Piecemeal

Good morning, my friends! How's spring treating you so far? Ours has been wet up until now. We're supposed to get a relatively warm and sunny day today. Mike and I have been strategizing about how to get our grocery shopping done while still getting out and walking that new trail I've been eyeing. It's still dark outside, and so I can't tell yet if the forecast is correct. If so, we'll be heading out early for our beloved Egg McMuffin, followed by grocery shopping, followed by putting away groceries, followed by lunch, and then followed by a walk along that new trail. It's all a big mystery as I'm writing this.

And "good grief" is the only way to describe yesterday's sewing. Fortunately, I had my trusty stitching cat by my side for support. He nosed through my blue scraps looking for appropriate background fabrics.

In the process, he discovered the handy chin-scratching capabilities of these particular three-drawer bins. He gave them a five-whisker review.

Ordinarily, I'm a cut-as-you-go kind of gal. For whatever reason, I decided it made sense to do all the cutting ahead of time. I started with all these little pieces. They're mostly 2-1/4 inch squares, but there are some 2-5/8 inch and 3-inch thrown in there for variety.

And you know when everything is 2-1/4 inches, along with a few at 2-5/8 inches, there are going to be some half square triangles. So...what the heck. I made those too. That took forever. The pattern could be a little more clear on which color of gray I'm supposed to be using. 

And with all of that, you might think I was ready to start sewing, but oh no. No, no, no. Silly you. I still needed to make all of these little pieces.

Good grief. I spent the whole live-long day just cutting and piecing and getting ready for actual piecing together. 

So, when I make a quilt like this, I like to divide it up into sections. I made an extra copy of the diagram and divided it up as evenly as I could. I'll start with the upper left section.

Everything has been trimmed to 2-1/4 inches now, and it's just a matter of sewing the little squares together in the proper order. I like to lay them out on some sort of flat surface (a cutting board works well for this) that I can easily transport from table to sewing machine. So, I laid out the first section thus:

And then I looked at the clock. Good grief, it was time to stop for the day and make dinner.

So, I covered everything with rulers because...you know...mice. That was where I left it for the day.

So, I'm still waiting to see what the day's weather holds. If it's a nice day, I doubt I'll get any sewing done. And, if not, I'll be back here after we do our grocery shopping. As you might guess, Tiny House #10 is on hold until I can wrangle all these pieces into a herd and sew them together. 

The day is just getting a little bit light outside. I can see it's going to be breezy. Sorry to leave you in such suspense, but it can't be avoided. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of How We Spent Our Day.

Sewing Structures

Good morning, my friends, and Happy Thursday. Smitty is happy to see a lot less snow and more grass from his living room perch. Can morning sunbaths be far behind? With the time change, we've been eating dinner in daylight, and the light late in the day has been a welcome sight.

With such nice weather I got out for a walk yesterday. I decided to walk at the bottom of our hill. I'm looking forward to seeing what the farmers will plant in their fields this year.

If you've been reading for a while, then this scene will be familiar to you. I can't walk by here without taking a picture of the barn and silo. I believe the adjacent property has been purchased by a new owner. The fence there is new. With such a tall fence, I might think they're trying to keep deer out. On the other hand, it appears there is cattle grazing to the right of the image and outside the frame. Possibly the tall fence is to discourage predators.

There is a side street off my usual walking path. Ordinarily, I walk on by and continue on the same road. Yesterday I thought I'd turn left here and see something different.

It takes me past a nursery and a few homes. Here, a big tree was taken out recently. I wonder if this was the tree responsible for our recent power outage. It's hard to take out a big tree like this, and so I'm sure there was a good reason. We've taken out a few big ones ourselves, but never without a good reason.

As I walked back the other direction, I noticed they were taking down the tree beside it too. You can see it's been limbed. (Indeed there was debris all around from the limbing.) The trunk will be taken down in sections.

As I walked by the nursery, these rows of pots appealed to my sense of order.

Walking on, I came to the intersection with the state highway. I knew this is where I would turn around, but I'd hoped to see something more interesting along the way. As my friend Kate has noted in her photography expeditions, everything is brown right now. I'm hoping I'll see more wildflowers in the coming weeks. As for this intersection, if I turned left, I'd be walking on this busy state highway.

Straight ahead would take me to the South Store Cafe, where we sometimes get our oatmeal.

To the right was the Midway Firehouse Pizza. We've eaten here a few times. It isn't particularly memorable. "Midway" is the name of the road, and the "firehouse" is to the right and outside the frame. If I walked down this road, it would take me to the main road back to my house.

