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I finished two more blocks for my Ruffled Feathers quilt tonight, which means I just have four more blocks to assemble. I’m looking forward to wrapping this up this weekend and moving onto the next project. Still haven’t decided what that’s going to be.

I received an order of fabric yesterday and another one today.

Yesterday’s order was these fabrics, mostly in the black color way. These will eventually be made into a quilt, along with all the other back color way fabrics I have.

The two fabrics at the right of the top row will not actually be in this quilt. They just happened to be in the same order. I just LOVE these fabrics! It’s a different feel for me, but the pops of color are right up my alley.

Look at the detail in this new KFC Agate fabric, designed by my pal Philip Jacobs. If you haven’t seen this fabric in person you really need to. it’s so incredible.

Bender likes it too!

These are the fabrics that came today. I’ve wanted some of this older Kaffe map fabric for several years. I found some on Etsy the other day for a price that was pretty reasonable, so I ordered a yard of each. No idea what I’m going to do with these, but I’m happy to have them in my stash!

By the end of the work day today Rico was ready for some action. He was looking at me and I asked him if he wanted to go out and play and this was his response…

I’m looking forward to a long holiday weekend. I’m a little sad, though, because this is the time of year that I usually take my vacation. I’m really missing my friends and a little different view.

I finished the last of the remaining flying geese units for my Ruffled Feathers quilt on Tuesday night and have started chunking away on the last ten blocks. Tonight I finished four blocks. So this means I have only six blocks to finish and then I can get this top done.

The blocks are big, so once they’re done and I get them moved around where I like them, the top will go together really quickly.

It’s nice to be on the downhill slope of this quilt top. But I am thinking about replacing those yellow jumble rectangles with other fabrics. They are annoying me a bit. I’ve stopped sewing any more of them into blocks.

My friend and I were laughing the other night that we’ve gone a little crazy buying fabric online during the pandemic. So tonight I went into my sewing room and organized all my new fabric to take a little inventory of what I’ve purchased.

Most of these pieces are half yards, some are yards, and there are a few two and three yard pieces. There are also three quilt back size pieces in there. My rough calculation tells me that this is over sixty yards of fabric!

WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING??? I can’t even fathom how long it’s going to take me to use up that fabric. Plus, this is only the Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric I’ve bought. I’ve also purchased an Aboriginal quilt back, a batik quilt back, and nine one-yard pieces of white on white fabrics. And… some Kaffe fabrics that’s I’ve purchased online since I’ve been isolated at home have been sewn into two different quilts.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’m currently waiting for three separate packages of Kaffe fabric to arrive. I’m not sure I could tell you what’s in each of them.

But I’m ok with it all… it’s all a bright spot in a difficult time.

I am really getting itchy to start a new quilting project, but I am determined I will finish this Ruffled Feathers top before I move onto my next quilt. I know myself well enough to know that if I set it aside, it will sit for months.

So I gave it a little thought and since the most time consuming part is making the geese units, I decided to dig in and get the remaining needed geese sections completed. And then the blocks will go together really fast from there.

I have completed seven of the ten sets needed to complete the final ten blocks for this quilt top. I will probably finish up the remaining three sets Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and then I’ll trim all the units and start removing the paper.

Before I started working on these final sets I selected fabric for each pair of templates. That way I can really get through them quickly as I don’t have to stop to select fabric for each one.

If all goes well I could finish this quilt top this weekend and then move onto the next project.

I would have gotten more sets done tonight except a friend of mine is choosing fabrics for a black Kaffe Fassette Collective quilt and she wanted me to help her select fabrics. So I pulled out my black Kaffe fabrics and took photos to send to her. Then we spent an hour on the phone looking through online stores to find black Kaffe fabrics.

And now I want to make a black quilt!!! Look at these amazing fabrics!!!

I’m pretty positive there will be one of these in my future.

I finished the borders on my Moss Garden quilt a couple of weeks ago and finally took some photos last night. Borders are not my favorite part of making a quilt… wrestling with all that bulk of fabric. But for me, it’s like eye shadow and mascara… it just brings the whole thing to life.

