Month: April 2024

A week ago today I got a text from my long arm quilter, Happy Rock Quilting, letting me know that my Australian Aboriginal Fabric Libby quilt was done and ready for me to pick up. I texted back, “can I come out right now?” She said she was just on the way to the gym so said to come by around 7 pm.

I always love seeing my quilt unfurled at my long arm quilter’s place. it’s like Christmas! Seeing all the glory of a finished quilt for the first time. I love the way it transforms the top. All that texture, the binding, all that work coming together. I just love it .

And tonight I finally pulled it out of the bag to get it onto my sofa where it will reside.

It makes me so happy to see all that luscious color in my living room! I love the way it pulls the colors out of that portrait of my Forrest behind the sofa. I loved the quilt I had here previously, but it’s positively bland compared to this one.

The quilting pattern on this is called Malachite. It’s sort of a wobbly spiral. It’s pretty perfect for this quilt.

I usually choose a light gray thread for my bright quilts because it sort of disappears on the vibrant prints. But this quilt was screaming for black thread. I’m so glad I went with that option.

I love the way it’s visible on some fabrics and completely disappears on others.

The thread and quilting disappears on the black backing.

I pay my long arm quilter to finish the bindings for me as well because my hands just can’t take all that hand sewing. I need to save my hands for pickleball!

I did actually spend a little bit of time in my sewing room this morning before I headed out for Pickleball. I sewed two rows of my Brandon Leftover quilt together.

That’s about all I could muster. I did also sew a two inch seam to repair my friend’s dog’s favorite toy. That nearly did me in. I want to get this off my design wall so I can start my black and white Interweave quilt.

The dogwood trees are in all their glory here right now. This one is really special.

The azaleas are also blooming.

These two good boys enjoyed their walk this afternoon.

Back to work tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy couple weeks. Our spring radio fundraising drive starts later this week.

Things are finally calming down a little. After my friend’s visit I had a hectic week of work getting my budgets done. I submitted them almost a week ago and it’s a huge relief to have that complicated and stressful task done.

My friend closed on her house here in the Portland area and will be here again before you know it. We’re looking forward to more pickleball together.

I haven’t spent much time in my sewing room over the last week. I really thought I’d do some sewing over the weekend but it just didn’t happen. I have been making a tweak or two to my Brandon Leftover quilt blocks here and there. I think I am close to the final lay out and may start working on getting these blocks sewn together soon.

And now that I see this photo here, I see a couple of things I want to tweak. I’m not in a hurry to get this done but I am going to need that design wall before long.

I’ve been playing with all the black and white fabrics on my sewing table to get the right nine fabrics for my black and white Interweave quilt. I think I’ve finalized the black and white fabrics and I have a fabric in mind for the background. I might not have enough of it so may have to have a plan B.

I’ve been noodling a little about what Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics to use for the vertical woven strips for this black and white quilt. I thought I might go with the color way approach from this quilt.

So I pulled some of the left over fabrics from this quilt, plus a few others from my stash, and started playing. I ended up with this array, sort of arranged with the oranges on the left and moving toward purples on the right.

I need seven fabrics for the vertical strips. So next, I started removing fabrics that I didn’t like. One had too much turquoise. One was too light. One read too solid. One just felt completely wrong. And I soon had separated this stack into the ones I wanted to keep (bottom) and the ones that would go back in my stash (the top row).

I like this selection I’m left with. I might need to open up a couple of these fabrics and look at them all with the large prints in mind to see if they work in the larger context.

But I’m liking what I’m seeing here.

I love the oranges, pinks and purples together.

We’ve had some gorgeous weather. Almost too nice for April. It’s been warm and sunny. it should be rainy. We are getting a few days of rain and I’m glad to see it come back. At least for a while.

I found out yesterday that I have to fly to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks for work. My friend Linda will fly up here and stay with my dogs while I’m gone and we’ll get to spend a few days together when I’m back. I can’t tell you why I’m going to Vegas, but I will let you know when it’s all over. It will be a quick trip.

I got to have my last visit with my friend’s Australian shepherd puppies last weekend.

And my friend decided which one she’s keeping.

She’s a real cutie and will be called Jane.

Rico, as always, was happy to get out and spend some time on the farm.

Me too!

Since I have all these blocks done and up on my design wall I thought I’d write up some instructions for making these blocks.

I’m calling this my Brandon Left Over quilt because the fabrics are almost all Brandon Mably designs are are left over from the Interweave quilt I made recently.

These Brandon Leftover quilt blocks are made from my Blue Swirly tutorial with a few minor variations. Please take a look at that tutorial for full cutting and construction details.

Ok. Have you read it? Then read on.

Variations:

Sashing strips: Made from black and white Sharks Teeth fabric. Instead of cutting the sashing strips to 1.5 inches wide I cut them 1-3/4 inches wide. This quarter inch shows a little more of the wave of the fabric design which helps create the wavy effect of the black and white portions of the quilt top.

