Floret number ten for the top row

So much for sleeping in.  I woke up at 5:45 am this morning.  I tried to turn around and go back to sleep, but by 7:00 am I figured it wasn't going to happen.  Oh well, I did try.

Since this is an early post and I am not quite sure all that I will accomplish today, so I thought to share with you what I finished last night while making dinner.  While the water boils or dinner is cooking I still find time to put in a few stitches.  

Late night I finished the last three purples needed for floret number ten.  I decided to attach it to floret number eleven, the top right hand corner.  Now I only have two more florets to finish the top row of florets. 

Today........well I am not making too many plans.  I am going to wing it today and do what ever hits my fancy.  First on the table is the Pleaded Log Cabin quilt.  I set up my machine last night.  Getting everything ready to quilt.  We will see how far I can go with this.  I have at least another six hours to go to finish the centre, and I will have only the last border to do.  Wish me luck that everything will go smoothly and that I will have it done by the end of the day today.

Mariners Compass wall hanging

Last night when I got home from work I really needed to decompress.  I had a busy week with working overtime, the Quilting Bee meeting and all the other household things that need to be done.  For me, there is nothing more relaxing than spending some quiet time in my quilt room.

While in my quilt room, for the longest time, I just sat there looking at the design wall.  My brain felt numb and I didn't have much energy for anything.  When I get like this, I know that all I need to do is start something.  It doesn't matter what, but once I get going things end up happening.  I eventually feel like I have come back to earth.  My brain clears and I seem to tap into a secret source of energy.

 
What I chose to start with was the Mariners Compass paper piece wall hanging.  I had a small portion done already, and yesturday I finished the paper piecing.  The pieces are not yet sewn together, only tacked to the design wall.  The colour is not true.  The compass is not quite so yellow.  I think it was the nighttime lighting.

Tomorrow is Saturday.  I look forward to it.  Nothing at this point planned out.  I like those day the best. The days where you putter around doing what ever hits your fancy.  I need it.  I may even try to sleep in.  Who knows......it may happen.

Midnight Flight piecing

Well, plans are made to be broken at a minutes notice.  Sunday's plans were to see about finishing the centre quilting of the Pleated Log Cabin quilt.  As you can guess, that didn't happen.  Instead I got a call from my sister needing a favor.  This one was exciting.  My niece went into labour at midnight.  The favor was to pick up the other two children at 11:00 am and look after them until 5:00 pm.  Their ages are 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 years.  Needless to say we were occupied all day.

Later in the afternoon though, while the youngest was napping, I had a chance to do some piecing.  Nothing to complex or time consuming.  The eldest loves my huge basket of scraps.  She pulls the pieces out one at a time and enjoys looking at the colourful fabric while she makes piles/towers.

During this time I was sewing the chevrons for the Midnight Flight quilt.  The Saturday night after I went to bed, my daughter decided she was going to help me and drew all the lines on the light fabric for the chevrons and the bonus half square triangles.  I felt like I had a little elf come to visit and magically completed one of my least favourite chores.  It was a nice surprises.  I had a small pile done and she managed to do two more piles.  I decided to leave them beside my machine, in place of the previous bow tie blocks.  This way I will have a better chance of getting them done, sooner rather than later.

I had forty each of the two sides of the chevrons done before I started.  Now I have another twenty-four sets.  I am almost half way done.  This is the last unit I need to make for these blocks.

With the making of the chevrons the byproduct is the half square triangles (HST).  See the pile on the ironing board.  From each half chevron I get two HSTs.  There are ninety-six HSTs.  A nice beginning to another quilt.  What quilt?  Not sure yet, but they will be used.  Eventually.  For now I am stock piling them in my glass jars.

Progress on the Baby 3D Pinwheels quilt

After I got home from class on Saturday I started washing the fabric for the Baby 3D Pinwheels quilt.   As the loads of wash finished I ironed the pieces right away to avoid all the hard to come out wrinkles.  Between what needed to be done at home and picking up my daughter from work, I started cutting the fabric.

I did one block so I could test the sizes to make sure it would fit before cutting all the fabric out.  Doesn't it look cute.  I altered the size of the original quilt to make mine bigger.  I will be making thirty-five blocks for mine.  The 3D part, is that the pinwheels are made of prairie points and sewn in the seam of the block, so you can lift the actual points.  I think it is a nice touch for the children and their curious hands.  It gives them something to play with.

