Category: WIP

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Some X & + Progress and Some Home Grown Stuff

It was good to have a weekend and I did enjoy it. Sheep herding with Rico Saturday morning. A wonderful lunch with friends in the afternoon. And a Sunday full of pickleball. But back to work today. Then another long weekend coming up since my workplace celebrates Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. You can read about Juneteenth here.

I didn’t get any sewing at all done on the weekend. And I’m ok with that. But I did hit my sewing room after our evening walk tonight and got a little bit done. I trimmed and sewed one more row of the X & + blocks and then sewed the two completed rows together.

It’s really fun to see all the Xs come together in the corners and see the secondary patterns emerge. I’m so glad I decided to deal with a little wonkiness in these blocks and not add sashing.

I love this more each time I look at it. The color combos are not something you see every day. And those little green triangles are magnificent! And the turquoise dots make me smile.

Look at this!

Despite being careful in pinning my blocks together, I seem to be destined to have the first seam every night be a little off.

OMG! That really bothers me. But not enough to rip it out and do it over again.

With the subsequent blocks I was more careful in pinning the seams and got a better result although not perfect. Oh well. Better luck next time.

One of the best parts of my weekend was my first strawberry harvest for the season. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this many strawberries in one picking.

And they were sooooo good! I just wish I could get better production. It would be great to get enough for my breakfast a couple days a week. But I don’t come anywhere near that.

I also noticed yesterday that I actually have some tomatoes on my plants. This seems a little earlier than normal. Maybe I’ll have ripe tomatoes in early July. That would be so wonderful!

And for my lunch today I picked a gorgeous bunch of lettuce. I ate it in a sandwich with some sharp cheddar cheese on good wheat toast. It was wonderful!

It’s so cool to go out into the yard and pick food! But I’d hate to have to survive on my meagre harvests!

On our walk tonight I was reminded of Wanda at the Exuberant Color blog and her post a few weeks ago about the golden hour.

The low evening sun was shining through the tall Douglas fir trees and lighting this little red tree on fire.

And this next photo doesn’t do this scene justice…. but I was walking on the shaded trail that we walk every day and it was like a tunnel… and to the west where it opened onto a round-about was bright sunlight.

I count myself fortunate every day that this lovely trail is so close to my house. It’s wonderful to have an easy opportunity to feel like I’m away from population.

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A Good Weekend with No Sewing, But Some Noodling

I think I felt such a sense of accomplishment by getting that Wensleydale quilt top finished that I deserved a break from sewing this weekend. So I got nearly nothing done in my sewing room since Friday.

Nearly nothing. I did stand in my sewing room and look at that Japanese X & + quilt a few times and noodle over the arrangement of the blocks, moving squares around to separate places where one fabric showed up a lot in different blocks, balance the darks and lights, and make sure my favorite blocks had prominent placement.

Here’s where I’ve landed as of tonight.

This is feeling pretty good to me, but I see at least one thing I want to fix.

My brain wants to make every other block brown, with the alternating blocks yellow. But I have more brown blocks that yellow blocks. So that just won’t work unless I make more blocks and that’s just not going to happen.

It looks pretty balanced in this black and white photo.

The bottom doesn’t look as dark in person. It’s all how the light hits it. But I am going to have to look at that lower left corner next time I’m in that rom.

I wish I had taken a photo, but I looked at this when I got up this morning and opened the blinds and saw it with the bright morning sun coming through the window. It looked so bright and cheery and makes me really want to see this done and on the bed.

Yesterday was pretty much a wash. I took Rico for his sheep herding lesson and we did some driving work in a smaller field. He was a good boy and his brain was tired by the time our lesson ended.

On the way home we stopped at the field with the creek so the boys could get a good run. I only walked about a mile but they must have run six or seven! They love running through the trees and bushes to get to the creek. Then they come tearing out all wet.

I love to play a hide and seek game with them when they tear into the bushes to get to the creek. I’ll hide and let them find me.

They usually find me pretty quickly! Rico is a little better at following his nose.

