Slowly Moving Along

 I have finally arrived at the layering up stage but it is going very very slow. I am quilting this in sections and it is usually easier to layer up sections than the whole quilt, but not this time. I ordered wide backing because I didn't have anything I wanted to piece  together for these backing sections and I didn't want to spend time figuring out the backing.

When I ordered the fabric I saw a 6 inch square and I did no know that this is what a 24 inch wide  section would look like.  Oh well, that should not be a problem. Well, it was! working with a 108 inches x 72 inches piece of fabric was not easy in my user unfriendly space. To start with, I wasn't sure how to handle the "stripes".  I wanted to avid having to match any thing across the backing so  I decided on the pattern running lengthwise. I decided to center the pattern so the seam would be in the wide stripes where I would  not have to think about matching anything. Because the sections will be quilted when they are joined  the backing seam will be what ever it is after matching the block seams on the front.

I moved chairs and other stuff that has landed in my sewing room to my bed room. I needed to move my two 24 x 48 inch tables together to layer up the sections. the Lifetime tables are slippery and it was one frustration after another to finally get the fabric cut and get all the layers smoothed out and pinned together. I have one section done. The next 2 sections should be a little easier because at least I won't be dealing with 108 inches of width. Second thought, it probably won't be easier

Jack wondered if we were going to be able to go to bed but I did manage to get everything back in my sewing room. It looks like a tornado came through the sewing room but the bedroom is in neat and clean. We slept well.

When I took a break from frustration yesterday, I wandered over to a new post on Annie's blog, freezeframe03.blogspot.com/, She made piano key borders for a wall hanging and she used paper piecing.  💡 Why have I not thought of that ?  I can do that, I can draw the foundation blocks in EQ, I can print them in my computer, I have the paper for it somewhere. 

This is what I printed on a sheet of printer paper. I will play with it little more before I print them on piecing paper but now I know I can print and paper piece 5 inch x 10 inch sections.  I can work on a few at a time and decide on the order for putting  them together. I still have the two end borders to make and I am looking forward to trying paper piecing again.  I never thought I would say that.

A little Progress

I seem to be busy doing all the daily things that need to be done but never find the time to get any sewing squeezed in. A big part of the problem is that I still have not managed to make my sewing space more used friendly.  I have made a little progress in passing along some things but I am still hanging on to too many things I am never going to get around to using.  Oh well.....................

I did make a trip to the local quilt shop where I found another yard of the fabric I used for my last Framed 9 Patch inner border and binding. I have used a green monochromatic print for narrow inner borders on many quilts with piano key borders. Green always works well with multi fabric quilts especially if there a lot of floral prints. This green fits these two F9P quilts particularly well.  I also ordered some batting and fabric the backing. So I am set to move ahead. 

Today I sewed on piano key border to the green inner border and sewed it the outside edge of the right side quilt section.

This is the entire right section of the quilt, ready to layer up for quilting.

This is a closeup of a section of the piano key border showing where I used a 2 inch left over piece of a strip set after I cut 2 - 5 inch sections. I didn't intend to put it right next to the 5 inch strip but when I realized that was where I placed it I saw it as a good example of how I can use up all the little pieces.

It is also a good example of how things you didn't plan happen when you are interrupted and don't get back to something for a while.

This is the first time I am using the new blogger format after having gone back to the old format for a while. I don't really like it and I guess that is just "too bad".  So..... it's  "get used to it" or move on.  I'll see how it goes.

Update on Nothing Much Going On

I have begun the process of making the piano key borders for the second Framed 9 Patch and it has been a very slow process. There have been many interruptions  and more things to do all the time due to everyday life changes because of the corona virus. I am thankful that I am able to do them but it gobbles up my time for sewing. I have been spoiled  because for many years I had all the time I wanted to "do my own thing".

I find that I have to learn some new things. I have to download apps to my phone to make life easier when I use curbside pickup. I haveto work out how I can get our on line church services from my computer tour. our 'Smart" TV. (If it is so smart why do I have to figure it out?)I have to download and set up Zoom. All of our doctor appointments  turned into phone visits. They were all follow up visits or routine scheduled wellness visits. By the time our next appointments come around I will have our laptop set up for Zoom. I have 2 in person appointments coming up, a bone density test and a mammogram. I wish the mammogram could be a virtual visit. I feel reasonably safe about keeping both appointments after having gone in for routine lab work before my phone appointment. 

We don't see our family as often but we've had outdoor visits. Seeing the little ones is always special because they are changing so fast as they begin to walk and talk and add new skills. 