I turned around and went back the way I came. Only one bird would pose for its picture. This is a scrub jay.

I made a quilt of one once. This one was at our bird feeder.

These pyracantha berries were the only bit of color I saw along my way. They are about the size of peas.

As I approached the spot where my car was parked, I took one more barn photo.

Meanwhile, back at The Ranch, Smitty was champing at the bit to get busy on our sewing projects.

We made the fourth of the barn block samplers. I wish Moda had included the names of these blocks with the instructions for making them.

Here are the four I have so far.

When that was finished, it was time to start on my new project, Painted Ladies. When I purchased the pattern, I was considering using one of my many grays for the background fabric. Then, when I realized it was commemorating San Francisco's "Painted Ladies," I decided I needed something more representative of an asphalt road. I ended up purchasing 2-1/2 yards of this one.

My quilt is going to be all scrappy, but I went ahead and cut all the background pieces. Sadie helped with that.

I cut 40 rectangles, 80 squares, and 40 half square triangles. The quilt has 34 full blocks, and 6 partials.

It was getting late in the day by then, and so I made just one block and called it quits. The Tiny Houses are using my smallest scraps. This quilt will use some larger ones. The block was easy to make. It took longer to find a scrap that was large enough to accommodate the size pieces I needed.

Here's a picture of the pattern cover again. My background will be darker, but I'm going to stick pretty close to the colors she used in hers. I like the color placement shown here. 

Of course, my fabrics will all be different, as will my "gingerbread" embellishments. I'll be using a lot of old ribbon and other little cut off bits I have lying around. My goal is to make four whole blocks and one partial block with each go-round. I've made an extra copy of the cover, and I'll hold my place by crossing off each block configuration as I make it. Today's goal will be to finish three more whole blocks and one partial. 

If I can get those finished, I'll move on to the last project on my list of WIPs, My Whimsical Garden. I'm making these two blocks per go-round. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far:

Okay, so that's enough to keep me busy for a while. It's my day to work out on The Rack. But first...slow-stitching. What's on your agenda for today?

Cutting Up

Good morning, my friends. It's a wet Sunday here. We're expecting rain and some snow in the coming week. We may not see the sun again before April. Actually, it only feels that way sometimes. Ordinarily, we go south after Christmas, but we're staying home this year. We only just took a two-month trip this fall, and with fuel prices so high, it seems like a good winter to stay home. That's fine with me. I'm looking forward to lots and lots of sewing this winter.

There was yet another open slot on my list of WIPs, and so yesterday I started a new project. I was able to pull the fabrics I need from my stash. Smitty helped with that.

This pattern has been in my "library" so long that I can't even remember when I bought it...or why. I must have seen the quilt made up at some point and decided it had to be mine. Smitty likes gardens. They have birds. And grass.

With a gray and cold winter ahead, I wanted to start something bright and cheerful, and it will help winnow down some of my scraps. Only, have you noticed how your scraps never appear to have been winnowed, no matter how many times you try to make a dent? The blocks for this quilt can be made as individual mini quilts, or you can make a smaller quilt of however many blocks you want. I'm going to make all 20 blocks. I've learned that it takes a long time if I make them just one block at a time, and so I'll start with two blocks at a time from the outset. Here's how the finished quilt might look.

I'll start with the two blocks at the upper left.

I pulled some fabric candidates for the outer border. It will depend on how much fabric I need when I decide which to use. For now, they are included in the project box.

I'll use these two greens for the inner sashing on each block. 

These are the two reds for the outer sashing.

If you'll notice in the quilt picture above, they've used scraps for their sashings. I don't have enough fabrics in large enough hunks for that, and so I'll just alternate mine on the tops, bottoms, and sides for visual interest. It'll make more sense when I start sewing them together. And since I'm alternating them, I cut half and half of each length and each fabric. This took far longer than you might think. Regarding the background fabrics...I didn't have enough of any one white to do all of them, but I have two fabrics that are nearly identical. If I didn't point out the differences to you, I doubt you'd notice. Nevertheless, I'll do all the odd block backgrounds with one fabric and the even block backgrounds with the other.

As you can see, helper cat was by my side the whole time.

Okay, and so this is one of those annoying applique patterns where the printing is on both sides of the sheet, making it impossible to trace the pieces with a light box. I understand why it's like this. The templates are not reversed for fusible applique, and the pattern designers clearly were intent on needle-turn applique. 