Later on, I sorted the light background fabric in the layout I wanted and as well for the coloured fabrics.  On Sunday morning while having my tea, I started ironing the prairie points.  Now I have all the parts ironed, sorted, labeled and ready to start sewing.

For now this will get put aside.  I will keep it close and use it as my leader/ender to try and get this one done for when the baby comes or maybe for the baby shower.  Baby is due in July.  That doesn't give me a lot of time to assemble and quilt it.  I will see what I can do.

Baby 3D Pinwheels quilt

Saturday morning while having my tea, I was contemplating what I was going to make for the coming baby of my second niece, also my godchild.  At some point I remembered that I purchased a pattern in the summer last year while on a shop hop.  It was the Whirligig Pinwheels by The Patchwork Puppy.  What is special about these pinwheels is that they are 3D the pinwheels themselves flap.

We know she is having a boy, so I went through my fabrics to see what I may already have that will be suitable for this quilt.  I've decided to go with blue and green.  I rejected all my dark blues and dark greens.  I tried other colours to go with these like yellow and orange, but in the end decided to only use blue and green.  I ended up with five blues and one green.  Ok for starters, but I had no suitable light background fabric and I wanted more variety for the colours.

Do you see the blue on top of the pile.  That piece of fabric is special for the coming baby.  I got that fabric from the coming baby's great grandmother's stash. Wait until she sees it in the quilt.  I am sure she will be touched as well as my niece.

Before class on Saturday I did some shopping.  I found seven different light backgrounds, three blues and four greens.  Now I have my variety.  I even found a beautiful stripe fabric for the binding and maybe the small border.

Now I will have to get started with cutting the blocks.

Projects on the design wall (February/2015)

I took a picture of the design wall to show everyone what I am up to and to explain how easy it is to have many projects going on all at once.  There are eight quilts on the design wall.  Yes, I know that one of them is my daughter's quilt, but who do you think is going to quilt it.  Me.  So until I complete my part, I consider it to be part mine.

The second quilt is the pineapple blocks on the top left hand side. Unfortunately, this one has been sitting there in waiting, for quite some time now, because I have a few things that have to be done first.  They are paper pieced blocks, so when I work on them, there is no option to do leader/enders at the same time.  I will need some uninterrupted time of mass sewing to make some headway on this one, but I am hoping soon I can tackle a batch of blocks, at least.  For me a batch is ten.  This type of tedious block is not something you can work at without several breaks in between.

The third quilt is my main work.  The block that you see only the edge of, just below the pineapple blocks.  My main work is Midnight Flight by Bonnie Hunter.  This is a quilt that I am making for my eldest niece and her husband.  My main work is a project that I would normally be working on constantly.  I would work in some leader/enders at certain stages of the assembly process, to keep the sewing chain going without having to cut my thread.  My leader/ender project was the Bow Tie quilt that has just been completed and taken off the design wall.  The Bow Tie quilt now becomes a main work, but has to wait in line (I have a list if main work, this one is now number five).

The fourth quilt is just below the Midnight Flight block. It is the Dresden plate block. The Dresden plate is my handwork for while I am at home.  I am finishing this one for my cousin.  I work on this when I need some quite time doing hand work, but only while at home.

The fifth quilt is Tiny Town.  This one is a block of the month.  This one will take some time to do.  The classes are expected to end some time in December.  This will be a long term project.  It happens to be hand work as well.  As this one has a monthly timeline on it, it will be my first hand work.  I do this one at home and I take it as my grab and go work.  Once the monthly block is done, I revert back to the Dresden plate blocks or my other grab and go work.

The sixth quilt is the Hexagon quilt.  This quilt is my grab and go work.  I take it with me wherever I go. Whenever I have time between things I will do it.  This will also be a long term project, as I only do it on the go.

The seventh quilt is my Farmer's Wife quilt.  This one is the brown strips on the bottom left hand side of the design wall.  This one only has thirteen more blocks to do.  This was a quilt that I was working on as a block of the week.  It is a sampler quilt with all the blocks different.  Because the blocks are all different, they are not what I would call mindless sewing.  These blocks got interrupted.  I am not quite sure by what, but they are also sitting in waiting for me to start them up again.

