More Block 12-ishes and a UFO

More blocks, variations on 'palooza block 12, for my planned 9-block top. This pair features back-to-back corner geese units:

I love the blue-yellow combo in these. The resulting star and large diamond really pop.

And for this last pair I placed the "geese" facing out:

The very dark accent fabric is actually a lovely small-print tonal brown.

I've had so much fun making these, and look forward to putting them all together into a top. I have ambitious visions (still somewhat vague) for sashing and bordering these. I will play with ideas as I finish up some other projects on more urgent timeframes. These blocks are about to go into a "works theoretically still in progress but temporarily on the back burner" bin while I quilt the monochrome forest, finish up the OBW borders, and maybe even get this little cutie quilted up:

This is a not-very-large "confetti" wall-hanging I made early last summer to play around with the method and my tiny scraps drawer. I liked it enough to add a border. The border and light blue background both are leftovers from making curtains for our bedroom, so I'm planning to hang it in there. I set it aside at this stage because I did not yet have the extension-table thingie that makes machine quilting so much easier. This morning I sandwiched it up with a backing fabric and got it pinned and ready to go. Best part is it's small enough I was able to do that on the kitchen counter instead of crawling around on the floor. I won't get to this immediately (the monochrome project is a higher priority), but do hope to get it quilted very soon.

Plans, slightly disrupted

Monochrome teaser... ready for basting:

Returned from errands the other day with over 5 yards of unbleached organic cotton batting, so no excuses for not finishing up a few projects now! Cut and prewashed batting  (soak in the sink, spin in the machine, through the dryer on medium heat) for the monochrome wall-hanging, and wow, was it soft and light and scrumptious when it came out of the dryer!

Laid it all out on the hall floor yesterday afternoon during a brief window of opportunity (one cat asleep, the other outside), to start basting. Got up to the pin stage before the one cat woke up and the other came in and both plopped themselves down on the quilt sandwich and stuck their paws and noses in the pin bowl. No real mess done, although there are a couple small claw holes in one spot... nothing that won't disappear during quilting.

Had hoped to start quilting this morning, but we had some distractions overnight, in the form of the civil defense sirens going off every hour until after 3 am... hard to get a good night's sleep while under a tsunami warning! The best part was the 4.5 earthquake here while we were glued to the tube at 11pm hoping for updates! That's big enough to give the house a good shake, but nothing too serious. We get a lot of smallish rattles here, so no biggie, especially compared to what happened in Japan. Fortunately the high water has not had much affect in Hilo, although downtown is still closed. Once again I am so glad we moved up out of the tsunami zone two years ago (and this is one reason we moved!).

Anyway, all is well in my little corner of Hawaii, but I do not function well without sleep. Still feeling groggy and mentally not very sharp halfway through the larger-than-usual pot of coffee brewed up this morning. So, instead of embarking on quilting with a batting I haven't used before, which is likely to mean at least some testing and tension adjustments, I think I'll go do something mindless like sew up more bits from the scrap drawer, like these:

My "very small" scraps drawer has a lot of bits in it that are 2.5" wide but less than square. A couple days ago I used some extra minutes in the sewing room to put these strips together. No specific use in mind yet, but they will come in handy one of these days for a pillow border, or block sashing on a scrap project, or something else fun. 

Haven't started 'palooza Block 14 yet, so I might feel inspired to pick fabrics for that and get the cutting done today, too. I doubt I'll have the brainpower for much desk work today, so that means lots of time in the sewing room. (Time I really should use to clean up the kitchen, vaccuum the house, or do laundry... it could happen.)

Block-a-Palooza Block 11

This one, from Fat Quarterly, was fun. It's a lot like Block 3 (one of my faves from the entire project), with the larger pieces in that block subdivided into new shapes.

As usual, I didn't exactly follow the original in terms of fabric placement, using my solid in the corners, and making all my geese from the same fabric pair.

I've been eyeing that orange Kaffe Fassett "Persimmons" for a while, and with this block its time had come to make an appearance. The focus here, though, is on the purple pinwheel in the center, so I played up those colors in the corners, too, and muted the orange by pairing it with the green leafy print. The hot pink solid is from the one small piece (about 4"x10") left after making this quilt. Cosmo and I are both very fond of that quilt, and I enjoyed including some of the pink here.

