Design Wall Monday-- March 16, 2020

Design Wall Monday comes round again, just like clockwork!  See more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

Saturday night I finished up the Meadowland QAL  Christmas quilt (fabric is We Whisk You a Merry Christmas).  I love how this turned out. Assembly by row was fine, but likely I'll try by blocks next time. The pattern by Then Came June is one that can be made in many different sizes--this is the large throw size, 64" square. Someone on IG reduced the block by half for theirs and it turned out really cute.

The ongoing March self-challenge to clean out the Hoosier cabinet had me looking at blocks as well.

The box on the table held leftover/orphan blocks and small unfinished projects.  I put a lot of the blocks in a donations bag, along with some books and patterns I'm moving along.  The cleaned out small project box went back in the cabinet.  A pile of X-Plus blocks I won in our recent block lotto  were a fun distraction during the cleaning.

We are making baby quilts for young moms for one of the philanthropy projects at guild. Won't this be a fun bright playmat?

These were a little too disparate for me so took out the green blocks and the one with the blue middle for another 9 block baby quilt.  I'll sew those up before the next meeting, hopefully.

The "After" photo doesn't look too much different, but there were a lot of books and patterns moved out and a good reorganization.   I have a bunch of embroidery skeins to wind on cards to finish this part of the job.  The brown tray in the top right of the cupboard has unframed cross-stitch pieces and I'll work on those in the near future.  I haven't had any hand embroidery going lately but the wool blocks of the still incomplete Greenpiece quilt need to get done (last seen in March 2019's challenge!). 

COVID-19 has come to my county and the state Governor has closed bars and declared that over 65 year olds and those with chronic health conditions should quarantine themselves. Schools closed for four weeks as of Friday.  Meanwhile, the medical group I work for is establishing tele-health at our office and have been running a screening fever and cough drive-through clinic at another location for over a week.  The doctors in our group are very innovative and quick thinking, and most of them are women, a fact I am quite proud about!  Social distancing being practiced, and trying to keep clean and sterilized of primary importance.  Scary times, for sure.    I went to Target on Friday to get a filter for our Brita and there was not a single pitcher product on the shelves--nor any bottled water except the expensive kind.  I bought a few of those while the filters are on order.  My husband went to Ralph's grocery store this morning and ran into similar shortages, as well as far fewer checkers and long lines for all self-checkout registers.   Stay healthy, people!  I'm going to spend plenty of time with needle and thread :)

And Another Week Flies By

It was a very busy weekend at home, at work, and in our social lives.  There were birthday parties and baseball season opening games, and plenty of fabric play.  Oh, and a trip to the Urgent Care!   I'll start there since it also involves fabric :)

Friday afternoon I spent some time in the backyard trimming the poinsettia plant, avocado tree, and the neighbor's over-enthusiastic vines falling over the fence.  As I was cleaning up the garden tools, my hand slipped on the wet clippers and I cut my right index finger.  The cut was not deep, but it bled a lot and so I sat with it above my heart, applying pressure, for a good 30-45 minutes.  Part of the laceration stuck together fine, but the other did not and continued to bleed. I called my doctor's office--for whom I work--and they directed me to urgent care.  Luckily no sutures were needed; they cleaned me up, used Dermabond glue to cover the laceration and sent me home after a tetanus booster.  As a consolation for this injury, I stopped off at the fabric store for a discount remnant bin raid and a replacement 6.5" square ruler--I still never found the one that disappeared two weeks ago!

There were also a lot of bolts on sale and I picked up a good length of Kona Brown for 30% off.  The smallest remnant was 70 cents--love that.  We babysat the boys for a few hours Friday night, and after they went to bed I finally got the Chunky Churndash quilt top prepared for quilting by cleaning up the loose threads on the back.  The quilt is now on its way to David's Quilting to become a real quilt for my dad at last--he's been waiting a long time!

Sewing room layout and switcheroo for the Meadowland QAL happened too.

Saturday we had two more social engagements--grandson Cove had his baseball season opening game and later there was a 30th birthday party to attend that our youngest threw herself.  It was fun to see many of Erica's friends who spent so much time at our house in the teen/young adult years.  

On Sunday a housewarming/birthday party for the grandsons was the last social engagement. I spent a couple of hours before the party sewing up some flannel pants for the boys. Arriving at the party, we discovered an awful thing had happened to my CRV's sunroof. 

You can see in the corner that something impacted the glass. I do remember hearing a loud bang when on the freeway a day or two before, but we never noticed the damage until the glass crumbled.  Luckily the car was  still drive-able, though I now have a rental car pending repair--because it has been RAINING in SoCalif.

Sunday night I sewed the rows for our round robin Guild project.  My guild mini group members helped with the layout and I love all the movement.  Again, I used the Grayscale tutorial from Allison's Cluck Cluck Sew blog, adding an additional round to make 12" finished blocks rather than 10". 

To continue my March self-challenge to move along unfinished projects in the Hoosier Cabinet, I sewed all the corners on the Tea Time 5" charm pack quilt project. 

Fun little blocks! 

The Meadowland QAL concludes this week with sewing up the top.  I'm assembling mine in rows and have finished three rows of the nine needed.  My social calendar is a lot lighter this week so I should be able to get them all done!

Design Wall Monday--March 2, 2020 New March Challenge

First Design Wall Monday of March is here--see more beauties on design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog.  

Last March I did a UFO self-challenge working on a different project every three days.  That was a very motivating exercise and helped move along lots of different quilts that had been stalled at some stage or another.  This year I'm working on hidden projects, mostly contained in/on/under the Hoosier cabinet that substitutes for closet space in the open family room where I sew.  It's Empty the Hoosier this month!  I first attacked the overflowing scrap situation; I had a shoe box and deep wire basket full of fabric to deal with.

Pieces I had already precut to the sizes I save went into the drawers under the cutting table, and the larger slabs and strips to the ROY G BIV drawers under the desk, or the fat quarter dresser, depending on size.  The wire basket and plastic shoebox are empty again!  However, I accidentally started a new project while cutting up some of the green scraps....Squirrel!

I'm going to make a tablerunner for my oldest brother--his favorite color is green too. The fabric in the bottom right stack I used in a bed quilt I made him several years ago.  This squirrel project will match another started in April 2017 from Kim Brackett's pattern called Cross My Heart (from the book Scrap Basket Beauties), and finished in my Three for March self-challenge last year.

 Obviously this pic doesn't show the finish! I cut 40 sets of green fabrics but still need to cut the corner pieces from solid white. 

In the Hoosier cabinet I have a box with small unfinished projects; that also needs to be emptied! I chose one as a new leader-ender. I think the 5" charm pack was a prize and the pattern a free project card.  Anyway, I had already cut all the corner squares, they just needed to be marked with the stitching line, a tedious job that had stalled the project. 

This will make a good baby quilt if I make it square instead of a rectangle, wouldn't it?  Lots of fun piecing to start my Empty the Hoosier Challenge--I like it!