The last one on the design wall, the eight item, is the Mariners compass wall hanging.  Well, what can I say.  This one is basically a distraction that happened a couple of days ago. Check out the story to that one in the earlier post.

So.....you see now how easy it is to be working at so many quilts all at once.  These are only eight.  There are more, but they are put away so I don't get too distracted.  Otherwise nothing would get done.  Each project has its purpose and time to be worked on, and none will interrupt the other.  You must also keep in mind that during working on all of these I also do quilting for others.  Those quilts will take precedence over all the ones of my own. 

It may sound crazy to some, but I manage to keep it all going.  It certainly doesn't get boring.

About my first class and progress on my daughter's quilt

Wow, can you believe this weather.  It took me an hour to get to class yesturday.  Something that should have taken less than half an hour.  Good thing I did leave early, intending to look for fabric for my nieces coming baby.  But, in the end it didn't really matter as the weather made everyone late.  The class before ours started late and that delayed our class about forty-five minutes.

In class the instructor had everyone put up their blocks on the design wall. There were sixteen students and let me tell you, there was not one block that resembled the next.  Everyone had their own colour choices and interpretations of the block.  There were also many different methods used to assemble the block as well.  It was amazing.

As it happened, because I was not at the first class, I was not aware that the instructor had broken the block up into two different classes. For the class meeting, it was only expected that the one house with the flower, was to have been completed.  I was not the only one to have gone ahead.  There were a few that did the same.  That means that I have no homework for this month, while everyone else catches up.  I won't be sewing the next block yet, as I have plenty to keep me busy already.

After class, with my new fabric in hand I bundled up to head home.  As I traveled back home the drive wasn't as bad, as most of the roads were now cleared.  Still weather to stay inside though, where it is nice and warm.

There was a surprise waiting for me when I got home.  My daughter having woken up pretty early for her at 9:00 am, had decided that she was in the mood to do some quilting.  So, she took advantage of my cleared design wall and started making her blocks.  She did great.  I would have to say she did the most she has ever done in one sitting.  She assembled twelve blocks of her Fair & Square quilt, pattern by Bonnie Hunter.

Doesn't it look great on the design wall.  Now she has eighteen blocks made.  They are just on the design wall as is to get them there.  The layout is different (a picture of one block in the layout can be see below).  Now she only has eleven blocks left to do.  She is doing great.  She even has the second part, the string pieces, sixty percent of the way done.

More about the design wall in next post.  I am finding this to be a long enough post already.  Later everyone. Enjoy.

My version of Spice Islands Compass

Last night after dinner my son wanted to have some mommy time snuggled up reading our books.  In my case it was catching up on my reading posts online.  I have about a hand full of quilting blogs that I like to read and keep up with things in the quilt world.

One of the blogs in particular I only visit every month, as the author only post maybe ten posts for the whole month.  I like what she post and I like the variety of projects she post.  Beautiful stuff.  I had gotten behind in my reading with all that has been going on around here, so when I went to her blog, I was starting back in December and January.  

We are currently more than half way through February.  When I started to read January I realized that this year I haven't read much about New Years resolutions.  Most of the time everyone is talking about them toward the end of December and sometimes even onto the New Year.  But, this year it was not the same, except for this one blog.  I read her post with all the eye candy quilt top pictures included.  She talks about her New Years resolution to complete the quilting of all her tops or as many as she can get done.  She has some beautiful tops!

I read all the comments from others admitting to being in the same boat with all their own unfinished tops and projects.  They were also giving kind words of encouragement and inspiring her to get them done.  By the time I was done, I too was inspired to try harder to get some of the quilts I am working on completed.

That is what led me to the topic of today.  After my son went to bed, I went down to my quilt room to see what I could do.  I had about an hour before having to pick up my daughter from work.  In the back of my mind, I always say to myself "do not" start another quilt. In the end for some reason or another, I do start more quilts.  I am up to 30 not including the quilts that I am quilting for my daughter and the ones that I am finishing for someone.  THIRTY!!!

I have to get this under control.  It's not that I don't work on them or that I am tired of them, I just have so many that it take a while to get them done.  And we have times that I have something come up that deserve starting another quilt, like my niece who is having her first child.  After reading the blog I thought to myself, is there any way that I could rework something that I already have to accomplish two thing at the same time.  One finishing something off my list and two making my nieces baby a quilt.