I really like how this block turned out, and am tempted to make another, but doubt I'll have time before Block 12 posts on Thursday.

In between 'palooza blocks I've been stitching away on some other projects. The monochrome top is either done or almost done, depending on whether or not I decide to add some applique, the pieced border for the One Block Wonder is creeping along, and I've got growing piles of stitched bits for a couple of long-term scrap projects. I keep a supply of cut scraps on the sewing table to use as "betweeners" and to sew up when I have a few minutes of time but insufficient energy or brainpower for anything requiring close attention or design decisions. One of these scrap projects is getting close to the point where I'll put the assembled units up on the design wall and take some pics to show you how it's shaping up.

March sewing goals:
1) Finish the monochrome project by the 3/31 Modern Quilt Guild Challenge deadline
2) Get the borders done and applied to the OBW center, and the whole thing layered and pin-basted for quilting
3) Keep up with the remaining 'palooza blocks, and decide on a layout (yes, a specific layout will be provided by the 'palooza team when the blocks are all done; chances I'll use that arrangement are slim)
4) Finish the blocks for the farthest-along scrap project, and get that up on the design wall so I can play with the layout

I have not abandoned garment sewing, although it might appear that way. Sooner or later I'll need something new to wear, and I'll start cutting up my quilting stash for new skirts or warm-weather dresses. Until then, I'm focused on quilting-type fun.

Blockapalooza? A definite maybe.

This could be going nowhere:

My first response to the Blockapalooza thing was "nah, not interested." What, buy a coordinated set of FQs from one designer collection to make a sew-along block-of-the-week quilt? Soooooo not my style! 

For one thing, I'm not much interested in traditional blocks and settings, and have don't particularly like the result of throwing a set of different ones together and calling them a quilt. For another, although coordinated fabric sets are pretty, to my eye they just don't have that pow-factor that comes from mixing up unexpected colors and patterns. You know, the kind of affect you only get by wallowing around in a sizeable and well-aged stash. Add that mystery quilt projects hold little interest (I'd so much rather make up my own thing!), and that "Flying Geese" especially has consistently produced in me one big yawn, and you can see why my first instict was to pass this up. Not to mention that I only have about half a gazillion other projects (both of the sewing and typing variety) going on.

But.... "never say 'never'", right?

Why did I end up throwing this block together last night? Partly because I had a heap of FQs and scraps already on the cutting counter to choose from. And partly because if you throw the "follow along as we make this from Moda's new Sunkissed whatever" out the window (yes it's a pretty line; it's also a great example of the kind of stuff that makes me want to take a nap), this Blockapalooza thing is a great opportunity to move ahead on my 2011 sewing goal of using up a bunch of the scraps and FQs overflowing my stash.

Two blocks a week is a lot, but if I do each in one go, like this one (under 90 minutes, from grabbing some fabric to snapping a pic), I might be able to keep up. Still undecided if I will continue with this, but if so my plan is to:

1) Use a different solid in each block

2) Replace or add one new print for each block

3) Pick fabric for each block quickly, no perfectionism allowed

4) Maintain my usual loose interpretation of recommendations such as "close in tone" or "coordinating."

What I like best about Block #1? I finally used some of that purple stripe FQ that is almost old enough to qualify as "vintage." Overall, I rate it a "meh," but it might look better when a few more are done.

Fabric Math

I've mentioned before that I have a lot of fabric scraps. Or what feels like a lot. I'm sure there are long-time quilters out there who would scoff at my paltry accumulation. But when you stop to think that the scraps, even the teeny ones, cost the same per yard as the big pieces, even a modest accumulation starts to wield some heft.

Last year I started sewing up some scrap blocks, which have eased the overcrowding in the smallest bits and the long strips drawers, but there's still a lot left. This year, in addition to bringing at least one scrap project to completion, I would like to use a bunch of the large scrap and fat quarter pieces. I've got two bursting drawers of those:

(I've left my feet in the frame for scale. You might not think we get winter in Hawaii, but it's been chilly enough for fuzzy slippers the past couple days: drizzly and damp with afternoon highs barely into the 70s.)

