Pink and green

Hi all! It's Friday again! I am happy that this week is over and soooo looking forward to relaxing this weekend. Maybe I will even sleep 8 hours at one stretch. I hear some people do that on a regular basis, but I don't think I've ever met any of them.

It happens that both of today's quilts are pink and green. I guess it was a theme. Take a look at this one:

Yes! Celtic Solstice is now all finished, quilted, AND bound!

I could not be happier. It turned out well! This is not exactly how I originally envisioned the colors coming together, but they turned out okay! The back is a print I got on at a super-sale price and it works well with this quilt:

It started raining right after I took these pictures, so they came out a little gray. The colors are brighter in person. Really, really happy this is done! I plan to wrap up in it tonight to watch TV, maybe along with a nice mug of hot chocolate.

On another note, here is the current state of the Drunkard's Path quilt. Mr. AQ has pronounced this one "kinda girly." Okay, note for next year: try to lay off the pink and green. Thanks honey, you've been very helpful.

Yeah, not as much progress as I had hoped. I have everything cut, but I've had little time this week to put the blocks together. Also, I'm wondering about borders. I think that Drunkard's Path quilts generally have no borders or else very narrow borders because the block pattern is the star of this quilt. Trying to think ahead about what I might use for a border.

Both of these have been bright spots in otherwise drab days this week. The forecast for this weekend calls for "light snow showers," so I plan to clean out the machines, change rotary cutter blades, and do other boring things. Then maybe I'll get to sew some more Drunkard's Path blocks. After a nap, of course!

Here's to everyone having a great weekend with lots of sleep and lots of sewing! It's chilly, so be sure to grab a quilt to wrap up in!

Linking up to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, and Vicki Welsh's Drunkard's Path Quilt Along. Be sure to stop by!

What a relief it is!

Well, this post is late today, but I am VERY happy. Celtic Solstice is now done!  Look:

Too big for the clothesline!

What a relief it is to post that picture! Here's another view:

As you may remember, this quilt has been a struggle. HERE's a whole post about it. And you should know that I struggled right up to the end. Putting the blocks into rows and then stitching the rows together was a nightmare. So much matching! I couldn't just match the block seams, but also had to match every seam within the blocks. Slow and frustrating.

The border also gave me fits. First I couldn't decide what to do with it, then I had trouble lining everything up. In the end, I am much happier with it than I would have been with the original pattern. I think it came out okay. The final quilt measures about 78 by 78.

Truthfully, there is nothing about this quilt that was really difficult. All of the units were pretty basic and easy to make. There were just soooo many! Even the chevron sections didn't give me much problem. I strip pieced them using this tutorial.  Even though they were easy enough, there are some things I would have changed had I known in advance what the finished quilt would look like. For example, I would never have made pinwheels for the center of the "birthday girl" blocks. I think they'd be much more attractive as a solid square. But I had already made the pinwheels so I used them.

 

I would probably have chosen different colors as well, but I'm okay with how these turned out. I'm a little disappointed with how the dark green looks with everything else, and I probably would have chosen to switch the green and the pink. But it's done! 

Even though I struggled mightily with this quilt, I still love Bonnie Hunter quilts and patterns, and I love how generous she is with her work. She has a TON of free patterns and offers a mystery quilt for a limited time every year. So will I make another one of her mystery quilts? Right now, I wouldn't make one as a mystery. I'll wait for the reveal and see, but I'll still follow along and maybe make a few units. But I'm off mysteries for a while. Besides, we all know that I have a bajillion projects waiting in the wings already, so I'm guessing it will be okay.

Hope all of you have a great and relaxing weekend as summer winds down. Want to know the best thing about my upcoming weekend? I won't have to think about finishing this quilt anymore!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict, crazy mom quilts, TGIFF, and Richard and Tanya Quilts! Come on over and check out some great projects!

Projects in progress

Hello all!

A LOT has been happening in my sewing room so far this week. There are three projects that are racing toward the finish line very fast. Wonder which one will get there first?

First up is the aqua and orange quilt. I finished the center and then decided to put some orange flying geese as a border.

Wow, is that ever bad.  I really, really don't like it. The scale is all wrong, and the seams hit funny. As soon as I realized from the picture how very bad it looked, I took it off. Time to try something else. I think a thin border and then some smaller flying geese that won't have to match up to the existing seams. And a different orange. Definitely a different orange.

Then I have the red and white Dancing Nines quilt, which is coming along nicely.

Look, I'm making 4 patches from the leftover pieces! It may not make an exciting picture, but I am seriously excited about this. I started with 68 and need a bunch more. The extra pieces have to be taken apart to make them the right size, so there are threads everywhere. And I may need to buy a new seam ripper, one that will actually cut thread. How much ripping do you have to do to dull a seam ripper?

And, believe it or not, the third project is this one:

Okay, weird size picture, but this is two rows of the much-postponed Celtic Solstice project. I am FINALLY putting it together. I don't know if it feels good yet or not; mostly I just feel relieved. I have had to bargain with myself to work on it, as in "you can't sew on the Dancing Nines until you sew two CS blocks together." Hey, whatever works, right? The next hurdle is figuring out a border, but I can see the end of the tunnel. And I'm pretty sure that it's not an oncoming train.