With the borders this quilt measures about 97 inches square. This will be a nice size quilt for my bed. And yes… I’ve decided that I’m keeping this one. Now I just need to piece the backing and get this off to my long arm quilter.

I think the boredom of the pandemic is finally starting to take its toll on me. I’m feeling another wave of lack of motivation coming on. I’m going to do all I can to keep it at bay, and I know I need new things to do to keep me interested and engaged. I’m concerned about winter coming on. Being isolated and stuck at home will be very different when it gets dark at 4 pm. I’m already noticing the lack of light in the evenings… the the evening light is my favorite part of the summers.

I was not very productive yesterday. I took Rico for his herding lesson and he was amazing. then a friend dropped by the sheep ranch with her new puppy so I got to meet him for the first time, and he’s adorable! He looks like a baby Bender. After that, I took the dogs for a walk around the trails on the WSU campus. We got home around 3:30. And I have to say, the rest of the day was pretty unproductive. I did work on a big pile of masks I have that are partially made. I’m trying to chunk away at them a little at a time so I have some ready when I need them.

I slept in on this gorgeous Sunday… later than I thought I would, but the dogs let me stay in bed so I took advantage of the luxury. We’re going to take a four mile walk soon, and then I think I’m going to try to make four more blocks for my Ruffled Feathers Quilt. It’s half done and this is the point where I usually start wanting to start a new project. And I know if I don’t get this done it will sit in a partially done state for way too long. So I’m going to press on.

I think my next project will be to finish the Aboriginal fabrics quilt that will be a holiday gift. the blocks are almost done. All I have to do is add sashing and cornerstones to one side of each block, then get it on the design wall. Then I’m going to make an Aboriginal quilt for another holiday gift but on a different pattern. I have the pattern selected and it will be a quick and fun make. I want to get these done so they will be quilted in time for the holidays. I’ll be giving four quilts as holiday gifts this year.

(Apologies to anyone whose comments I’ve accidentally deleted. Somehow, It’s happening as I try to type a response. I deleted one from someone on yesterday’s post where she talked about her love for making fabric through piecing. I can’t remember her name. Please comment again and I’ll try to be more careful as I respond!)

I took today off from work and had a great day. Amazing how refreshing and renewing one simple day off can be. I had a floating holiday that I had to use before August 31 or lose it. I’m not one to give away days off!

More about the beginning of my day later in this post, but first… this is where my sewing ended tonight:

This measures around 37 X 41 inches. I really like the black and white borders with the bright batiks. Not sure where this will go from here. I’ll probably put it away for awhile and finish my Ruffled Feathers quilt and give this more thought.

I have a drawer full of black and white fabrics. It’s a lot of fun to dig into it and find fabrics that I’ve forgotten. I’m pretty sure I bought that outer print on sale at a store in McMinnville, Oregon several years ago in their clearance basement. I must have bought a big piece of it because I’ve used it in a lot of different projects. I used it as a border on my wonky log cabin quilt that I made from batik scraps. You can see the wonky log cabin quilt here. I just realized I use that whiter fabric in the border for the sashing on that quilt too.

At first I laid out some black and whites on my cutting table to see how they looked. Then when I had a combo I liked, I cut strips and put them up on the design wall to see how I liked them.

Once I decided it would work, I cut enough strips to get all the war around this piece. The 1st border was cut 1.5 inches. The middle was cut 2 inches. And the outer border was cut 3.5 inches wide. I was happy that this piece was small enough that I didn’t have to piece the borders.

I had to sew two of the wedge strips out of batik scraps today to get this to the point where I could put the black and white borders on. They go pretty quickly when you’re not trying to be precise.

I decided to get out and get some exercise and see something different this morning so I got the dogs loaded up and headed north to Vancouver, Washington, to Frenchman’s Bar park to take a nice long walk and let the dogs do some swimming in the Columbia River.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Temps were in the mid 60s when we got there and it was really sunny with a nice breeze. There were only two cars in the parking lot when we got there so we had the place almost all to ourselves.

We started out with a two mile walk around a big field. The dogs really got a lot of running in and worked up some heat.

Rico ran miles around this field! Poor guy… that tongue!

