agilejack

I bugged out of work early today to go and play pickleball since it’s the last rain-free day for a while. It looks like our rainy season officially starts tomorrow.

And just in time, the masons finished rebuilding my chimney today! I would share a photo, but it’s just a chimney. The mason did tell me that my roofers did a really good job, so that was really good to hear. So my house will be all sealed up and dry this rainy winter. And I can’t have a lovely fire when I’m feeling cold.

Occupying me this week are the two dogs that are visiting for five days. Ernie and Bogart.

Here they are snoozing as I worked today. That’s Bogart on the bed. He’s a French bulldog. And frogging on the floor is Ernie. He’s a border terrier.

Here’s better photos of them.

Ernie has stayed with me before. This is Bogart’s first time visiting.

Have I told you that I have a thing for terriers? I had Jack Russell terriers for a few years. There’s something about them that I just love. So it’s really fun to have Ernie here. He’s Mr. Personality, and he’s snuggly and affectionate. I will likely have a border terrier at some point in my life.

Here’s Ernie joining me on a zoom meeting with my boss this afternoon.

Tonight is the second night they’ve been here. They are much more calm tonight and everyone is settled in and snoozing. Last night featured a lot of pacing, sniffing, and exploring. They all get along really well so it’s been pretty easy.

So, now to the part about finishing up my Another 16 Patch.

I sewed the rows together several nights ago. I can’t even remember when. And tonight I decided to dig in and get the borders on. It didn’t take very long. I like the dark fabric as the border. It makes it feel moody!

I made the border the same width as the sections in each block. I figured that was a way to get the right proportion. I would like this quilt to be just a little bigger, but It would look odd with wider borders. So it measures around 55 x 75. That’s a decent sized throw that will cover your feet and shoulders at the same time… which I like.

A little closer look so you can better see the border with the other fabrics. There’s some nice color in the border.

Wanda at the Exuberant Color blog has recently made one of these quilts in blues and greens and is in the early stages of another one in gorgeous shades of red and I think she’s using all Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics. Check it out here.

Now that I’ve finished this quilt top I’m going to reward myself with starting to sew the strip sets for my pink and orange Another 16 Patch quilt. I’m really anxious to start seeing those fabrics and colors coming together.

I went and played pickleball this morning and ended up playing for FOUR hours! Then I went to brunch with some my fellow players. It was after 3:30 when I got home. My dogs were pretty disappointed with my behavior.

They felt a little better when I took them out for a four-mile walk before dinner,

I hit my sewing room after a quick and light dinner and fixed the backing that was too small. I’m going to take it to my long arm quilter tomorrow.

If I hate making quilt backings, imagine how much I hated making the same damned one for a second time! But I like the addition of the strip of the striped fabric.

I like how the half circles and stripes play together and make it look like the stripes arch and turn and go back down the line of stripes.

I was all ready to lay down on the sofa when I was done with this backing and when I looked at my watch it was only 8:30!!! So much evening left to get some stuff done!

So I decided to start working on finishing up The Other 16 Patch quilt top that’s been sitting on my design wall. I managed to get all four rows sewn together, and that’s where I stopped.

With those great big blocks the rows go together really fast.

I’ll sew the horizontal seams tomorrow and then maybe get the borders on. I’m trying to force myself to finish this up before I start sewing on the orange and pink version.

I am going to go play pickleball tomorrow morning… if I can find a game. It’s my small way of celebrating a day off.

I had to work two three-hour shifts today. I didn’t have much time to do anything else.

After our late afternoon walk in gorgeous weather I got me and my boys our dinner then hit my sewing room. It’s still a bit of a radio studio, but our drive ended today and I’ll have it back in shape tomorrow.

I continued cutting strips for “The Other Sixteen Patch,” as Wanda at the Exuberant color blog dubbed it. She’s making one right now out of blue and green KFC fabrics. It’s nice to have a name for this quilt, rather than “that blue lap quilt” or “the quilt I started last week.”

