Category: Batiks

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A Little Herding, a Little Conversation, A Little Wensleydale Sewing


Rico had his weekly sheep herding lesson down in Molalla at my friend Trudy’s place today… where we helped with lambing a few weeks ago. It was a new experience for him as he got to work in a great big field with hills and valleys, lots of trees and sheep he’s never seen before. And he did a great job.

Here’s a little bit of video from Rico’s working today.

I’m so happy with how his driving is coming along. That’s when he moves the sheep away from me. He’s looking so good and it’s so fun to see him so cool and collected, and to see all this training coming together so nicely.

I have him entered in another sheep herding trial next weekend. It will be fun to see how he does.

When we got home a co-worker came over with her dog for a play date. We had some unexpected, frank and very interesting conversation. It’s a coworker I don’t know very well and don’t have much opportunity to interact with. It was really good to get to have this conversation. I’m looking forward to more.

After grabbing an early dinner since we missed lunch, I headed out with the boys for a three mile walk. It was warm but cloudy. I had on a long sleeve t-shirt with a sweatshirt over the top and it was too much! We definitely have a change in the weather on the way.

I had really hoped we’d actually have a little bit of spring before summer arrived.

After giving the boys some dinner I sat down on the sofa and found myself nodding off. I kind of went with it for a while and then decided I needed to get my butt up and sew three more Wensleydale blocks before I was out cold. Why three? Because that would put me at 50 blocks done.

So I hit my sewing room and sewed up the final three lighter batik blocks that I kitted up last week.

I pulled the rest of the blocks off my design wall and stacked them up in sets of 10 so I can keep track and know when I have 60 blocks.

So, that means I have ten more blocks to sew. I think I’m going to toss all these blocks up on my retractible design wall tomorrow to see if I need to make more dark blocks or more light blocks. I’m pretty sure it still needs more dark blocks to go with all these light blocks I’ve been making.

I’m going to remove the paper from six blocks that are waiting… as soon as I finish this blog post. I calculated the other night that it takes me about four minutes to remove the paper from one block. I’ll finish these up as I watch some pickleball tonight.

I was tidying up my living room last night and realized that I had never taken some Australian Aboriginal fabrics out of the box they were delivered in. I bought these online a couple of months ago.

I have no idea where I’m going to put them. The plastic bins that hold my Aboriginal fabrics are already too full.

After a good night sleep and a walk with the boys in the morning, I’ll be off to play a couple hours of pickleball!

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Lucky 13 — Just 13 More Wensleydale Blocks to Go!

What a crazy weather day. The sun was shining when I got up this morning. The rest of the day included downpours, ice balls, rain, rain and more rain, moments of sunshine, and a high of about 45 degrees. I had to check the calendar to confirm that it really is April 20 as I type after midnight. I wore a parka and gloves for our evening walk!

But even with all that, we had this too.

That’s sort of magical.

The good news is that the forecast tells me we will have a day of 80 degrees with sun in about a week. I can hardly believe it’s true!

After our evening walk I headed down the hall to my sewing room to dig in and make a few more Wensleydale blocks. I was having so much fun seeing these new fabrics come together that I made four blocks!

I keep saying it, but one of my favorite things about this quilt is that every block is completely different! It also makes It more fun to make… I don’t thrive on making the same block over and over.

Here’s all four blocks.

This means that I’ve made a total of 47 blocks! It’s hard to believe I’ve made so many of these. I timed myself the other night and it takes about a half hour to sew a block. By the time I finish the final 13 blocks, I’ll have 30 hours of sewing time in these blocks. That doesn’t really seem that bad.

I’ve been noticing the last few days that I’m getting little flaps of fabric folded over when I sew my lines on the paper templates. I’ve also been seeing pins getting stuck on the edge of the sewing machine bed as I sew. I finally realized tonight that the legs on my extension table had adjusted themselves and my table was too low. The bed of the sewing machine was sitting up above the top of the extension table about a quarter inch.

So as I was sliding my paper template with the fabric on the back under the needle, it was catching on the edge of the machine and getting folded over.

My extension table has little legs that are easily adjusted by turning the little feet. I’m guessing they’ve lowered over time from all the vibrations.

I took a few minutes and adjusted this before the last block I sewed tonight.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. I’ve never had issues with the fabric folding over when I’ve paper pieced in the past. That last block went together so smoothly!

Oh, and that extension table? It’s an amazing thing. They are custom made to fit your machine. Really a fantastic thing if you don’t have a sewing table that your machine sits down into.

I’ve had mine for years and I just love it. One of the best purchases I’ve made. This is where I got it. They even make them for Singer Featherweights!

Something I noticed in a drawer of my sewing table tonight was this block of styrofoam I have where I put all my broken needle and pins. I’ve been sticking sharp stuff into this for quite a few years. It’s a great way to keep all those sharp items away from fingers.

I even use this to store different needles that are still good for use. I just write on the block what the needle is and then stick the needle in.

Now I’m gonna sit back and remove some more paper from blocks as I watch some late night TV.

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Twelve Kits and a Mess of Paper

My budget has been submitted! It was due on Friday, but a last minute critical thing we had to handle took up my entire day on Thursday so I got an extension on getting this wrapped up. It feels good to have it done and I’m looking forward to working on something else.

I stepped away from work today right at 5;00, hurried and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and headed out to play pickleball. I played from 6:00 – 9:00… and there were few enough people there that I played the entire three hours. I’m really happy to say that I’m getting better and better! It was really a fun night.

By the time I got home it was around 9:30 and I was tired and it was raining. Big surprise there. So my boys didn’t get an evening walk. But they settled in nicely and have been snoozing since then.

I hit my sewing room for a few minutes to cut some KFC fabric strips for the centers of my next twelve Wensleydale quilt blocks.

Oh, yum!

I cut enough for twelve more blocks and combined two fabrics for each block.

Then I pulled out the indigo batiks I cut the other night and put together a dozen kits for the next set of blocks.

After three hours of pickleball, that’s all I had energy for. So I headed for the sofa. And sitting on my coffee table were the 18 blocks that still needed the paper removed. So I sat down in front of the TV, pulled up a pickleball tournament on YouTube and cracked away.

I got the paper removed from ten of these blocks and iced my foot at the same time.

This felt like a good accomplish this evening. I don’t have much to give after all my physical activity.

I just love looking at the back of the blocks.

I have a little more spring to report. The flowering pear trees in my back yard are in full bloom and they are beautiful.

I have these trees all over my yard.

More blooming things are showing up around the neighborhood. The magnolias are looking good!

Those blooms are as big as my hand!

My lawn is finally greening up. I don’t think my front lawn has ever looked this good.

Bender met a new friend on our afternoon walk today.

This never happens.

Oh my god… I’m so tired! G’night!

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Scrappy Batik 16-Patch is in the Done Pile!

It’s done! I sewed the final four horizontal seams after our walk this evening. This is my 15th finished quilt top since the pandemic started a year ago.

I had another webinar this morning and took the computer into my sewing room so I could get the ten rows for this quilt top pinned in pairs as I listened and watched. I actually got all ten rows pinned and the five pairs sewn during the webinar … and managed to join in the conversation online! It was a productive hour!

Here’s the five sets of two rows all sewn together and pressed.

It feels so good to have this done and it seems like it went together really quickly.

Here’s the two final sections all pinned and accordion folded… ready to sew the final seam.

As I was pressing the final seam I was admiring all the beautifully pressed seam allowances on the back. It’s really pretty when it comes together nicely!

These blocks are made from 2.5 inch strips. I followed the excellent tutorial for sixteen patch blocks on the Exuberant Color website. If you don’t follow the Exuberant Color blog, you should! Wanda’s tutorial makes these blocks so easy to make.

Here’s a close up of the quilt top. These blocks are so pretty when they’re all sewn together. I’m so glad I finally got brave enough to make a sixteen patch. And now I can’t force myself to make a quilt that isn’t made from 2.5 inch strips!

Our walk this evening was the first one we’ve had this year that took place in daylight… and it was wonderful!!!

This is our last nice day before the rain settles back in for the next ten days. It was wonderful while it lasted.

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Chunking Away at UFOs

I had two long Zoom calls on the schedule today that involved a lot of listening and not much talking, so I planned ahead and made sure I had some sewing work ready to go to keep my hands busy while my brain was occupied.

So I pulled out my scrappy batik sixteen patch blocks and got all ten rows pinned together.

It’s funny to me, but I find pinning these blocks sort of meditative. And there’s something very satisfying about feeling those nested seams “click” together! I love it!

After our walk tonight I ran to the grocery store and did my month’s staple shopping. I like to go this time of night because there are so few people in the store. And now I’m set for a while.

When I got home I hit the sewing room and sewed together all those ten rows that I pinned earlier today.

They’re all numbered, stacked up and accordion folded. I’ll save pinning the rows together for my next long Zoom call. I have a few webinars coming up later this week.

Here’s all these batik blocks on the design wall back in January.

It was another nice day today but we didn’t have a ton of sun. “Fake Spring” is almost over. We have a couple more days of nice weather and then we’ll go back to rain for as far out as the forecast goes. The gorgeous weather we’ve had the last few days really has me hankering for real spring!

This time of year can be so beautiful in Portland. My flowering plum is blooming, as are my flowering pear trees. The bright yellow blooms on my forsythia are just opening and will be in their full glory in a few days. The first of my daffodils opened today.

Here’s my boys on our afternoon walk today… posing in front of someone else’s daffodils.

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Here Comes the Sun!

My favorite day of the year is the day the time changes in the spring. I just love the long light in the evenings in the summer. This day tells me that time is coming and that winter is on the way out. Unfortunately, it was rainy all day here in Portland so I didn’t get the wonderful sensation of sun at 7 pm. I will get that tomorrow.

I didn’t have a terribly productive weekend as far as sewing goes. I did finish the final eight blocks for my ice storm quilt.

Now I need to finish sewing the scrappy KFC trip quilt blocks together so I can get that off the design wall and get this one up.

After I finished these blocks tonight I wanted some mindless sewing so I whipped up ten more sunburst quarter log cabin blocks.

I really need to measure what I already have done for this quilt and figure out how many more blocks I need before I make more. I should be close to having what I need for the main part of the quilt top. Plus, I’m actually seeing the end to my pile of KFC fabric strips! I thought that would never happen!

You can see more about this quilt here, here and here.

I really enjoy making these blocks. It’s all very free form, nothing is precise, and the way they go together means that no seams have to match. It’s the perfect sewing to do at night when you want to sew but don’t want something complicated and precise.

On Friday after work I sorted through all my KFC fabrics and got them all back in their drawers… including all the new fabric that his been stacked up on my sewing table for months.

A few months ago I had virtually NO blue KFC fabrics. I guess I took care of that problem!

Saturday I had my regular sheep herding lesson up in Battle Ground, Washington, and Rico did an amazing job, as he usually does! He’s so talented. Then we hightailed it down to Mollala, Oregon, for another lesson with a different trainer. And again, Rico was amazing.

While in Molalla we took the opportunity to have a nice run in a big field between our turns on the sheep. When we were all done we took a nice walk on BLM land before we headed home. The dogs had a blast running around and it’s really good for me to spend some time in the forest.

The sun coming through the trees was so beautiful.

Saturday was an absolutely amazing sunny and warm day. I’m so glad that I got to spend almost the entire day outdoors. It was just what I needed after another stressful work week.

Rico was so exhausted from all his activity during the day that he could hardly keep up during our after-dinner walk! He certainly slept well last night!

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And Just Like That, the Weekend is Over

It’s Sunday night at 10 o’clock and I’m wondering where the day went. Since I was up for herding lessons yesterday, I had a bit of a sleep in today. Then it rained for a good part of the day so I dug in and did some sewing.

I was itching to make two more Ruffled Feathers blocks because I wanted to see four of them together.

I’ve decided to call this my “Secret Purple” quilt. Before I started sewing these blocks I really thought that this would read as a green quilt. But to me, it’s purple! And I love it!

These blocks are really big. I think they finish at around 16 inches and I’ll need 20 blocks for this quilt. So I’m already 1/5 of the way done!

When I finished these blocks the rain had eased up a little so we headed out for a nice walk. I had planned to walk three miles, and then walk two more around 8 pm. It was really nice out so we kept on walking and ventured into a neighborhood where we don’t typically walk. It ended up being a five mile walk and we got pretty wet at one point.

Not really sure what this sign means. Apparently we weren’t welcome at this particular home.

After dinner I hit the sewing room again and sewed up the final four strip sets for my Ice Storm quilt and got the pieces cut for the final eight blocks.

I’ll try to get these final blocks sewn tomorrow night.

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Not Very Exciting, But Very Productive

Spent some time in my sewing room this evening and really got a lot done.

I finished eight blocks for my Ice Storm quilt and started on the final four strip sets.

Then I sewed another row of the scrappy KFC trip quilt together and sewed the first two rows together.

Today I got one of the final two packages of black and white fabrics I purchased online. This was a big package of 20 pieces. The one I’m still waiting for has six pieces.

Here’s all the black and white fabrics I’ve purchased in the last few weeks.

There are some really fun fabrics in this stack. It will be fun to see how they work up in a quilt.

Amazingly, I’ve only duplicated one fabric in all the many pieces I’ve purchased recently. I think that’s pretty impressive!

We went for a sheep herding lesson this morning and we had a really productive hour on the sheep. It was such a gorgeous day and so fantastic to be outside after a rainy day yesterday.

After herding I took the boys for a five mile walk around Washington State University. There were a lot of people out walking on this beautiful day. Take a look at this sky!

They’re pretty worn out tonight. Bender is too pooped to play.