They do love a chance to run and having access to the creek is even better.

It was a gorgeous day and wasn’t too hot. But when they’re running they get heated up.

That walk in that field took me back to my childhood. There were wild roses all over the place. The air was full of their scent.

The hot air, the bugs buzzing, and the scent of wild roses reminds me of summers at my grandfather’s home in Hudson, Wyoming, when I was a kid. It brought back all kinds of memories.

Here’s my boys posing in front of some of the roses.

Other than taking the boys for a walk later in the evening yesterday, I really can’t remember what else I did. I think I probably wasted a lot of time.

Today I slept in a little and then went and played pickleball for 3.5 hours! I had so much fun! I went to a different place and there were more courts so that I got to play more ad didn’t have to wait my turn as much. I may go back to this place on Sundays. I’m pretty wiped out tonight, but I did manage to take my boys for a three mile walk after dinner.

It was a gorgeous evening. Our weather has been pretty perfect the last few days. With the exception of Tuesday and Wednesday this week, with temps at or near 90, the next ten days look amazing!

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Wensleydale Quilt Top is DONE! And What’s Next?

I had a great day off today. Started with some morning pickleball, then stopped by the racquet store and bought a new pickleball paddle. Then headed home for a nice lunch on the patio, then a little bit of personal to do stuff on the computer.

Then I hit my sewing room to start working on the final four seams to complete my Wensleydale quilt top.

First, I sewed the bottom three sections of two rows together. Then I ran a line of stay stitching around the perimeter of this section of the quilt, about 1/8 inch from the edge.

This line of stitching will hold the edge pieces together and prevent the stitching in the blocks from unraveling with handling. I don’t typically do this line of stitching, but with this quilt and all the angled points. I wanted to make sure they all held together.

I did this when the quilt top was still in two pieces because it’s easier to not have to wrestle then bulk of the enter top through the machine.

It really did go together quickly. Here’s the final two sections as I’m pinning them on my cutting table.

I really love the look of these blocks from the back! Everything is so clean and incredibly consistent from block to block.

Once I got that final seam pinned I rolled the two pieces up so the entire piece is about 14 inches wide, then accordion folded it all to help make it easier to move that bulk through my machine for the final seam.

Then I just put that stack on my lap and feed the fabric through.

I really enjoyed the final pressing of this quilt top. It’s so fun to look at all the fabrics close up and enjoy how they all play together.

I mean, just look at that!!

And here’s the finished flimsy! It measures 66 by 73 inches. I wish you could see it in person. The blue batiks are so pretty.

Before I put that finished flimsy up on my design wall for photos, I rolled up the front design wall and rolled down the back one and then put this on the back piece.

Why did I do that? I wanted to get my Japanese X & + quilt blocks up on the design wall so I could decide whether or not I have enough to move forward and complete the top. I put these blocks on the front design wall.

That’s six blocks by seven bocks. So a total of 42 blocks. I thought I had 42 blocks made, but I actually have 44.

I adjusted a photo of these blocks to see how the values balance.

I’ve already moved a couple of blocks around after I saw this photo. There’s a few more things I’ll change, but it’s close.

I’m sure this will be plenty big for the double bed in my guest room. So, no more blocks needed. I’ll decide on a final design tomorrow and will start putting this thing together.

And, of course, I have to show you some close ups of these blocks so you can see the amazing fabrics… all Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics.

It was actually Liza Roos Lucy, who works the the Kaffe Fassett Collection, who suggested using that green/turquiose spot for the background. Of course, I love it and love those little pops of turquoise!

I can’t stop!

And one more for good measure.

I might have to do some minor trimming on these blocks. But they are big and should go together pretty quickly.

Tomorrow, Rico has a sheep herding lesson and then I’ll take them for a nice field run in the park with the creek. They will enjoy a chance to run and get in the water.

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Four Horizontal Seams Left On My Wensleydale

SPECIAL NOTE: If you’re one of the people who asked how I was cutting my fabric pieces to make these Wensleydale blocks, read all the way to the bottom for a special treat.

