the high school orchestra concert last night! I also didn't have to worry about dropping a needle in the dark.Socks and mittens are easy, comfortable knitting projects for me these days. I know what to expect and I like knowing that the finished project will fit and be worn.
Sweater knitting is another story. I am afraid this sweater is in danger of entering the black hole of unfinished sweaters. I love the yarn. I love knitting with the yarn. I don't love the uncertainty.
Will it fit?
Will I have enough yarn?
Should I order more and start alternating skeins so the join will not be obvious?If I order more then I will have lots left over and what will I do with that?
Should I go ahead with what I have and frog it if I run out?
I want to make different style sleeves than in the pattern but what style do I make?
So, there it sits, taunting me while I work on smaller more predictable projects.
So, here it is. The finished zinnia quilt.
I went out three different times to photograph it because it was so hard to get the charcoal color to look true to color.
This quilt was really something different for me.
I am thrilled with the way it turned out.
Simple triangles.
Simple curvy quilting lines.
Lots of thread.44 inches wide52 inches high
In case you have forgotten, here is the inspiration photograph.
I am eager to get back in the sewing room and work on some more new quilts. But, alas, today I am doing other fun things like baking cookies, making yogurt, washing clothes, and cleaning house.
I do have a little quilt retreat coming up this weekend though...
We had a beautiful "almost spring" afternoon, yesterday. I even went outside WITHOUT A COAT!P and I walked around the yard and found our FIRST flowers!
The chickens also enjoyed the warm sunny day.
They were soaking up some sun and pecking around. I gave them a pumpkin that I had been saving.
Cluck, cluck. I forgot how fun it can be to photograph the chickens.
We still have some snow
and lots of mud.
Still, it was a beautiful, blue sky, spring like day.
I guess I'm really not much of a winter person.
I'm just about to sit at the sewing machine and quilt the zinnia quilt. I am so happy with it so far that I want to keep going. First, I thought I'd take a minute and show you the tiny deer ornament that is being mailed with Tia's blocks today.
Now I am officially caught up on my bee blocks.I'm off to the sewing machine.
"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne, 1928.
My sewing room is sometimes a family gathering place. I like to think that is because everyone is interested in seeing the progress on my latest project. It is more probably because our computer is on my desk which is also in my sewing room. As a result, I often get suggestions on what to do with my current sewing project.
Earlier this week M came in and saw the HST piles. He commented that I make a lot of quilts with white background. M often has good artistic instinct so I listened to him and tried putting a row of the HSTs on a different color background - the charcoal kona that I had purchased for my "zinnia quilt" - (I had tried a few different designs for this zinnia inspired quilt but was not happy with any of them) ANYWAY, I like the charcoal but not with the white of the HST blocks. Next, I made a few HST blocks with the charcoal ground.
After making a few of those, I remembered the fabrics that I had pulled together at the start of the zinnia project. So I made more HSTs with all of those fabrics.
Now, in a round about fashion, I am finally making a plan for my Zinnia Quilt.
I am still deciding how I want the single strip of color to look but so far I'm pleased with how this is progressing. I tried a single strip of triangles, and also a double strip with the triangles side by side oriented the same way but both of those layouts seemed boring compared to these.
Perhaps I should wait to ask M's opinion before I go any further.I can always work on the big pile of white half square triangles until I make up my mind.
When in doubt, make half square triangles.
Each time I finish a project I have the urge to start something new. I am also feeling the need to get things more in shape in the sewing room (isn't that always the case?) So, yesterday I broke open the scrap suitcase and started cutting. I cut lots of 2 3/8 inch squares. Any chunks that were too small for a 2 3/8 inch square were set aside in their own box.I dumped the whole suitcase and did some sorting.
Next, the squares were all cut in half diagonally and sewn to white triangles of the same size.
I sort of want to sew them into one long strip. Don't you think it would look good to have a strip of these running off center down an otherwise plain quilt?
I was discussing the possibilities with Miss P after school today and mentioned that it would take a long time to make enough of the blocks for a quilt.
P's response: "Mom, you don't have to finish the quilt in a month! You can take as long as you want to make it."
So true.
Now I need to decide which way I want the quilt to end up and just do it that way. Or, maybe I'll make two!
Either way I'm putting the scraps into a SMALLER suitcase. I made the switch last night but, I can't yet close the lid.
We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring.
I finished the February blocks for the Bee FF group. Tia wanted applique.
For this block I started with a ring of bias. I cut a one inch wide bias cut strip, folded it in thirds and basted through all three layers. Then I basted that to the background fabric using a plate as a guide.
I added a bird over the join of the bias and a couple of leaves and flowers. I wanted a sort of minimal look but it still needed something else so I added an embroidered vine.
Here's the other block.
I do love hand applique.
After a busy week of sewing I took some time yesterday to do some cleaning, and sorting, and putting things in order in my sewing room. I even found the top of my desk again!
One of the things I went through was a bag of thread that a friend recently gave me. Just look at all that pretty thread!
It sort of makes me want to drop everthing else and find a tiny crochet hook or tatting shuttle and make yards and yards of fine lace like this.
For now, the thread is piled high in a basket in the living room and called spring decorating.
That will keep it out of the sewing room for a little while longer.
Seriously.
I think I could happily work on projects the rest of my life with materials I already have in the house.
I have been quite busy with projects this week. Today, I finished the little quilt for the Doll Quilt Swap. I ended up quilting in the ditch around all of the pink sections. All of the other ideas that I had seemed like they would be distracting to the small pieces.
The quilt measures 13 inches square. It was fun to work with some bright springy colors. We still have about six inches of snow on the ground here so we aren't seeing much spring color outside.
I hope my partner likes it. Shhhh. It's a secret; I can't tell you where it's going yet.
In making these small scale blocks I am using some techniques I haven't used in a while. With larger fabric pieces I can usually ease the pieces to fit and have matching points. For these tiny pieces, accurate seam allowances are a must. I sometimes use a stiletto point to make sure the last few stitches of the triangle seams stay in line.
I usually press seams to one side but pressing them open helps these small pieces stay flat and matched.
It was a fun, yet tedious project.
The finished quilt is four blocks and 12.5 inches square. Now I need to think about the quilting.
Did I tell you I joined the Doll Quilt Swap again?
Well, I did. It was so much fun the other times that I had to play again.I recently purchased the book, 501 Rotary Cut Quilt Blocks by Judy Hopkins. It has cutting directions for SIX sizes of each block. I thought this would make it easy for me to branch out and try some different quilt blocks without doing any math to figure out what size to cut all the different pieces for different size blocks.
I have been flipping through it and finding lots of new designs that I want to try.
The doll quilt seemed like the perfect opportunity to try something from my growing list. I jumped in and started cutting pieces for the light house block. It's a doll quilt so small blocks would make sense, right? I cut for the smallest size - 6.25 finished.
It was easy and fun. One afternoon of sewing and I have ONE block done. One 6.25 inch block.
68 pieces in one 6.25 inch block. What was I thinking?
It is a bit of work but I am pretty much smitten. I love the small scale of the pieces and can hardly wait to get four of these done and have four of those tiny little corner triangles meet each other.
How many of these would I need to make for a queen size quilt?
"I think the smell of horses is the most exciting smell in the world."
The Changeling, Zolpha Keatley Snyder, 1970.
P and I make some Brownie Roll-Out Cookies this week.
They are great when they are still warm out of the oven.
They are also excellent for home made ice cream sandwiches.
P has made this recipe for us to try next. She calls them Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
2 sticks butter
3 cups sugar
4 cups cinnamon
5 cups chocolate chips
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