When sewing the sashing strips onto the center fabrics I made sure to have all the points of the sharks teeth pointing away from the main fabric. I’m not sure this makes a difference in that wavy effect, but I love little details like this!

Corner Triangles: Instead of using the sharks teeth for the triangles I used Brandon Mably’s comb stripe in black and white. It’s a hand painted stripe so there is some really lovely irregularity in the design. I cut these blocks in the same size and method as I cut the sharks teeth for the blue swirly quilt. To get the swirly effect where the four corners of the blocks meet it’s critical to follow the instructions for cutting these squares carefully.

To achieve this with the black and white stripes used in place of the sharks teeth, stack up your squares with the right side of the fabric of all squares facing up and the stripes all aligned horizontally. Then cut the squares in half diagonally with the ruler going from the lower left to the upper right, indicated by the red dotted line in this photo.

Once cut, every triangle should be the same… with the lines of the stripe running in the same direction and orientation across the triangles. If they are not the same, you will not achieve the swirly pattern where the blocks meet.

I did cut the squares to the same size as in the Blue Swirly tutorial even though I added that extra quarter inch to the sashing strips. This left me plenty of fabric to trim away when I squared up the blocks.

If you want to be more efficient in squaring up and waste less fabric, I would suggest you try some different size squares for the corners and make a full block with scrap fabric to see if it squares up well. You could try decreasing the squares by a quarter or half inch before you cut them in half diagonally and sew the pieces together.

I’m comfortable with a little more fabric to trim away because it’s easier to square up the blocks and it takes less time to fiddle with a smaller margin of error.

This is a quick and easy quilt to make. I made mine 8 blocks by 10 blocks and it will end up being a nice throw quilt about 64 inches wide and 80 inches tall.

Have fun and experiment! Enjoy these close up photos.

My last blog post was a week ago. It’s been a busy week and I’ve enjoyed my time away from my sewing room. I actually feel like I’m ready to get back in there, although not with the same frenzy as the first three months of 2024.

Since I wrote last I spent most of that week with my friend visiting as she finished up the purchase of her new home. It was a hectic week for her and, lucky for me, she was able to find time to play pickleball! We played Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, Monday night, Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. The only day we didn’t play was Wednesday since my friend spent most of the day with her new home inspection.

We had so much fun playing pickleball together! She was really excited to get to meet some of my pickleball friends and to see all the places she will be able to play pickleball near her new home. Plus, we had some really fun and enthusiastic games. It’s going to be so much fun to have an old friend here to plays pickleball AND is a quilter! Although not as obsessed as I am. But we did discover that we play well as a doubles team!

I played Pickleball yesterday morning and played terribly! Then I helped with a pickleball clinic for kids with Down syndrome. Today I helped with a clinic for brand new Pickleball adults. And those two sessions have exhausted me. It might be a break to get back to work tomorrow.

I did finally hit my sewing room after dinner and a quick trip to the post office tonight. I got my Brandon leftover blocks all sorted and shuffled …

…and up on my design wall. This is a pretty fun little quilt top! I really wish the photos could show what it looks like in person!

I’m not sure I’m going to change much with this arrangement. I’ll leave it up on the wall for a couple days before I decide if this is final.

It really made a big difference to add that extra quarter inch to the sharks teeth strips.

One last piece of eye candy…

I’m also quite close to finalizing the selection of black and white fabrics and the order they’ll appear in the quilt top in my next Interweave quilt.

I may replace the whitest one, third from the right. It might feel too white with the rest of the fabrics. I’ll have to see how I feel about it when I select my background and accent fabrics. I still have to decide what bright accent fabrics I’ll combine with these black and whites. It will likely be Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, but I’ll have to decide if I want to go with a monochromatic approach or if I’ll mix it up. We’ll see how I feel about it when I get some time to pull some options.

The last few days have been so glorious here in Portland. I had to go into the office last night and caught a beautiful sunset.

In my yard the first set of bloomers are gone and we’re onto the next set. My lilacs have just opened up this weekend and it’s gorgeous! I love my lilac bush.

My apple tree is in full bloom. If the number of blooms is any indication I’ll have a bumper crop later this summer.

My snowball tree is covered with little chartreuse snowballs. They will be fluffy and white in no time.

The tulips around the neighborhood are pretty glorious right now.

And there was one big event on April 9. This guy celebrated his 11th birthday.

It’s so hard to believe that Bender is 11! I’m starting to notice the years on him but HE refuses to believe he’s 11.

It’s going to be a hectic week at work as my FY 25 budget is due on Friday. Budgeting is not my favorite part of my job but it’s necessary.

Luckily it’s going to be a gorgeous week and I might just spend some of my work time on the patio.

It’s been a week. work has been a little nuts. Since my last post I haven’t spent much time in my sewing room and I’m ok with that.