No luck there.  All the stuff I am currently working on is not baby stuff.  Oh well.....I tried.

While going through some of the stuff I am working on, I came across this project.  It's a wall hanging.  I have always wanted to do a Mariners compass, but I didn't ready want to do a whole quilt with it.  So when I saw this pattern in the Font & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine Mar/Apr 2007 issue, I just had to make one.  I wanted to finally make a Mariners compass.

Last night when I took the container out to look at the project, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was about half the way done with the paper piecing parts.  I chose to do mine to resemble a sun, in different shades of yellow and orange. 

I have all my pieces rough cut and ready to paper piece.  I even have the blue fabric that I want to use for the background.  Yes,  I know....I know....I am getting distracted yet again.  But...but...I just can't help it.  I took pictures of the wall hanging as my sort of New Years reckoning.  I have put the project out there.  It's like a way for me to push myself and commit to the project and get it done.  It shouldn't take too long.  Maybe I could get a quick finish, which may even inspire me to get more done.  Here's to giving that a try.  

My first distraction from getting this done is, today I have to go to a quilt class, and I will have to work on the homework that comes with the class.  I do have a lot to do, but without me putting it out there it will not get done.  Now that my design wall is empty of the bow ties, I have decided to put this wall hanging in its place.  Being out of the container will give it a better chance of getting done.

My plan will be to finish up some quilting, work on some hand work and when I need some piecing time I will work on this.  Let's see how far I can go with this plan before it gets derailed.

More Bow Ties

Yesturday morning was my late start.  I enjoyed a quiet morning cutting up the rest of the bow ties.  After cutting them up I still had some time to assemble some of them.  This first batch is what I got done before I had to head out to work. 

When I got home in the evening I had some time to sit and sew before having to go pick my daughter up from work.  I managed to get the rest of the bow ties done.  Yay!!!

Here is the entire centre of the Bow Tie quilt. It's finished.  I can't believe it's done.  Wow!!!  Now I am going to take them all off the design wall.  I will sort them by colours, so when I am ready to set them in a final setting I will distribute the colours more evenly, and sew them together.  

The assembly will happen later, as I have a bunch of things I need to tackle first.  Like some quilting and my nieces replacement quilt.  I got a gentle reminder that they are missing their quilt.  Well.....it wasn't really a gentle reminder, but as most non-quilters don't know and us quilters do know, it will take as long as it takes.  I'm not even at the quilting stage on her quilt.  I'm still working on the individual units. 

Friday, is already here.  Even though it has been a short week, it seems as though it flew by really fast.  Tomorrow I head off to my first appliqué quilt class for the Tiny Town quilt with Sew Sisters quilt shop.  I am looking forward to it.  Meeting people, checking things out, getting inspired, the whole works.  Really looking forward to it.

This morning is another late start.  I've decided to start another Dresden Plate block.  This one is yellow.  I'll show you when it is done.

Floret number five and six are done

For the last couple of days I have been working little by little on the florets number five and six of the top row.

My daughter really likes this sixth floret.  She likes the shade of purple.  This one comes from my stash of reproduction 30s-40s fabric.  As does the green one above.

Last night I started to put them together and finished this morning.  Three sets are now done.

Looking up at the design wall though, I think I've decided to move number seven to between the florets number four and five.  Just to separate the darker florets.  We will see when I have to put them together.

Dresden Plate block #2

Yesturday I finished another Dresden plate block.  This is only the second block out of twenty-five.  This quilt still has a way to go, but one by one they will get done.

After finishing this Dresden plate, I needed a break from hand work.  I was thinking of getting some quilting done, but my daughter suggested that I get the pieces for the next block of the Tiny Town  quilt cut out.  I hadn't thought to do any more of that quilt until this coming Saturday at class, but her argument that they will likely be practicing applique and not cutting made sense.  

After cutting all the pieces for Tiny town February block I thought I would finish cutting the recently washed small scraps.  I had some lights that I had not used yet in the Bow Tie quilt, so I figured I would cut them up and see if I could find some more.  From last count I only needed thirty-three more lights, but when my daughter spotted three that were duplicated the number went up to thirty-six.  I was so close in finishing these lights that my daughter thought to raid her own stash to help me with the last ten or so.

