Dual duty

 

I had this quilt top (53" x 55") hanging in the closet since early fall.  It is a variation (as most of my quilts are) of Jen Kingwell's Green Tea and Sweet Beans pattern.  I got tired of working on it over the summer, so set it aside until fall when I added the striped Australian fabric as the border.   All of the appliqued blocks are wool applique which I hope will not run when washed.  I like the quilt's cheerfulness.

During March, I made a block a day of Pat Sloan's quarter log cabin blocks.  Of course, I had to catch up some when we went on vacation for a week, but that was OK.   I used my basket of strings for most of the blocks, and used the plain mottled black for all the centers.  

Strings weren't the best choice as the seams don't match up.  Other people posted photos of quilts they made with fabric they had bought for the project, and they really looked nice.  Nonetheless, my top turned out cheery but not enough to be anything but the back of the Green Beans quilt.  Hence, the name Dual Duty.  

I plan to wash the quilt first and then, perhaps, give it to Bags of Love for foster kids.  Now that it's quilted, I do like a bit more.  I chose most of the strings at random, based on their length.  I ran out of longer pieces, so I used some leftover binding pieces as well.  

My strings have all been sorted by color and put into bags in my string basket.  I plan to see how they work out for my next Dear Jane row.  I have neglected that quilt for months and would like to get back to it.   But it's a very satisfying feeling to have no quilts hanging in the closet, waiting to be quilted.  It won't last - I have several blocks of the month that will no doubt be finished this summer.  

This leaves me with hand sewing the binding down on the Exploding Heart.  That will take a while because I have quite a few meetings and other events this week, and I don't like to overwork my wrists with hand sewing.

Blocks and strings

 I made a few blocks of the month on Friday and also worked with string triangles.  Basically, just refreshing my "sew-jo" after finishing the Bigfoot top and before starting a real project.

Here's the guild December block of the month, a nice Ohio Star.  I'll take it to guild to enter into a lottery.  Maybe I'll even win the batch.

Then there are the first two Optimism blocks for the quilt along devised by Aby Dolinger.  I'm using colors she suggests in her very clear instructions.

I also made a bunch of triangles out of my seemingly endless string basket and then created two table runners.  These are both basted and ready for quilting.

Both are 12" x about 20".  I'll take them down to the florist's to sell and take any Christmas items that haven't sold home this week.  Luckily, we are having "seasonal" temperatures in the 20s but with little bursts of snow daily.  The snow plow guys are probably happily getting overtime.

Working with orphan blocks

What do you do with your orphan blocks, the samples you make before making a whole quilt, the blocks of the month from guild (if you belong to one), the odds and ends that didn't make it into a quilt?  I keep mine in a pizza box until I get an idea about how to use them.  Sometimes I even throw them away if they've been in the box too long.

My pizza box was full, and there were some nice blocks.  I made a table runner out of some blue homespun Ohio Star blocks, but I still need to take a picture.  I may take that down to the florist/gift shop to sell.  

Then I decided to make a small quilt for Bags of Love, which supports kids going into foster care.   I used some string blocks that I didn't feel like making more of and some guild blocks of the month to make a little quilt measuring about 50" x 50".  The picture shows only part of the quilt which was on the bed in the sewing/guest room.  But you get the idea.  I found that the string blocks needed to be trimmed to a uniform size that ended up being 11", so I used blue sashing around them.  There's a thin border of blue around the whole quilt, too.   I plan to quilt it very simply when the batting I just ordered comes in.  

While I wait for the batting, I decided to attach a binding onto the Christmas block of the month quilt that came back from the long arm quilter last week.  I'll take a beauty shot tomorrow if the sun is right.

Next, I started cutting some triangles out of orphan blocks.  I plan to make more with strings as a ongoing project.  I had thought of making Bonnie Hunter's leader and ender project, but I like this better.  Right now, I'm thinking I'll alternate neutral and colorful triangles.  Of course, this could always change as I go along.  

Right now, there are more triangles cut out of orphan blocks than there are string ones, but I figure the string ones will dominate soon enough.  My basket of colored strings and my bag of neutral ones are both overflowing.  I'm using newsprint foundations just to make sure they aren't too wonky.