That's it for now, except for this:

That's a basket of small scraps to be cut into 1 1/2 and 2 inch squares. It'll be relaxing, right?

Hope your sewing is also going well! Linking to Linky Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Come on over and join us!

Cleaning up

It's been a very busy cleaning week here. Just how does everything get so dirty, and how do I not notice it all winter long? I'm blaming the sunshine. It just brightens everything so that I can see the dirt. Even in the corners!

As part of my cleanup, I finally put the bindings on these two quilts, so now they are finally completely finished. The first is this one:

(I always wondered why bloggers put their quilts out on the grass. Now I know--there's no place else that's big enough!)

This quilt is made from traditional Lady of the Lake blocks in various batiks that I had laying around. The border kind of blends into the grass, but it's a batik as well. Those fabrics and some triangle paper made this super easy. The block pattern was in one of Judy Martin's block books, and it was super easy as well. I am really pleased with how it turned out.

This next one was a block-of-the-month from 2010 (!), which I just finished this week.

I sewed most of the blocks in 2010, and then hit a snag and put it away. (I'm sure that no one else has ever done that.) I pulled it out again earlier this year and just finished the binding, only four years later. I wasn't sure about the dark green block frames and inner border, but it works. I used that same dark green as the binding. I'm pretty pleased with this one too!

For anyone who's been following along, I am STILL working on Celtic Solstice, a tiny bit at a time. I am actually making progress, so I have high hopes of finishing it soon.  The pattern calls for a border that I won't be using in my quilt, but I had already made the units, so yesterday I found something else to do with them.

These are tri-recs units put together to make these pinwheel-type blocks. (I've been calling them "kick" blocks, because they look to me like they're kicking.) When they're all together like this, I think they look like flowers. I'm thinking of a pink sashing and a floral border:

Won't this be a cute quilt for a little girl? I have enough of the tri-recs units for 24 blocks, but I have more cut, so I may end up making a few more to make it bigger since these finish at 6 inches. I think this counts as using up green scraps, don't you?

I've also started cutting for the Fiesta Pinwheels quilt. I chose this color distribution, with the red center:

I think it's going to be very festive! And it's certainly cheerful to work on, no doubt about that.

Hope everyone has a lovely Memorial Day weekend! We are supposed to have terrific weather, and we'll be spending Memorial Day at the ballpark. It should be fun!

Linking up with Sarah and Amanda and Angela again. It's a holiday weekend, so lots of time for you to check out everyone's projects!

See you on Tuesday!

Afternoon at the machine

This is the story of how I got to sew almost all of yesterday afternoon instead of working without even one little shred of guilt. It's a hilarious tale, really.

I have given blood for years. Three times a year, show up and save a life while sitting on my butt. I have never had one single problem, except for the time I let a newbie practice on me and ended up with a huge bruise. So, it was time to donate again and I went to the Blood Center for my appointment.  I usually have a quick lunch, then go donate, then go back to the office and work the rest of the afternoon. I give double red cells, so it takes a little longer, but with an 11:45 or 12 o'clock appointment I can usually be back by 1:30. Except for this time!

I got to the Blood Center, did the whole routine, got the needle in my arm, read my book, and got all finished and ready for my cookie.  So I stood up, stretched, and boom! Passed clean out on the floor. Did I mention that I never had any problem EVER before?

Turns out that this happens every day at the Blood Center. Literally. Every day. They were all very nice. What happens is they break open some ammonia under your nose so you wake up (I was really only completely out of it for about 10 seconds, but they got the ammonia anyway), then they sit you up against the wall while pretty much forcing you to slam down a whole bottle of water. Then you get to sit in the cookie area and have a cookie and another whole bottle of water or juice while they call your emergency contact to drive you home. Because no one is letting you drive after that.

It was all very embarrassing.

So, my husband came and scooped me up and took me home and left me there with strict instructions not to do anything "strenuous." (He even brought home takeout later. Best husband ever. Plus I now get to define cooking as "too strenuous.")

So what's a girl to do with a free afternoon? Pop in a movie and sit at the sewing machine, that's what! I finished up the Afternoon on the Porch top, which took longer than expected. I realized while I was rearranging everything that it was going to finish at about 48 by 70. This is pretty narrow, so I decided to make 4 more blocks (one more row) to widen it to 56 inches. Only problem was that I had not a single thread left of the the original fabrics. So I picked out some coordinating ones and then had to strip them into random blocks so that the new fabrics didn't stand out from the old ones.

That meant lots of ripping and restitching, plus making new blocks from the pieces I ripped out of the original blocks, but it turned out okay. Not hard, just putzy.

I took the top outside in the brief respite between raindrops in hopes of getting a good picture, but everything was really too wet to put the top on. My neighbor came to the rescue, though, and held the top up for me.

It was very windy! And you can see that we have no leaves on the trees yet. But how great is that top? I think it turned out fantastic. It's going to be a nice cuddle quilt, probably for my older daughter, who gave me the fabric to begin with. And it certainly added a bright spot to a fairly dreary week.