Together we did it.  Once we found all the lights, I searched for some coordinating darks to go with them.  Darks are not difficult to find, so that went quickly.  I would guess that half of them are already cut.  I took a break to make dinner and decided that I had had enough for the day. 

Another short week this week. I wonder what I will get done.  I am so excited that I finally have all the fabric for the Bow Tie blocks, that I will probably work on getting those done and off my design wall.  They are taking up a lot of space.  Space that I will need for the Hexagon quilt and the Tiny Town BOM quilt.

I had a four day long weekend this weekend and I feel really good with all that was accomplished and the time spent with family.  I am rested, relaxed and ready to jump back into work.  

Enjoy, everyone!

Tiny Town BOM for January completed

Most of yesturday I worked on the Tiny Town BOM for January.  My niece and her family came over to spend some time out of the house.  I told her to bring her hand work.  My niece has two young children and one on the way.  She is working on a cross-stitch for the first child that has the name and date of birth on it.  I would say that she has only about a third of the way left to go before she starts on her outlining and fine details.  She is getting there.

As my niece has the two young children, she doesn't get many opportunities to sit and stitch. So when she does come over, we take the time to sit have a visit, catch up on chatter and stitch.  My children usually will play around with her children and have a blast.  It is different entertainment than mom and dad can give them.

The above is what I managed to accomplish yesturday.  Well, all but the top of the tree.  That part I finished early this morning.  Later in the day I assembled the blocks together.  Yay!!!  I am done the January's block, in time for my class on Saturday.

I think it is looking good. As I didn't have the benefit of the first class, I will have to see how I did in comparison to what was expected and what everyone else did.  Wish me luck.

Tiny Town BOM for January #5

Yesturday after lunch, until my daughter finished work and family time began, I was able to finish one medium house that goes along the strip, at the bottom left hand side.

It took me a little longer than usual to complete this house, as I was constantly distracted.  I found a new online app.  A friend of mine sent me this link that covers quilting negative space.  I checked it out.  It happens to be a part of a bigger sight called Craftsy.  Nice sight.  It is where you can take online classes.  The classes range from cooking, kitting, quilting and so much more.  Some are free but most you pay for.  They are not very expensive though and from what I can tell so far there were some from famous, well known people.  Worth checking out.

I browsed through the options and have selected a lot that are now a part of my wish list.  So far I watched a couple of free classes.  They were interesting with lots of good tips.  The classes can be interactive as they support live questions and answers with numerous students while the class goes on.  You can stop the show and repeat as well as watch the class over and over if you want.

I thought it was well organized.  I was impressed.  If you do get a chance to play online, check it out.

Started up on the Bow Tie again

Today I wanted to work on something that is mindless, fast and will get me ahead.  I've been up since 4:30 am and didn't have the aptitude that early to work on anything too complicated.  I got a hand full of bow ties done before I had to bring my daughter to work.  I decided to treat her out to breakfast before she started.  Was nice to spend some mother, daughter time, even if it was only a short time.

When I got back I did some more bow ties. The first batch was enough to make two full rows.

I had to make sure my son and hubby were up and fed to head out to the hockey game.  I had completed a bunch of bow ties and thought, let's finish what I had already cut.  I did.  I finished another stack of bow ties.  Now until I cut up some more fabric, I have to stop work on this one.

I put up all the blocks I've made today.  It's looking great.  Have to sort out the colours, but that will be later.  For now I can admire how the quilt is filling in.  I only have two more rows to do.

Only 33 more bow ties left to make.  The difficulty is trying to find more lights.  My goal with this quilt is to not have any fabric repeats.  Next I will have to go through some of my other projects to see if I can steal a couple of small pieces if light fabric.  For now I will put this aside.  I got the fast, mass sewing bug out of my system.  Now I have to either work on the Tiny Town applique block that is due next Saturday or work on finishing the quilting of the Pleated Log Cabin quilt.  I will let you know what I decided.  Now I am heading to make some lunch.

Final pictures of Rose's florets quilt

After many hours of quilting and completing the edges, I can finally say that I am done Rose's florets quilt.  From previous posts. Most of you are aware that this quilt top came to me to be quilted.  The top was made in 1938-1940 according to the papers I pulled out of the last row of hexagons.  I quilted it in the traditional way, in keeping with the time the quilt top was made.