I decided that I will actually take tomorrow off as I had planned. It’s not very often that I get a day with no meetings so I decided to go for it. Besides, it’s nearly the end of the fiscal year and we’re in the time of year where we have a bit of a lull.

I did work later than I had hoped tonight so I could get a few things done that have deadlines of tomorrow. Now I can relax and enjoy my day off. I’m going to play pickleball in the morning, then have the rest of the day to do whatever I want.

One thing I want to do is finish my Wensleydale quilt top. I hit my sewing room tonight and sewed together the blocks in the four remaining rows, then sewed those rows into two sets of two rows each.

So all I have left to do on this is sew the final five sets of two rows together. That’s just four horizontal seams and this baby is done!

As I was sewing rows together I came across one block that I must have fallen asleep on…

Oops.

I did take a few minutes tonight to enjoy these blocks sewn together. It’s really fun to see the fabrics close up… see all the variation in the blue batiks. They’re pretty amazing!

You just don’t see all that gorgeousness when you look at the quilt top in its entirety.

Here’s some more eye candy.

I just love how those dark and light values play together!

And a little more…

And one more, just to be sure. . .

So, now for the special treat I teased at the top.

I happened across the video linked below today. It’s a really cool method that the Quilted Chicken on YouTube came up with for cutting fabrics for paper piecing the Wensleydale blocks. And it looks really great to me!

I will definitely try this when I make my second Wensleydale quilt, but I’ll probably make one block with the fabrics cut with this method before I commit to cutting a bunch, just to make sure the pieces are generous enough to make piecing efficient. But it looks really promising to me!

You can all thank me later for finding this!

Have a happy Friday! I intend to!

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About Time for This UFO

I’m glad today is Friday. I’m glad I have a four day weekend coming up. I’m glad the weather is lovely. I wish my knee didn’t hurt. So do my boys. Another day with no walk to let it recover a little.

I had a wonderful lunch with a former co-worker today. We talked for three hours! It was really fun to catch up. I had a couple quick meetings when I got back, then chunked through some email, then I was done for the day and the weekend.

After dinner tonight I had a nice phone conversation with a friend as I sat on the patio on a gorgeous evening. Then I decided to dig into the closet in my sewing room and pull out a quilt that’s been sitting unfinished for way too long. It’s a Japanese X and + quilt that I’m making for my guest room. I’m pretty sure I started this at least five years ago and I’m pretty sure I haven’t touched it during the pandemic.

This is made from all Kaffe Fassett Collective Fabrics. I was thinking I still needed to make four or five blocks, but in counting the blocks I found that I have 42 done. The blocks will finish at around 12.5 inches. I think that’s going to be plenty big for the double bed in my guest room. I was planning on adding substantial borders to get it up to size. I have lots of fabric for borders, backing and eventually pillow cases.

So now I’m motivated to finish sewing the Wensleydale blocks together so I can get that off my design wall and get this one up and decide if I have enough blocks.

Here’s the pattern I’ve used for the Japanese X & + quilt.

I did manage to sew two rows of the Wensleydale top together tonight. Since there’s only six blocks in each row It will go pretty quickly.

I’m taking the time to pin carefully so my points line up nicely from block to block. I don’t want to do all that work and have this last step look messy.

It’s worth the time.

I also decided to press the seams between blocks open because there’s bit of bulk where the points come together. I do not enjoy pressing seams open.

I stopped at two rows sewn together and decided to sit down and do some hand sewing on the binding for my NY Beauty wall hanging while I watched some TV and wound down for the evening.

I actually sat down first and watched a couple videos on how to hand sew bindings and they were really helpful. I got nearly three sides of this little quilt done and it was easy and pretty quick.

Of course, the KFC fabrics are really silky and soft so the needle goes through them nicely.

I’m supposed to go play pickleball tomorrow morning but I’ll play it by ear and see how my knee feels.

Sunday I’m heading up to Olympia, WA, for a sheep herding trial with Rico. The start time is 7:00 am, which means I’m going to have to be on the road at 4:30 am!!! I can’t believe I just typed that!