In going through my orphans, I see that I have quite a few small blocks that could be set with white or cream to make some table runners.  But right now, while I have the dual feed foot on my machine, I am going to focus on binding the Christmas tree skirt.  Then I hope to quilt the orphan quilt and the round robin Christmas one.  Maybe I'll even finish quilting the first three rows of Dear Jane.  

High and dry through the rain

I don't know how many days we've had rain, but today's was steady and serious.  I had to go to the dentist for tooth cleaning at 8 am and saw water just pouring down the hills to downtown.  We live at around 2,000 ft. so for once it was an advantage to live up a big hill.  There's just some seepage into the garage, and the thing we got to attach to the downspout to fix it just arrived yesterday.  It was too wet to do anything with it today, and maybe not even tomorrow.

I treated the day as I do most "snow days" - sewing and reading.  Yesterday I finished the flying geese I needed to make Aby's Rows Parade quilt along for July and August.  I have not attached the geese yet because I made four too many, and I want to see how all the parts look before I make the rows.  Will I really want it to be queen-sized or will I want two throws?  I won't know until October or November.

After finishing the geese, I started working with some "strings."  I have an overflowing basket of colors and a large bag of neutrals.  I thought I'd make some log cabin blocks, and in the end I made 25 6" blocks this morning.  Obviously, it was pretty easy.  I love improvisational quilting and just picking up random snippets as I go.  

I think I may use these blocks as a border for some string blocks I have made out of neutrals.  Will have to see how they all look together.    I had so much fun making log cabin blocks out of the neutrals, I hope to sort my strings by color and make some sort of rainbow quilt out of them.   My basket runneth over.

But I will have to set all this aside for now as tomorrow I'm going to take a class to certify me in using the long arm at the quilt shop downtown (if it isn't closed due to the weather).  I hope I'll be finished with the throw I'm taking to learn with and can get the binding (already cut) on next.

After that, I need to spend a little time with the guild blocks of the month.  I have 15 12" blocks, so if I make another one, I can put them together with sashing for a throw which I'll give to "Bags of Love" for kids in foster care.   However, it occurred to me that perhaps I can use the blocks to make some table runners for friends and family this Christmas.   Decisions, decisions!

Meanwhile, we watch the rain pour down and stick close to Facebook for news on various developments.  There are road closings all around us, a "boil water" notice from the city, an emergency shelter set up at the city Auditorium, and more.  Good thing the kids aren't in school right now.

More catching up

I made the 9 June blocks for the Rows Parade quilt Thursday and  happily put the project box away until July.   I love Aby Dolinger's instructions.  They are very clear and relatively easy, so I have been doing her blocks of the month projects every year since I discovered her.

Yesterday I made a few string blocks, as part of my year-long effort to clean up miscellaneous scraps.  I used tissue paper foundations from Missouri Star for these, but I have to say that I prefer newsprint.   It's easier to remove.   I've been cutting them diagonally and putting four triangles together for larger blocks.  But when I did this, I noticed that the resulting squares were about 2" larger than previously made ones.  I must have given up on the Missouri Star papers in favor of cutting my own 8.5" squares out of newsprint.  Duh!  I AM getting forgetful.  

I hope to make at least one string block out of neutrals today and then hope to start on some more Dear Jane blocks.  Our weekend plan to visit Rudyard Kipling's home in the southern part of the state were vanquished when I read the fine print about the open house during Rhododendron Days.  Advance reservations were required and they were all booked for Sunday.  We'll have to try to visit another time.  We have quite a few theater opportunities already booked for the summer which will be real treats after the pandemic.

This week I need to clean up the sewing room a bit so that my son can install the air-conditioner (not that we need it today - we're going to have a high of 63 after 91 yesterday) and Sonia will be able to sleep in the bed next weekend when she visits.  It will be good to see her again.   We had lunch together last winter when she was visiting near Burlington, but before that it had been 3 or 4 years.  She was the new librarian in the town next to the one where I was the new librarian many years ago.  We helped each other out quite a bit and have kept in touch all these years - 50?  Wow!