Playing a Bit...

I have had online friends for probably close to 30 years now.  Way, way back, we did a couple of exchanges of blocks for a "Dear Jane" quilt.  I overachieved big time and ended up with many more blocks than I needed for a king sized quit that I made with blocks that were not in the exchange!!  

I have donated probably 200 blocks, and used probably 50 as borders on two smaller quilts and still have 51 blocks left which are pictured here.

We recently got in a discussion of these blocks on line so I dragged them out and now am planning to do a quilt from them.  I surprised myself by realizing that I had never done anything with the original blocks from the exchange so I have 185 of them as well!!!  Sigh... As I am a compulsive finisher, these will get used before too long!

One of the quilt club members down here posted a picture of a quilt she was making which I think she called disappearing rail fence.  I really like the look of it so decided to go into the huge bags of 2 1/2 strips and see what I could come up with.  

You basically sew three strips together with a light at one end and then whatever you want for the other two.  I chose to use a medium value in the middle and a dark on the outside and limited my palette to green and blue shades.  After I sewed the strips together, I cut then into 6 1/2 inch squares -- you get six per strip.  Then you cut half of those diagonally from left to right and the other half right to left so you end up with four piles that look like this.

I always make one block first to test the pattern I had figured out.  Too bad my first block was wrong, wrong and wrong.  Couldn't figure out why I was only using half my triangles!  So rip apart I did!  

This is the correct format.  I actually managed to sew them together wrong a second time but finally stacked the pieces as you see above so I wouldn't do that again!  The rest was fast and uneventful!

Here it is up on the design wall mostly done -- have one row to go!

Here it is all sewn together just waiting for borders now so it will be the official 40 x 40 inches.  It is 34 x 34 now.

I turned it on its side to see what a diagonal set would look like and really really like that so I have a bunch more blocks done and have to make a few more and that will be done!  I do have a thing for diagonal sets! 

I do have some more ideas for different things I can do.  It is really good to find something I really like to do with the bags of 2 1/2 strips that I have besides making 4-patches!

 

 

 

Baby Quilts are Done and Distributed!

 

Finally finished off the five baby quilts I had in process.  This was the one I did with the remaining blocks I had so I could use them all up!

This and the next one are almost identical!

This is one of the two block quilts I made.  This one was given away and the next one is for a special baby boy who hasn't quite arrived yet!

The Passacaglia is in four sections now but not sewn together yet.  I am making a couple of rosettes to fill in some spaces.  For some reason the bottom two sections didn't fit but luckily I had not sewn in the last block on the lower right so will make some adjustments.

Passacaglia Progress, Last Stack and Whack and a Bird Break!!

Well, this is the last of the quilts made with the 104 blocks I had and it measures about 40 x 60.  I was convenient to have just dyed some bright green that was 60 inches wide and got used right away!

This is the left half of the Passacaglia just laid out on my design wall but the two halves are not sewn together.  I just wanted to get a glimpse of where I needed to add some more "stuff".  First,  of course, was that half done block on top.  As I mentioned before, the author has you chop off large portions of the rosettes to finish it and after all that stitching, there is no way I would do that!  I didn't have the fabric I used down here but managed to find some that is almost identical and made two more stars and diamonds to finish off that rosette.  I am also going to put rosettes in those two spaces on the left.  

Here I am auditioning a yellow that I think might make a good background.  I doubt I haqve enough in this piece but can dye some of the 60 inch wide cotton close to this color.  This was my experiement to get close to the tangerine color -- a dye I had run out of.  It was 4 parts sun yellow to 1 part golden yellow.  

I am now sewing together the large rosettes on the right side of the quilt and when I have the four sections completed I will sew them together.  This is taking much less time than I thought it would!  I have had to make some more diamonds to fit into places but that has been a piece of cake compared to getting some of those rosettes together!  My stitching is not delicate so the quilt will be one best viewed a couple of feet away!

I try to get over to my daughter's for a swim each day while the weather holds and always take my camera.  She spotted these two Pileated Woodpeckers who entertained us for easily 15 minutes.

This was my favorite of the pictures she took!  Mine were nowhere near as good!

The above is a Catbird and one of the pictures did show the red under his tail.  He was far far away!

This is an Eastern Phoebe and he has appeared multiple times in her yard.

There was quite a flock of Ibis on the corner the other morning!  There were about 20 of them -- adults and juveniles.

This is a Common Buckeye in my daughter's garden.

This is a gardenia bush which I didn't expect to see blooming this time of year!

The above is a Long-tailed Skipper butterfly.

This is a Red-bellied Woodpecker off in the distance.  She has trees all around her yard and has frequent nests and all sorts of critters including red fox this year and oppossums last year!  

 

Some Miscellaneous Upates!

I have had 104 of these stack and whack blocks done for a couple of years and decided it was time to finally put them all to use!  In a previous post, I showed the column  arrangement for a bigger quilt.  I decided I would utilize the rest for baby quilts and put nice babyish fabric on the backs.  This was the first top completed and measures 40 x 40.