One of my boys is very farty tonight. I’m not sure which one but there’s a definite prolonged pungent pong around here.

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Wrapping Up Another UFO

I met a consultant I know through work for lunch today at a restaurant we love in Lake Oswego, OR, for some yummy tacos, chips and guacamole, and spicy Margaritas. We used to go to lunch at this restaurant every couple months before the pandemic hit. I saw her for the first time since the pandemic hit a few weeks ago when we had a lunch meeting with a vendor we both work with. It was so much fun to see her so we agreed to meet for lunch today. The food was so good. The margaritas were soooo delicious, and the company was wonderful.

After having a couple of cocktails with lunch, I wasn’t worth much the rest of the afternoon. So I spent a few hours catching up on emails and my to do list.

I’ve had a sore knee this week so decided to not walk today to give it a break. My boys don’t like this at all, but they got several play sessions in the back yard so that helped.

After feeding my boys dinner I hit my sewing room to make the binding for my NY Beauty wall hanging. You know how much I like making bindings!

It didn’t take very long because the quilt is only about 36 inches square. So before long I was wrestling it all through my machine.

Sewing this binding to this small quilt makes me really glad that I don’t have to sew binding to a big quilt!

Once I got it sewn on I had to find a video to remind myself how to join the two ends of the binding together. I do it so rarely that I always forget how to do it.

It’s really simple to do. I once purchased a special ruler to join bindings and this method is so much easier!

Once I got it joined I pressed and sewed that final section.

Then I pressed the binding and got it all clipped in place. I’ll hand sew it later.

I really like that pop of orange for the binding. It’s such a wonderful color with the blue border. It’s also in the quilt.

I’m not putting a sleeve or other hanging devices in this piece. I’m going to hang a small curtain rod on the wall above my sewing machine and will hang this using curtain rings with clips. That will make it easy to switch out different pieces when I need a change.

I didn’t walk today but noticed some lovelies on our walk last night.

More and more roses are blooming.

The peonies are starting to open up. Look at this gorgeous monster!!! It must have been more than six inches across!

I think this might be some kind of Lupine.

And the threes are showing all kinds of new growth…. so soft and so green.

I’m meeting a former coworker for lunch tomorrow. He retired at the end of last summer and I haven’t seen him since. I’m looking forward to it. But there will be no Margaritas tomorrow!

I have Monday off for the Memorial Day holiday, then I’m taking Tuesday off. Some friends and I are planning a get together here at my place on Monday.

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Wensleydale on the Design Wall and a Corgi Puppy

After dinner tonight I walked to a friend’s house to see their new corgi puppy and to take her a toy I whipped up for her.

Meet Bella. She’s just 11 weeks old.

It seems like it’s been a long time since I got to hang out with a little puppy. And I have to say, there is no puppy cuter than a corgi puppy!

She really liked the toy I made her!

And of course, I had to take a little video.

GAH! So cute! It’s nice to get a puppy fix.

After our evening walk I hit my sewing room and stacked all my value sorted Wensleydale blocks in preparation of getting them up on the design wall.

I like sorting by value or color, combining into a stack as it makes getting blocks arranged on the design wall easier. I feel like this first attempt is pretty good.

It always helps to make the photo black and white to just look at value.

I can see a couple areas here that I’ll want to adjust. But I’m really glad I made the last ten blocks really light and really dark. This quilt top needed those stark blocks.

Here’s an area that feels flat and too gray.

The entire column on the left side feels very gray and flat to me as well. It’s entirely possible that it’s just the lighting and photo. It very well may look completely different in real life. But this shows me areas to take a good look at.

I’ll leave these blocks on the design wall for a few days while I noodle over it and make some changes. But I’m not going to agonize over it. I feel pretty happy with this as it is.

And you shouldn’t be surprised that I put block #59 in the center of the quilt!

It’s likely I’ll have this sewn together this weekend. I’d like to check this off my list.

I think my next project will be a quick and easy one. I want to get the binding on this lovely that will hang above my sewing table.