Yesterday I made the mistake of counting the FQs. There are 60 of them in that bottom drawer. That's 15 yards of fabric! And the "large scraps" drawer above it is the same size and just as full, so we'll call it an equivalent amount. That's 30 yards, just in those two drawers. At an average price of $6-/yard (based on 2009-2010 spending, although some is a lot older than that), that's $180 worth of fabric.

My goal for this year is to reduce this part of my stash by... I want to say half. Easily doable in a year, right?
I have in mind some scrap-busting projects like this, and this, or this.

Problem is, I've got a few other things in the works already (and by "few" I mean "too many"). I'd better stop blogging and go sew something...

"NTG" Quilt Details

More pics of Mr. de Hilo's "Nothing Too Girly" quilt. First, the arty draped shot:

I quilted this from the Monkey Wrench side, figuring (correctly, as it turned out) that the other side could absorb contrasting abstract thread lines more easily.

The purple "monkeys" got long swirly lines down the arms and through the centers with purple thread. The orange/green background is filled in with a meander in light green. Although they are contrasting colors the orange and green are so close in tone that the green thread is less noticeable on the orange bits than I'd thought it would be (click pic for full size):

I finished the boarder in random wavy lines. Overall, my purple swirlies could be more graceful in many instances, but I'm very happy with the background meandering. Best part, Mr. de Hilo is unlikely to notice or care that the quilting demonstrates that this was a learning piece.

Pink Lattice Quilt Details

More pink lattice quilt pics, for those interested in the details. The little dining lanai off the kitchen is a nice spot for artier, draped shots, like this one:

There's space for photos out there because I moved the kitchen table into the sewing room (no way could I do any actual quilting on my tiny 18x30" sewing table), and the lanai table, rarely used, came inside to be the new kitchen table.
Here you can see (click on pic for full size) that I pieced the binding from some of the rusty orange prints used for the lattice intersection squares. All the pink sashing is straight-line quilted just inside the seam.:

My original plan was to echo that with an additional line of quilting about 3/8" inside each edge line, but I way underestimated how mind-numbingly tedious straight line quilting is, even with (or maybe especially with) a walking foot. The outermost pink sashing pieces are longer than the inner ones, due to triangle geometry, and needed an extra something, so they've got a meandering vine thing going. I felt the inner sashing would not be improved by additional quilting (and couldn't face more straight lines) so left it alone once the first set of straight lines were done. Each inner lattice piece is a scant 1.5"x3", so the edge quilting is ample.

The piano-key border is free-motion quilted with a swoopy almost-leafy-in-parts randomness that was lots of fun to do. The outermost edge has one or more lines of echo quilting to fill in the gap between the swoops and the binding.

The charm squares and orange intersections were all free-motion quilted in a pale blue. I started at one end of a column of on-point squares and squiggled my way down through the 3" charm squares and orange intersections to the other end. Some are outline quilted (loosely!), others have a leafy or swirly pattern inspired but not attempting to follow the charm print, others got a meander. The orange intersection squares got a variety of spirals, loops, squiggles, and leafy shapes, made up as I went along:

And I think I took a detail shot of the back, too... where did that go? Okay, here it is:

The pink/orange floral was a great find (and on sale from Fabric.com), but not quite wide enough, so I inserted a strip of this fun grass-full-of-bugs print from my FabricDepot shopping spree. I had no idea at the time what I'd do with it, but it's perfect here, so that's a score for stash-building.

"Pink Lattice" and "NTG" Quilts

Both our "deck" quilts (lap quilts, for lounging on our deck chairs on cool afternoons) are done! I test drove mine yesterday, and both Cosmo and I are very pleased with it. Both quilts are about 44"x72", a size I decided on based on best dimensions of the various beach towels we've been napping under on the deck up' til now.

