Cutting Edge

Good morning, my friends. It was nearly another full day of cutting yesterday. Before all was said and done, I'd cut 560 pieces for a single quilt. Yeesh. When I got into bed last night, I could feel the strain in the muscles of my right forearm. It feels fine today, though. If I keep working at it, I could end up with arms like Popeye.

(Image credit: https://images.app.goo.gl/k2TCt1mF2ZrfA6oD7)

But before I did my rotary cutter workout (different from Bowflex), I had other business to take care of. The kitties were sitting by the door. If they had workmen's lunchboxes, they would have had them along too. 

They had work to do outside, catching mice, watching for stray deer...you know the drill. They have to earn their kitty kibbles somehow.

I took the opportunity to take a walk around outside and see what's going on. My first stop was the stargazer lily. It has six flowers now. There are still more buds.

The hydrangeas are the stars of the garden right now. The blue one is covered in flowers.

The purple one is no slouch either.

This pink variegated one is just getting started, but it is covered in flowers as well.

This is the last gasp of the peonies. The Garden Treasures peony was the last one to bloom. The others are finished, but there are still a few flowers left on this plant.

Flowers are fading on the Edda clematis, but it has earned its place in the garden this year, for sure.

One of the vines died on the Red Cardinal clematis. I don't know what happened to it, but there are still some vines that are viable, fortunately. I believe it will be okay, but I've been giving it a lot of TLC.

Tension is building on the cherries. They're close to being ready to pick. I'm not canning any cherries this year, but I want to pick some for a few desserts I have lined up. Who will get to them first? Us, or the raccoons?

I left the kitties to their kitty business. Back inside, I went to work cutting pieces for the Scrappy Plus quilt. Finally, finally, finally, I had it finished...all 560 pieces. The colored pieces will be consistent from block to block. The whites and grays will be selected randomly, and so I stored them in plastic bags. It's not a good method, as it turns out. I'll want to figure out something else for these.

My goal is to work on this quilt one row at a time. To make one row of four blocks I needed to make 48 half square triangles. 

And then, I needed to trim them to 3-1/4 inch.

And then, I laid out the first block. I'm afraid the light green and light blue I selected are too light. I'm planning to pick out different fabrics for those pieces, which means more cutting. There are only 20 for each color though, and so it won't take too long.

I was working from this diagram, included with the pattern. My eyes were nearly crossed by the time I had all the pieces laid out. It's hard to discern light from dark in these images.

I took that picture above, and then tried saturating it a little more in Photoshop. I think it helped a little. I've printed this, and I'll try using it when I lay out more of the blocks today.

Just looking at those two side by side, I'm not sure it helps at all. We'll see.

It was well past quitting time by then, and so I didn't do any more sewing. I just covered it up with rulers to protect it from prying paws, and I'll start sewing these together today. That'll be after I select different fabrics for the light green and light blue.

Okay, so I have a few things to do on today's list. The birds are awaiting their feeders filled, and I'm going to roast some tomatillos to make Enchiladas Suizas for tonight's dinner. (It's one of Mike's favorites.) Aside from that, it will be a mostly sewing day. Our weather is heating up now. It'll be nice and cool in my basement sewing room. 

Oh yes, and it's time to choose a goal for July's

My goal will be to make the ninth and final block for When Quilter's Gather. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far: