Almost 2012

Three more days and we will be in 2012.  This has not been a bad year but this holiday season has been different than what we expected. Our daughter in law's mother passed away the Friday before Christmas and though it was not unexpected it is a sadness nevertheless. I spent a day in the hospital after a nasty episode of vertigo and I missed the funeral yesterday. Today we will wind up the Christmas gatherings with family and exchange gifts. Tomorrow one  more funeral, for a church member who has been ill for a long time. He will surely be missed but there can be no doubt that he is in a better place. Remembering what Christmas is all about makes these losses less difficult to bear.

Looking ahead to 2012 our Sewing in the Basement group is getting together for a Jelly Roll Race. We are sewing the strips together first at home and then when we get together we  will start the race.  This is a Moda Central Park Jelly Roll that I purchased on sale, in the fall, in hopes that we would do a  race.
Yesterday I thought that I would just sew them together one after the other as they were in the roll but when I looked at them  I realized that at the end of the roll there were strips  that were the same 3 or 4  patterns in different colorways so I sorted those and put them where I thought they went best. I will sew my strips together in the next few days, maybe Saturday, as we will probably not even go out to dinner for New years Eve.

The day after Christmas

Our Christmas eve and Christmas day were kind of low key.  Just church and dinner and no opening of presents. Following our church service yesterday there was a Birthday Party for the Newborn Baby Jesus; we had cupcakes coffee and tea and punch or something for the kids. We all brought birthday presents, packages of diapers, which will be given to local charities. There sure were a lot of diapers around the tree; I hope this will be a new tradition.

Around 6 PM we had part of our family at our house for dinner. There were 8 of us, our son and daughter in law and three of my grandchildren and one great grandson. The two young men who are brothers, my sons children and my granddaughter, who is one of my daughters children, and her 5 year old son.

 On Thursday our whole family will get together at our daughters to open presents.

Would you believe that I still  have to find one more Christmas present before Thursday?. Most of what I ordered from Amazon was just what I expected but there were a couple of things that did not seem age appropriate so I have one more thing to get before Thursday. We were already out this morning to get one present for our grandson who arrived yesterday from Missouri. We had no idea what to get him. When you haven't seen someone for 6 months it is not so easy.

Today is a beautiful, sunny, winter day and Jack is out for a ride on his  motorcycle. I am staying in where it is nice and warm and contemplating the culling and organization of my mish mash of fabric. More about this to follow.

Merry Christmas

When all is said and done this is what it is all about.

Wishing Everyone a Happy

 and

 Blessed Christmas



One more tree

We have a little tree that hangs on the wall above Jack's chest of drawers. it is probably about 30 years old and has been decorated in numerous ways over the years. the little  angel  on the top doesn't always make it to the tree because the  tree is usually up after the other tree is taken down and all  the decorations put away. If I put the little angel somewhere other than with the rest of the Christmas things I don't always find it till way after Christmas. This has come to be Jack's tree. His desk is right next to the dresser and he turns it on when he gets up every morning and he can see it when he sits at his computer. We leave it on as a night light until who ever goes to bed last turns it off.

I made a cover for my little neck pillow with my orphan block. When we got new pillows for our bed I took the covers off the old ones  and washed them and the stuffing and cut the covers and the pillows in half  and made throw pillows and I had  some stuffing left over and I made a neck pillow. The stuffing is  really nice and much more  resilient than the throw pillow inserts I have bought. I love to salvage stuff I might have thrown away.

My friend Kathy left me a comment yesterday promising to nag me about the tree skirt. She is a good friend who usually reminds me by email  when our friendship meeting are coming up and promptly answers my questions about the  friendship  blocks. I know she will remind me to  make the tree skirt.

Here is another shot of the tree  outside our bedroom window It has about 2 inches or more of snow on the branches. It snowed pretty steady all  day and without any real wind it made all of the trees look beautiful. This poor oak tree lost its top at least 10 -12 years back in a storm that came through and took out trees all over the place; they didn't cut it down but left it and it spread its branches out very wide at the bottom and started to grow a new top. In the summer it looks good and healthy and it is beginning  to  regain its shape.

Snow and a little more about Christmas

I guess I knew it would happen sooner or later. I noticed that it had started to snow when I stopped sewing to get my second cup of coffee and this is what it looks like now. Actually it looks a little better;  they must have salted the street because it is not snow covered as in the picture above it is only wet now. It is still coming down. I could do without snow for the rest of my life. I think I used to like it but the older I get the more I wish it wouldn't happen. Oh well......when you live in NE Ohio you get SNOW.

I have done most of my Christmas shopping, I ordered stuff from Amazon Tuesday and got part of it Thursday and the rest is on the way. I love Amazon shopping.

I didn't do any holiday baking but I have ingredients for some cookies and I did bake an apple pie for dessert when some of my family were here Thursday.

I found this little block when I was searching for something last week (it seems like I am always searching for something). I made a bunch of small things with this fabric last year and I am not sure why I didn't make something with this one. Maybe it didn't measure up or maybe I didn't  need it or maybe I was tired. Anyway, I am going to border it with that fabric that is left over from the back  of my Christmas Sampler and finish it up. What will I do with it? Who Knows?  What I really wish I could find in my searching is the Christmas tree skirt I told myself I was going to make right after the holidays last year. Oh wait let me think, ahhh there is no hope of finding that as I never thought about it again until I was looking back at this post from last year. I guess a sheet will have to do one more time. I am going to make sure I make it before next Christmas. I have someting in mind and I am going to buy myself a 9 degree wedge ruler. I am not a gadget lover and I figure out how to use the basic rulers I have for almost everything;  the wedge ruler seems like it does not fall into the basic catagory. However that is only if you think of basic as square or rectanglular. I think it must be a basic wedge ruler. If I buy the ruler I will make the tree skirt. 

Another House block

I finished my second house block. This one didn't turn out wonky either. I used it Saturday at our group meeting to demo making an improvisational house block and I sewed the sections together today. I will work making the next one wonky.

Here we are, back to Monday again. I usually like Mondays but it is less than 2 weeks to Christmas and I am beginning to feel a little pressed.  No Christmas shopping done yet and no Christmas sewing done. I can probably get it all done this week.  I am going to skip the sewing. I am probably not going to do any baking either. My daughter in law usually bakes cookies and I don't think anyone is going to miss mine.

A Busy Day

Today was a busy day, actually it started last night about 9PM. Two of my great grand kids stayed overnight and stayed through dinner today and a couple more hours after that.

It was almost bedtime when they got here, really it was probably really a little past bedtime. However we let them stay up a while.

I thought they would sleep late today but they were up a long time before me asking Jack when I was going to get up. I woke up about 9 and I never stopped till after they left and I did the  dishes.

Gracie made a pillow using some squares from a charm pack. Ethan watched a movie and played a  game on the computer. I thought we would have time for some other things but we took a break to go out for breakfast and stop at the grocery store for  lettuce, bread  and ice cream; (I forgot the bread.) that took a chunk of time.

When we  finished the pillow we made a cake. When I was cleaning up after the cake was in the oven I found the 3 eggs on the counter. I forgot the eggs! Oh well...... it tasted fine, especially with the ice cream and  Cool-whip though it did kind of fall apart. I guess that is what the  eggs do. There were no complaints!

We used to baby sit once a week or on rare occasions 2 times in a week. We started when Ethan was almost 2 and Gracie was 8 month old; they are 8 and 9 now. They moved away a few years ago and we miss seeing them every week but I am not so sure we could handle every week anymore. We sure were busy today.

It sure was fun!

A need to declutter

 I have a serious need to declutter and purge. Yesterday was our Friendship meeting and I received 2 more sets of blocks that I requested in my month, October. I asked everyone to trace their hands on their favorite color fabric and fuse them on a 12 1/2 inch background and also to  make their favorite 6 inch block  in any color. I decided I would photograph them all  today. Well, I got the ones I received last night and then looked everywhere for the rest. They are still in the logical safe place where I put them. For some reason logical  only remains so until I have a need  to find something  again and things are never in the most logical places.

I did  find odd blocks almost every place I looked, which is interesting  because I have an "odd block box" where I thought I had all of the leftover, practice, and demo blocks. I  also came across 4 stacks  of blocks that are destined to go in 4 different quilts when I get a few more of each made or I get around to putting them up on my design wall in preparation for sewing them. As I went through everything I put all of the blocks I found in a stack and put them all in a plastic box I emptied last week, so much for the empty box.

