Crossing off two more

 Hi everyone! We got everyone safely graduated this week, I cleaned up my office and shut down the work computer, then I pulled the blinds and locked the door. See that place again in August! It feels great. This was a long year, but every time I think it was a hard one I remember 2020-2021 when we were trying to teach all those students over Zoom. No teaching challenge will ever be as hard as that!

Back at home, I tried to finish up another of the bigger quilts this week, but I didn't get all the way through. Oh, well! I did, however, finish off two smaller pieces that have been kicking around here for a while:

Those don't look very familiar, do they? Well, once again, they are repurposed pieces. In 2017 and again in 2019 I started to make temperature quilts. I did not get all that far, maybe to part of April. Turns out I fail at even stitching a 3-inch seam every day. I also fail at throwing things out, or ripping them apart, which is what I should have done long ago. Instead, they have become a doll quilt and a table runner. Now that they're quilted, they may actually be useful!

Hey look, flowers! The bigger piece is the one from 2019, and is becoming a table runner since it's about 21 by 54. I think the tiny blocks in there are for family birthdays, based on where I think they fell in the calendar. I didn't get pictures of the backs of the pieces, but they are the same blue that was left over from  another backing. More repurposing!

Oh, wow, roses too! The smaller piece is the one from 2017, and it looks like it was a colder year! It looks like I cut this one into two pieces and joined them to make a rectangle. This one is 24 by 27 and will make a lovely doll quilt, or maybe the top of a nightstand. We'll let the small person decide.

The smaller piece was quilted using the ever- trustworthy cross hatch in a pale yellow thread. I bound it in a blue binding from the basket o' leftover bindings and various other things, and it turned out great. It went really fast, too.

I got a little tired of cross hatching, so the bigger piece is quilted in random lines across the width of the piece in a pale green thread. Sometimes they cross, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're straight, sometimes they wobble. It will look good on a table no matter what. I bound it in another leftover piece of green. So, that's two more pieces out of the closet and another piece half-finished. Not bad for the week! 

This is Memorial Day weekend here in the US, the unofficial start of summer, and I am so ready for it. Bring on the picnics! Hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend. And just to wind this up, I'll leave you with a picture of the wild strawberries in our backyard. This is why we don't spray the yard for weeds or anything-- these feed the deer and the foxes!

 

 

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or not Friday, and the Quilting, Patchwork, Applique linkup.

Getting warmer

Hi everyone, and happy May! I can't believe it's already one of the best months of the year.  I'm still here, still stressed, and still keeping on, just in case you were wondering why I kind of disappeared.  If you know any college students, make sure to tell them to study for their finals, because I've gotten a look at a few and whoo boy!-- they'll need that study time for sure.

I've been fighting to get some stitching time in this week and I've actually managed to put together a few things.  It calms my soul, you know? Here's one thing I've been catching up on:

Look at that sunshine!  Doesn't that make you happy in itself? It makes my heart sing, even though it bleaches out my colors somewhat. This work in progress is my temperature quilt, which is made up of blocks that record the high and low for each day of the year.  In another week I'll have enough to add another row, but for now these are the completed rows through April 18th.  As you can see, it was quite cold at the beginning of the year, but it has made the turn into some warmer weather in April. Good thing, too-- I was running out of that darker blue.  Completely ready for some greens and yellows now.

My blocks for this project are 3-1/2 inch squares, made using two 2 inch by 3-1/2 inch strips, one for the high and one for the low.  It's pretty simple, but it works, and I like the graphic quality of all the blocks running together. If I have to make a block every day, it better be simple! The special blocks, like the spinner and the heart, mark special days for our family, like our grandson's birthday.

Another project I've been working on are some Bridal Bouquet blocks: 

I love having outdoor pictures on the grass again! I've been working on these blocks for a while and they have been going very slowly because they've all been done by hand, but I'm at a point where I'm putting together a few of the blocks for the center.  I figure that I'll need 16 blocks, so I have a way to go. That's okay, though. I'm in no hurry.

I've left most of the papers in and I'm not sure at what point to take them out.  The ones that I've taken out so far have been so that I could add in other parts of the block.  Folding things easily, you know.  I think I'll leave them in and just get some more papers so I can finish the blocks.  That way I can be reasonably sure that nothing will fall apart before I get done.

Anyway, that's the short update from here! Hope everyone is having a good week. I'm hoping to have a finish later this week, so keep your fingers crossed!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social.

Block updates

Hi everyone!  First, thanks so much to everyone who had kind words about my brother's house fire.  They are all fine and we are all grateful that things have gone as well as they can in the aftermath.  I really appreciate your thoughts, your kind words, and your prayers. And yes, I did make my own video, and I also put a smoke alarm in my attic.  Can't be too careful!