In the upper right of the photo above you can see a big mound of black berry bushes. they are everywhere in the Pacific Northwest — a very insidious invasive species and they are not native to this region. They are absolutely full of black berries right now. Bender and I ate quite a few as we walked the perimeter of this field. My right hand was purple from the juice!

Here’s one of the canes from a black berry bush.

That thing was about as thick as my thumb. Those thorns are so nasty! They will grab your skin as you walk by. You have to be really careful when you’re picking berries. And, of course, the best berries are harder to get to and therefore more risky.

Once we got a couple miles under our belts, we hit the path to head down to the river. My boys know when they’re heading to the water and it’s all they can do to not just bolt ahead and leave me behind. I like to keep them with me because you never know what’s ahead on the trail. They were really good boys and did a good job of containing all their excitement!

The water in the river was pretty low and shallow where we walked onto the beach as the dams upstream in the Columbia River Gorge are letting less water through. I wasn’t able to throw sticks far enough to get the dogs into water that was deep enough to actually swim initially. So they did a lot of running and leaping in chest deep water. They got a lot of exercise and had an absolute blast! These boys love hiking, but they love water even more!

We were able to find a section of the river that had a bit more of a drop off where they were able to get some actual swimming in. But they had nearly worn themselves out by then so I didn’t throw the stick too far out.

It’s so nice to be able to get out and not have to share all of this with crowds of people. It was a good day and Bender and Rico are sleeping really soundly tonight.

A couple weeks ago I was bored one evening and decided to do a little sewing before I went to bed. So I dug out my batik scrap bin and did a little crumb piecing. Rather than trimming the pieces into square blocks I sewed them all together into one piece of fabric that measured around 20 x 30 inches.

I didn’t have a direction I was going and had no plan for this piece. It’s been sitting on top of a dresser in my sewing room since I made it.

I pulled it out tonight and decided that I would square it up and just add more improv pieced rows to make this bigger. Again, no direction or plan, just playing with batik scraps.

So after squaring it up I added a one inch zebra print border. I tried the zebra print in two different directions and went with the second option here with the wavy lines going along the long edge of the piece:

Then I did some strip piecing on a long piece of paper to make a border for this rectangle.

I got two sides of the border done tonight and made some wonky log cabin cornerstones for this border.

Here’s a better look at one of those cornerstones.

I use packing paper from things that I’ve ordered from Amazon for piecing the border strips. The paper looks like grocery bag paper, but it’s a lot thinner and it tears really easily.

This picture shows a big wad of the paper that I’ve saved, along with two long four inch strips that I cut for improv piecing the side borders for this piece. I could easily piece these borders without the paper, but the paper helps me keep the strip straight and insures that it’s the correct width.

I made a mess in my sewing room with scraps everywhere, and this photo doesn’t show the pile on my cutting table. I did manage to get some fabric pressed and organized so I can piece quickly now. It did take some time to get this all cleaned up.

I have no idea where this piece will end up. I’m thinking I’ll keep adding pieced borders alternated with graphic black and white fabrics. maybe I’ll actually run out of scraps by the time I’m done!

I didn’t do very much sewing this weekend. I’m not really sure what I DID do this weekend. I don’t feel like I accomplished very much. But sometimes you need a weekend like that.

But today I dug in and made four more blocks for my Ruffled Feathers quilt made from KFC contrast fabrics. That makes a total of ten blocks, which means I’m half way done.

I had planned to get more birds done this weekend for my friend’s wall hanging, but it just didn’t happen.

On Saturday I loaded the dogs in the car and headed up to southern Washington for Rico’s sheep herding lesson. And he was so amazing! It’s so much fun to see all that training coming together. He gave me some really beautiful out runs as he headed out to gather the sheep and bring them back to me. He is so crazy talented at this and he continues to work so hard for me as I confuse him at every turn. I just love watching a dog do what they’re bred to do!

After herding I took both dogs on a 3.5 mile walk around the trails on the Washington State University campus. We only saw two people on our walk. The weather was just perfect and the sky was so beautiful. Bender and I ate a lot of black berries on the walk. Rico has not yet discovered that black berries are delicious and many of them are within his reach.

These trails are fun because they are very shaded, they offer a little elevation gain, and they run along a creek so there are a few opportunities for the dogs to get wet. We even have one part of the creek that’s deep enough that they can do a little swimming.

