Mini Blocks and Scenery

Winter in SoCal is mild, but it has been on the cold side, for us, with 60 degree days and lows in the 40s at night.  It's always a great time to sew, but feels even more appropriate to be making quilts. I've been making star blocks to add to the 3.5" scrappy squares quilt top.

These are 3.5" finished--I haven't worked on such tiny pieces in awhile, and they can be very fussy to get straight.  The bottom right one had a little nip and tuck surgery after this pic as the center cheddar sure didn't look square.  

The smallest Bloc-Loc tool is very helpful for the sliver trimming the little HSTs. Mostly I used 1.75" strips to make the pieces and trimmed them to 1.5". Churn Dash and Friendship stars have the same pieces so I am making some of both.  I will be adding a narrow stop border to the quilt top--maybe in cheddar, but more likely brown--and then will decide how many stars to use as an accent.

Speaking of accent, we had some snow on our Topa Topa mountains recently.  It didn't last long, but sure was pretty. 

Sure looked pretty!

I love winter sunsets too :)

Design Wall Monday--Mini Mod Swap

Design Wall Monday rolls around again.  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.

Some hours Saturday and Sunday were spent on the Mini Mod Swap blocks, Warm and Bright/White group.  These are 2" unfinished and templates were included with the signup and $5 donation. Before the templates came out, I had already sewn up a bunch of different blocks on my own. I was able to use some of them for my guild swap partners. 

The three columns on the right were the first blocks I'd sewn.  I made a ton of the yellow blocks before I got the guide and templates, so have lots left over to mix in the final setting of whatever they will become.  The hot pink HSTs were already started, as well as the coral checkerboards.  Which is a good thing, because I mistakenly believed mailing day was March 8, when it was actually March 5... Saturday I spent many hours paper piecing the tiny ochre diamonds and orange arrows.   I made a full set of six drunkard's path blocks in a warm purple--but that color was not in the Warm and Bright group, so I started over with the deep pink. Those DP blocks were hard, even though made slightly oversized and trimmed down! 

The top row are blocks I made before getting the rules.  I do like the purple DP blocks and will mix them in anyway, most likely.

Sunday I drove around dropping off the finished blocks, it was good to get out of the house on a nice day.  I found I had actually miscounted blocks needed and made an extra set that I kept.  One of  my guild swap partners did the same thing-- Tisha joined so many color groups that she ended up making 108 blocks total!  Her blocks in the Warm and Bright group are on the right.  Chris's blocks are on the left.  Chris contributed two sets of blocks for the color group, and even included 3 extra in her sets, an unexpected delight.

One more partner's blocks are on their way to me.  I don't know what I will make with the blocks, but have seen bags and mini quilts, pincushions and buckets on Instagram #minimodswap.  It has been a popular swap and over $10,000 has been collected by Berene at Happy Sew Lucky to donate to social causes.  That's a good thing!

Finally Friday--Variety Post

Is it just me, or was it a long week?  We were pretty busy at work, two days this week I never even got a chance to sit down for the first three hours of the day, as I was catching up on my notes between the doctor's patients.  

 

Tonight I'm sitting down typing this as we have a rare lightning storm.  For the second time in  a week we found ourselves standing outside with our neighbors watching the sky; the first time was for the SpaceX rocket launch on Sunday.  We are about 80 miles south of Vandenburg Air Force Base, where the launch took place.  We all watched in wonder as the rocket soared.  I took these pics with my phone.

This is after the separation of the first part of the rocket. 

And this blurry shot is of the rocket returning to the Vandenburg.  My daughter described the perfect landing of the rocket back on the base as "like parking a car".  Very cool to be able to see this successful launch from our neighborhood. 

Lori of Humble Quilts blog is having another Fall sew-along which she is calling Sajou, after a fabric shop in France (I've linked to Part 1 on her blog).  Being preoccupied with the paper piecing earlier in the week, I caught up through Part 2 yesterday morning before work.