This week is spring break, and I have three quilts basted and ready to quilt up! Yay me! But you know I couldn't leave the piecing aside, right?  So I've also been making some random blocks to add to projects that are already in progress, just whatever I feel like making at the moment.  The first ones to show today are these:

These are all the blocks I currently have for the old and new sampler I'm making. I just love sampler quilts, don't you?  Making copy after copy of the same block can get dull, but samplers give you something different to make every time.  Since I have no schedule for this, I only have nine blocks so far:

These are 6-inch blocks, and most of the ones I've made so far are the Tula Pink blocks. These ones have been really fast, but some of the others I've chosen have more pieces and will take more time.

I also made the first green block for the Tiny Tuesday sampler at soscrappy:

This block is called Multiply and was designed by Jo.  You can find the block instructions HERE.

I also did a few more of the Sunny Lanes blocks:

I've cut a bunch of green and white squares to make the hsts when I feel like it, and I've got a small tub full of hsts now, so whenever I finish enough 4 patches I can make up a block.  I'm thinking of putting them all together into a top as I go, too.  Is there a downside to this? It's all scrappy, so it's not like the colors would have to be balanced or anything.

I've also caught up on my temperature quilt:

As you can see, it's been pretty chilly! The blues are 20s and 30s, and the purples and grays are below that.  I'm really looking forward to adding in some more yellows and greens very soon!

Finally, I pulled out this panel this week and hung it up to think hard about it.

I know it's not really blocks, but if I cut it apart and added in some alternate blocks, I bet it would make a nice comfort quilt for Hands to Help.  What would you do with it?  Here's a closeup of the design:

I'll look at it and think about it while I'm quilting up these quilts.  Maybe I'll get to open the windows while I'm quilting? I can dream!

Hope you're all having a good week.  As of today, spring is officially only seven days away!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social.

New year, new old project

Hi everyone, and welcome to 2019! How is it possible that it's been 19 years since the turn of the century? Even writing that freaks me out!  Not long ago a student wrote in a paper about "the late 1900s." That really did freak me out, as a mid-1900s person myself.

So, did you accomplish everything you planned to over the break?  I did not. I had great plans, but I was so, so burned out on everything that mostly I just watched a ton of movies, read books, wrapped presents, and tried a lot of baking experiments.  In the sewing room, I deep cleaned.  What?  Yep, I even moved all the furniture and vacuumed behind it. There was a lot of lint and dust, and I found a few pieces of fabric back there, too.

I only sewed a couple of things in the last couple of weeks, including these:

These are a couple of mug rugs that I made for my sister's Christmas birthday.  (She got her master's at Penn State.) If you don't recognize the blocks, these are Tula Pink modern blocks. I made a couple of quilts using the Tula Pink blocks when they first came out, and I was just looking through the book again. Some of those are really nice, easy blocks. There might be another quilt hiding in that book, you never know.

I also did some English paper piecing on these pretties:

These are some Bridal Bouquet blocks that I've been working on very slowly.  I've liked stitching them in the evenings, so I'd like to keep going a little more consistently.  I've got the next one all cut out and basted:

We all know that the basting is the worst part, right? I'll need a dozen of these for a decent sized piece, so this should keep me occupied for a while.

For one of my projects this year, I've decided to resurrect a failed project from 2017.  Okay, I'm resurrecting the idea, but I'll definitely be doing something else with this piece:

I started a temperature quilt in 2017, but then couldn't keep up, for one reason or another.  I'm always so drawn to those "365 day" projects where you make a block a day, but I couldn't manage to do one 3-inch square a day.  Tells you something about my life, doesn't it?  The piece above is as far as I got, up until about March.  It's about 12 by 55, so I think I could turn it into a table runner, or pick it apart and rearrange it into a small topper for the deck table.

So, let's try this again!  I redistributed all of the fabrics from the previous quilt attempt, so I started over with a new temperature scale, in 5-degree increments:

Let's hope that I don't have to use the colors at those extremes very much!  The brown is for 100 degrees and up, while the grays are well below freezing.  I much prefer the yellow zone!

So, here are my first two days worth of piecing:

This means I'm not behind yet!  I don't know how I'm going to set these yet, but I'll give it some thought.  I like the graphic quality of the first try, but the days and months kind of get lost.  I'll have to look around for some other settings pretty quickly so I can do them as I go.

I hope everyone had a very restful break and that your stitching year is off to a good start.  It's going to be a good one, I just know it!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday.