Category: Stash

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My Scrappy KFC Trip Quilt is Done!

I dug in this afternoon and pinned and sewed the final three horizontal seams for this bright quilt and can now count it among my finished quilt tops in the last year — number 16.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. And I can’t believe I waited so long to make one.

Because of the mistakes I made the last time I worked on this, the final assembly was a little harder… I had a harder time keeping track of how the rows should go together. I had to do a lot of checking and rechecking as I prepared to sew the final seams. But It’s all correct and my previous mistake didn’t cause any terrible issues with the design.

Here’s some eye candy…

And the obligatory close ups because these fabrics are so amazing!

When this was done I decided that I needed to get organized and ready to finish the scrappy KFC starburst half log cabin quilt that’s been on my design wall for months. I’ve decided to gift this quilt to my brother and his wife for their bed and needed to figure out how many more blocks I need to make.

They want the finished quilt to be 84 x 104. I have 88 blocks done and need to make 17 more full size blocks. I’ll also need to make around 15 additional blocks that are a little bigger for the setting triangles. See this blog post to see what I decided to do for setting triangles.

My design wall isn’t big enough to accommodate this entire quilt, so I’m using the Styrofoam extension that I made a few months ago and am laying the quilt out sideways. I plan on putting several borders on this to get it up to the size I need. Unbelievably… I’m almost out of my KFC scrap strips. I’m hoping I have enough to finish the blocks I need.

Once I made the notes I needed to wrap this up, I took all these blocks off the design wall and put them away.

Then, to wrap up my time in my sewing room I took all my Ice Storm blocks and put them up on the design wall.

I’ll look at this for a couple days before I start sewing it together. Tomorrow I plan to work on some of my new Ruffled Feathers blocks and will probably crank out some sunburst blocks.

I’m starting to think about the next quilt I’ll start. I pulled out all my Brandon Mably Jumble fabrics the other day and stacked them all up together. They are so pretty!

I’m thinking of combining these with a bunch of the more whimsical low volume fabrics I’ve purchased recently. Thinking it might be another fun trip quilt.

I did go online and order a few color ways of the jumble that I’m missing. I’ll wait to decide what to do with these until I get that order.

I took the boys for a nice long walk this morning before the rain started. We walked five miles and ventured into a neighborhood we don’t typically walk in. It was nice to have some new surroundings.

That was a busy day!

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Cleaning Up This Mess

I haven’t felt great the last couple of days. I’m feeling the need for a vacation and I think I’m not drinking the water I need to be drinking. So I haven’t felt much like sewing .

I did get a little spurt of energy after our walk tonight and got into my sewing room and started cleaning up some of the mess that’s been driving me crazy.

I’ve needed to organize and put away fabric that I’ve purchased over the last few months. There was so much fabric stacked up on my sewing table that it was getting in the way of feeding fabric through my machine.

I also had stacks of the black and white fabrics I’ve purchased recently, as well as the new KFC fabrics that I’ve purchased in the last couple weeks that needed to be put away.

I started by cleaning out some drawers in the Ikea dresser that I use for fabric storage. I was able to free up the three smaller top drawers and got all of my black and white fabrics put away. This is all the new black and white fabrics I’ve bought recently, as well as the black and whites that I already had.

One of these drawers had a mess of batik scraps. One had Kaffe scraps. I can’t even remember what the third had in it. It feels so good to see all of this organized and put away!

I took all the new KFC fabrics and the stuff that was stacked on the sewing table and sorted it all out by color. This photo shows all that fabric plus the newest Kaffe fabrics that arrived today (my second order of the new stuff… because I just wanted more of it!).

I was able to clean out one large drawer in my dresser that will accommodate all these KFC fabrics. But in order to get all this organized and put away I need to combine it with the KFC fabric that’s already in the dresser.

So I’ll have to pull all of this out and then put all the fabric back in according to color, with a few exceptions. I keep all my spots and all my paperweight, Roman glass and millefiori in one place. I’m thinking I can get this done tomorrow night.

