Just machine quilting with a little handwork

Not much to show here - I've been busy at the computer, running around town on errands, and slowly machine quilting lines down my It's the Point quilt.  I'm using a variegated gray King Tut thread, and it's coming along pretty well.  I had been having a lot of trouble with my painter's tape popping up on long seams, so I tried a variety of other brands and weights.  Frog tape seems to work the best for me, considering I have a black background and a mix of batiks and other cottons.  The blue tape used to react differently depending on colors and types of cotton.  It was incredibly frustrating!  Now I'm facing a few weeks of straight line quilting with my walking foot.  It's a little dull but looks pretty good so I'll continue.  

I won't be working on any other machine projects for a while, but yesterday I did get the hanging sleeve on my Harriet's Journey quilt so I can send it to the Champlain Valley Quilters Guild show - April 22-24.  I'm mailing it but will go to the show on the 24th so I can pick it up afterwards.  I'm not having it judged and also noticed a couple of mistakes I made in the entry form so I'll send a message to the registrar today.

If I do sit down to do any sewing, it will be to work on some embroidery, both with the crazy quilt block I started at my sewing group's meeting in February and some wool pennies.  Both need quite a bit of embroidery embellishing which is more like play than anything else.

When I finish the machine quilting and binding, I will try to get my machine its much-delayed annual check up.  I always hate to see it go for a couple of weeks, but I do have plenty of handwork to keep me going.  And now that spring is trying hard to come, we will take more walks and even putter around the yard a bit.  We took the feeders down the other day because the bears are waking up.  There's plenty of seed that's been dropped on the grass underneath for the chickadees.  Quite a few tiny crabapples left on the tree have attracted flocks of robins and Bohemian waxwings - fun to watch from my sewing room window.

Working ahead

The Unity quilt is very involving and takes quite a bit of time, even as a quilt along.  I decided to start the round for April the other day.  It starts with 32 6" friendship star blocks, but they aren't the usual friendship stars.  There's more piecing.  I used my Easy Angle ruler to cut the half square triangle pieces this time.  I learned with previous Bonnie Hunter projects that this ruler is the easiest way for me to achieve at least some semblance of accuracy.  

Here are all the pieces I've made over the last few days.

And here's my first block.  You can see my sketch of the color placement, too.  I printed the pattern out but only in black and white since our printer does not want to print blue anymore.  The sticky note works for me.

It's hanging on the design wall so I can make sure I put the HST squares in just the right places.  I had to re-press the blue HSTs so that they nest with the yellow ones.  And I'm making an attempt to mix up all the background fabrics in each block.  Don't know if that will be possible by the last few blocks, but I'll give it a try.  It should take me a few days to make all 32 and then arrange the round.  After that, there's a round of plain background blocks.

Rainy days

 I actually don't mind rainy days if they offer a few breaks to take walks now and then.  We took a couple yesterday and today - me fewer than Paul as I was too busy making dinner yesterday and sewing this morning.  Friends from Burlington, Pauline and Bob, came over yesterday for a late lunch/early dinner of Indonesian food.  I had been making various dishes since Thursday, and it was a true feast.  The Dutch call it a "rijsttafel," which means "rice table," a lot of dishes, large and small, spicy and piquant.  

I also baked an Indonesian cake from a mix because it was Bob's birthday.  I served that with mixed berries because I knew we'd be pretty full for much dessert.  Pauline brought some prosecco which went really well.  I was glad I didn't have to drive after the meal and even closed my eyes for a brief nap after doing the dishes.  We have plenty of leftovers for the next few days, which will be yummy and easy.

Yesterday I made the guild block of the month for March, a churn dash.  Here it is surrounded by the blocks I won in the February lottery.  As you can see, I used Ukranian colors in solidarity.

This morning, I worked ahead on some April blocks of the month using one of my favorite blocks - Blossom.  You can use four to make a nice tulip bouquet or set the blocks on point.  One will be in the online group lottery while the rest will go in my very miscellaneous not-so-rainbow challenge quilt.

I'm hoping to sit and read this afternoon as I'd like to finish the mystery I've been reading (The Concrete Vineyard, by Cam Lang).  It's very wordy, but I chose it because of the setting, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, a charming little town.  We'd like to return there someday for the [George Bernard] Shaw Festival.  I'm looking forward to reading Jacqueline Winspear's new Maisie Dobbs book which comes out Tuesday.  And tonight's the return of Call the Midwife on PBS - yippee!

Lots 'o' blocks

 

I knuckled down and got a few blocks of the month finished this week, including the pineapple blocks.  In the spirit of supporting Ukraine, I made my centers and one tiny house roof blue.  I don't really like the yellow "Brick House" - too dull somehow - but hope it will look OK with the rest of the houses by year's end.  I love making the tiny paper pieced houses with "crumbs."