Here is my center before  stitching.  I mostly used fabrics from a swatch sample of Dargate Treasury a guild member gifted me several years ago.  It seemed the perfect time to cut into it for this small project.

I pulled some pieces from stash for variety, and a stripe for framing the center in Part 2.  Here's how it looks now, at about 13" square:

Since I started my version after Lori posted Part 2, I was able to orient my flower center so it is upright in the on-point setting.  Looking forward to Part 3 and the finale next week.  

There was fun mail this week when I received some needleminders I bought from the Spinster Stitcher.  I have been reading Coni's entertaining blog for several years after finding it through Carol's sidebar blog list (Polka Dot Chicken).  Coni is making and selling these needleminders to help pay for a kidney transplant.  Meanwhile, she is on dialysis three times a week and sometimes is able to stitch while she receives her treatment. 

I purchased the two cups and the witch's boots and received a free Stewey-minder, of her cherished pooch who had so many adventures before succumbing to cancer.   I put the green star travel cup to use immediately while I finished up the Lizzie Kate Tiny Tidings stitchery.  

It turned out pretty darn cute, if I may say so myself :)  Perhaps a plaid ribbon around the sides of the frame and adding a hanger are left to do. 

We have family in town this weekend for my Dad's birthday, so I'm not sure how much sewing room time I'll get.  There is a new toy in my sewing room I'll tell you about next time.  Happy Weekend!

Log Cabin Loonies--Julie's quilt along

Well I didn't mean to disappear for so long, there was a lull in the sewing room after the Fair frenzy and a secret home improvement project I'll share next.  

But first, sweet Julie of  Julie K Quilts is having a sewalong making Log Cabin blocks, she calls it Log Cabin Loonies.  I decided to jump into the fun, but upsize the block to suit the size of scraps I trim down and save.  She is using 1" strips and mine are 1.5".  I started out making a test block, as she suggested, before I cut the logs to size in abundance. 

I'm really glad I did that because my original numbers were way off--I was figuring on paper adding only .5 inch to each round but needed to add 1"due to my larger width strip.  I made a cheat sheet for cutting the rounds from 1.5" strips, starting with a 2" center block. 

Julie's measurements using 1" strips are HERE.  I'm linking to her Log Cabin Loonies linkup.  

It has been a long time since I made any Log Cabin blocks, though they are one of my favorite old blocks and can be set so many different ways.  Looking back in my photos, the last Log Cabin blocks I made were for a Quiltbuddies swap way back in 2007.  This was for a Yahoo Group I belonged to for some years.  We made 12" finished black and white blocks and from mine I made a quilt for my Mom and Dad's guest room--Mom was calling it her Paris Room then.

I accidentally matched the quilt--this pic makes me want to buy another red jacket, I loved that one.  The blocks came from many states and a few countries and it was amazing how many different prints there are in that color combo.  The barn raising setting is also a favorite of mine, I've used it many times for different blocks. 

Some sweet prints accompanied leftover blocks on the back.  As I remember, I bought the toile bird print from a shop in Bakersfield when we were visiting family.

I recently inspected the quilt I made my Dad, also in 2007, and it needs replacement.  He uses it every day so it gets a lot of wear.

This was during the Turning Twenty craze.  Some of the fat quarters Mom and Dad bought while traveling in Montana/Wyoming and Yellowstone Park area.  Now the flannel binding is worn, and the thin fabric that shows as pink but is actually a rusty red is shredding.  I've got another scrap project  going from the 1.5 and 2.5" bins, a Bonnie Hunter design called Chunky Churndash.  

I think these would make a great scrappy quilt for my Dad.  They finish at 6" but are set with an alternate hourglass block that sews up quick.  Pattern is free on Bonnie's Quiltville site under the Free Patterns tab.  Back to sewing!