I feel it turned out quite well.  After I washed the quilt to ensure there would be no bleeding of the dyes, I set it out to dry.  The quilting is so heavy due to the small size of the hexagons that the quilt already has that aged look.

I took a close up picture of the quilting.  In close up you can see all he variety of fabrics and their vibrant colours.  Rose (the maker of the top) was really dedicated to making this quilt. Even with the small size of hexagons she still went to the extent of fussy cutting the hexies.  An example is in the close up picture, bottom right hand corner.  Can you see it?  The blue hexagon with the white flower in the centre of the hexagon.  There are many florets that were fussy cut.  Some not as obvious, but they are there.  I would have to say that the Rose enjoyed her work, to take the time to make so many fussy cut florets.

In order to really see the label and quilting I actually needed the poor lighting, to create the shadows which emphasizes the quilting.  Isn't it beautiful?  Honey combs is what I think of when I look at the quilting.  Each one only measures a bit over 3/4" across.  It took a long time to do this, but it is well worth it.  The intense quilting will go a long way to preserving the quilt throughout it's new life as a finished quilt, while in use and during washes.

Tiny Town BOM for January #4

I am just getting back from my quilting bee meeting and realized that I did not write up my post.

Today during lunch I took the roof off the last small house and reattached it.  I am more satisfied with the way it turned out this time.  No bulkiness.  When I got home from work, I put the window on and embroidered the window design.

Once I finished the block I headed for the machine.  I ironed, trimmed and sewed the blocks that I had done together.  Looks ok so far.  Now all I have to do is the bottom right hand corner.  There are two medium houses and a tree that go there.

As I will be losing Rose's Floret quilt soon, I took the opportunity to bring it with me for show and tell.  There were a lot of oohs and awhs and mouths dropped when I opened it up.  They were in aah of the quilt.

Floret number four for the top row

I am working on the third small house of the Tiny Town January block.  When I got home today I just couldn't pick it up again.  I am not happy with the roof I added.  The roof appears off kilter.  I am so not happy with it, that I have to take it off.  I just didn't have the patience to do that tonight.

So, instead I picked up my peach hexagon floret.  Tonight I was able to finish the second half of the white hexagons and all the purple.  I even managed to attach floret number four to floret number three.  I think that is enough for today.  The florets are all wrinkled, but when they are ironed and all in place they will look much better.

I enjoy my evenings of hand work while listening to my audio books.  The library has such a large collection.  If you haven't tried them, give it a go.  I find them more entertaining than movies at times and it give you the opportunity to keep your hands busy.  I will even listen to them sometimes while doing house work.  It makes a dreaded take more bearable.

Well, I am off for the night.  Enjoy. 

Power outage

This morning while having my tea I was adding the white hexagons to the fourth floret for the top row of my hexagon quilt.  I was contemplating what to do this day.  It's my son's birthday today.  I knew we had plans to take him out to dinner and stuff, but aside from that there was not much planned.

I had decided that I needed a break from quilting a quilt and decided that I was going to sew up the three piles of bow ties sitting beside my machine.  I cleaned up and folded the pleated log cabin quilt, ironed the small pieces of fabric I recently washed and overall tidied up before turning on the machine.  Just as I was ready to start, the power goes off.  The first thing I thought was that I had too much on and cut the power, but when I realized that I only had my radio and one light on, I thought oh no!

It wasn't just me.  The power in the area had just gone off.  Oh well. I guess there will be no sewing just yet.  I switch gears and decided to cut up material.  While I am making a quilt there are often cut offs and miscellaneous bits and pieces.  I usually try and take care of them right away, but if not I have a basket on my cutting table that I put them in, until I have the time.

Well, with the power out, I guess I have the time.  Power was out from about 9:30 am until about 1:00 pm.  My son is outside playing with his friend, my daughter is going to work and hubby is going out for a bit.  A good long time to cut.  And look at that.....I can see the bottom of the basket!!!  Yay for me!  I haven't seen the bottom of the basket for a good long time.

The basket was starting to spill over the top.  What did I get out of it?  A lot.  I cut out 75 red squares for the Texas Braid quilt that I plan to make from one of Bonnie's books, 300 dark 2" x 5" rectangles and 252 light 2" x 5" rectangles, for the same quilt.  If the piece of cut off material was not big enough for the 5" strip, I would cut it into 2" squares or 1 1/2" squares.  I got approx. three dark 2" square piles the size seen in the picture below, two light 2" piles as well as an equal amount of piles for the light and dark 1 1/2" squares.

