Monday, Monday

Good morning, my friends. Enjoy October while it lasts. After tomorrow, you won't see it again for a whole year. And are you ready for Halloween? As I've said before, Halloween is kind of a non-event around here. In 21 years in our house, we've never had a single trick-or-treater. We quit buying "just in case" candy quite a long time ago, and we gave up on carving pumpkins before that. It was fun when the kids were little. I used to make their costumes. If they remember nothing else about me when I'm gone, I hope they'll remember those great costumes.

This morning I'm writing fast. Sue and I are meeting for breakfast. We take one another out for our birthdays, and hers was way back at the beginning of September. We missed it because of both our travel schedules. We'll make up for it this morning. 

Also, remember her little friend Georgie? When she told me Georgie liked quilts, I gave her the "Chicken Feed" quilt.

It seems Georgie has a two-year-old brother, and he wants a quilt too. So, I'm giving him the Waste Not Whatnots quilt. I always like it when I can give quilts away to an appreciative audience.

Okay, so what happened yesterday? Well, we had another windy, but sunny day. It was cold outside, but I picked my bucket of weeds and did other general yard clean-up. The dahlias are cut back and stored in the garage for the winter, and I picked up all the stakes and poles and pinwheels and fencing from the vegetable garden. If we don't get it before winter sets in, the garden can become so overgrown that we can't find them again. And that probably brings me to the end of yard work for the year. 

We have one more sunny day today, and then there's no telling when we'll see the sun again. With next spring's trip, we're going to try to keep the weeds down as much as possible, even through winter. Hopefully, we can return from our spring trip next year and still find the house somewhere in the jungle we're expecting to grow up while we're gone.

From there, I got busy piecing together the back for Jericho Walls. The quilt is enormous and the back is even enormouser, and so I didn't spread it all out. I think you can get the idea. I had to add a black strip that will run horizontally across the back.

And now the top, back, and binding strips are all stacked on the quilts to be sandwiched pile, and I'm ready to get back to work on my list of WIP's. 

First up is the fifth of nine blocks for "When Quilters Gather." Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

These are done in the style of Ruth McDowell. I wrote a kind of tutorial when I started on these blocks. If you want to see it in more detail, you can read this old blog post. The patterns are enlarged to 200%, and they are included in this book:

First, I use masking tape to tape the pattern to my cutting mat. Then I tape freezer paper over the top, shiny side up. Then I trace the lines from the pattern. This is done shiny side up because the templates are reversed, as in fusible applique. This is done with a fine-point Sharpie. The Sharpie is the only pen that will write on the shiny side without smearing.

Next, I flip both of them upside down and pin them together, matching up the traced lines as closely as possible. There's no need to retrace the lines, but I need to label the pieces on the matte side of the paper. You don't want any other markings on the shiny side. That will be ironed to the fabric, and the ink will transfer. When the pieces are all labeled, then I add "tick marks." Those will help with placement.

As a last step, I highlight the different sections (think paper-piecing) in pink, and all around the outside with yellow. Think about when you're putting together a puzzle. A straight side indicates an edge piece. In this case, a yellow line also indicates an edge piece.

After that, I cut the sections apart. As I sew them together, I cut the pieces from each section apart. Here are the four pieces for section A, and they've been ironed to the fabrics I'll be using.

Here, you can see how the tick marks help with placement. I can stick a pin through one side...

And then check the other side to make sure they match up. This one is just a smidge off.

When they're properly lined up, I sew them together. In the image below, you can see how marking the sections with a pink highlighter helps to orient them correctly. 

Before I finished for the day, I had sections A-C completed.

The book includes a color-coded pattern as well, and that helps me get the proper fabrics in the proper places.

You can see the section I've finished in the image below. 

And that brought me to the end of my sewing day. Mike wanted to show me something outside. When I stepped out to the driveway, what do you suppose I saw? 

And I swear that little bugger tried to trip me. I actually saw him extend one of his tiny feet as I walked by. Good thing I wasn't riding my bike, huh? Be careful out there, my friends. Danger lurks everywhere.

Okay, so breakfast with Sue, and then I'll get back to my sewing. I've done some of the more complicated piecing for this particular block, and so the rest should go together pretty easily. What's going on in your sewing room today?