That’s an easy evening’s project and it will feel good to finally finish this. I think I started this at least six years ago!

I’ve been thinking a lot today about this Magnificent Beast, Forrest. He was born 20 years ago today.

Most people I know have that one dog that was THE dog of a lifetime and mine was Forrest. He’s been gone for 5.5 years now and I smile about him often. It’s Forrest’s paw print that I had tattooed on my left arm a year ago.

One of my favorite photos of Forrest…

This photo was taken by my friend Heather during a hike in May. It was rainy and cool and I was going to leave Forrest at home because he was 14 at the time. He would have none of it… he wouldn’t let me leave the house without him. So I grabbed his little coat and took him along… knowing that I’d have to carry him for a god portion of the hike. I’m so glad I took him along. He had such a wonderful time… and so did I.

Forrest on the far left with Bender next to him. Rico is on the far right. He was only about six months old in this photo. His left ear hadn’t yet decided to stand at attention!

After the recent heat we’ve had, I had to break down and turn on my furnace this morning! I’m glad the heat is gone, but I’m not feeling positive that we’re going to have any delicious Oregon strawberries this spring.

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Wensleydale Blocks are All Done!!

I had just enough juice left tonight after work, two hours of pickleball and a 2 mile walk with my boys to finish up the final two Wensleydale blocks.

Here’s #60 under my needle.

And the final block finished and trimmed.

And I showed you the final block because I’m saving the best for last. I really think that block #59 just might be my favorite of all the blocks.

Many of the blocks I’ve made for this quilt are my favorite at the time I make them, but I think this might be the best of all of them! Maybe because it was almost the last.

Here’s the final two blocks together.

And a look at the final 10 blocks. . . look at all the lovely contrast!

Makes me think that when I make this pattern again I’ll plan more carefully to have that strong contrast between blocks. It gives a really cool effect and I’m guessing a lot of secondary patterns would emerge.

Once I got these two blocks done tonight I peeled the paper off the last ten blocks while I watched the last couple episodes of Ted Lasso on Apple TV.

I’ve got all the blocks sorted into piles by value of the outer fabric: dark, medium dark, medium light and light.

I still need to put the most recent blocks into their piles than if I have time I’ll toss them all up on my design wall tomorrow night.

I’m going to visit a friend tomorrow night who has a new corgi puppy. I’ve been looking forward to meeting here. There’s really nothing cuter than a corgi puppy.

Now it’s time to figure out what I’m going to make next.

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Where Did Sunday Go?

I have no idea what I did today that took up all those hours! I slept in a little. Got up and had a leisurely breakfast. Then I sewed a few blocks for my sunburst quarter log cabin blocks.

I need 17 more of these for the main body of this quilt top and got 15 of them made today. Then I’ll need to make a few more larger ones that will be cut in half for the setting triangles.

I did take just a few minutes this morning to replace the muslin on my ironing board. I’ve needed to do this for awhile now and it feels good to have it all clean and nice.

I used a double layer of muslin and attach it to the ironing board with elastic clips. It works really well.

It was supposed to be rainy today but we were able to get out and take a nice four mile walk in the early afternoon and we didn’t get any rain at all. We had the roads and trails pretty much to ourselves. I think everyone was thinking it was going to rain.

Then I lost a couple of hours. I honestly don’t know what I did with all the hours today. So after apparently daydreaming away a couple hours I had an early dinner.

Then I hit the sewing room and continued making sunburst blocks. I wrapped up my sewing by taking a pile of smaller KFC scraps that have been collecting as I sew the sunburst blocks… and sewing them into some crumb pieces. It felt good to get this pile cleaned up and a little more organized.

A friend of mine gave me some daffodils the other day and I tried something I’ve been wanting to try. I put red food coloring in the water. If you do this when the daffodils are just opening up, they will draw up the colored water and the color will appear on the petals.

You can just barely see the touches of red on the edges of the petals. This is after just one day. It will be interesting to see if more color appears over the next few days.

Holy cow… this weekend went by way too fast!

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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!