This picture shows the top of my sewing room bookcase. Before we  moved to this apartment I had a shelf about 6 feet up that went across the length of the wall; and I bought 8 of  those baskets to hold current projects. I only have these 3 left in my sewing room and they did not contain current projects. There were scraps, bagged up leftovers from different projects, odd blocks, 4 stacks of blocks destined for those 4 quilts and stuff that I was not able to identify for what reason I had them sorted out and bagged up or tied up.  Two of them are now empty and the other one has all the scraps and unidentifiable  parts. In the past 2 weeks I have come to realize that I have  boxes of scraps everywhere supposedly sorted out in a logical way.

For now I am going to put everything in apparent order (only I will  know what a mess it really is). In  January I am going to start going through every shelf, box, drawer etc. and get rid of what I will never use. I am going  to put all the various boxes and bags of scraps all together somehow, and give away or throw out what I don't  want or that I have had an not used for years. I have done this before but always think I need to hang on to something that doesn't see the light of day until the  next "organization". I  am going to set some goals and do my best  to stick to my plan.

I am already showing  some good logical common sense in that I am  not starting this project today.

Some blocks

I was up early this morning and got started on my blocks for the December Friendship Block. We meet tomorrow so I thought it best to get it done today. Laura gave us each 3 strips of the plainer fabric here and asked us to add 3 strips of our own pastel fabric and make 5 - 6 inch 9 patch blocks. This will be for a Project Linus community project quilt for her guild.  

After I finished the nine patch blocks I  made 3 blocks for a raffle  quilt for our guild. We were supplied with the packs of 5 inch squares of fabrics to make 9 inch Ohio Star blocks. One of our long time members passed away recently and her wish was that we use some of her fabric to make a raffle quilt and use the money to do something fun for the guild.

I would find it difficult to make an entire quilt with this color pallet as I  prefer something lighter and more colorful but it is very nice fabric and was easy to work with; all the points came together nicely. 

 When I stared quilting almost everything I made for a while was in shades of brown, rust and gold. there were not all the choices that we have today. Country decor was in and there were blue and mauve, red, white and blue and shades of brown and  gold. I guess there were peach and green as well. I  had nothing mauve, no blue, no green except for a green stain on the back of our cherry hutches so of course shades of brown it was. I have since graduated to a full rainbow of "favorite colors" and often reject brown. However........ I  have  put brownish borders on a number of scrappy quilts because it is the one fabric that didn't fight with everything else.

So.. after all I guess I don't really not like brown. Here are two brown wall  hangings  on my bulletin board. The cat quilt was a challenge quilt from our guild. Without looking we picked a crayon from a paper bag and had to use predominantly that color to  make a quilt. I moaned and groaned about tan. It is not my color; I never wear tan, but hey, I don't have to wear this. So I made it and I like it and it stays on my bulletin board most of the time.

Getting there

I did not get my eye exam on Friday just like I didn't go shopping earlier in the week. When you live with Mr Spontaneous adjusting plans just comes naturally.  We went to the Y in the early afternoon and then I got my hair chopped  cut. I wanted it neatened up at the bottom and the top left alone because I want to let it grow long enough to get a perm. I have been trying to get  it long enough ever since the last hair cut when every last curl bend in my hair got cut off. No one ever believes me when I say my hair is really really straight and when the curls are cut off they are gone until the next Perm.. It is probably my fault for not making it really clear what I want.  Well ... it will grow and in the meantime I will just have to make sure I wear makeup and feminine earrings and clothes so I don't like like an old man instead of an old woman. We puttered around long enough while we were out that it was getting close to dinner time and Mr Spontaneous took me to Pannera's for supper. I guess he thought I looked presentable.

Yesterday I went to the Women's Christmas Luncheon at our church (this was the reason I decided to get my hair cut). There were 28 tables and every one of them different and they were all beautiful. Different women from our church decorated them with their own china and napkins and centerpieces etc.  I wish I had thought to bring my camera. I am not a possessor of the latest in cell phone technology, no camera in my phone. Some of the tables had little boxes or bags of chocolate as table favors; this little mini quilt is what we got as favors at our table. It is about 4 1/2 x 6 and looks cute hanging on the door knob to my sewing  room. I am so glad we didn't get chocolate because I would have eaten it (all myself on the way home). I am trying really hard to at least not gain any weight. It is probably not realistic to think  I am going to lose any this month.

