May first!

Hi all, and welcome to May! May is one of my favorite months because both our older daughter and our son have birthdays in May, but for the life of me I have no idea how it's May already. Another great thing about May is that this month gets steadily warmer, so I am definitely looking forward to that. But really, where is the year going?

This week was super-busy, but I did finish this:

The center block for the Kaleidoscope quilt! Hurray! It's a little washed out because it's an indoor picture, but you get the idea. The center of the quilt is pretty much the whole reason that I bought the kit to begin with, and I'm glad it's turning out as nice as I expected.

I even had a little time to add on the log cabins to the quilt center:

This quilt is assembled like a puzzle, not in rows, and this is section 1. At this point I can probably assemble a couple of other sections, too, but I do have a few more units to make before the whole thing can go together. This feels like a big step forward, though! And I love how the colors look in the sunshine. It's the worst-written pattern ever, but it's going to be a very pretty quilt.

Thanks to everyone who offered a suggestion for colors for the brown half-square triangles. All of them sound awesome and I'll be trying some others in different projects. For this one, though, I chose these fabrics:

That's a different green tone than I had earlier, with a little more of an olive and less of a lime cast to it, as well as a pale blue for a background. The print fabric is just a very few scraps that I have, but I think it looks spectacular with the other colors. I wish I had enough for a border, but I have a good idea to use what's here. If I get some time, I'll be making some hsts this weekend.

Finally, a picture of some flowers that are finally blooming to ease us into the first weekend of May:

Bluebells! We'll have leaves on that tree someday, I swear, but for now these are very, very happy. Especially since we had frost again this week, I'm really happy to see them.

Everyone have a great weekend.  I'll be outside, getting all dirty and loving it. Hope you get some stitching in, or at least some dirt under your fingernails!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday. Happy sewing!

Stuck

Hi folks! How is everyone? I went out running today and didn't pass out or anything, so I'm doing great! I've been walking for years, about 3 miles every day, and that just isn't enough of a workout for me any more, so a couple friends have convinced me to try running. I have an app that they recommended that gets you into it slowly, and so far it feels pretty great. I'm on week 2 of 9, so I bet it gets harder as I go.

This week, I have a quilty problem that I need your help with. But first, a pretty picture for the top of the post:

Let's hear it for flowers! And spring!

Okay, my problem involves these:

At one point, several years ago, I started to make Bonnie Hunter's Pfeffernusse pattern, which is very good-looking, but oh baby--the strings. It involved both brown string triangles and neutral string triangles, along with red hourglass blocks. It was a LOT of piecing, piecing that is easy but very repetitive. I am sorry to say that I got bored and put it in a project box and there it stayed. I have 54 of those brown triangles, which I think was a heroic effort. They're all brown, after all.

This weekend I decided that it's taking up too much room in the closet and is never going to become the original pattern, so I pulled it out, sorted all the uncut fabric (not that much), and tried to decide what to do with it. I think I have a layout that I like, and it uses the triangles as essentially giant half-square triangles.  My problem: what color do I put with the brown to make the other side of the HST?

I auditioned a few colors, starting with the red which was in the original pattern:

The red is okay, but kind of dark. The beige triangles there are also an audition, but gosh would that be one dull quilt, so they are out. I could use a few of them, but I'd rather not. And I'm not making beige string blocks.

I also tried a green:

I like the green a lot better, especially since I have a bunch of the lighter green scraps, which would be interesting with the brown.

Finally, I tried a blue, which I also like:

Yes, I got a little lazy moving them around and just left the other colors up. I like the blue, but I think I like the green better.

So, what say you, oh wise quilters of the interwebs? What would you do with the brown string triangles? Which color would you put with them? Should I even attempt to use them or just throw them in the trash? (Yikes!)  I need to use that box for another project, so this needs to be decided soon!

Thanks for the help! Hope everyone gets in some stitching time this week. I am also still working on the log cabin blocks for the Kaleidoscope quilt. It's slow, but at least I'm working on it!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.