I got a message yesterday from my friend who visited last summer. She’s the one who recently retired and has been looking for a property in my area for their retirement. They’ve been looking for around eight months and there haven’t been very many houses on the market. Well, there was a new listing and her agent wanted her to fly up to see it.

She arrived this morning. I was supposed to play pickleball but the rain put an end to that. So Instead I hightailed it out to the property she was coming to see and met her and her agent there to walk the property and see the house.

To make a long story short, she now has an offer accepted on that house! She’s so excited about it. it’s a really lovely house and property in a great area.

She is a friend of mine that I’ve known for years through dogs. The she got into quilting, and she started playing pickleball at about the same time I did. All of this at an 800 mile difference.

It’s going to be so fun to have a pickleball, quilting, doggie friend in the area! We’re going to play pickleball tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday! She leaves Thursday.

I did feel a spark of oomph and hit my sewing room last night for just a few minutes to pull some black and white fabrics. I’ve been thinking I might strike out on a black and white with a little color version o the interweave quilt. There is a black and white version on the pattern cover.

Here’s the ten fabrics I pulled from my black and white stash.

I’m pretty happy with this initial pull but it’s entirely possible I may make some changes. The accent strips that will interweave with these fabrics will likely be Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics in a limited color way. But I still haven’t decided what color… red? Orange? Pink? turquoise? Purple? It will be interesting to see where this lands. I’ll also need to decided on a background fabric. I’m thinking a low volume black and white with very little pattern. I’ll have to see what’s in my stash.

I did sort out my Brandon Leftover blocks by color, approximately. it’s hard to decide what color some of these are!

Now I need to sort of shuffle them up and get them up on the design wall.

While my friend and her realtor talked this morning I hit a small quilt shop in the area. I bought a few pieces of fabric. Not very much. My friend joined me there when they were done. Then we visited a nearby pickleball court area and headed off to another local quilt store on the way back to my area. I bought one piece of black and white batik and this KFC glasses case.

The store has had these for awhile and I saw on Instagram that they had received another shipment. So I decided to dive I and finally get one!

We did grab an early dinner before we headed back to my place. My friend got the good news about her offer being accepted in early evening. It was so exciting!

It’s been a pretty rainy week. But there were moments of brilliance.

It looks like we have some dry, yet cloudy weather coming up.

With all the creative drive I’ve had so far in 2024 I’ve been thinking I’ll probably see a dry spell coming before too long. I think I might be entering that dry spell.

I haven’t been in my sewing room the last two nights. I was going to get in there tonight and start sorting my Brandon leftover blocks and get them up on my design wall but I got busy with other stuff and lost my oomph.

So with what feels like a dry spell looming I have several quilts I’ve been thinking about making but I don’t have one that I’m itching to start next. So I’m making a list of things I SHOULD do while my creative juices are rebuilding. Plus some quilts I’ve been thinking about.

1. I should finish the bags that will be made from the four panels I made from the strips trimmed away from my Aboriginal Libby quilt.

2. I should add the borders to the quilt for my guest room that has been in a state of incompleteness for far too long. I should also make the backing for this quilt and get ready to take it to my long arm quilter.

3. I should do something with all these blocks I made about a year ago. I had planned to go with a color wash approach but sort of lost interest in that. I had another idea recently and think I might go with that instead.

Thinking I might do a sashing treatment with the indigo batiks left over from my Wensleydale quilt. There a lot of left overs!

4. I’ve wanted to make a Gridlock quilt. It’s in one of the Kaffe Fassett books I have. This first photo is Kaffe Fassett during a critique of quilts in a Gridlock workshop. The second one is the quilt from the book.

I’ve been thinking it might be fun to make this out of a selection of batiks I’ve had set aside for some time.

5. I can choose to make the red version of my blue swirly quilt. Hmmm. Looking at that photo of the reds makes me think this is a good place to start!

6. I SHOULD finish this Australian Aboriginal scrappy trip quilt but I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for it. It just feels so drab in the photos. It’s better in person when you can see all the detail in the fabrics.

I like the idea of finishing up some UFOs when I’m not feeling particularly creative. it’s a good time to dig in and be productive while I wait for my creative juices to start flowing again.

Our beautiful streak of weather is coming to an end as the rain approaches. I’ve really enjoyed the last few days of sun and warm temps. I took my good boys for a walk late this afternoon and the sun felt so good on my face and on my back. It was so wonderful.

And tonight these boys are worn out.

I played pickleball this morning indoors and had an absolute blast. It was me and nine men. I’m pretty sure that I was one of the top two players in that group. My coach had asked me to focus on controlling all my shots… being careful to place them where it made it difficult for my opponents to return them. I kept that in my mind as I played and felt so good about how I did! I think I won five out of the 8 games I played and two of the ones I didn’t win were still going on when the timer went off. Some really great games.

I’m scheduled to play pickleball tomorrow night outdoors and than Thursday morning indoors. It’s a good pickleball week!