Next, I took a little inventory of my wonky star blocks for March and found I have 11, plenty for a row or border for the as yet unknown quilt I'm making with 6" blocks of the month.  Meanwhile, I cut out the guild block of the month - a 12" churn dash - and hope to have time to put it together today.  I won all of the star blocks for February at the guild meeting this week.  There were just four, so they'll go into my "orphan" box for now.

 

Behind on the RSC

I finished the center of It's the Point and just have a thin outside border to make today.   I hope to get a picture today, too.  Yesterday, after sewing the long diagonal seam, I just needed a break.  Because I have so many scraps, including a mountain of 1.5" squares in multi-colors, gray, and black, I decided to work on the back for a while.  

This was truly mindless sewing that I could do as the snowstorm raged outside.  We may have had over 6" of snow but won't really know until we stick our noses out the door today.  It was blowing a lot last night which resulted in drifty bits on the windows and driveway.   Let's hope it was the last storm of the season.  I know we'll have small blasts in the next few weeks, but hope they won't bring everything to a standstill again.

The birds went after the feeders with a vengeance, and we are almost out of seed.  Due to the bears that roam around the neighborhood, we always stop feeding the birds around April 1.  Once this bag of seed is used - probably today - we'll take the feeders in for the season, unfortunately.

The news has been very unsettling, and I feel for everyone in Europe right now.   Major cities around Europe are creating flowering hearts in solidarity.   I am sure we have relatives there as my stepgrandparents left there in the late 1800s.  Some local bakers here left family behind there to start the bakery.  It seems everyone has been touched by this senseless war.   Quilters are making blocks and quilts in support of the people of Ukraine using the blue and gold of the Ukrainian flag.  I have yet to make my yellow/gold Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks this month, but when I do, they will include some blue, too.  

Ahhhh!

 It was a surprising ly sunny 59 degrees here yesterday, and our foot of snow was reduced to mere inches.  We took a different walk along the muddy streets, as did many other people and their dogs.  What a nice relief.   We will be having wintry weather for a while in the coming weeks, but this was just the break we needed.

Meanwhile, in the quilting room, I managed to put together the first corner of It's the Point, and I really like it.   Turning it so that the blocks are on point gave me a better view, and I now have a good idea of how to proceed with the setting triangles.  It should be smoother sailing now as I get the sashing cut and sewn on.

Lots of color

I have made all of the blocks for the center of It's the Point, and now I keep shuffling them around to spread the colors throughout.  There will be black sashing between the blocks with colored cornerstones so that there are colorful nine patches between the big squares.  Without the sashing right now, it's almost overwhelming.

After finishing the blocks, I started working on one of the corners.  Because my friend Tess has not yet finished writing the pattern, I am working only from her cutting chart and a photo of her quilt.  As with the blocks, there are options with the sides and corners.  Here is a very rough draft, with two options for the side triangles.  Bear in mind that the blocks will be on point.

I really want the edges to be black to showcase the color in the center.  I ended up making two more variations for the side triangles but didn't sew the strips together.  I'm going to sleep on this and maybe stop here and show it all to Tess when I see her next week.  I can be sewing the sashing between the blocks and the sashing strips with cornerstones in the meantime.  It's a puzzle, that's for sure.

Options on point

Sunday, I started working on It's the Point, gathering fabrics, cutting, and making some samples as I test out Tess' pattern.  There were several ways I could make this lap-sized quilt - black or gray sashing, colorful or black cornerstones, colorful or black setting triangles (since the blocks are on point).  The individual blocks end up being 7" which is a bit unusual.  Here's my favorite of the three color combinations I tried out.  I have two others which I'll probably sew together to use on the back.

The picture makes it look like there's a spot on one of the cornerstones, but it's just a big polka dot.  After sleeping on it, I settled on this option and cut out all the big center squares.  They're 5" so a couple of charm squares would have worked, but I'm not real wild about using precuts.  Instead, I got two identical bundles of batik fat eighths, cut those up for both the centers and the cornerstones and added squares from stash.  The grays and black came from stash and Joann's.

So far, the blocks are pretty easy to put together, which I think is The Point of this pattern.  I have about a third done and still need to figure out what to use for the setting triangles.  Later today, I'll venture to the quilt shop and see if I can find a multi-colored print with a black background.  

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the return of the dryer repair guy tomorrow afternoon.  Doing small loads almost daily and drying on a rack and the treadmill in the basement is getting old.  With almost daily overnight snows and very cold temperatures lately, we've been indoors more, so I've replaced some curtains, washed others, and done a little more baking - whole wheat bread and muffins, mostly.