I took a nap when I got home and after  dinner I put these Christmas quilts  on the bulletin boards on either side of my sewing room window. I am hoping that when it is time  to change them out again I remember where  I put the things I took down.

When we  get the tree up I will finish the decorating. I have one box of stuff that I put away with the ornaments and it  is  easiest just to get it all down at one time. I am not sure when this will happen. If it rains Mr Spontaneous won't be going out on his motorcycle and we will  either go shopping or he will get the tree out. If it sounds like I am complaining about Jack I am really not. He keeps it fun and interesting and we laugh a lot.

 Keeping it real........that is not to say I never complain.

It's starting to look like Christmas

I made some progress yesterday but it is not all finished. I did get the Christmas dishes out and put the hand painted China safely away. This is the shelf where I keep my Christmas dishes and the china that I change them out for. You can see the Chocolate pot in the middle with bubble wrap around it. The boxes hold more hand painted china. This is irreplaceable for me. My mother painted it when she was a young woman. When I put it away I always put a sign on the shelf in front of it so no one shoves something in there when they are putting something away. I am usually the only one who puts things away in this cabinet but a reminder doesn't hurt.

 This is pretty much as far as I got yesterday. I decided to keep the 12 Days of Christmas after all. There is an electrical outlet in the wall at about the level of the 8th day and this is the only Christmas wall hanging that is long enough to cover it. That is the dumbest place to put an outlet if you ask me. (obviously no one  did) I left one of my hand painted china plates on the top shelf  on the right side. It is too large to fit in the boxes from my Christmas dishes and I do not have a place to put it that I feel is really safe. Since it is red and green it fits right in.

 When I took the photo yesterday I didn't have my centerpiece out so I put my plant there for the pic. On the right is what I decided to use this year. I put a few things that I have sitting here and there other years together with a couple of candles . The little  china angel was  a gift from a friend for my December birthday almost 50 years ago. Mr and Mrs Santa and the taller angle are things I made when I made and sold cloth dolls at craft shows years ago when country decor was in. The little china trinket box is  hand painted and I bought it at a craft show, probably where I was selling my stuff.

This vase is one my son made in Cub Scouts when he was 9 years old. It is a Log cabin syrup bottle that was coated with glue and rolled in crushed egg shells and glitter. I use it every year somewhere; this year it is the bathroom.

Almost everything I have around at Christmas is something that friends or family have given me or something I made or that has special  memories from when or where I bought it.

Well I wondered what I was  going to do with all  those quilts and.......... I found places for everything and I need a few more. LOL

I need a long runner for my coffee table and mantle quilt for a long shelf in my living room. Maybe I need some pillows too.

Those things will have to wait till next year. I still have to finish cleaning and decorating the rest of the apartment and I have done no Christmas shopping yet. Today I am going to get an eye exam and get new glasses. Hmmm... maybe while I am waiting for my glasses I will see if I can find a sweater for myself.

Oh My Goodness

What am I going to do with all these quilts.

I got the bundle of quilts down from my closet shelf and put them all on the sofa and coffee table so I could see them and also photograph them.

The three on the back of the sofa and the 2 in front draped over the coffee table are wall  hangings. Draped on the right arm  of the sofa  is the  colorwash that I know I will use again on my table. (It is nice to know where a least one thing is going). Folded on the cushions are 3 larger quilts that are not big enough to use for a bed quilt but I can use them on top of my bed over something else. They cover the king size bed side to side and from the foot up to the pillows. I will probably use my sampler there this year.

Laying on the coffee table are an assortment of mug mats and 8 place mats( I am using my mug mats for my blog banner this month) . I made the mug mats last year and the place mats at least 10 years ago maybe even before that. There are 2 pillows on the left side,one is a dark green cover with a "belly band" around it. I made the cover last year to cover up a faded pillow that my husband uses in back of this neck when he watches TV.  I am not sure I will use the cover this year because I made a new cover from plaid strips and he likes it and he doesn't like me to mess around with his favorite stuff. The other pillow goes back a loooong  time. I had some motif squares from a Debbie Mumm fabric left from something; I added  some scraps and made a pillow.  