Maybe having this mess cleaned up a little will help motivate me to get back in there again!

We’ve had glorious weather the last few days. It definitely feels like spring here in Portland.

My yard guy has been here this week doing some serious pruning of my apple tree, which has gotten sort of out of hand. The yard feels so clean and neat with that tree trimmed up!

I also have him planting some new trees that will eventually provide some needed shade for my patio. Our previous attempt at using bamboo in galvanized steel tanks has not proven successful. The bamboo will come out and these tanks will be used as raised garden beds.

I’m hopeful and positive that these three new trees will provide some nice shade in a few years and make it so that I can use my patio on summer evenings.

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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.

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New KFC Fabrics Delivered Today!

My big news for the day is that my package of new Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics that I ordered from Glorious Color came via Fed Ex this morning. It was a pretty big package!

Here’s what was in there: 23 half-yard cuts, 2 one-yard cuts, one two-yard cut, and a 2 1/2 yard piece of wide backing.

Oddly enough, the pieces I’m most excited about are the two white pieces and the black and white sharks teeth.

The wide backing will be used for the blue KFC sixteen patch quilt that I finished recently. It will be the first time I’ve ever used a wide backing.

This blue millefiori is really gorgeous! The design is a little big bigger than on the regular quilting fabric and the colors seem just a little more vibrant. The wide backing also has a more silky texture.

That’s the regular fabric on top and the wide back on the bottom. GAH! It’s so gorgeous!

And, of course, I had to take a good look at all of it! There’s a quilt in these pinks and reds! That feathers is so amazing!

And these greens… seriously!!! No wonder this is my favorite color!

And a little more eye candy…

And this white moss flower below is so gorgeous! I see a lot of this in my future!

I took a couple days off work this week to recover from our radio fundraising drive. On Tuesday we got up early and hit the road for the coast. Low tide was at about 8:30. I had hoped to be on the road at 7 am, but it was 7:30 by the time we pulled away from home.

We were on the beach all by ourselves at 9 am. We headed north from Arcadia Beach onto Cannon Beach. We walked about a mile onto Cannon Beach.

If you look at that big rock immediately behind these boys, you might see a little bump on the top.

It took me a little time to figure out what it was, and boy, was I surprised!

A bald eagle!!!! And it was huge! It’s not terribly common for me to see eagles at the beach!

Then we turned around and headed back toward the south and back onto Arcadia Beach — the beach we usually visit on our day trips.

It’s about 1.5 miles from the beach access to the southern point. When we got to the end, I turned around and looked back north from where we had just come and saw something on the beach. At first I thought it was a really big dog. And then I realized it was a deer!

He was on the beach were we had just walked not more than five minutes before.

And our wildlife excitement wasn’t over. As I headed back north I noticed something in the surf. At first I thought it was a rock, but it was bobbing in the water and moving north. . . a sea lion! It’s not uncommon to see sea lions on the Oregon coast, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any on this beach.

I walked over six miles on the beach. I’m guessing the dogs must have run at least 15 miles!

Before I headed home I stopped in at a little quilt store in Cannon Beach that I really like. They have a really nice selection of fabrics and the staff is really friendly. I bought a few black and white fabrics there!

I’m happy to report that my black and white kick is continuing! Here’s an order I got in the mail this week from Quilt Expressions in Boise.

I still have two more packages of black and white fabrics that are on their way to me. It’s becoming a ridiculous amount of black and white fabric.

I’m slowly completing the final blocks for my Ice Storm quilt. I have 8 blocks in progress, with an additional 8 blocks that haven’t been started yet. Then I can get it up on the design wall.

I have sewn together one row of my scrappy KFC trip quilt. It’s a little slower process since the seams aren’t pressed in a way that makes them nest easily. So I have to repress some of the seams, and carefully match other seams that just won’t nest.

Luckily , there are only seven rows so it shouldn’t take too long. I’d like to finish the Ice Storm blocks this weekend and make some good headway on assembling the scrappy trip quilt.