The more strips I cut, the more I’m falling in love with the group of fabrics I selected for this quilt. Look at these gorgeous oranges!

It makes me sad that orange gets such a bad rap. It’s a fantastic color!

I pressed and cut the pink fabrics while I was on the phone with a friend.

One of the things I love about pressing and cutting these fabrics is that I get to put my hands on all of them and look more carefully at each print. I mean, come on… look at this!!

That one piece of fabric has all the colors I want in this quilt… pink, orange, purple and turquoise. It’s sort of magic!

I cut two strips from each of the 39 different fabrics. They’re now ready to divide into pairs in preparation of sewing.

It’ll be fun to start putting these together. And I’ll have some strips left over that I can use in other projects.

I drove up to Battleground, WA, between my two work shifts today for Rico’s sheep herding lesson and found that I had missed that this week’s lesson was happening down at my trainers place near Molalla, OR… remember, the place where I helped with lambing this last spring. So I missed our weekly lesson and found my self with enough time on my hands to run to the local quilting store that carries a ton of KFC fabrics. I had intended to just pick up the black and blue jumble I wanted for the border for The Other Sixteen Patch that’s on my design wall. I had it in my hand and was ready to head to the cutting counter when I saw a bolt of Brandon Mably’s crackle in the dark color way. This fabric is actually in that quilt, so I changed my mind and picked up some of that for the borders instead.

it’s a really cool fabric and will look great with this quilt top.

While I was looking through the bolts of fabric I saw something that kind of got my blood rushing. It’s Kaffe’s parasols in black. It’s been out of print for some time and Is nearly impossible to find. So I bought every inch of it… a little over 5.5 yards.

It’s a wonderful, great big graphic print and will make a gorgeous backing some day… or maybe I’ll find something more special to do with it. Either way, I’m pretty happy with this purchase!

I’m totally exhausted tonight so this will be a short post. Tomorrow morning I’m off to play pickleball, then I want to get the backing for my KFC scrappy trip quilt fixed. I’ll deliver it to my long arm quilter Monday. I’d also like to get “The Other Sixteen Patch” blocks sewn together and get the border cut and sewn on. That’s completely doable.

Then I can start sewing the orange/pink/purple strips together on Monday! That would be a fun project for my day off on Monday.

We have one day left in our fall radio on-air membership drive. I’m exhausted. I wanted to do a little sewing tonight but decided to do some cutting instead.

When I’m live on the air during fundraising I’m doing it through Zoom and I need to be hardwired into my internet, rather than using wifi. So that means I have to be in my sewing room since that’s where my router is. So my sewing room is a bit of a makeshift radio studio right now. Rather than turning it back into a sewing studio and then having to turn it back into a radio studio for my 7 am on air shift tomorrow morning, I decided to use the cutting table, which means I don’t have to mess with the radio studio set up.

So I decided to start cutting the 2.5 inch strips that I’ll need for my next quilt.

First, I took a few minutes earlier today during my lunch time to pare down the orange, pink and purple fabrics I had pulled from my stash. I took it from 58 fabrics down to 39 fabrics. That’s still plenty of fabrics!

The stack of fabrics in the background is what I culled from the original group.

After dinner I started pressing fabrics. I like to be efficient so I pressed all the “black” fabrics I’ll use in this quilt. And then started cutting with this group.

I managed to cut strips from all the “black” fabrics and the purple fabrics.

I cut two strips from each fabric. I’m going to need 60 strips for the size quilt I want to make so 11 of these fabrics will appear twice in the quilt top.

Oh, and the pattern? I’m going to make the same pattern as the blue lap quilt that I took to my quilter the other day. I haven’t satisfied my appetite for this quilt yet! And I’m really excited about this fabric and color combo!

Remember those portraits of my mom’s grand mothers that I took off my living room wall a few weeks ago?

Well, I had a brainstorm on what to do with them last night.