So reversing them isn't a problem. I just turn the pattern face down on my lightbox. But with printing on both sides, I'm forced to copy each one. And since they're larger than a standard 8-1/2 x 11 sheet, I have to make two copies, and then cut and tape them together. 

With so many pieces, it seems advisable to have a placement template, and so I created one using wax paper and a fine point Sharpie.

Also, the tail of the bird extends out into the sashing, and so I needed to sash the first background before I can begin to add the applique pieces. 

Everything I've shown you so far took much longer than I would have expected. It was late in the day by then, and it seemed like a good place to stop. I left it sitting on my ironing board with its wax paper template, and I'll get started on the applique today.

I'm hoping to finish the first block, and at least get a start on the second. We'll see.

That's pretty much all that's on tap for the day. I'll be staying inside with the kitties where it's warm and dry, and these brightly colored blocks might be just what's needed to brighten up an otherwise gloomy day.

Something Old, Something New

The wind died down yesterday. We've had a bitterly cold east wind blowing for about a week, and so it was nice to be out without getting blown away. The kitties went with me to fill the bird feeders. (The kitties are especially fond of this task.) Smitty was excited to have a human outside with him. Humans are a rare breed this time of year.

Sadie brought her shadow self to the party.

Most of the leaves are gone from our trees now, but a few are still present. This Japanese maple is at the front of the house.

There are two of these bright red guys around the back near the catio.

I'd already done my morning slow stitching. I stitched all of August's block and part of September's. I've finished September's block now, but it still needs borders.

When I was able to make my way to the sewing room, I stitched on the borders for August's block.

Sadie was there right away to help out. She was ready to settle in for a delicious NBS day.

Then Smitty joined us.

Uh-Oh, I think there's gonna be a rumble!

While they negotiated their respective territories, I went to work sewing together the latest three Shop Hop blocks. Here's San Diego:

Then, Newport, Oregon. These go pretty fast once the cutting is finished.

And finally...um, I'm trying to...could you just step a little bit...?

There we go. Arizona, near the Nevada border.

Here are the 15 blocks I have for this quilt so far. I need ten more to finish it off, and I'll add the final blocks to either side of what you see here. The camera will be in the middle.

Okay, so having finished up a couple of projects before I was booted from my sewing room, I have two open slots on my list of WIPs. One of them will be filled with this group of blocks gifted to me from my friend Wendy. Wendy gets some sort of monthly sewing sampler box, but she didn't want to make these. She sent them my way, knowing my obsession with barns. There are 12 blocks, plus a final setting design. (I'll probably set them my own way.)

I needed a background fabric. I can't remember if this came from my stash or if I bought it specifically for this quilt. It's a mottled off-white. I'll use it in all of the blocks.

Also, I added to the project box these leftover fabrics from other barn quilt projects. I have enough of the lower one for borders and more.

So, I'll begin with Block #1 and work my way through, starting here:

It took me a bit of studying and comparing different blocks to figure out what fabrics I should use. The pattern only specified "background, medium, dark, and stripe." Each block has a "stripe" in the lower left corner, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever. I couldn't really come up with a good substitution either. Also...am I supposed to use polka dots? Or is that just for illustrative purposes? Well, I happen to love polka dots, and I have lots of them, so what the heck? And I'll do each one in a different color, RSC-style, although I'll be choosing the colors as I go.

So here's Block #1. The "stripe" has me pretty confused. It doesn't seem to fit, and it doesn't make a whole lotta sense. Is it a door? Is it a wall? I don't know. I decided to use that board fabric throughout. I'm confident it will all come together in the end.

Okay, so next up, I'll be making the next section for Purrfectly Pieced. This is what I have for this quilt so far:

Also, I'll continue on with stitching and sewing the Books & Roses blocks. Those won't take long, and then I'll need to prepare the final piece for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. I'll be working with nearly the whole quilt sewn together, and so I'm dreading it a little bit. It's going to be huge and heavy to work with.

The final stitchery will be to stitch the tree branch across the top where the crows are perched. Honestly, if I'd known then what I know now, I would never have started this quilt. It's going to be a great quilt when it's finished, but it has been a bear to piece together.

The week is about to get busy. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, and so I need to get busy with a few domestic chores, and I need a last minute trip to the grocery store to pick up the items on the menu that are best purchased very fresh. Also, the workers will be back tomorrow to finish up the final cosmetic work on the baseboards. Thankfully, when they're finished, the basement will be finished and the whole debacle out of our lives...hopefully, for good.