Very productive.  Unfortunately I need 1080 red squares and 1080 each of the light and dark rectangle strips.  I am not even half way there, but that is ok as I am not ready to start this one yet.  For now when ever I have left over cut offs, I will automatically cut them to these 5" strips.  Eventually, without much effort I will, accumulate enough.  By that time, maybe I will be ready to start sewing it.  The process of taking care of my scraps as I make them helps to save time later, keeps things clean and breaks up the job of cutting, into small manageable bits of time.  The only dilemma is "what" quilt to make, to determine what sizes of units I need.

Another floret section done

Very productive day today, just not quilt wise.  When I woke up this morning I worked on the floret shown below.  The floret was done a little while ago and I was slowly doing the white and purple.  I didn't realize that I only had three purples left to do.  While I sat in my comfy chair having my tea, I finished them off.

After this I decided I needed to tackle the tub.  I needed to remove the silicone and the plastic cheat strip. Those stripes should be band.  How disgusting it was beneath.  I worked at it scrapping and cleaning, so I could wash Rose's Floret quilt.  The tub looks good, but when I went to use it the drain plug would not plug.  All that work and I still have to go use the tub upstairs.  Oh well.

It took me most of the late morning to late afternoon to finally finish washing the quilt.  I had to wash and soak the quilt seven times in order to have the water run clear.  It was amazing how much my water discoloured.  Now the quilt should be safe.  As far as I can see there is not any bleeding happening while it lays there drying.  I will let it dry overnight and tomorrow gently fluff dry it in the dryer.

I managed to touch up my daughter's room, install the doors in the laundry room, clean up all the tools in the laundry room and the stuff from my daughter's room.  Even managed to get some banking and computer work done.  Unfortunately, I wasn't paying much attention to the time, so we ate dinner really late, but all is well.

Now I am thinking of a sappy movie like maybe Sense and Sensibilities. I think I deserve it.

Tiny Town BOM for January #3

I just now finished the flower that goes with the first house.  I need to iron the block as I find it wrinkly next to the house.

I altered the original flower a bit.  The flower in the original block drooped down toward the house, but I don't really like droopy.  I like the flower up turned and reaching for the sun.  It may look a little odd, but I am ok with it.

This weekend I may not get too much done quilt wise.  I have a list of nine things I need/want to accomplish this weekend here around the house and a few things with the quilts that I cannot show pictures for yet.  Soon though.

One thing on the list that I want to do involves Rose's floret quilt.  I finished the quilt about a week ago.  The only thing I want to do now is carefully wash it.  I want to wash it before I give it to Lise and Jim.  I need to reassure myself that the fabrics will not run.  They are old fabrics and some of them do not look like they have been washed yet.  With the unstable fabrics of olde, and the solutions I have to counter the bleeding, I would prefer to be the first to wash it and keep an eye on it.  Once I know it is safe, I will call Lise to come and pick it up.  Can't wait to give it to her.  I truly love the quilt and the time spent finishing it for the maker.  I hope they will love it as much as I do.

For the rest of the weekend I plan to do the final touch ups in my daughter's room, install handles on the closets in the master bedroom, finally get the remaining silicone off the tub in the bathroom downstairs and re-caulk it.  Once I am done that I can get back to quilting.

I am more than halfway done the Pleated Log Cabin quilt.  I only have about 1/3 left of the centre to do and the final border.  It is certainly coming along.  That is another quilt I have enjoyed seeing come to completion.  Though there is not much left to do, it will still take some time with everything else that I am involved with.  There is no timeline to the quilts I am doing for Lise and Jim.  I am glad for it.  I enjoy doing them at my own pace.  When there are timelines it is just not as enjoyable.

It is still early tonight and I have to go pick up my daughter at 10:00 pm.  I think I am going to start on the next and last little house that is part of the Tiny Town quilt.  After this one, there will be two houses and a tree left to do.  I am ahead of schedule, but I really do not like leaving it to the last minute.  I am always afraid that I will miss the deadline.

Tiny Town BOM for January #2

Today I started and finished a small house.  I finished the last parts of it while I waited to go pick up my daughter from work.  This is part of the three houses that go along the right hand side.