This is the second one which I should complete today!

I had 18 blocks left and I like to make use of every block so came up with this arrangement.  I have since switched the blocks around so it is a semi-one block wonder!

A bit of a challenge trying  to get this one arranged the way I wanted.  I had managed to put individual units upside down and had to rip out stitching and thought I was finished but after looking at the picture, realized that one whole side was now upside down so today I will fix that.  I wanted them to alternate to give a little variety.  I will use the green for the binding.

The other day my friend Dianne and I did some ice dyeing and regular vat dyeing of some extra wide pfd fabric I had.  The top two are ice dyed, the top one mostly navy and the middle one a  mix of navy and grape dyes.  The bottom two are just fat dyed, the top one grape with a bit of eggplant and the bottom one New Navy which looks like denim blue to me!

The top one  here was ice dyed and is a mix of the navies and the greens below.  It is much prettier in person.  For some reason, the color didn't come through so much in this picture.  The bottom two are vat dyed, the top one being a mix of sun yellow and Dharma's Desert Green and the bottom one being Bright Green.  I can never have too much lime green!!

My intention for the dyeing was to make some backs so each of the pieces is about 45 inches x 60  inches.  Probably won't use the vat dyed fabrics for backs as my free motion stitching isn't good enough for a plain back!

This isn't a great picture as I took it at night with my phone!  It is the bottom left of the Passacaglia quilt which I finished sewing together last night.  The rosette in the furthest right position on the bottom (red and green) was wrong in the pattern so I had to add an extra star and diamond to what I thought was a completed rosette.  Of course, the fabric I used to make the original rosette was still in Rochester, I had to improvise and it is roughtly right and you would really have to look to find it!  I am going to add another rosette to the far left side.  The pattern literally calls for cutting off large portions of the rosettes when you add the border and there is no way I would ever do that so need to even things up a bit more and then I will applique onto something.  I haven't yet decided what color I will applique onto but am thinking a really really pale yellow.  I have considered black as well but the quilt will eventually tell me what it wants and I am powerless to object! 




 

Actually Getting Some Projects Further Along the Way!

This is a picture of all the rosettes done minus one on the bottom right.  I have since switched the upper right and lower right large rosettes back to the way they should be.  

A close-up of the bottom.

A close-up of the top.

I think I made these hexies a couple of years ago and I have a lot of them -- over a hundred so auditioning how I want to arrange the and how many quilts and what kind of quilts I want to make.    

They could be quilts I keep, Sweet Charity or smaller Neo-natal quilts.  

I decided that definitely I would do one with the vertical arrangement with some fabric in between.  Still have to decide how many rows and how wide to put the in-between fabrics.  I am sure I will have at least a thin strip of white surrounding each column.

I found this fabric when going through my stash this summer and thought I would use it for a 4 patch posie block as there were only 4 repeats and a little extra.  It looked like a good candidate to me.

These were a bunch of the blocks I have completed.  They all look awfully red to me and I know I will surround them with probably a green although I don't want it to look like a Christmas quilt so we shall see.  I am also thinking that maybe some with green, some with white and some with black.  I have done this before and thought it gave a successful look.

These were more of the same and I am amazed that there are really no duplicates or any that are just a little off from being duplicates.  That is very unusual.  The repeat was 13 inches and I cut 3 inch strips and then blocks so the finished block will be 5 1/2 inches square.

I have quite a few tops accumulated now that I will have to start quilting before too long.  I like to do all the quilting at the same time as it helps in the muscle memory with all the free motion quilting.

 

A Day at Huntington Beach State Park!

 Well I had the whole blog almost completed and managed to delete the whole thing with one misstep!  I will try again!!

We headed to a different outlook than we normally do and were greeted with a trio of Roseate Spoonbills.  We hadn't seen one on our last trips.  Two of them were asleep most of the time but this one finally woke up to eat!

I liked this one as it shows his bill so well!

Lisa spotted this dull brown bird off in the distance behind a Great Blue Heron.  I am pretty sure it is a Clapper Rail.  He was darting in and out of the reeds.

This is the aforementioned Great Blue Heron taking off

I saw this Anhinga which surprised me as I have only seen them in fresh water areas.

Spreading his wings!

Just for comparison, this is a not very good picture of two Cormorants.  You can easily see the difference in the beaks here.

We saw lots and lots of both Great Egrets like this one and Snowy Egrets.

There were actually more Snowy Egrets than the Great Egrets which was a change!

There were even a few Ibis foraging on the shore.  They are like pigeons down here after a heavy rain and frequent visitors in the winter.

I believe this is a Semi-palmated Sandpiper.

I believe this is a Western Sandpiper.  He and his friend were very small.

I believe this is a Willet, which are common along the beach down here.

There was a huge flock of Wood Storks way off in the distance.  This is a very cropped picture.

This is still cropped but not as much

All in all, it was a great day at the park!