In May I was going to go with my brothers and SILs to visit my aunt in Seattle when my trip was cancelled due to my Covid case. Well, we’re going to take a weekend in November and go visit her. One of her sons, my cousin, has a winery named after the town in northern Italy where my grandparents were from. So I texted him to see if he wanted the portraits, and he’s incredibly excited to have them for his winery!

He even knows the names of these grannies. That’s Livia on the left, my mom’s namesake. And that’s Felicita on the right. I’m so thrilled that someone in the family wants them!

I’ll be on air fundraising again early in the morning, then I hurry and high tail it to Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson. Then I’ll high tail it home to work behind the scenes on the final shift. I’m hoping I have enough oomph left at the end of the day to sew together the blocks I finished a few days ago.

Oh, and I MUST fix the backing for my KFC scrappy trip quilt and get it off to my long armer so she can get that quilt onto the frame and quilted.

I’m looking forward to my work schedule easing off a little!

Here’s a photo of my boys from earlier this week to let everyone know they are well and happy and still with me!

I have not yet given them up for rescue! Hahaha!

I cut out from work early this afternoon (I have to be on the job at 7 am tomorrow) and took what would normally be a quick drive but turned into an hour-long trek with rush hour traffic. My destination? My long arm quilter!

I was so excited to see so many finished quilts. . . six of my friend’s and one of mine.

First, let’s look at the stack of my friend’s six quilts that I picked up.

My favorite of my friend’s quilts is the second one from the top. It’s all Australian Aboriginal fabrics six inch squares set on point. It’s such a simple design but it’s absolutely gorgeous!!! And the quilting is perfect!

I’ll try to take some better photos tomorrow in the early evening light. But for now, here’s a little detail.

Here’s some detail photos of the other four quilts. They all turned out so great!!! (click on each photo to get a larger view.)

Photos taken in a dark guest room don’t really do these quilts justice. It’s so hard to get photos that show them the way they look in person.

And now, the one that has me really excited! This is the Moss Garden quilt that I made for my bed. And I love it!!! It feels so amazing in my hands. I wish you could feel it!

This is a big quilt. I think it measures 96×96 inches! It is substantial. Here’s some detail.

It’s so amazing to look at a finished quilt and think, “I made that!!!”

And how about that binding! And the fun pieced backing! It’s so gorgeous! Yum!

I dropped off the blue lap quilt and my little NY beauty wall hanging. And I picked up the backing that I need to fix. I’m hoping to get it redone this weekend and deliver it back to her on Monday… I’m taking the day off from work. She said it’s next in line once she gets the backing.

It’s going to be fun to have those pieces back and I can’t wait to deliver the lap quilt to my friend!

I haven’t been very productive the last few days, with the exception of work. It’s been a busy week and it’s not over!

But I’ve been thinking about a color combo that has me sort of excited. I’m nowhere near a decision on what pattern I might make, but here’s the fabrics that have me enthusiastic tonight.

A quick count tells me that’s around 55 different Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics that I pulled from my stash. It’s likely I’ll edit this pile quite a bit before I start cutting, Some of them are very similar and don’t offer a lot of variation in pattern. But I like the fabrics and colors. I can definitely see some right now that I will pull out and put carefully and neatly back into my recently organized drawers of KFC fabrics. Hahaha! I kill me!

Here’s how this selection of fabrics came to be. I’ve always loved orange and pink together. So I pulled some oranges and pinks that I like. In looking at the fabrics I pulled I noticed pops of color I liked… the purples and turquoises especially. I also wanted a black pop here and there so selected several fabrics that have black or dark backgrounds. So that combo of colors guided this initial pull. I did pull a few things out of the drawer that went right back in. Some of these will need some thought before I decide they either stay or go back in the drawer.

I think I want to make another quilt like my recently completed blue lap quilt. I’ve wanted to make one for some time with some beautiful bright colors. But I’m thinking maybe something that has an occasional larger block would be good to showcase some of these larger prints. Maybe a disappearing nine patch made from 6 inch squares. Or maybe make the same pattern as the black KFC quilt that I’ve recently come to love again.