As I didn't really have time to get the last small house done today, I decided to get the fancy embroidery stitching done.  It looks cute with the finishing details.  The only parts left to do would be the door handles out of button, but they are done at the very end once the complete quilt is quilted.

The last thing I did was when I got back home with my daughter, I ironed the blocks, trimmed them to size and sewed the first two pieces together.  This is the middle and bottom two little houses.

Now I am off to bed.  Goodnight everyone. 

Tiny Town BOM for January #1

It took me yesturday and today to get the first house appliquéd to the background.  I will have to do the embroidery on the window plus add the button for the door handle, but essentially this portion of January's block is done.

Just now I also finished this second house.  This house only measures about four inches along the bottom.  I only realized after I started to write this post, that the colours in both are almost the same.  This just happens to be a coincidence.  There will be many different colours and combinations. This block will also get some embroidery and a button.

I'm done the required two houses for the week to make sure I catch up.  As I have some time still until the end of the week, I am going to start on the flower, stem and leaves that go beside the larger house above.  I will see how much more I can get done, just in case things start to get crazy around here.

Starting the Tiny Town Block of the Month quilt

On Saturday after going to the clinic for my son and myself I ran up to Sew Sisters to pick up the kit I needed for the Block Of the Month(BOM) I signed up for.  Tiny Town is a BOM kit provided by Bunny Hill Designs, designed by Anne Sutton.  I will be doing the BOM through Sew Sisters quilting store.  I don't need to learn how to applique, but the class will give me an opportunity to socialize with like minds, as well as pick up some good tips and tricks of the trade.

After I went through the package, I decided to go enlarge the black and white diagram to sort out the fabric placement.  I am a very particular type of quilter.  Even though I may be making a scrap quilt, I still like to organize it.  In this case, it would be to make sure that I have a good distribution of colour. I love the creativity that comes with the process, but still require a sense of order.

The pattern provides the colour selection from a specific fabric line.  All you have to do is buy the required amount of fabric and make the exact quilt you see below.  But..... I am not that type of quilter.  I like the process of creating something that is my own.  I enjoy the perimeters set out in a pattern such as the BOM, however it stops there.  I like taking that design and seeing where I can go with it.  When we get together in a class, it's nice seeing all the different colours.

Yesturday I sorted through all the fabric I had from our summer shop hop.  After examining the pattern it was decided by my daughter and myself that I had to eliminate the yellows that I thought to use for the background.  My daughter stayed with me and we enjoyed the morning figuring things out.  We got the background all laid out.  We took some of the bright yellows out and brought in some of my lighter neutrals.  

My daughter went off to work and I continued onward.  After the background was figured out, the applique pieces needed to be sorted.  When it came to the colours I had to decide how to handle it.  Do I choose one of my fabrics to represent one of the pattern's selection or do I chose completely different colours for everything.

In the end I chose a combination of both.  They used burnt red, grey, pink, blue and brown as their main colour scheme, where as I had burnt red, orange, blue, green and black.  I later added one bright yellow for some highlights in small doses and one brown for the tree trunks and various other small areas.

For the most part on their main buildings I chose to do the same colour family when it came to the blue and burnt red, but from there I selected what I felt worked best for the fabrics I had.  By the end of the day, my daughter needed to drag me to bed, but I had all the fabric rough cut and in place.  Now I have all the fabrics, that was spread out all over the quilt room floor, sorted and packaged together with the sections of the pattern that belongs to each month.  I know.......I am very anal when it comes to organized, but that is how I work best.  Everything fits nicely in a binder ready for when I need it.

This next picture is one part of the the first block.  I just started the block, while I was waiting for dinner to cook in the oven.  After dinner I pinned the roof in place ready to be sewn.  January's BOM finishes at 18" square.  It includes six houses, a tree and a flower on a stem.  This is all appliquéd onto a scrappy pieced background.

As I have less than three weeks before the next meeting, I have to do at least two houses per week and find time to do the tree and flower.  The clock is counting down.  For the next few weeks, until I can catch up, everything is going to be put on hold.

PS. Just in case a certain someone sees the quilt beneath the applique, I will let you know that it is more than half way done.  And if I do say so myself, it is looking fabulous.  I am really, really, really liking how this is turning out.  

Good night everyone.  Enjoy.