Blocks of the month

I worked on blocks of the month Sunday and had fun doing them.  The red one is for the guild lottery.  It will make a nice quilt.   The other two blocks are for me.  One is the guild lottery block but not on point, and the other is by Kristin Laura designs.   I bought (at a greatly reduced rate) a half bolt of the polka dots and am using them in every block and probably on the back, too.  I hope I have enough background to finish - it's black with tiny white specks.  Guess I can always dig out a plain black to go along if I run out.

Now I'm waiting for Aby's two March blocks for the Optimism quilt which should arrive on Saturday.  After working on the landscapes and all those hourglass blocks for Exploding Heart, I need a little break from quilting.  Besides, I still have to sew the binding down on the back for the Lily quilt.   I have an e-book due back at the library on Friday, so I'm spending more time with that.  Lula Dean's Library of Banned Books is rather poorly written with a silly plot, but I do want to find out what happens.

Landscape quilt

I really enjoy Beth Ann Williams' Zoom classes, and Friday night's landscape class was very interesting.  I got right to work on Saturday, drawing my little landscape, cutting out a freezer paper pattern, and gathering fabrics.  Here's the simple pattern I drew.

And here are the fabrics I chose.

That was all well and good, but I ran into several problems.  First was that my freezer paper stuck to the front of several pieces of fabric.  I had to unglue with water and then remove the old so that I could put into a new piece.  We had been warned not to press our freezer paper for too long, but when turning the top seam under, you can barely avoid doing this.  The second thing was that my mountain in no way resembles the very famous Camel's Hump mountain.   Very few Vermont mountains are as pointy as the one in the little quilt.  Despite cutting little slits along the ridge line, I just couldn't get the hump to appear.  And finally, I thought the green blob to the right of the mountain was just too big.

It's perfectly fine, and I'll use it to learn Beth Ann's invisible applique and quilt at the same time method.  I will try my hand at some embellishments, too.  But, ultimately, it's not what I really wanted.  So...   I made another one.  This time, I appliqued (with Steam a Seam 2) the mountain and adding another green hill.  And I like it a lot better.  I streamlined the sky a bit, moved the mountain up into the lightest sky, added a plain green below the other green.  And I eliminated the bright blue "river."  Both pieces are about 6" x 9".  

The last time I took a landscape class - with Jo Diggs back in the 1990s? - we sewed everything by hand, and I enjoyed it.  After Friday, I will give the machine method with invisible thread a try and, maybe, find out if I still prefer the old fashioned hand applique method.  Stay tuned!

Nothing much to show yet

I spent much of the week cutting out fabric and making hourglass blocks for the Exploding Heart quilt.  There was a lot of trimming since the initial squares were all cut oversized and all needed to be 4.5" square when ready to sew.  There are six different variations of the hourglass with 3 color families.  Today I started putting the quilt together, but it's slow going.  There's a chart to follow but each row has 18 different squares.  It's easy to become confused, so it's good to take it easy.  I did put together 3 rows so far, and I hope to do a few more each day.  Maybe I'll be finished by the end of the week?

Yesterday was a genealogy group day, so I headed down to the library for our meeting.  One person came via Zoom (which unfortunately cut off after 40 minutes), and six others came.  The low turnout was probably because of the cold.  It was 12 below zero at around 8 am.  It did warm up to about 20 with the sun during the day, but after lunch Suzan and I delivered invitations for our neighborhood ladies' luncheon using a car rather than walking like we usually do.  It took just as long to drive as it does to walk, but at least we could warm up a bit in between houses.  The luncheons are at a restaurant downtown, and usually 15-20 people come.  It's a nice way to connect with neighbors, especially during the winter when no one ventures farther than the mailbox and back.

This morning, after sewing on the Exploding Heart for a while, I gathered what I'll need for a landscape quilting class with Beth Ann Williams via Zoom tonight.  I'm looking forward to it; I really enjoyed her machine quilting class last summer.  We'll learn her machine applique techniques which involve turning the seams under.  

Mostly, though, I would like to use a picture from the newspaper that's been hanging on my wall for years as a jumping off point for my landscape.  Camel's Hump is a very familiar view in our part of Vermont.   We can even see it from our neighborhood.  This sunset photo is one I copied from an online search of images.  The one from the newsletter is a bit different, but both will offer a good starting point.

"Exploding Heart"

Did you have a nice Valentine's Day?  Hope so!  We went over to Burlington to have dinner with our old friends Pauline and Bob.  They used to stay with us every year around Valentine's Day when we had the B&B.  We're reviving that tradition, and this year went to a Turkish restaurant for a delicious dinner.  We could see the sunset over Lake Champlain while eating, and that was definitely a plus.  We spent the night and drove home in the morning when the roads were surprisingly quiet.

Before leaving home on Valentine's Day, I started cutting pieces for Exploding Heart, a pattern I've wanted to make for a long time (that's a photo of the pattern at left).   I don't usually cut all the pieces ahead of time.  Most of the time, I cut enough to make a few blocks and then cut as I go.  But then I don't usually follow a pattern but go off the page quite a bit, adding "design choices" as I go.  

