agilejack

I bought some gray batiks a couple years ago thinking I wanted to use them to make a kaleidoscope quilt. I lost interest in making that pattern, but started thinking recently about making something with those grays.

So I thought about combining them with some low value colored batiks along with a variety of black and white prints.

Here’s the first few blocks.

It’s definitely a departure from what I usually make. I was laughing as I was sewing this evening because it seemed so quiet as I was sewing! Maybe all those bright fabrics have been screaming at me! There are some bolder black and white prints that will show up soon in these blocks. It will be interesting to see how they look.

If I had this quilt in mind when I was buying the gray batiks I probably would have purchased some different fabrics. The darker grays might be a little too dark, but overall I like where this is going.

I went through my stash of batiks to pull out my lighter colored pieces and I only had about a half dozen that were what I wanted for this quilt. So I went online and bought a bunch… sight unseen. I don’t usually buy batiks online because you never know how accurate the photos are. It’s risky, but I was pretty happy with what was delivered.

I sewed three blocks today and made an additional four strip sets.

I still have ten more blocks to make for my scrappy KFC trip quilt. I hope to make some progress on that tomorrow.

Today was the third day of a nasty winter storm here in Portland and surrounding areas. It started with snow and rain on Friday and turned into a terrible ice storm Friday night and all day Saturday. Today was a little better, but it’s still dangerous out there. There are trees down all over the area and hundreds of thousands of people are without power. I’ve been so lucky that I’m still warm and toasty.

Friday night was the worst part of the storm. On top of all the ice, we had gusty winds. At about 2 am a limb broke off one of my neighbor’s Douglas Fir trees with a bang and came crashing down through all the lower limbs as I laid in bed waiting to hear it crash into my roof… right over my head. Instead I heard it brush the side of my house as it came down. I went out to take a look and it was leaning on my neighbor’s roof. I’m pretty sure my life passed before my eyes! It scared the hell out of me and the dogs!

We had more freezing rain early this evening. But the temperature has finally gone up a little tonight and I can hear the ice melting and dropping from the trees near my house. It’s a wonderful sound!

Here’s my humming bird feeder from earlier this evening.

Here’s the feeder on Saturday afternoon.

The neighborhood was absolutely deserted yesterday morning so I got bundled up and took the dogs out. I had planned to just let them run leash free on the street in front of my house, but it was so nice outside and it felt so good to be moving around, we turned it into a 2.5 mile walk. They had so much fun!

They drug each other around by the leash for at least half of the walk. They were exhausted when we got home and had a nice snooze.

Look at this happy face…

I took the boys out for another walk this afternoon and it was a pretty exhausting walk. The snow on the roads is more icy in spots, loose in other spots, and just a mess. We did walk about 2.5 miles and worked hard the entire walk.

I did take some photos of ice around the neighborhood today. Amazing that something so pretty can be do dangerous and cause so much damage.

I have to say, I am not a fan of ice storms! I’ll be really glad when this one is behind us.

The Portland area is having it’s first winter storm of this season. Snow is not terribly common here, but we do usually get a couple of small snow storms each winter. So far there isn’t much snow, but there is a thin layer of ice on the roads and sidewalks. It doesn’t take much to make it really treacherous.

This photo was taken at 9:45 pm. Those big trees across the street are waving back and forth with the wind gusts.

I joined the Portland Modern Quilt Guild a couple of months ago and tonight was the monthly meeting via Zoom. So I got my laptop set up in my sewing room and took the opportunity to assemble 8 trip blocks while I listened.

I picked the seams on all the block sections, got the pieces all pressed and pinned, and then chain pieced them all.

Here’s the 8 blocks I made tonight, all pressed and ready to go on the design wall.

With these blocks made tonight I only have ten more blocks to make and then I can start arranging them on the design wall. I don’t think that step will take too long.

It was cold and blustery all day today, but we were able to get outside for our afternoon two-mile walk.

Both of these boys have been having some loose poops the last few days. I was able to get a vet appointment for them tomorrow because of a cancelation. Otherwise, I would have had to wait a month. So I’m going to have them do annual exams and some vaccinations that are due while they’re in.

I’ve had several friends with dogs who were under the weather. Could be something going around. The seem to feel fine.

I’ve had several people ask me how I’m arranging my colors in my strip sets for my scrappy trip quilt. A couple others have asked for clarification on how I use the metal ruler in pressing my strip sets.

I made a quick video to show you how I use the ruler. But first, here’s a few tips on how I make my strip sets. After I sew two strips together, I finger press the seam allowance. Then I’ll press each set of two strips with the iron. I sew the three sets of two strips into one big set of six strips then finger press the seam allowances on the two new seams. I press the whole six strip set on the ironing board. I press the seam allowances in the direction recommended in Bonnie Hunter’s tutorial. I find that finger pressing has helped me keep my strip sets straighter and makes it easier to press the sets.

Here’s a link to my metal ruler video on Youtube.

Now, about how I’m arranging my colors for the blocks in my scrappy trip. I want red to be the predominant color in the quilt, so I’ve cut more red strips than other colors. Here’s the photo that I shared earlier of my fabric strips for this quilt.

The rows of colors in this photo are basically red, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, purple. They’re all in the same order as the colors of the rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I remember it by remembering Roy G. Biv.

Each strip set starts with one of the darker reds, followed by a lighter red or orange. Then a yellow. The remaining three strips are a combo of green, turquoise, blue and purple. Not all of these last four colors will appear in each block.

Here are some strip sets that I sewed together and pressed tonight.

The colors in each strip set follow the order of the colors in the rainbow.

When I’m putting the blocks together I keep the darkest red as the center strips on the diagonal of the block, as in these two blocks.

This is what gives me the strong red diagonal lines across the quilt and forms the shape of the diamonds. I saw one tutorial for this quilt that said the center diagonal should be the strongest fabric in your set of six… either the darkest, lightest, or most vivid pattern.

Of course, you can arrange your colors any way you want. And I have a lot of ideas for different color arrangements I’d like to try.

And speaking of color… LOOK AT THIS!!!

I’ve been collecting gray batiks for some time thinking I’d like to make a monochromatic quilt out of them some day. And now I’m thinking it might be a trip quilt.

I’ve been looking at lighter and more neutral approaches to the trip quilts and I really like the soft comfy look of them.

But I’m thinking I might add in some light pastel colored batiks to give it a little bit of interest.

I’m going to give this some thought before diving in.

After work last night I put together four strip sets for this quilt. I had to work this morning doing fundraising on the radio, then took the dogs for a nice long 5 mile walk after that. When we got home I dug in and whipped up the 8 blocks from the sets.

I took my scrappy batik 16-patch blocks off the design wall so I could move these blocks over to get the full width up. The finished quilt top will be 6 blocks wide and 7 blocks high. This is the full width. I have three more rows of blocks to make, or 18 blocks.

I’m really loving how this is turning out. I just stand in my sewing room and stare at it. This isn’t the final design. I’ll wait until I get all the blocks done to start tweaking.

Holy cow. These fabrics! So amazingly gorgeous!

So yummy.

when I was going to through my stash of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics for this scrappy trip quilt I realized that I had a pretty poor selection of purples and greens. So I went online a couple of days ago and ordered a bunch. I don’t have any specific plans for these fabrics. But aren’t they gorgeous?

The KFC fabrics are so amazing to me in the way the colors just all work together. Look at all those different tones of green… and they look fantastic together! I’ve been wanting to make a quilt with KFC greens. I’ll have to keep my eyes out for a pattern.

I saw this Brandon Mably design called Primulas when I was shopping online. I don’t remember when it came out. In the photos online the print looks much smaller. But you can see from the photo that’s not the case. I really like it!

I have a sheep herding lesson with Rico tomorrow afternoon. I plan to get more strip sets and blocks done tomorrow.

Not much to say tonight except that I’ve finished nine blocks for my scrappy trip quilt and I’m loving how this is coming together!

I love how the blue pools in one spot while the yellows pool in others. I love the boldness of the red diagonals. I love the randomness of the fabrics.

I can’t wait to see this as I get more blocks added.

It poured here all evening so that gave me more time to get a start on my new quilting project. The dogs are not happy that we didn’t get our regular walk tonight. Luckily, we did get a two mile walk in this afternoon. But that’s not enough for any of us. We have a week or so of cloudy but dry weather coming up.

After dinner I gave the dogs chewies to keep them occupied and hunkered down in my sewing room. I finished the first three blocks for this quilt.

I wanted to finish four blocks, but I was tired and made mistakes that I had to pick out on the third block. So I decided it was time to wind down with a little TV instead.

I have to say… I’m really happy with where this is going. I always have some difficulty in picturing what a quilt is going to look like once I’ve selected my fabrics. I was thinking these blocks were going to read darker. And I’m really happy with the red as the diagonal center in each block. I think I’ll see some interesting color blocks appear once I get more blocks done and up on the design wall.

I made four full strip sets tonight. That’s the most time consuming part of making these blocks. I really like to be careful and make sure my seams are accurate and that I press them nice and straight. That means that my blocks will go together nice and easy.

Here’s the first strip set on my ironing board. Holy cow! Look at all that gorgeousness!

See that big old metal ruler on my ironing board? I use that to make sure my strip sets are straight as I press them. Using a ruler has really helped make my strip sets more accurate and much nicer to work with.

I actually sewed the first block together wrong… and that was after taking a photo of it laid out and admiring it for a while. Why didn’t I see it at this point?

The good thing about making a mistake early on is that it was a great learning experience and now I have a really good system for deciding which seam to pick out in each section.

And speaking of unpicking… I read something recently that said that seam rippers do wear out. They get dull after use and you need to replace them. The seam ripper I’ve been using is a green plastic one that I got after I graduated from college in 1983. I started using it tonight and it was pulling the thread rather than cutting it. So I grabbed a new one that my brother gave me several years ago. It’s a beautiful one a friend of his made out of Myrtle wood. It has a seam ripper on one end and a stiletto on the other end. Instead of a cap, you just pull out the sharp end, turn it around and push it into the handle part.

The sharp ripper really made a big difference! So I can confidently recommend that you occasionally purchase a new seam ripper!

I’ve already selected all the strips for the sets that I need to make. So now I just need to grab a set of six strips and start sewing.

I’ve cut and selected enough strips to make about 46 blocks. That way I’ll have a few extra in case I end up with some that I don’t like.

These blocks will finish at 12 inches square. I’m planning on making this quilt 6 blocks by 7 blocks, which means I’ll need 42 blocks. It will end up about 72 x 84 inches. That’s a nice throw size quilt.

I think this quilt will be a lot of fun to make because each block will be unique. That will keep it interesting.

I will have about 12 inches or so left over in each strip set — not enough to make another block. So I’ll have to come up with a project to use that all up.

I’m itching to get moving on my next quilt. I almost felt panicked Friday when I thought I hadn’t decided what to make next.

I’ve been busy cutting 2.5 inch strips from all Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics. Here are 133 2.5 inch strips. 133 unique fabrics.

I’ve wanted to make a quilt with a bunch of different fabrics for awhile. I’m excited to see how this will turn out.

It took a long time to cut all these strips. And now I’m wishing I had cut multiple strips of each while I was at it. Oh well. Live and learn. Look at this huge pile of slivers that I cut to even up the edges before cutting my strips.

All of these 2.5 inch strips will be made into a scrappy trip around the world quilt following Bonnie Hunter’s tutorial. I can’t wait to see how this turns out. I’ll start sewing strip sets tomorrow night.

I decided that my scrappy batik 16-patch needed one more row. I like a throw quilt to be nice and generous in length… I don’t want to have to choose between having my shoulders OR my feet covered. I want enough quilt to cover them both. So I dug through my scraps again and made a few extra blocks for the additional row and moved some other blocks around a little.

I’m pretty happy with how this looks now, but will take a few days before I start sewing the rows together so I can tweak a little.

Here’s the black and white version.

I can see some things in this photo that are bothering me. But overall, I really like this quilt.