I am still looking for the optimum quilt-photo location around our house. It's tricky. I like the idea of outdoors, for days when light cooperates. But our lot is extremely steep.Nice views from up here, but it's practically vertical. We have plenty of deck and railing to hold a quilt over, but in most places I'd need to rent a cherry picker to get up level with it for a photo.

The side of the house is better than the front, heightwise, so I strung a piece of clothesline between two railing supports, clipped the top of the quilt to it while crouched on the deck, then smooshed the quilt through beneath the railing, then scurried down the stairs on the other side of the house, back and around, and up the side slope to get a photo. Repeat as necessary until all sides are done. Cosmo thought this was a fascinating process. Here's the back of the Pink Lattice Quilt, with cat supervision from above:

And this is the finished "Nothing Too Girly" quilt made for Mr. de Hilo. It has two fronts, rather than a front and a back. I did the blue-green squares side first. Photo colors are brighter than actual, but you get the idea:

I did not have a back planned out for this one. While pondering options and rummaging in the far acres of the stash, I came across a large ziplock baggie of long-abandoned, half-finished, monkey wrench blocks that I had  forgotten about. A little quick punching at the calculator, and I figured out that not only did I have enough extra of the orange and purple fabrics to use as borders for the front, but also that using all the mostly done blocks would fit this one as a back and qualify as finishing an embarrasingly old UFO.

Mr. de Hilo has tried it out both ways up, but has not expressed a "front" or "back" preference yet.

Using these monkey wrench blocks makes this side a winner in "most satisfying sewing project of the year" category. And the Pink Lattice "front" I'm going to call my "favorite" item made this year, even though all of the front except the outer border was made in 2009.

Both of these are (I think) worth a closer look, but I have not yet taken detail shots of the quilting, so you'll have to wait for those.

It's been immensely satisfying to get these projects to the point where I could  machine quilt them, which counts as using a new toy: the extension table thingie for my machine was a much-anticipated purchase for the year.

I had fun doing the quilting, and look forward to finishing up more in-progress quilts this coming year. Hopefully by the time the next ones are done I will have found a better photo location. The back wall of the carport has possibilities... and it would be nice to have an indoor option as well.

I only wish, as I was spending so much money on fabric in 2010, that I'd remembered to save a little for a camera tripod, so I could start taking decent pictures of the finished products. I'm going to make that some kind of incentive/reward for fabric purchase restraint in 2011.

Improv Scrap Blocks

Please forgive questionable photo quality, mystery sizing, and iffy color rendering in this and probably my next several posts. I've spent the past week upgrading to a new computer (yay!) which does not yet have Photoshop installed, and am stumbling around in the freebie pre-installed programs trying to figure out if/how they will do what I want. Verdict so far: "meh".

I'm on a mission to free up some space in my scrap drawers (and yes, I will be counting scraps for the 100-Yard Challenge). In addition to Santa's workshop projects I can't show you yet (future recipients have been known to read this blog), I've been busy the past couple weeks piling up the scrap blocks. Here you see 24 Wonky Log Cabin improvisation blocks made from a combo of the "small" (inner bits) and "long" (outer parts) strip scraps on hand.

There's not much log-cabin-ish about these blocks, as the strips are all different widths and I made no attempt at light-dark patterning, aiming only for variation of color and tone within each block. I did start with a square of the same blue fabric at the center of each, but that's it for regularity of design with this batch.

Quite an eyeful, placed all together on the design wall. These have not been arranged in any way, just slapped up there one after the other as they came out of the trim-to-size (9" finished size + S/A) step. I could just sew them all together as they are and call it a quilt top, but I think I can come up with something better.

I have a plan, but nothing further to show you yet...

In the meantime, I've also been stitching away on a set of strip-pieced blocks made on used dryer sheets foundations:

First, I ironed the huge pile of dryer sheets I've been collecting from laundry loads over the past year or so. Be warned, this will make a mess of your ironing board cover, which is why I did that step before putting the new cover on my board. It may make a mess of your iron as well, but mine has some kind of spiffy space-age non-stick super-duper ceramic or teflon or something coating which resists such things, so it's fine.