Well, there’s no hurry on this so I have some time to think about it. I did put some fabrics together tonight for some bucket bags and got the outer bags and linings cut. I have a few pieces of heavy batiks that a friend gave me several years ago and they’re prefect for lining some bucket bags. They didn’t go with any of my aged muslin so I pulled out my denims to see what I have. I found a really cool gray denim that I forgot I had purchased. I’ve had it for several years and have never used it. I combined it with this pretty green batik.

The other combo I put together was this blue denim and red batik.

I’m heading off to visit my long arm quilter again tomorrow evening to drop off the blue lap quilt along with my NY beauty wall hanging. And… I got a message from her the other day that she was just pulling the last quilt off the frame! That’s six of my friend’s quilts and one of mine… all done in around three weeks! I was so surprised she was done so fast! I can’t wait to see them. I’ll share photos when I have them in my hot little hands. Maybe I’ll have a brand new quilt on my bed tomorrow night!

I also took some time this evening to print a label for the blue lap quilt. I typed up my message on my laptop, added a little piece of clip art, and printed it on fabric adhered to freezer paper. I took the time to soak it in some Retain to help set the ink. I don’t always label my quilts, but this quilt seems to need a label.

Several months ago I made a test label and washed it several times and it held up well. I didn’t use the retain on that one. It’s a really quick and easy way to make a label that looks really nice. You can find instructions and video tutorials online. I used the freezer paper method and printed on white fabric I have on hand.

I still need to sew together the dark quilt blocks that I whipped up this weekend. I need to get that done before it goes into my dark pit of unfinished projects!

Someone I follow on Instagram has decided that she’s going to use the remainder of 2022 to finish up her works in progress. This is such a good idea but I don’t think I could discipline myself to do it and not start any new projects. Maybe I should aim for finishing one of my larger WIPs before I ring in the new year. Hmmm… I think I know which one I’d finish first…

It’s interesting how I can be in a creative funk one month and be on a productive streak the next month. Right now I’m feeling pretty damned productive.

I got up this morning and went and played Pickleball… FOR THREE HOURS! So when I got home I really just wanted to plop down on the sofa and ice my knee. Which I did for a half hour. I even set my timer so I wouldn’t let it drag out.

Then I hit my sewing room and got busy.

I finished sewing the final seams for the strip sets for the quilt I started yesterday. Then I got them pressed, trimmed the blocks and sat down on the sofa to pin the pieces as I watched even MORE Pickleball!

This is all the scraps that were left over! That’s a pretty efficient pattern!

Here’s A big stack of the blocks all pinned and ready to sew. I whipped these through my little Featherweight chain piecing style. It didn’t take long.

Then I got them all pressed and set them aside to work on something more pressing.

That’s all 20 blocks laid out on my cutting table.

Next I got cracking on the backing for the blue lap quilt. I plan to take it to my long arm quilter tomorrow. I had to add a strip down the center to make the piece wide enough. I didn’t want to cut up more of the bird fabric.

Next I dug into my stash to see if I had something to use as a backing for my NY Beauty wall hanging and discovered a left over piece of this wide backing from my blue 16 patch quilt.
And it matches the border on the wall hanging! So perfect!

That orange (the fruit and the color!) at the bottom will be the binding. It’s in the pieced top.

These quilts are all packaged up with their tops and are ready to go to my quilter.

Since I was still feeling like I wanted to get some shit done I tossed the new blocks up on my design wall.

I’m not sure I’d ever put this collection of fabrics together but I kind of like it. I like that it feels dark, but it has some really wonderful pops of color. I’ll still move a few things around after I look at it a little more.

These 20 blocks make for a pretty small quilt top, so I decided that I’ll add some borders. First I tried the dark Kaffe tiddlywinks, the dark pods at the top and the spotted fabric at the right. I sort of liked the tiddlywinks at first, but wasn’t sure about it.

Then I tried some black and white jumble because it almost always works. Nope!

Then I wondered about different color ways of jumble. And I think I found my border!