 Draped on the left arm of the sofa is one of nine Christmas Log Cabin quilts I made in 2000 for all my family members. You can see them all here. This one belonged to my Mother in law; she didn't put it away after Chrismas but left it out all year. When she went to  the nursing home she had it on her chair and used it as a lap quilt. It was washed many times at the nursing home and has held up well; there is only one dark green print that has faded so that the color doesn't look green anymore. 

This little Chrismas tree quilt is one that I made for her. It slips over one of those 8 x 10 lucite sign holder/picture frames. Her eyesight was failing and it was hard for her to make out details but she could see that this was a Christmas tree. It sat on her dresser. I made her several so she could have a change with the seasons and holidays. I knew I had the little tree quilt but I had  forgotten that I kept the the Log Cabin quilt after she  was gone.                 

The quilt above the sofa is not a Christmas quilt but the first  year it was up on the wall and some of my family saw it for the first time on Christmas Eve they  thought I made it just for Christmas.

I really do not have a place for all these quilts. I can put some of them over the backs of chairs and I will use the place mats and a few of the mug mats. I may give the 12 Days of Christmas wall hanging away. I made it last year  and I  used it but except for the border but it isn't something I pieced. Most of the other things I designed, some are hand quilted and there is more nostalgia associated with them. I am more inclined to use the older things that I have always used, just like I still have to put all the ornaments on the tree. Some of them go back 60 or more years from  before we were married.  When Jack talks about getting a smaller more manageable tree I think about how I will not be able to fit all the ornaments on the tree.

Oh well..... I was going to go shopping today for something new for me to wear but I have been everywhere looking already and even bought something and returned it and I know I am not going to find anything I want. No, it is not a case of nostalgia, wanting to wear the old things. I want something that is not old lady-ish but not something that would be more appropriate on my granddaughter. I have looked and right now what I want isn't there.

 So.... I will stay home and get out the Christmas dishes and put the quilts around and see how it goes.  More to come later.

This and That

I have been doing a little of this and a little of that for a few days. I can only work on stitching on white over black lines with black thread for so long before I have eye strain. I usually stop and do a little  cleaning up or go and start dinner or some thing that will give my eyes a rest. I also am inclined to do something like  reading or using the computer, neither of them give my eyes a rest.

I finally finished the machine stitching on the circles and there is a bit of hand stitching to do. There are a few areas that have  small dots or loops that I won't sew with the machine but they need more quilting. I am going to use 2 strands of white Trilobal Polyester to put one stitch  in these dots and loops. I am sure this will be visually demanding and I am going to think first about drawing these tiny things again if I plan to stitch them.

You can see here where I have stitched in the first few  little  dots and the first flower head; all the rest of the stitching is done. I  do not plan to stitch every line that I drew but some areas need to be quilted a little more to flatten them.  This is enlarged many times. Those little flower heads are barely 1/4 inch. I can go back  and fix the  places where I  didn't quite hit the line with my machine stitching by filling in with  fine (.01) Pigma pen.

Yesterday I moved my machine back  to the other side of the room and put things in order and then promptly made chaos out of order again. I  decided to work on a couple of houses and dragged out many boxes of  fabric, many of them filled with scraps and smallish pieces. I never remember just how long it takes me to do something improvisational. I agonize over every fabric choice and I dig through all the boxes to find something I had in my hand "just a minute ago". In the end I only  had one house finished and I didn't make it wonky as I intended because I got caught up in making it the right size.

I chose my inhabitants first and made my other choices based on that. As usual I am second guessing myself. My step in front of the doorway doesn't look  like a step, (my supposed to be) tropical sky looks like snow falling, I got it all together and realized I forgot the sun and now the piece I wanted to put there doesn't fit and I am not sure I like the colors. Ah well........ it  is really OK and there are more  houses to build. In a  few weeks  I will decide  I like it after all. Sometimes I need to put a little space between the sewing of one element and what I do with the final product of my labor; by then I have forgotten what I had in mind and am able to look with fresh eyes at what I made.

LOL, sometimes what I ended up with goes in the box of unused blocks.

Christmas Sampler

There is a Christmas Quilt show going on at Sew Cal Gal. I haven't been able to grab the linky button but you can click on the link and  get there from here.

