Hope and kindness

Hi all, and welcome to November! Yes, November! Who can even believe it? 2019 is just racing toward the  finish line, isn't it? It freaks me out a little, to be honest. Know what else is freaking me out? We had no trick or treaters! Not even one. It was so, so weird. At our house in Wisconsin we would have tons, like you-need-10-bags-of-candy numbers, and last night not a single one. So my students are getting Halloween candy as a bonus for coming to class Friday, because if I keep it here you know what will happen, don't you? That's right, a hubby with a stomach ache.

So this week I finished up those happy little word quilts that I was working on:

Aren't those darling?  They're pretty much exactly what I wanted, and I have the perfect place to hang them, too.

The little "hope" quilt measures about 8 by 13 and is made entirely from scraps, mostly from the string jar. Even the single fold binding is a scrap. This is the first time I've ever made lower-case letters and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. I quilted it with the walking foot, and I'm thrilled with that, too. (And look at the mum!)

The "kindness" quilt got something of a makeover from the last time I showed it. I wasn't happy with the letters just in a banner-type line, so I cut them apart and tried a few different ways to put them together. I finally settled on the 'dancing' layout, which works with these letters and with the word itself, too.  I quilted this little quilt in a 45 degree cross hatch with the walking foot, which did not take long at all. This one also got a single fold binding and I am really happy with how it turned out.  Kindness measures about 7 by 24 inches.

These little quilts were free-pieced, which means I made the letters through trial and error, without any patterns. I used Lynne's Liberated Letters tutorial and it helped so, so much. (You can buy it HERE.)  I would really like to make a few more for practice because I have a *great* idea for a quilt made entirely of words. I'm not sure which practice words would go with what I already have, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

Everyone have a wonderful weekend! The temperature is supposed to drop about 25 degrees or so overnight, so I hope I'm not a popsicle by the time you're reading this!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

Just a word

Hi everyone! You know those "word of the day" calendars? The word of the week for me is cash. It's been an expensive week. This week I paid taxes on my car for the *third* time-- when I bought it, when I moved to Delaware, and now when I moved to Maryland. Maryland's taxes were by far the worst, plus they came with a huge fee for a car inspection and the plates on top of that. It's like they really don't want people to move here or something.  Did I mention that the hubs has a car, too?

But I digress. . .let's talk quilty stuff, which is so much nicer to discuss than the time wasted at the DMV. (Excuse me, the MVA.) I did manage to get a few things stitched up this week, in between waiting rooms. First off, I have one last purple block to show:

This is what I made from the purple scrap I showed a bit ago. It was inspired by the block that Angela posted this week. I'm probably not going to make any black blocks, but this one sparked just enough to get me to use up that purple. Yay! And take a look at that lovely mum! I found a farmer's market near here and they had a whole bunch of these, along with some great tomatoes. The plums were awesome, too.

The other thing I did this week was work some more on the letters and words I've been putting together into mini quilts. I promise I did not make any of the words I was thinking repeatedly this week. (Those would be too R-rated.) I haven't decided what to do about the kindness panel yet, but I did finish this new word panel:

This is my favorite one so far! I made some lower case letters and they are actually readable. I didn't want to crop this picture because I love the trees in the background, so you can't really see how rounded the letters are, but I clipped all the points. I think they look great. That little "e" took forever but was so worth it.  Pretty sure that I'm going to go back and round the corners on the "h" as well. That little tail is not working for me.

Speaking of not working, sometimes experiments don't work out. You can see that I tried to make the "p" fancy or something and it just looked weird, so I had to lose the little tail. Not sure what I was thinking, but I definitely want to try some different fonts and ways to make letters.  I have several more words in mind, too.  (Still can't say enough good about Lynne's tutorial, either. It's great!)

That's the news from here. Hope you're having a good and inexpensive weekend! I'm going to drive my car with the very expensive plates to the grocery store and see if I can still afford something for dinner. It's a close call-- we'll see what happens!

Perfect esses

Hi everyone, and greetings from the hot zone. I think someone forgot to tell the weather that it's October, because it's going to be 95 today and I am so done with it. I want to pack away the summer clothes but I don't dare. As soon as I do, you know it will hit 100, right?

Down in my nice cool sewing room (which is still an absolute mess, though I did get new light bulbs so now I can see the mess) I've been working on making some letters. Yes, including some esses, though I'll bet that some of you thought I misspelled that word in the headline. (This is not a political blog!) Here are my fun letters:

I can definitely read that word! And look-- the esses, which have been the worst letters ever for me to make, turned out great! I might go back and "clip" the other corners in them just to soften them a little more, but they definitely look like they should. I am so pleased.

You can see that I also remade one of the Ns. It just didn't look right, so I pulled it out and made another. I saved the first one, though, and I might use it somewhere else.

I struggled with some of these letters quite a bit, and then I finally gave in and bought Lynne Tyler's Liberated Letters tutorial. It helped so much. It was like taking a class, and then it just clicked. And look at that S!  (You can get the tutorial HERE. Totally worth the price.)

Now that I put it all together into a banner, I'm not sure that I want to keep it that way or if I want to break it up or otherwise arrange the letters differently. I know that I'm going to hang this in my office with the little Joy quilt and the banner is awfully long. I'm too lazy to go get the actual measurement, but it's more than 18 inches. I have this idea that I'll hang several of these mini words together, so a long one could go at the top, but maybe I'd rather have it be more square. Not sure. Requires more thought!

These letters are really fun to make, and they do go together pretty quick. I pulled out the string jar and used those, but it does take a *lot* of the background fabric. And it makes a fun mess, too. I was in such a great mood after those successful esses that I started another word in a different "font." Hey, if you're going to play, play! Anyone want to guess what the next word is?

Hope you're all having a great week so far and haven't melted away. Seriously, a cool breeze would feel great right now, wouldn't it?