I’ll ruminate on this for a few days and then order some if I don’t change my mind.

I’m going to play Pickleball again tomorrow morning. Then I’ll wait to hear from my quilter on the best time to drop by.

In the last couple days, someone asked me about the blue fabrics I used in that lap quilt. I can’t locate the email or message to respond. But here’s the fabrics I used for my original blue KFC 16 patch, which is where most of them are from. You can find a fabric list that identifies all of these fabrics here. (For the person who asked the question: try Tennessee Quilts for the fabric you were asking about. I might have gotten it there.)

Look at this cutie patootie French bulldog names Gigi who was at Pickleball this morning. She was so friendly and excited to see me (ie: smell my dogs on me!).

I think I might need a small dog again.

Another stressful week. Why are there so many these days. So it feels ready good to have the weekend here.

I had so much making the little blue lap quilt that I did pull apart that KFC jelly roll I found in a drawer when my friend was helping me clean out my sewing room. I took a short break from work this afternoon and opened it up and paired up all the strips into sets of two. I have to say, it’s jot a combo of fabrics I would put together.

Yet… they look really cool together. Get a load of this.

There are some fun combos in there. and, by the way, they look better in person than in photos. It will be fun to get the blocks done and see how they look together.

I’m sewing these all production line style. First, before dinner I sat down and sewed all 20 strip pairs together.

Then after our walk I finger pressed all these sets and pressed them with the iron. I used my metal ruler to make sure my strip sets were nice and straight before I pressed them.

To facilitate the quicker assembly line sewing, I hung the 40 pressed strip sets on the back of my sewing chair to keep them organized. then I carefully moved that pile to my lap and just grabbed one after another and got them all chain pieced.

I got to the point where I have all 40 blocks ready to sew the two final pieces into a strip set of 8 strips. Then I’ll press and cut into the two sections for the finished block.

It’s important with these blocks to identify which strip id the light and shich is the dark. Sometimes it can be hard tog tell. So I will take a photo and adjust it to black an white. Then it’s often obvious which is the dark and which is the light fabric.

Sometimes they’re so similar I just have to pick one.

It’s very likely that I’ll finish up these blocks tomorrow. That will be one fast damned make!

Other things that need to get done tomorrow: Make the baking for my NY beauty wall hanging. I had hoped to use this fabric but discovered that I don’t have enough of it.

I’ll have to dig into my stash and see what else I have that will work. Might have to piece it from batiks.

I also need to make the backing for the blue lap quilt. I’m planning on taking both of these to my long arm quilter on Sunday.

The Aboriginal fabric I ordered for the background of the cross crossing quilt arrived today. I bought a couple of other pieces while I was at it.

Our fundraiser had to suspended until Monday. So I have tomorrow free. I’m planning on playing Pickleball first thin in the morning, then I’ll hunker down at home and get some sewing done.

I had hoped to get my blue KFC lap quilt top half-sewn this evening. But I actually got it all done!

I had seen earlier in the day that there are new episodes of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix so I fired it up and got sewing.

I got the first two rows put together in no time and moved onto the third and fourth rows.

It all goes together really quickly if you press everything correctly. All the seams will nest nicely and your corners will be perfect! And it all goes together really quickly because there are only three horizontal seams!

And I just love that feeling of the seams nesting… that soft little “click” is almost meditative to me.

Over the years I’ve developed some tricks that help me keep my blocks and rows in order as I assemble my quilt top. First is that I mark the left most block of each row with a number.

This helps keep the rows in the right order and the right orientation.

And as I get ready to sew each row of this quilt I make sure that the center seam allowance of each big block go in one direction in one row, and in the opposite direction in the next row so the seams on the rows will nest. If the seam allowance is going the wrong direction in this block, all you have to do is rotate the block so the bottom becomes the top… then your seam allowance will be going in the correct direction.

Here’s the finished top. I just love the look of a quilt top when it’s all sewn together and pressed. It just all melds into one cohesive thing.

Here’s a little eye candy.