Design Wall Monday--8/13/18

On my Design Wall:  I started a new project, because apparently having 25+ unfinished ones just wasn't enough, lol.  Well, this one came about after I watched a live feed of my nephew's wedding that I couldn't make it to, being 11 hours drive one way.  Now, in some parts of the country you might cross a state or three in that time, but not California!  Anyway, I wanted something handmade to go along with a gift from their registry, and the cutoffs from a recent Thomas Fire donation quilt seemed perfect to start with. 

The aqua print was joined by stash pulls of red, navy, and green for some Tea Time Placemats (by Pineapple Fabrics).  I had to be creative in my cutting as I had fat eighths of the red, and a remnant of the blue to cut the triangles from  rather than the oversize fat quarters the pattern calls for. 

I cobbled together different prints for the backs (not shown).  Though the Tea Time pattern uses a stitch and turn method with no filler, I will quilt these with batting and add binding in the aqua fabric.  I think bound placemats stand up better to laundering/

I used the never-ending scrappy four-patch project as leader-enders during the placemat assembly.  Having spent another bit of time figuring how many are still needed to be turned into square-in-squares for my quilt design, I decided to sort the already made darks into color families.  There was a curious result. 

Some red, a few orange and yellow, brown, pink, a few more purple...

...but the biggest pile was blue! This is a surprise to me since I seldom make blue quilts.  Maybe I was subconsciously getting it out of my scrap piles!  The other half of the square-in-square blocks are various shades of beige, white, and cream. I decided that more "zingers" are needed in the square-in-squares, so got a bunch of 2.5" squares in red, orange/yellow, pink and purple cut and ready.  And more green, since that's my fave color.   My design requires 240 of these 3.5" blocks, so I have a lot more to make as leader-enders.  Perhaps by the end of the year I will be finished making square-in-squares, but there is no rush---25+ UFOs, as I mentioned?

See more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Cross Reference FeeNee

Cross Reference is finally crossed off the to-do list.  I stitched up the binding corners and some missed spots from machine binding, added a label, gave it a bath, and called our son to come pick it up.  

Being rather tall, Nick didn't need help to hold it off the ground.  The quilt is about twin size, 60x80ish, smaller than the pattern as written in the April 2017 American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, designer Susan Ache. I just found the pattern as a stand alone PDF purchase on APQshop.com.  My version is made from Kona Snow for the background, Kona Prussian Blue for the small cross blocks, and a variety of blue and rust prints from stash. 

I think he likes it!  Especially since he's been not-so-subtly bugging me for the past month to get it done. 

This was actually a pretty fast finish for me, only 2.5 months from cutting to label.  It looks good wrapped around him and will be a bright addition to his apartment living room. Oh, and for his girlfriend to use when she gets cold, as he repeatedly mentioned while waiting for the finish! 

UFO of the Month Progress--Sunbonnet Sue

Yesterday I set about tracing and finalizing colors for the small applique project, Sunbonnet Sue Goes to the Orient, June's July's UFO  (oops, went back in time!)

Lots of little parts.  Hmm, I'm not that great of an appliquer, but I'll press on.

The background is a piece of white linen blend fabric.  I fussy cut the sleeves from another oriental print on hand.  I like it.  The hair needs a little adjustment as it is not even on both sides (#tinypieces).  Since I love green, I first chose that color for her toes, but decided to bring in some of the pink that makes up the HSTs that will surround Sue. 

At first I thought the pink print was too distracting, but with the HSTs around her, the pink toes stand out less.

I used a scrap of muslin for her face and hands.  Sue will barely squeak into my frame of HSTs.  I'm pleased with the project so far.  Preparing for curse words when it comes to stitching...or maybe I will skip that entirely and just fuse her in place for this wallhanging.

The pattern comes from this vintage 2005Quick Quilts magazine.  Okay, I'm off to get the iron heated up before I have to pick up and take my 98 year old MIL to the eye doctor.  Wish me luck and patience with both!