 I  finally finished this sampler quilt that I started about 3 years ago when our group at church was doing a Block of the Month. I made mine in reds and greens using a  bunch of fabrics from  Block of the Month packs from a local quilt shop. I decided right away that I would not make the quilt from the shop but I bought all the packs since I had signed up. There were enough red and green fabrics in the packs that by adding a few from my stash I was able  to make a scrappy quilt. There are a lot of reproduction fabrics from the BOM packs which is nice for a traditional quilt. I decided that I would make 3 blocks every month and make 3 quilts. That didn't happen. However those blocks didn't go to waste I used 5 of them on the back of the quilt. After the 2nd month I knew I wouldn't make 3 quilts after all so I only had 6 left over blocks. The blocks are 9 inches before the red frames. 



57 x 70



Back

 I am not sure where I will  use this one this year. I change things around from year to year. Because it is new this year I will  probably put it where the whole quilt shows.

This quilt below is the one that for the past maybe 15 years always goes on my dining room table. It is a nine patch color wash and I left the center kind of blank because I intended it for the table with a centerpiece sitting in the middle.



40 x 40

I got out some of my Christmas quilts yesterday. Looking over my Picassa web album I am remembering many more quilts that I made for Christmas and have given away. I still have a bunch that I kept, probably too many.

I haven't taken the bundle of Christmas quilts down from my closet shelf yet but by the end of this week I will be taking out all my Christmas quilts and  Christmas dishes and they will be out until January 1. I will be showing more of my Christmas quilts in the days to come.





Moving to the light

There is nothing like natural light when I need to really see what I am doing; so I moved my sewing machine in front of the window so I can  see the lines on the zentangle inspired applique I am working on. This is a setup that doesn't work all the time but short term it is OK. This time of year the sun does not shine directly in the window so I have nice bright light but not sun in my eyes. I wish that it was easy to move my sewing table to the window when I want more light but it involves shuffling too many things around to do it often. The sun has set and the light is gone for today so I will finish this tomorrow or Monday.

Most of the time I can get by with the lamps that are on either side of my machine but I am stitching on thin black lines on white fabric with black thread and I need to see exactly where I am going. 

This is the back of what I am working on. The top is  layered with the batting and as soon as I finish stitching over the drawing I will layer this part up with the backing and quilt the background free motion. I will also quilt some  of the long lines in the drawing. This way I don't have to worry about all the stuff on the back being perfect. It is not too bad but there are a few snarls and knots from all the stops and starts. I said this was not a practice piece but I am learning from it anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving

Houses

Beth over at Love Laugh Quilt  Is having another house block party. Make one house and send it to Beth and you might win  a set of the house blocks to make a quilt.                                                   

This house on the left is the house block I made last year.

Those of us who didn't win a set of blocks got a consolation prize, a small square with a printed house on it. Below is what I did with mine.

I need to make a house  block for our Block of the Month block for our group at church. It is our last block and I thought it would be a good exercise for everyone to improvise and make their our block. I will just make 2 blocks while I have all the scraps out and am in the house building mind set. I really do like to make houses.

A little progress

I made a little progress  today. I realized that it is almost time to bring out the Christmas dishes and quilts and I have a new Christmas quilt that was not quite finished . I needed to finish the big stitch quilting on these two blocks; that's all that was needed .

 This quilt has been sitting since August, all done, binding and all, waiting for this little bit of hand work. You can see the whole quilt here.

Yesterday I finished up my black and white  9 patch color wash background and fused the edges of the 3 circle doodle to the background. I still need to cut away the background from behind the doodle because all the seams, especially the intersections, create a problem with the stitching. I have to go out and get some Warm and Natural batting; that is the only batting I like for wall hangings.

This will be the largest doodle  that I have quilted and it will take some  time. I don't stitch on every line but most of them will be quilting lines. Up to now every one that I have done I have considered an experiment but I have experimented with several different ways of doing things and this one is not an experiment; it is the real deal.

Black and white colorwash

I have been working on the black and white nine patch color wash background for my circles. It has been slow going. I thought I had it all worked out in my mind and also a chart for cutting but there are always changes long the way when I get the blocks up on the design wall.