I’m going to crack away and get the backing for this quilt done in the next couple of days so I can take this to my long arm quilter on Sunday. I’ll also pick up the backing for my scrappy trip quilt so I can make it the correct size for the quilt.

I was able to locate some of the white Aboriginal fabric I want for the background of my upcoming quilt in an online shop and have already ordered some. And, of course, I had to buy a few other pieces that caught my eye.

A hectic couple of weeks coming up at work as our fall radio fundraising drive starts tomorrow. Better get off to bed for an early day tomorrow.

I change my mind a lot. I think about things. Try new things. Go back to the original thing. Try another new thing. Go back to the second thing.

Here’s one of the things I changed my mind on today. Yesterday I was pretty sure I was going to use the Moda fabric as the background for my upcoming Aboriginal quilt. Well, I looked around the inter-webs last night to see what light Aboriginal fabrics were out there and I ran across this fabric.

When I got home from Rico’s dog agility class tonight I dug into my stash because I thought I might have a piece of it. And I did! So I tried it with the fabrics I’ve put together for this quilt.

At first I was afraid the more stark white would be too much for this. But I changed my mind! I love it. It’s perfect. Look at this closer view.

I just LOVE the way it looks with those colorful fabrics. I love the way in brings movement to the background. I love that some spots are more airy and some more dense.

Now I just have to see if I can find some online to buy! Wish me luck.

And I changed my mind another time today about my black quilt top. One of my blog readers had expressed interest in purchasing it since I wasn’t happy with it. So I dug it out this weekend to measure it and decide on a price, and I fell in love with it all over again.

I mean… look at this!!!

… and this…

Yes, it’s chaotic but I decided that the fabrics individually and together are just too pretty for me to part with this right now. And I’ve decided that I won’t cut it up any time soon. I think maybe it’s jut not very photogenic. It’s much prettier in person than in photos.

Oh! And I just remembered that I got a phone call on the way to agility class tonight from my long arm quilter. She let me know that one of the quilt backs I delivered to her a couple weeks ago is too small! Apparently, I made the backing square and the quilt isn’t square. Unfortunately, instead of being too big on one side, it’s too small.

It’s this backing for my scrappy KFC trip quilt. So I’ll pick up the backing from her this weekend and fix it. She said all I have to do is cut out the center seam and add an 8 inch strip down the middle. That should be simple enough. I even have a good number of the strip sets left over that I could use to fill that gap.

Have I told you how much I hate making quilt backings?

But, the good thing is that I will push to finish up the blue quilt I’m working on, get the backing pieced and deliver it to her at the same time.

I’ve also decided to take this NY Beauty quilt I made a couple years ago to her to custom quilt. I will hang this on the wall of my sewing room.

I had originally planned to do the quilting on this myself. And that’s why it’s still not done three years later. I also don’t love free motion quilting. Well, that’s not really true. I enjoy it when my sewing machine cooperates. The thing I hate about it is dealing with broken and frayed threads. I know I will be happier if someone else finishes this up.

And I’m happy to report that I located the reader Frankenbags that have been sent to me over the last few weeks, but it looks like I have misplaced the notes that came with each. So here we go.

This first bag comes from Janet Starner, I really like the color combo on this one and the curved piecing is really good! And how delicious is that polka dot lining with the orange pocket? Yum!

This next bag was made by Patsy Stein. I love the free form approach to the piecing she used. And those bold strips of black and white are fantastic! And the pops of color here and there are so good!

Up next is this bag made by Necia Chessman. The blues and turquoises are so pretty together, and you know how much I love the bold black and white parts. And the tiny pops of oranges, yellows and reds really make this bag sing!

This last bag is from Judith Kendrick. What a great way to use that panel in the center photo! And the bold yellow borders are really nice. I’m thinking Judith told me that she adjusted the handles so they would fit over the back of a wheelchair. Sorry I can’t find the notes sent by readers. I’m trying to reconstruct it from memory.

Thanks to everyone who sent photos of their bags!