I finished sewing the Yenter kaleidoscope blocks and put them on the wall. The borders will go on after the blocks are sewn. I tried half orange and half turquoise. Yuck! I then put all the orange up that the pattern calls for. Better, but then I found the identical fabric in blue and green on a big Quilted Twins sale. So, I will wait until that fabric comes in before I sew anything else.
Every year I make members of my family flannel pillowcases. I used to buy woodland themed fabric in the Adirondacks on vacation from a store in Inlet, NY. They sadly retired, closed, sold the building and a great tradition vaporized. I have searched for another source for a while and was able to get a bunch of it from Hancock's of Paducah and equilter. Some even on sale. I used to love the quality I bought- it was mostly Moda and Northcott, but they don't seem to be making it much anymore. I like to feel the fabric before I buy and can't do that online. If anyone knows of another source, let me know. It seems plaids and pastel baby print flannels are the majority of what is out there, not useful to me.
All the fabric I bought seems ok except the blue plaid- not a great texture for against the face. It is all washed and ready to cut. I usually sew all them on retreat in November all at once. Easier that way and I leave all the mess there. I will use the gray dot and green dot as cuffs for a lot of them. I use the taco or burrito method to sew them. I don't own a serger, so I use French seams.
I think I have only bought 4 kits in my whole quilting career. I like to make my own choices and tweaks. Two of the kits I remade differently. One I changed from raw edge applique to set in strips. And then I saw this Floragraphix V Jason Yenter border fabric with pattern at the Quilted Twins and bought the fabric. I read the instructions many times until I understood how the borders were cut and layered. I made kaleidoscope quilts before that were cut from the full fabric (Maxine Rosenthal book), so this was different plus they are much bigger. I bought the orange as in the pattern photo, but I am wondering if a turquoise would be better.
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| Would turquoise be better than the recommended orange? I only have a scrap of this turquoise, used it for color idea. |
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| The pattern and fabrics cut. |
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| Have to press seams open on this type of block! |
For a long while, as leader enders or when I was frustrated with something, I sewed these blue crumb blocks with a red diamond center. I tried all sorts of ways to work them. I finally decided I would just make 7" Unfinished blocks and pile them up. After a substantial pile of them, I stuck them on the wall with all sorts of combos and added borders, like piano keys. Nothing jelled. Finally, I thought, keep it simple and just put them in rows and columns. Looked okay. Then I used a scrappy border of blues so I did not have all those seams in a binding (I really dislike tons of seams in a binding- just doesn't lay right).
I decided to go real crazy and enter it in a show in at the View in the ADK. A couple of years ago my entries were rejected and I was crushed. Because the deadline was Aug. 30th, I forced myself to do a simple straight line design to give it texture and get it done. Ok. Then I entered it with lots of problems with computer entry forms. Sept. 9th I find out whether it or the pink floral OBW were rejected. If so, I will not try this again. It is expensive and wrenching because you don't know why it was rejected. I just wanted more people to see it in person. I will put it in my guild show next year anyways.
So here is Ordering Chaos, 51 x 63.
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| Back |
Another quilt project gifted by Quiltdiva Julie is the low volume strip blocks. I cut them diagonally, added burnt orange strips (fabric also gifted by her), and played with a number of layouts until this one emerged. I just love the fabrics used for the strips. Of course, I had to cobble together another row to make the design work.
Well, I webbed it and sewed on a cool border print (Bohemian Rhapsody). Now it goes to the quilting line up. Hopefully my ruler work from the upcoming class will be able to bear fruit on this top! Yes, the border fabric is gradated, not a lighting issue. I like that. Don't know what the binding will be. I never decide until it is quilted and trimmed. Then I audition fabric next to it.
On September 6th, I was supposed to take a ruler class with Kim Werth of Rochester at my Nolting dealer. Why? Because I stink at them. I don't know how to cleanly quilt holding onto a slippery ruler with one hand and moving a big longarm with the other. If I make the plastic ruler sticky, it doesn't move well. When quilting on the diagonal, you have to use a ruler. Didn't know that when I bought a longarm. I do all hand guided quilting and am not changing. However, Kim postponed the class because her father suddenly passed away the day before.
Instead of the class, I went to cardiac rehab as usual. What wasn't usual is that the treadmill I was on with just a couple of minutes left-the motor exploded with sparks, pops, a couple flames. None of us were injured, but it did me in for the rest of the day- I was useless. I thought at first it was gunfire due to the flashes and loud pops as I dove off the moving belt. I am glad I was not electrocuted!