This top will go to the longarmer. I know exactly which panto to use on it, and she does terrific work. This batik is the backing:

It's mostly blues, but with big areas of purple and a pinkish color. It's perfect for a backing where all those colors and variations can be seen.

One more thing to show today:

That is a stack of 16 birthday girl blocks (which I keep calling 'birthday cake' blocks in my head) for the Celtic Solstice quilt. Only 8 more to make! Progress, progress. After I finished with these I had a big headache, probably from my earlier adventure, so that was it for sewing time for the day. But I got a lot done! Not bad for a surprise free afternoon.

I hope my story above doesn't put off anyone who's thinking of donating blood! This is the only time in close to 20 years that anything has happened when I donated, so don't be afraid! Everyone is very, very nice, and you get to save someone's life AND get free cookies on top of it. Win, win, win.

Hope everyone has a great afternoon, and has some bonus free time very soon. Just don't pass out to get it, okay?

A little bit of Zen

One of the good things about having quilting as a hobby is that you can do it in bits and pieces.  It's not like you have to make a whole quilt at one sitting.  It's also possible to work on several quilts at once and not be bored because they all use different fabrics and different designs.  There are also those days when some of the more tedious tasks of quilt-making can be done without a lot of thinking and calm the mind. At least, there are days when pressing and trimming make everything just a little better.  And they are steps in making progress toward finishing another quilt, after all.

There were a number of these tasks that I did last night, and it really was quite helpful. First, I made a couple of string blocks for an upcoming quilt:

I forgot to take a picture before I cut them, but these are 6 1/2 inch blocks cut in half across the strings.

Then, I worked on the mystery quilt a little more:

All of the Birds in the Air blocks are now finished, and I still have about 20 of the chevrons and another 40 of the 4-patches to make.

After that, I trimmed and pressed some half-square triangles. I tried a technique I read about at the Little Miss Shabby blog (and then also at Quiltville and several other places which sent it around the web). You can read about it HERE.

 It worked great! As you can see, I only had to trim a tiny bit off each one, but it was much easier to do before pressing them open than after.

I got about 50 or 60 of these done, but as you can see, there are tons left.  I think I started with more than 300, but by the time I got through these my mind was a lot calmer and I was done sewing for the day. The rest of them can wait for another day when I need to just not think too much.

To finish or not to finish?

Finish or toss? That is the question. . .

Today we have to talk about something difficult, and it's in this box:

(For those who want to know, that's an ArtBin 12 by 12 box. I keep UFOs in these. Sad to say, I have about a dozen.)

Have you ever had a project that just wouldn't cooperate with you? This is a UFO from early in 2014. Every year from Thanksgiving to New Year's, Bonnie Hunter offers a mystery quilt on her blog. (If you've never seen her blog, you should definitely check it out. TONS of free patterns and other goodies.) I've done a couple of her mysteries and had a great time and made a terrific quilt that I really enjoy using. I've also made a lot of her other patterns, and I really admire her style and her generosity with her work. Sadly, this year's mystery quilt, Celtic Solstice, now consists of these parts and pieces: 

Sad, isn't it? What happened?

Um. . .er. . . well, okay, here's what happened. I don't really like it.

Awkward, no?

Actually, I like the pattern quite a bit, and I've seen some that others have made and they are beautiful. I think I just really don't like the colors I chose, especially the pink and the yellow. They just aren't working. This was my inspiration for the colors I chose:

 

These are peace roses, my favorite kind. (These are fabric, not real. Roses are way expensive in the winter.) I don't think the colors I used really work for what I wanted.  It certainly doesn't say "roses" to me.  Maybe I should have switched the dark green and the pink. Or chosen different colors altogether.

Another thing that put me off this project was all the pieces. There are tons of pieces and that means a whole lot of repetition. I mean a LOT of repetition. Make 98 of these, and 200 of those, and eleventy-billion 4-patches. It felt more like work than play, and Lord knows I have enough work to do already. I ran out of patience. So early in January I boxed it up and put it in the closet with the other UFOs.

And there it sat, mocking me every time I opened that door. Maybe I should have buried it in the back.

Anyway, now I think I'm going to finish it, just because I don't want to leave it sitting there.  Most of the UFOs in the closet are projects that I plan to do, not anything that I've actually cut out or started.  Some don't have all the fabric with them.  This is actually pretty far along, so I've just got to finish all those 4-patches and make the blocks.  Here's a paste-up of what the blocks and pattern should look like:

I see that I even pasted it up wrong.  There should be 4 stars and 5 other blocks.  Aaargh! It just doesn't like me!

I figure that there are three possibilities here: I could finish it and end up liking it, I could finish it and hate it and donate it to a worthy charity, or one of my daughters or sisters or cousins will see it and love it and say "can I have this?" Whatever happens, it won't be mocking me any more. I will conquer this quilt!

Well, it certainly felt good to get that off my chest.  Now I better start sewing. Here's hoping all of your projects are cooperating with you.