Crumbs and strings and other things

Hello all! Every time I log in to Blogger, something in it has changed. Anyone else notice this? I still want the spellcheck button back, and the save button needs to be better, but overall I'm getting used to it.  How about you?

Life here continues to be quite hectic. There are people working here, and sometimes there are very loud noises. And there is apparently going to be quite a lot of weather. If you're reading this on Tuesday, then chances are it's raining really hard here, with lots of wind. This is still pretty new to us, and a kind neighbor gave us some advice about battening down our hatches, so we've removed the hanging plants, stacked the chairs on the deck and bungeed them to the railing, and moved things that could blow around. I'm a little worried about the wind because we have so many trees, but I have strong hopes that it will all be okay.

I have been planning my classes for the next semester, which unbelievably starts in three weeks, and I've been working on finishing one of the unfinished tops I pulled out earlier this summer. I've been slowed down by the flying geese, but I am very, very close. So close that I've started thinking about what to do with the scraps. Here's one thing I'm doing:

String blocks! I have tons of strings and crumbs in these fabrics, so I'm making both into blocks. The fabrics from this quilt go together so nicely that it seems a shame to just mix them all together with other fabrics. And I really don't want to create more scraps that will just sit there. They never go away, do they? So much better to make some blocks and figure out a way to use the scraps up.

As I said, I'm very close to finishing this:

Those are all the quilt parts, just ready to add to the already-finished center. But first, I have to finish those annoying flying geese!  Nothing fits until they're finished.

Once you learn an easier way to do something, it's hard to go back to the old way. It's like washing dishes once you have a dishwasher, or sawing wood by hand instead of using a circular saw. Which is the long way of saying that all of these need to be trimmed:

Trimming these is such a chore! I know I could be more careful and make it easier on myself, but that seems counter-productive because I'll have to measure them anyway. After these geese are trimmed, I'll need 14 more, and then the whole thing should go together really fast.  I have high hopes of having this done by the end of the week, so cross your fingers!

The only other thing I've sewn lately has been more (expletive deleted) masks:

My sister also works at a university, and she needs masks for going back and interacting with students.  I also made a few more for myself using directions that Lisa gave me, and they turned out great, but my sister wanted this kind. I figure that I'll need two per class day, because I expect them to get damp during class, so I plan to have a total of 10 of them just for school. The school is providing us with some stretchy knit masks, but honestly, I don't trust those ones. Too thin, and they cling to my mouth. I feel safer with mine, and the way Lisa makes them mean they have more "talking space," if that makes any sense.

This whole mask thing makes me crazy, and I'm feeling the "corona coaster" heading downward again, so let me just show you this:

Look at those talons! This is a picture my daughter took of one of a pair of birds that keeps visiting her deck. Turns out they are juvenile Cooper's Hawks, which might be my favorite bird. And now my tiny granddaughter can say "hawk!" Do you think we might have a new birder on our hands?

Anyway, I'll be working on finishing that quilt, at least until the power goes out from the storm, and I seriously plan to get it done this week. I hope that all of you who are also in the path of the storm stay safe and that it just kind of passes over everyone without too much damage. Or at least that the power stays on!

Sharing at Midweek Makers and Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

Making progress

Hello everyone! Hope you all are having a good day.  We keep having storms that take out our power, but otherwise it's been an okay week here so far. Well, except for the part where the hubs and I may have finally hit the point where we have spent too much time together. Two full time jobs, a cancelled vacation, a new granddaughter we can't meet, a pandemic, civil unrest, *and* home improvements have finally proven to be a little much. Good thing we can sometimes escape outdoors! Or rage clean, which is what I sometimes do. (The shower is currently sparkling.)

Meanwhile, down in my little kingdom where I make all the rules, I've been working on getting some projects finished up. I've been putting some time in on this one:

Yes, we've seen this before, but I needed a pretty picture for the top of the blog here. This is a very old project from before we moved to the East coast that I've finally taken out of the box to finish up. This is just the center here, and I've finally sewn the sections together.

Turns out that there is not a lot left for me to do to finish this. "Past me" left a lot of very helpful notes for "future me," so it looks like all I have to do is make a whole lot of flying geese and some more of the hopscotch units for the borders.

This quilt goes together in sections, not rows, so I have to finish the geese before I can really go any further. Apparently I made all of the blocks and the center sections, but I stopped with the border parts. Yay for past me, because now I don't have a lot to do to complete this top. The only bad part is that I bought this as a kit from a rummage sale (for some ridiculously low price) and the kit was from 2008, so the directions call for making the geese one at a time-- and it has pieces that only allow that, not the faster four-at-a-time method. Once you've done things the faster way, you just don't want to go back. I will be strip piecing that other border, though.

I can't be sure how many until I'm completely finished, but there will be some really great scraps left over from this project.

I'll need to come up with something to do with these rather than just throwing them in a scrap bin, because these are such nice fabrics that go so well together. Any ideas? (They are all Shadow Play fabrics by Maywood Studio, in case you want to know.)

The other thing I'm working on is making some more masks. Siiiggghhh. That was me, sighing like a 14 year old. I'll have to wear one every day for every class come August, so I'm trying out new patterns that are more comfortable and that I might be able to teach while wearing.

This is my current favorite, a pattern by Bonnie Hunter that you can find HERE. The shaped patterns don't fit me well and come right off my nose, and the seam bothers me, but the pleated ones are better. I cut up an old t-shirt and it made great cording!  I can pull these nice and tight around my head, too. My hubby likes this pattern so much that I'm adapting some masks that my friend Jen made and just adding the longer cording to his.

So, that's what I'm up to right now! I got most of the curtains finished, with just one more pair that needs hemming, and I spent a very nice afternoon cutting some random scraps into regular sized squares-- 2-1/2, 2, and 1-1/2 inches. I also spent some time watching these guys in the front yard:

I think the storms have pushed them out into the open, for some reason, because they are everywhere right now. Or maybe I've suddenly become a Disney princess without realizing it. Do you think that's it? Yeah, me too.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the week! Stay cool, healthy, and dry!

Sharing at Midweek Makers