The Brown Tote and More Progress!

I have piles of 2 1/2 inch brown strips, a bunch of which I used for the last quilt.  I am going to give them away.  I have a pattern for a tote that uses the kinds of strips from which I made a rug a couple of years ago.  I always cut up leftover batting and tried to give that away but no one wanted it so I decided to give the pattern a try.  I had bought it when I won a jelly roll of beautiful batiks figuring I would use them.  I hated to use them before testing the pattern out.  I just started sewing the batting in the strips and then sewing them together.  The pattern called for 40 strips so that is what I did.  It was quite soothing.  I wasn't in the mood to baste baby quilts and needed something different to do.

Here is a bunch of strips sewn together.  I started using tape to keep them straight as the middle was beginning to bow a bit!  The tape worked well so will be using that again.

Here is the bag with the sides sewn together and a pleat in the bottom so that there is some depth to the bag.  I trimmed off all the extra as the strips were all different lengths.

Here I have added the band around the top.  The instructions were not very good on the pattern for how to join the band but I winged it and it is okay.

I decided to just use two more of the strips as the handles and that worked just fine although I will put an additional row of stitching the next time I do it.  It measures about 18 x 18 and is about 6 inches deep.  That is bigger than the pattern shows but she had you cut it down more which seemed like a waste to me.  It stands up by itself but is a little beefy!  I may do another one as it did substantially decrease my stash of the strips of batting!!  You can actually see a little drop in the bag of brown strips as well!

Making progress on the Passacaglia quilt as well.  Working on the next rosette now.  Not sure just how much I will do or how I would fill in areas.

I finished a couple of baby quilt tops with strips I had cut out some time ago but had to supplement them.  They are tops in the these pictures but I basted and machine quilted them today.  Still have a little to go with some free hand quilting on this one.  

It took a couple of afternoons to iron all that fabric!  I also over-dyed the very green looking black with green.  A couple in the gradation of grays were okay so didn't dye them all.  Realized after the fact that I had done a gradation of the new blue a couple of months ago so may overdye that blue as well at some point.

 

Some Dyeing Results and Miscellaneous Updates of In Process Projects

The brown quilt top is finally completed and is a good size at 56 x 70.

The first block in the Passacaglia quilt is finished!

I spent the day dyeing with my friend Dianne and had decided to do something quite mundane but necessary for my further education!  I just did gradations of some colors I hadn't done straight gradations of before.  From left to right are Pro Chem Blue 420 which is a new pure color.  Second is Black 402a - Cotton Black, and next is Black 604 - New Black.  I started with 8% for the blue and 10% for the blacks.  I had a lot of leakage in the bags so am a little uncertain about those darkest colors.  The Cotton black tended to green in the darkest shades and did look like gray in the lighter shades so will be good for shading colors.  The New Black was definitely tending toward blue in all shades!  I will be overdyeing the blacks most likely although I have decided with what yet!!

 

This was an attempt to get a redder red by mixing Mixing Red with Strong Orange -- both pure colors.  I did four parts red to orange and is still came out more coral than red in the darker shades (8%).  I don't have any pinks in my stash so will keep these as is.

I still have a lot of pfd fabric but we are planning another marathon dye/overdye session where we use 10 colors to come up with 35 different results!!  That will definitely put a dent in my stash of pfd fabrics!!
 

A New Quilt, Passacaglia Progress and Some Birds

 

Ready to start a new quilt which I intended just to be an excuse to get rid of some of my brown strips, of which I have two big bags.  I was going to donate it but as I got going on it, I realized it is the colors of my lion quilt which is in my living room  on the wall and it will make a great snuggling quilt up there.  I used my 2 1/2 in strips and also put a 2 1/2 inch square in the middle.  The strips are 5 1/2 inches long.  Next time I would make the centers larger and I wish I had made them greener,  This is how I sort my strips (although the next batch will have the beige strip already sewed on).  I put them  in piles and then randomly take pieces.  I do this with most of my scrappy pieces so they are not totally randomly selected out of bags as some people do.  I like a little more control with my scraps!

Each block takes about ten minutes to make so they are going pretty fast!

Still working along on the Passacaglia block and have the starts to two more and I am further on this one, actually doing the last row.  I am sure I am not going to make the whole thing at this point but will do some subset and consider it done.  The pieces are just too small and my eyes don't need all that strain!  I do like having some hand sewing to do.  

It was an afternoon of birds this week at my daughter's house on a beautiful sunny day teasing of spring to come  This was an Eastern Phoebe, a frequent visitor.

This is a female Bluebird.

And here is her presumptive mate!  They are also frequent visitors.

This is a Yellow-rumped Warbler, also called a "butter butt" down here.

A Great Blue Heron was frequenting the pond.

Way off by the pond was this Northern Flicker high up in a tree.  I am not used to seeing them in trees although they are woodpeckers.  He has a red tuft on the back of his head but the light was bad for photographing him.

There were of course the ever-present Turkey Vultures circling overhead.

There were also hawks off in the distance but I wasn't quick enough to get their pictures.

Alexander Henry Fabric Stack and Whacks - My Favorites - Now What Do I Do?