This time, it seems necessary as it's somewhat complicated.  There are a lot of 4" (finished size) hourglasses of various configurations.  Even though I thought I'd bought extra background fabric, I found I didn't have enough.  Hope I can get more at the quilt shop, but if not, I think I can mix in some other whites here and there.   The finished quilt measures 72" x 72".

I'm using fabrics similar to the ones in the picture - purples, pinks, and a small number of turquoises.  These are all favorites of mine.  So far, the sewing seems pretty straightforward, but it will take me some time to get all the hourglasses sewn.

When I'm not piecing, I'll be hand sewing the binding down on the Lily quilt.  I added a hanging sleeve just in case whoever ends up with it wants to hang it on the wall.  I know that's what I'll be doing with it.  I like the way it turned out and will show a photo when I get a chance.  It's snowing today and a bit gloomy for photo taking.  But snow days = sew days in my book, so that's what I'll be doing today.

Sashiko is finished

I finished the long-time sashiko UFO Saturday at quilt guild.  I really enjoy working on sashiko and will look for another project soon.  I finished the embroidery some time ago and added batting and a border.  I decided to hand quilt it, but the quilting is pretty invisible.  It will hold it together as it hangs on the wall over my desk.

Next on my list is sewing the binding to the back of the Lily wallhanging.  I finished quilting it yesterday and immediately sewed the binding on.  But I thought it would look more finished with the binding hand-sewn, so I'm taking my time, doing one side a day (or so).   I'll take a picture when I'm finished, but it measures around 39" x 39". 

I also made three mug rugs out of the scraps of the Lily quilt.  I decided I would make a few this year out of scraps from various quilts I finish.  

Next on my list is that set of placemats made out of a green and beige quilt I made my brother Axel in 2005.  I have eight 12" x 18" placemats and four mug rugs to bind.  He can give some away to friends or hold a dinner party.  That last seems pretty far-fetched as he has a small apartment.  I'll mail some when they're ready and keep the rest for when we visit him this summer.

Meanwhile, the purple shawl I'm knitting is coming along, albeit slowly (on #4 needles), and today I went to the library for a bit of aerobic walking in a group and baked a blueberry buckle when I got home.  After dinner tonight neighbors are coming over for a little poker, and we'll cap the day off with the buckle.  I have tons of blueberries in the freezer, so I will bake another one Friday to take to friends in Burlington where we'll celebrate Valentine's Day together.

Working on this and that

 This morning's roads were icy-looking so I decided not to go to aerobic walking.  Naturally, the sun came out later and melted everything, but I wasn't taking any chances.  I ended up working hard in the sewing room.   I sandwiched and pin basted the Lily quilt, which I started quilting after lunch.  Before lunch, however, I made two blocks of the month for the Optimism quilt designed by Aby Dolinger.  They are all 15" finished so the quilt will go together pretty quickly in the fall.  I'm shopping my stash (as some say, "inventory") for this one.

My last quilting thing today was cutting up my brother Axel's green and cream shoo fly quilt that I made him in 2005.  It was beautifully quilted by my friend Mary with feathers throughout.  When we visited him in Wisconsin a year and a half ago, I took it home to see if I could repair it.  Alas, it has too much damage - I think he sat on and washed it a lot.  So I cut it apart and will make him some placemats.  I thought I could salvage the center, but it is too far gone.  The center looked salvageable, but it has some very weak spots.

I have made Axel two other quilts, so I don't feel that bad.  One he has on his bed, and the other is in his storage closet, protecting a painting he moved three years ago.  I hope it's OK.  If (when?) we go to visit him again this summer, I'll see if I can find it.  Meanwhile, I'll make miles of binding and bind off sections of the green quilt and mail the "new" placemats to him.

Another finished top

This isn't the best photo, but I'm so happy it's finished!  This little quilt measures 39" square, and I put it together yesterday.  I really like the way it turned out, especially because I started it at the beginning of August.   I'll take a better picture once it's done.  I plan to quilt it with my walking foot, very simply.

The paper pieced threaded star blocks were fun to make although I still am not a fan of taking the paper out.   I still have lots of snippets of fabric left and, because I have so much, I am keeping it in a baggie all together for now rather than dividing it up by color.  This is the second quilt I've made using the same fat quarter bundle plus a charm pack and two yards of the large floral.  I do love the soft colors.

After putting the quilt together, I went down to Joann Fabrics for some batting (Warm and White).  The store was fairly quiet and all the stock seemed to be there, even though rumor has it that it's closing in the middle of the month.  I guess I'll be going to Walmart for notions after it closes because I refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby.  Or I'll buy things I can't get at my local quilt shop (e.g., Guterman thread, insul-bright) online.   I will miss the people who work there and hope they can find other jobs, too.  Since it reopened after the 2023 flood, they've been very service-oriented.    

At the checkout, I ran into a woman who used to come to our yoga class and to the state quilt guild meetings.  It was good to see Dolinda again.  We were just beginning to become friends when she stopped coming.   I was reminded once again how nice it is to live in a relatively small community, "where everybody knows your name."