On a completely serious note, my heart and my prayers go out to the people of Nepal and surrounding areas after the massive earthquake this past week. If you are moved to help, try HERE, HERE, or HERE. 

Mini with a side of crumbs

Hi everyone! How was your week? Ours was wet and cold. We had frost more than once, some sleet, and a tiny bit of snow. Good thing I didn't jump the gun and plant anything yet, though I did move around some perennials. They won't be hurt, but grass seed would never have survived. Hope we're done with the frost thing now because I am ready for some more color.

It has been a very busy week here, so pretty much all I really finished was the last of the minis and a couple of RSC15 blocks. First up is the mini, which came out to about 20 by 22:

 How darling is that? Our house is yellow with red shutters, so this is sort of modeled after ours. This is just a traditional house block with some borders. The house and the roof are string pieced, which I think made this a lot more interesting, plus it let me use up some tiny pieces. I cut the templates from paper with about a half-inch margin around them, then stitched the pieces to the templates and trimmed when they were full. I'm really happy with how it turned out! My favorite part is that tiny blue inner border. I think I have enough of that for a binding, too.

I also finished up the frame for the blue crumb star block for RSC15:

I also had just enough time this week to make up the purple one. It helps that I had all the frame pieces cut and some sections stitched together before I made the crumb star:

Yikes! A lost point! I'll fix that right up!

Gosh, I like how these are turning out!  Here are the four that I have finished, just pinned to the fence:

Wow. I'm going to like this! And I'll be needing a bigger fence to photograph all of it!

That's the update from here! Hope everyone has a fun weekend planned. I am planning to go treat myself to a new pair of gardening gloves. Maybe I'll even get the nifty waterproof ones. It will be almost as good as having a new rotary blade!

Linking to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Angela at soscrappy, and also Finish it up Friday. Happy sewing!

Wind and rain

Hi all! How is everyone? I am blown away--almost literally! We are having a very windy, wet time. I would show you a picture of the new hairstyle the weather has given me, but it would scare small children at this point.  And we actually had some sleet/snow this morning. Noooo! Go away!

So, I started a new small project. It's not really another mini! I think I got the minis out of my system for a while. Okay, maybe one more, but for now there is this:

This is a little wool and wool felt candle mat kit that I found while cleaning out the dresser in the sewing room. It will make a nice hand project for the evenings.  Seems like it should go fast, too, though it looks like I have to adjust some of those leaves.

And hey, I actually worked on some of my projects! Okay, one project, the Kaleidoscope quilt. Now that I've been away from it for a couple weeks I'm a little excited about it again. The first thing I did was work on these:

These are the large flying geese for the outer edges of the quilt.  I made 52 of them. And now I don't have to make any more! I used the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers and they went pretty fast.

I also finished up the first cutting for the log cabin blocks:

Whoo-hoo! There are a LOT of those strips. The red and white pieces are the centers. The directions want me to stitch each new log onto an uncut strip of the next color, then trim it after stitching and use the next part of the strip on the next round, etc.  Anyone ever made log cabins that way? It seems to me that it would be better to measure, cut, and then stitch. (Easier, too.) Too many things to go wrong the other way. I know I could figure out how long to cut each piece if I sat down with it, but I think I'll just make one and write down the measurements as I go so I can measure and cut for all the others.

Finally, because Deborah asked to see my sewing space, here it is:

Yeah, not very impressive. An old kitchen table, an old desk chair (that seems to be marking up the wall--oops), and some sewing implements. The little plastic container there is what I use for threads and bits and pieces that get cut off.  Then it can all be emptied into the trash at once. The Ott light is essential, as are the glasses.

Here's the cutting area:

It's not very impressive either! This is just one of those craft tables that you can get at many places. It actually has another leaf this same size that folds out, but that was too big for me and I ended up just piling things on it. This works. And I finally took down the curtains, which gives me so much more light. It's actually a great space to work on. 

Now that I see it in pictures, I have this urge to repaint and redo this whole room. I better go sit down with some tea and chocolate until this feeling passes, because it could really get me into trouble!

Hope you get some sewing done this week!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.