Still doing stack and whacks.  I had two Alexander Henry Fabrics that I really liked.  However, they are very bright and each very different as the repeat was at least 24 inches.  I really like these blocks individually and call this Alex Henry 1.  These are octagons.  I don't make all the strips octagons but save a couple to make two sets of 4 patch posies instead.  Must not have taken a picture of the posies!!

This is the fabric for the above and was one of my favorite fabrics.  I had two pieces so had to do some fancy cutting and matching to get the eight repeats.

These are from the second Alexander Henry fabric.  I actually have 110 of these blocks and this was the first day's worth!

I do love these "posies".

This is the beginning of the second batch from the fabric  When I cut them from the fabric I had pinned for octagons, I have two sets of four.  Here you can see them paired up as I try to make two different looking blocks.  I have a lot more to go!!

This is the fabric for this second batch.  I haven't pinned the octagons on the wall for picture taking yet!  They have been done for some time.

My great quandary is what to do with these blocks.  They look a little bright for large bed quilts and I like the individual blocks so much, seems there must be a better way to showcase them.  I have been toying with totes, pot holders, hot pads or even some wall hangings!

Passacaglia is coming along, slowly but surely.  It is going much much faster now that I am using a doubled thread instead of the single thread which kept coming unthreaded.  Actually looks better also even though more thread.

 

Two Tops Finished an an Update on Passacaglia Quilt

Just a couple of birds from the other day -- Amercan Coots -- there used to be a huge flock every year but recently there has just been a few..  It was difficult to get both of these in the shot as they were diving like crazy!

Finally got this top done!

And here is the second one.  I actually used the back side of the red fabric as it was just the right color!  I still have 7 blocks left over and I think they will be pot holders or hot pads!  

I have been working on my Passacaglia quilt lately so will probably spend some time getting a few more pieces cut.  I am probably not going to do this whole quilt as it is pretty tedious sewing and I have to keep re-threading the needle which is beyond annoying.  I do like having something to do with my hands as I am watching tv though!  

I actually have a couple more rows done since I took this picture so I guess I am making some progress but am almost out of pieces to add at this point.
 

Birds Plus a New Quilt Top Almost

 I found this pile of unmade blocks when making an attempt to clean up my closet in the sewing room.  They were all ready to sew together so 70 blocks later, I have enough for a couple of quilt tops big enough for cots.  They actually look better in a picture than in person!!  In person, this looked very busy and some of the blocks were really pretty and I wanted a better set for them.

This is the Alexander Henry fabric that I used to make these blocks.  I thought it was particularly unattractive and only good for stack and whack type blocks.  

I decided to use this set which I recently spotted on Pinterest for a totally different kind of quilt.  I had never used the plain blocks surrounding the outside before.  I finally found some dark green hand dyed fabric in my stash which reminded me that I needed to dye some more of this color as this was the last of it!

Here are the blocks laid out with the nice beige fabric in between.  I will be  using the green triangles around the outside.  It will measure a good 72 inches long by about 41 inches wide.  You can see it uses 32 blocks with this set which gives me enough for two tops.  I will have 6 blocks left over (and I will  pick my favorites) and will use these for potholders probably!  They are six inch blocks so that will be a good size potholder.

It's almost done!  Then to start on another one which will have to have different color triangles as I don't have enough of the dark green -- maybe red!

The weather down here has been unusually dreadful -- many days with clouds and rain in a row -- much like Rochester in the fall -- ugh.  It does give me the opportunity to see some of my birds without the tourists interfering!!  Here are a couple of Oystercatchers which are one of my favorites and pretty absent most times down at Ft. Fisher

This shows three ibis all in different stages of growth!  They are all the same species with the more solid beige one being the youngest and the middle one being an adult.

There  have been several Great Egrets hanging out down there as well as several of the Snowy Egrets.

Here a Snowy Egret is strutting his stuff.  I think it must be getting to mating season.  There were also many gulls and a Great Blue Heron in the shallows.
 

Some Birds for a Break!

The above is of course a real Great Blue Heron.  There are many down here but they are territorial so you rarely see more than on in a spot.

The fellow is a Tri-color Heron.  Amazingly I went down to the basin at Ft. Fisher one day and there were no people which has been a real rarity this year -- guess it was too chilly for them.  There were half a dozen Ibis and another half dozen Snowy Egrets as well as some Great Egrets and this Tri-Color.

This was a Snowy Egret that nicely posed for me.

This was a nicely posing Snowy Egret at Carolina Beach Lake that same afternoon.

The now resident Snow Goose also posed for me at Carolina Beach Lake.

When I took this picture I assumed it was a Snowy Egret but when I got home and looked at the bill, I realized it was a juvenile Little Blue Heron,  They are white as juveniles.

A couple of immature White Ibis down at the dock.

This is, of course, a mature White Ibis.

I believe this is an adult Eastern Phoebe who was posing in my daughter's backyard in Wilmington.  

This was also at my daughter's but on a different day and I think it is an Eastern Kingbird rather than a Phoebe.  

This is the pile of 8 tops that are now basted.  They have kept me busy for the last few days but I have finally got them all quilted and have actually bound 2 of them as well.  Keeps me off the streets.

On a cheerful note, I received my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week so should be fairly immune starting next week.