I had to get some serious grocery shopping done this weekend. I haven’t been to the grocery store in a month. So I planned to go on Saturday night. I go at around 9:30 at night and have the entire place to myself.

It’s amazing to me how something that used to be so simple has become such a production. I spent an hour on Saturday going through my fridge, freezer, pantry and cupboards to make a list for shopping. I came home with eight big bags of groceries.

I keep a sanitation kit in my car. In includes a container of disinfectant wipes, a baggie of rubber gloves, a couple of bottles of hand sanitizer, and a couple of clean masks. I wonder how long I’ll feel the need to keep this kit in my car. I wear gloves and a mask for shopping. Masks are required here, and I choose to wear the gloves. Mostly so I can take them off before I get in the car so I don’t contaminate my car. I take them off outside the grocery store and leave them in the store garbage can.

I made sure I bought some bacon and bread as I was shopping because a friend of mine promised me some of their garden tomatoes. So when she texted me today and asked if I was ready, if headed right over and grabbed some of these beauties. I ate two of them immediately with just salt and pepper. They were pretty amazing.

I grow my own tomatoes but I only grow the small ones. I’ve never been able to grow a decent full size tomato since I moved to Portland. It’s hard to make a BLT with cherry tomatoes! So I’m always happy to have friends that are generous. This same friend has kept me in lettuce most of the summer.

I took the boys for two walks today. One 4.5 mile walk after breakfast while it was still cool, and then a three mile walk after dinner. They’re always happy to take a minute to pose with some pretty flowers.

Back to work tomorrow. I’m taking Wednesday off because I have a floating holiday I have to use before the end of August. Not sure yet what I’m going to do that day. Maybe a hike.

We’re going to have a fantastic week of weather!

I’ve wanted to make some of these adorable birds for quite some time. So tonight I finally dived in.

I made this first one as a prototype before dinner. it’s always a good idea to test a pattern or technique before getting too far into it. I did make a couple of mistakes on this that I had to pick out. But by the time i was done, the process all made sense.

I used this tutorial to learn how to make these birds.

It cost me $10, but is really worth it. There is lots and lots of detailed instructions with photos. And it includes examples of how you can make your birds different. There are also pages and pages of photos of different birds. I feel pretty confident that in no time I’ll be able to whip out birds without looking at the instructions.

I whipped up four birds tonight. They went together pretty quickly.

I’ve wanted to make a wall hanging for a friend to cover an electrical panel in her bedroom. She has very different taste from mine and isn’t crazy about all the bright colors I use. Plus, she wanted some brown in the wall hanging to tie into her carpet. I’ve really struggled with what to make for her that she’ll like and that I’ll enjoy making. I think these birds might be what I’ve been looking for.

I’m going to make four more facing the opposite direction and then start playing with a layout. As of now I have no idea what this will look like when done.

Just a quick post tonight to share a photo of my four Ruffled Feathers blocks. It’s amazing how different it looks as you add blocks.

I’m liking this more and more. I’m still surprised by the amount of color in these fabrics, but it feels a little like it’s calming down some with the addition of more blocks. It will be interesting to see how it changes as I get more blocks on the design wall.

A friend of mine really liked the scrappy batik wedge quilt I finished up a few weeks ago. You can see it in this post. She liked it so much she decided to make one for herself. She sent me a photo tonight of what she has done, and it made me laugh because it looks EXACTLY like mine!!!

I saw a quilt like this on Instagram tonight but they had laid the rows of wedges out horizontally instead of in vertical columns. I liked it that way too.

That same friend reminded me of a quilt we had seen in the window of Sisters Quilt Shop in Chehalis, Washington some time ago… and she reminded me that I had purchased this pattern. It’s a simple pattern, but works really well with Kaffe fabrics. This quilt might be in my near future. It would be fun to do this in an eclectic collection of fabrics. My mind is already going on this!

Here’s a sort of terrible photo that was taken through the window.

It feels really cheerful, scrappy, and comfy to me. It has the green heraldic shields fabric in it… and I have a great big piece of that for a backing. I bought it several years ago for $4 a yard!!! I’ve been waiting for the right quilt and this might be it!