This is what is up on my design wall right now. I am moving into the gray area and I may have to shop for some transition fabric or I may work out another solution after I make the next 2 or three sets of blocks. I am not sure about the last set; they have kind of a milky look in the photo but blend a little better in real fabric. I can judge better after I get the next set of blocks made. 

 This is my little pile of rejects; once I got them up on the wall I could see that they didn't work. Some of the blocks are the same combination of fabrics as some I used but they have the darker and lighter fabric in the opposite position  in the blocks. I  had thought I would use each combination of fabrics in two diagonal rows across. I changed my mind because I wasn't moving toward the gray (or blended) area soon enough. These are 3 inch blocks and this will  not be a huge quilt.

I  can see that I will have enough blocks to make a  smaller background square and maybe set one of my small circles on it. I can use it to practice what I think I want to do for the larger piece. I am still not sure how I want to go about it.

I think I need to  take a break  and clean up my work area. I spent 30 minutes yesterday looking for 2 blocks that I knew I had made. I knew I had cut my strips to make 8 blocks and I had only six. I was read to cut some more strips for 2 more blocks and found them sitting under the heel of my iron. The was only one of the times I had to stop everything and look  for something. It is no  wonder that this is going so slowly; between searching and  agonizing over every fabric combination I am spending wasting a lot of time.

Some nine patch colorwash, again

I spent a few days with  the cloth drawing of the 3 circles rolling around in my mind. I knew I wanted to do something different with it than just put a frame around it and quilt it. It is kind of a cockeyed photo because I didn't want to climb up on a ladder to take it down (and more  trouble yet, to put it back up straight); so I held my camera up over my head. It really is nice and square.

I made this  quilt  a few years ago. It is a nine patch color wash that was an experiment in luminosity that didn't show the luminosity the way I wanted but I liked it and added the applique and it hangs on the wall in my sewing  room. I made 9 patch blocks using the darkest and lightest 2 fabrics, then the next darkest and next lightest etc and  layed them out in a  diagonal pattern across the quilt. When I got to the bottom left corner the fabrics had very little  contrast and blended together.

I am going to make a similar background for the 3 circles. I dug around in my black and white fabrics and in my box of assorted mess leftover black and white strips and squares. This is what I sorted out to use. I will press them first, of course. I may shop for some white with black to make a smoother transition in the middle of the lights. I'll see how it looks when I get to the 3rd and 4th fabric combinations. Nine patch colorwash is much more forgiving than  using just squares.

Darks

Lights

I spent a lot of time yesterday working it out in Electric Quilt and making a chart to figure out how many strips of each fabric I need. I do this all the time; when I was teaching colorwash  and nine patch colorwash I had a chart for  everything. I am not sure whether anyone else ever thought they were useful but it saves me from starting something and not having enough to finish. Of course that still happens when I change my mind halfway through. That happens a lot because when I see it in real fabric I see other options. A chart also helps to show the finished size; colorwash quilts shrink dramaticly when you start  stitching the pieces together.

Playing with Circles

I see it is a long time since my last post. I have not been quilting (but I have been thinking about it.) I have been tangling in circles. These are 3 small ones on white fabric. The 2 larger ones are about 5 1/2 inches and the small one is about 4 inches. I have also done a lot of web surfing and a lot of practicing on paper and I have learned some new things. I do a lot of practicing on paper before I draw on the fabric with ink but even so my lines don't always go where I intend.

This is one that I drew  on canvas and it was more difficult to draw on than I expected. The roughness of the canvas took my lines in unexpected directions sometime. I experimented with different pens also and some of my lines are a good bit heavier than what I really wanted.   When you draw with permanent ink "it is what it is." I think I will just frame it with a cheap simple black frame and hang it in my sewing room. there will be no sewing on this one.

I worked on this one on the right all week.  Each of these circles is 8 1/2 inches. I would have to stop and rest my eyes every so often. It is better not to draw lines when you have eye strain and start to see double. I often had to stop and think about what I  wanted to do next before moving on to another section. 

I will be quilting it after I make the background for it. I will applique it (machine applique) and then quilt it.  

I did  some shopping around this week for pens and tools that might be helpful. I have a set of my husbands old drafting compasses but I found these precision instruments much more helpful, when using a pen. I like the glass Crockpot lid in particular because it is glass and I can see through it. If you look closely you can see the refection of my hands and arms as I am holding the camera above my precision instruments.