Next, I trimmed all the ironed dryer sheets to 5" squares, then I placed a scrap strip face up corner to corner, and added other strips to ether side. I made 48 of these (and still have a hefty pile of foundation squares). Trimmed to 4.5" (4" finished size + S/A) and cut the dryer sheet off the back (not as difficult or time-consuming as it sounds). These are up on the design wall in random order as well.

Again, I could just sew them all together this way, but I think they're more interesting in sets of four, with a little breathing room around them.

I have a plan for these, too.
I've even started on it.
I'll show it off when it's closer to done.

The calendar says it's almost Thanksgiving, which means I need to stop playing with scraps and focus on the XMas projects. I'm not making a lot of stuff, but there's one secret project in particular that really should be farther along by now than it is.

* * *
BTW: You might very reasonably be under the impression that I have completely forgotten about providing pics of some finished garment projects that I've gone on and on about here (pants! tops!) -- but that would be incorrect. I do realize that weeks have passed without an update, but somehow I did not get pics of me in my trip clothes while on my trip, and since returning home have not managed to coodinate a day when I'm wearing some of those clothes with good photography weather. Right now the tops are in a laundry pile and the pants need to be pressed. So you'll have to live with the suspense a bit longer. (There's a chance something will happen in this area tomorrow, but if I were you I wouldn't hold my breath.)

More Hexies

I've got a couple of garment-type things to photo for you, but it's been so sticky here lately I keep putting it off, just too icky to be posing in anything with sleeves. You'll see them eventually.

In the meantime, here are a few of the latest batch of hexie flowers. I'm about a third of the way through adding the various blue bits around the outside of each one.

Used up the last of the ready-to-go blue hexies about a week ago, so am now busy during TV time basting up the next huge heap of blues so I can make more of these.

Fun with scraps - Part Three

The Confetti top is done! Size with borders is about 27x37".

I'm a bit disappointed in this photo, which was taken early morning and needed major adjustment to brightness and contrast; the colors are still not right. Took some with the flash, too, but the color in those was so yellow they were useless.

But... I love, love, love how the border turned out! It looks like an ornate picture frame, and I like how it sets off the "modern" randomness and straight lines of the confetti center. I was able to cut between the rows of flowers on the print, and have just enough room on each strip for seam allowance without stitching into any of the major motifs. The binding (when this is backed and quilted) will be the same as the inner border, which is a bit closer to a sage green than it appears here.

This one is now called "Confetti #1", because there will be others. I had a lot of fun playing with this, and my brain is now humming with some variations I'd like to try.

Next time I will set aside at least 12-18" of a background strip to have on hand for making layout adjustments as the interior seams all get sewn together. All those 1/4" seams mean a lot of shrinkage, and some things that looked well apart from each other ended up a bit too close. If I'd had even a short strip of the aqua on hand I could have tweaked things a bit better.

I'm wrestling with what to use for a backing fabric. I do have enough of the border fabric for a back. But I'm feeling greedy and selfish. While I was cutting the border I kept thinking how lovely the print would be as a skirt. A skirt for me, me, me. If I use it to back Confetti #1, will there be enough left to play dress-up with?

Two options: 1) use something else (I have a plan B fabric in mind already); and/or 2) go ahead and make a skirt and then see how much I've got left. I kindof thought I would take a break from making skirts, seeing as how I've got so many of them at this point. But maybe I've got one more to go.

Part of me thinks this print is so awesome as a border fabric that I ought to hoard what I've got for future projects. Whenever I feel the impulse to hoard a fabric I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that the whole purpose behind buying it was to make something out of it, and that there will always be more great fabric available. Always. Any minute now I could fall hopelessly in love with a new print. If when that happens, wouldn't it be nice if I'd made some room for it by using what I've already got?

No hurry, though. I'm not going to quilt this until my 120-day pattern and fabric embargo is over (only 5 weeks to go!) and I've saved up enough for the extension-table-thingie-for-machine-quilting for my Babylock and a couple other small toys on the list.

In the meantime, a horrifying number of "active" projects are lurking in the sewing room, and I ought to put some attention to finishing them before they've sat neglected for long enough to be called UFOs.