Rico had his sheep herding trial debut today up near Olympia, Washington. He was such a good boy. It was a great experience for the first time out. Here’s a video of one of his runs.

Sorry for all the yelling. It’s very exciting and stressful when you’re out there and are sheer dog and sheep flying all over the place!

Here we are waiting our turn. I feel like we look relaxed, but my heart was pounding out of my chest! I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve this dog.

I like to make a blog post with each finished quilt to make a record of the fabrics I used.

Here’s the fabric list for my Blue KFC 16-Patch quilt top finished 1/28/2021.

Top Row

• Kaffe’s Guinea Flower in black

• Kaffe’s Shirt Stripes in cobalt

• Kaffe’s Millefiore in blue

• Philip Jacobs’ Begonia Leaves in cobalt

• Brandon Mably Moss in blue

• Kaffe’s Enchanted in cobalt

Row 2

• Kaffe’s Persian Garden in blue

• Philip Jacobs’ Spiral Shells in blue

• Kaffe’s Enchanted in blue

• Brandon’s St. Clements in blue

• Kaffe’s Elephant Flower in blue

• Kaffe’s Dahlia Blooms in cool

Row 3

• Kaffe’s Pencils in blue

• Kaffe’s Paper Fans in cool

• Philip Jacob’s Glory in cool

• Philip Jacobs’ Curly Baskets in Delft

• Philip Jacobs’ Poppy Garden in blue

• Brandon Mably’s Jumble in cobalt

Row 4

• Brandon Mably’s Labels in white
• Kaffe’s Vine in blue
• Brandon Mably’s Mad Plain in blue
• Kaffe’s Spots in sky
• Kaffe’s Buttons in blue
• Kaffe’s Mughal in white

Backing will be Kaffe’s Millefiore in blue, and I’m contemplating doing a border in the cobalt shirt stripes just to make the quilt a little bigger.

I took advantage of all my screen time today and pinned the final two rows of my blue KFC 16-patch blocks together. I sewed it all together this evening.

I’m happy to be able to put this one in the finished pile. My plan is to use the dark blue millefiore wide backing that’s coming out next month. This quilt will probably be a holiday gift for a friend who absolutely loves blue.

It was really fun to work with a color way that I don’t typically use. And the wonderful thing about Kaffe fabrics is that even though these are all blue, there’s a lot of other color in there. I just love looking more closely at each block to see how the fabrics and colors play together.

Since I had this quilt off the design wall I went ahead and threw the batik 16-patch blocks up so I could get an idea of how they all look together.

I’m really happy with this collection of blocks, but there are some that I really don’t like. So I’m thinking I will dive into my batiks and find some fabrics to make at least four different blocks. I will look at this for a couple days before I decide to do that. But it’s pretty likely to happen.

Here’s a shot of these blocks in black and white. There are definitely a few things I want to change. I’ll give it a couple of days to ferment.

I’d better decide what I’m going to make next!

I have been in video meetings from 9 am to 5 pm for two days and have one more day to go. Yesterday I got very stir crazy. So I decided that today I wanted to have some hand work next to my desk to keep my hands occupied while my brain was working. So I looked around my sewing room last night and pulled out the green batik blocks that I made a few weeks ago. They had been stacked and labeled in rows.

I pinned all of these rows together during the meeting this morning and felt more at peace during a stressful and draining day.

And I got them all sewn together tonight, so this quilt top is done! This is the second quilt top I’ve finished in January

The blocks are tall so there are only five rows here. It went together quickly.

It’s funny, but I like this quilt better on this bed than I did on the design wall. There are some really pretty spots in this quilt top.

As I was pressing a section of this as I was putting the rows together I noticed how nice the back looks. I do like it when the back of a quilt looks almost as nice as the front. Even though it will never be seen, it gives me satisfaction to know that something looks nice.

I’m going to pin together the final two rows of blue 16-patch blocks tomorrow morning and hope to finish that top up tomorrow night. Then I can move the 72 scrappy batik 16-patch blocks to the bigger design wall.

The blue 16-patch and scrappy batik 16-patch quilt tops will be #14 and #15 that I’ve finished since we started isolation back in March.