The last quilt I did with rulers, a 3 dudes design from strips the Quiltdiva Julie sent me, is all on the diagonal, which I love, but needed rulers to quilt it. The diamonds are lovely, quilting- well, I tried. It is all bound and ready for referral to fly out the door.
UPDATE: The quilt package is made is going out the door to a man who has young children and is gravely ill with cancer. The referral came from a friend who is the 4th grade teacher of the man's oldest child. I had an extra block that I used for the tote bag that holds the quilt and goodies.
I received a quilt referral from a woman at church who has a niece undergoing treatment for aplastic anemia and a bone marrow transplant who is 22. Yikes. She is very scared and having a hard time with treatments. They basically kill everything off inside you, then add the bone marrow. Has to be a horrifying experience. I sent some photos of what I had, and the woman picked one. I washed and made the bag and kit up for her and she delivered it. I understand the young woman is pretty ill and no progress yet.
This was the quilt and package.
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| Quilting detail |
Well, I am so fortunate to be gifted a whole raft of Kaffe fabric squares and pieces- enough to make a comfort quilt from the wonderful Quiltdiva Julie! I oohed and ahhed opening the squishy and I thought of a pattern I bought from Material Girlfriends called Wallah. It calls for cutting up a layer cake into 5" squares. I don't like to do that as that 10" layer cake is always precious to me so I try to use it for bigger cuts. Well, the squares from Julie were 6" so the quilt would be a better size for a comfort quilt than with 5" ones.
Made a sample set and yes, I am going to keep going. The pattern is fairly easy except the trimming of the block is tricky. I ruined a couple because it is not even across the two blocks. I had to read and re-read the diagram which could have been bigger and had a star or note to highlight the unusual trimming.
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| Sample with 4 blocks |
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| Cache of gifted fabric! |
It happened again. The time got away from me and I did not sit down and write what was going on. I took photos and got them off the camera, but no writing. Sigh.
August started with our annual Adirondack (ADK) family adventure week. The night before we left, we were all packed and my husband bit into a cracker and half his front tooth cracked off on a diagonal. After the initial freak out, I remembered, when I was going somewhere, seeing a sign for an Urgent Dental Care office. I looked it up and they actually took him at 7:30 pm on a Friday and fixed it up great so we could leave the next morning. Otherwise, he would have had to wait until Tuesday and drive back to our regular dentist. Don't ask what it cost. I suggest you look up and see if you have one in your area and make a note of it. When you have a dental emergency, you are usually too worked up to think of it.
We rent a big house on First Lake near Old Forge, NY and just enjoy the week with all the grandkids. Debby made an appearance on Friday and washed things out, but it was still gorgeous.
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| My favorite: waterlilies! |
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| Early morning fog, so lovely |
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| All these in one fabulous box! (Plus strips to left side) |
A very big box arrived from Quiltdiva Julie with all these gorgeous solid colors jam packed ready for color sorting.
Also in the mail was a squishy from Quiltdiva Julie of blocks that were strips of low volume prints, wonderful ones. I fooled around with them along with some fabric she sent separately. In my head, I could see a burnt red orange working with these blocks. In the huge box of solids and blender fabric, there were 4 different kinds of that fabric- meant to be!
I folded two blocks with the color fabric in the middle. I decided to sew two blocks together. With the wide strips at the bottom right sides together, I cut them diagonally to make two sets of blocks. I inserted a 1 1/2" stripe of the burnt orange as the diagonal. I did a bunch of layouts, but then made 4 more blocks out of extra fabric she sent to make the layout of my choice. Next step, webbing the whole thing with more burnt orange around it for a 1st border.
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| Final Layout after making 4 more blocks. Now to web sew. |
Not sure I can take any credit for it, but my rose garden was stupendous this year. I buy my roses online from Heirloom Roses They sell their own root stock, not grafts. They have super videos that show planting, care and pruning. I pruned them this year with the video next to me on my phone. I think I did it correctly. There are a couple of David Austin shrub roses and a very cool one called Hot Cocoa that has dark, shiny leaves and orangish red dusted with cocoa flowers. After the first explosion of colors, the Japanese beetles moved in and I go on missions a couple of times a day to dump them in a container of soapy water. Not many blooms now, but those drated bugs chew them up.
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| Take it easy |
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| Small pink climber |
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| David Austin shrub rose |
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| David Austin shrub rose |
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| David Austin shrub rose |
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| David Austin shrub rose |
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| Hot Cocoa |