Fun with scraps - Part Two: Confetti

I've been at my desk today getting some work done, thinking, "Yesterday was 'rest day' on the workout schedule, so why are my arms and shoulders sore and tight today?" Oh. Right: I spent HOURS yesterday afternoon standing in front of my flannel design wall, moving my arms around and up and down as I tweaked and fiddled and played with these (micro exercise really does add up):

These are my confetti bits: the print pieces are no more than about 2" square, most smaller, each with varying width aqua strips around three sides. There are 4 or 5 that only have aqua around 2 sides, 'cause I ran out. Which means I used up that particular fabric leftover, hooray! (Should have saved a strip for later, more to come on that), but didn't. Here you can see I've slapped them up on the wall in rows by height, which I thought might make the next step easier.

For assembling a layout, I took two pieces of ribbon and pinned them at a right angle on the wall, to keep the work in progress at least close to rectangular. Then I started in the corner fitting confetti bits together, aiming for mid-size composite blocks for easier seaming later:

Having things in rows by height was helpful, as I could quickly find an alternative when the first piece I tried turned out to be too tall or short, or if the height was right but width was all wrong. Of course by the time I was midway through this stage that system had deteriorated, but it was worth doing.

I thought I would peck away at working toward a layout over a couple of days, but I couldn't stay away from it. The challenge of fitting all the pieces together was part of the appeal of this method. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and I love (love!) jigsaw puzzles! To me, this is creative play-time at it's best, and I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon when it's too steamy to play outside.

Here's what I came up with. I've got 4 confetti pieces left over, and that's fine; I'm not going to be obsessive about fitting them all in. The strip of fabric on the right is some of the coordinating Amy B. fabric I've also got leftovers of. Seems like it would make a good border, when I get to that stage:

None of these are sewn together yet, and when they are, all those many many 1/4" seams are going to shrink it down quite a lot. Fingers crossed it will still fit together, roughly, when the composite blocks are sewn up. Then I'll do some trimming and squaring up before finishing the seams. That's what I'll be working on later today; more pics to come when I've got 'em.

Fun with scraps - Part One

Sewing room tidy-up is coming along nicely, and feels less like drudgery when I take a break from time to time to produce some of these from all those nicely sorted scraps I boasted about in my last post.

Cut pieces are in small project bins near the sewing machine, so I can sew a few more together each time I'm at the machine. Eventually they will add up to quilt tops, most likely for charity donation. Short-term, I just want to use up some scraps!

There are three projects represented here, which is more than I'd intended, but inspiration struck and this is what I'll be working on, in between and around all the summer garment sewing I havent done yet.

First up, HALF-SQUARE TRIANGLES (two ways), inspired by this quilt, although I don't think I'll do the on-point setting. I like the all-prints version for maximum scrap use, and how the 4-patch blocks keep the quilt from being all random.

My squares are 4" for no particular reason. I also love how easy it is to piece these from squares, so there are no cut bias edges to deal with. These are done this way, with two squares each of a lighter and a darker fabric:

I mentioned this HST project to my sister (a more accomplished quilter than I) in an email, and she said have you tried it this way?:

Well that looked like fun, too. Two sizes at once! So I pulled some blue and green solids and more 4" scraps, and started in on those, as well:

Not sure yet how I'll arrange these, but am thinking of a square center of the smaller ones (random assortment), with maybe two rows of the larger ones as a border.  I'm sure to change my mind several times before these make it to the design wall.

Project #3 is the one that has really grabbed me, the CONFETTI quilt, inspired by this one, and following the tutorial here. I could not resist doing something with the pile of teeny scraps I wasn't quite ready to toss. And I have some pale aqua left over from the bedroom curtains that looked like enough for a small (crib size?) something. Here are some in-progress strips, ready to be pressed and cut apart:

More to come on this one, as it is fast, easy, and fun, and I haven't been able to keep my fingers off it today.

Basking in my new (full already!) scrap drawers: many, many, many strips in various lengths, from micro to 2.5" width. Clearly when I get bored with these new project I will have to embark on a string quilt binge. I'm going to try very hard not to start on those until at least one of these is done.

Wish me luck: my track record in the restraint department is not very good.