Not as much  fun as seeing the great grand children but the biggest distraction for us was a feline visitor for week,  His people had to go to an out of state funeral. Here he is on the cedar chest which is under my cutting table. Because of his coloring,  he looks a little like our last kitty, Lucy, but he is a much bigger cat. It is not easy to measure a cat but I measured 24 inches from his nose up to his tail and his tail is at least a foot long.
He spent most of the daytime hours way under our bed where he couldn't be reached. He came out to eat and use the litter box about 7 or 8 in the  evening and stayed out from under the bed until around 7 AM. H woke me up to feed him again him again. He ate, used the litter box and disappeared under the bed until evening. He is not a lap cat but he was always very friendly and he purred all the time when he was out.  The last day he was with us he stayed out from under the bed all day and he explored everywhere. He would stand at a closet door and meow until  I opened  the door and he went in and poked his nose in every corner and then went on to the next door. I am easily conditioned to be of service to felines companions. By the end of the last day, before he was picked up by his people, he had me trained to pull the curtains aside when he wanted to jump up on the window sill. 

This is what I am doing now and  where I am pretty much stalled. I have 2 sections of the lengthwise sections of the F9P  pinned across my wall. They are overlapping so I can work on both of the piano key  borders at once. It is really a slow process; working with random scraps is always slow because of all the decisions involved . It doesn't help that there are many interruptions and the mess made when working with scraps  doesn't help either.

I am making strip sets of 5 to 7 fabrics that look good together. I make them with strips that are 10+ inches to 15+ inches. I cut them into 5 inch sections and I add 5 inch scrap strips to separate them.

This is one of the 5 inch sections that I had cut from a strip set that was about 11 inches long.



Here it is with some audition strips and just below it is the other 5 inch section flipped to look different. There are some audition strips next to them. Some of my strips are longer that 5 inches but shorter than 10 inches.  If there is at least 1 3/4 left on a strip set I trim it and add it to a section turned the other way instead of a plain strip. Making longer strip sets makes the process go faster but it is still time consuming. However, there is no time limit on this quilt.

From time to time I get frustrated with the mess and start going through my fabric stash. Deciding what I want to give away makes it own kind of mess but when I am finished some of the mess will be gone and the rest should be more manageable. If I can keep focused this week on setting apart what I really want to keep, I should be able to pass on some of this on very soon. My immediate goal is to reclaim a large part of my sewing room closet.

So there is not much happening here, just like it is for a lot if other people.
Take care and be safe.

Blocks

    I was so frustrated with problems posting yesterday I forgot the main reason I wanted to post. I had made six new blocks.

These six blocks are made with 3 of the new fabrics.

These are the 3 blocks I finished today. The 2 with the same print are the new fabric that I had mislaid when I photographed the fat quarters. The other block is older fabric; I found it all cut and ready to sew. It was most likely misplaced when I was sewing blocks for the first Framed 9 patch.

Today I reverted to "Legacy Blogger"
because of problems I was having  setting photographs.  I am pretty sure that I won't be able to continue using the old interface and I am considering just giving up.
We'll see!

A Visit to the Quilt Shop

Thursday I actually went to a local quilt shop, live and in person. My last visit was before everything shut down.  It was a about a half hour drive and Jack came along, just to get out of the house. He didn't even ind waiting in the car for  a while. We took the long way home and enjoyed the scenery and the sunshine.

I am not buying fabric except to use for something for which I am currently working. My stash is down to a very few things that interest me and a ton of scraps and left overs. I decided that I needed light, bright and pretty fabrics for the Framed 9 Patch that is in progress. I found 10 fat quarter prints that would work and one more print half yard and a half yard of a peachy pink solid. I spotted a fabric that has 8 different strips that are just shy of 5 inches wide; a yard of that came home with me too.

These are 8 of the ten prints and the peachy solid. I found 2 more of the prints after I photographed these. I set something on top of it and I then was puzzled about why I thought I had 10 prints. One of the other prints has a light blue background and the other has a white background with multicolored flowers in a larger scale. The pattern is more dense  so the white background is not so evident. I was drawn to the light and airy floral prints and I already had some blocks made with that kind of print. I was concerned that maybe I should have given more thought to what I needed. I have some striped and geometric prints that will round out the mix of scale and density of the prints in the overall look. I think it is going to be OK, if not  I  will figure it out.                                                                              

  

This is the fabric with 8 prints that are 
in strips along the length of the fabric I ought i yard.  I don't plan to use the second from the left in the top photo. It is too anemic looking compared to all the other fabrics that i'm using.

I thought I would not use the two fabrics on the right and left ends but I think they will work out well. I am going to keep the two gray blocks with bright multicolored raindrops (that I showed in my last post)  in the quilt. 

I am not so happy with the changes in Blogger. I don't automatically resist change but when the changes involve taking away something that works and the replacement gives me problems without providing instruction..................... well! It just makes me cranky.😡

Finally, A Few More Blocks

I finally got around to making a few more Framed 9 Patch blocks. I've had these cut for a long time but never seemed to have time to get around to sewing them.

 These are the six blocks I finished today. When I have enough fabric I  make 2 blocks with the same prints and different solids.  I want to use fabrics that give the overall look of the whole quilt light and bright. Though the blocks on the right are darker the fabric is pretty and bright.

These are all of the blocks I have so far.
There are 2 blocks from each print except for the top left and the center block in the second row down. I have enough fabric for another blue one but not the other.

















The 2 gray blocks might be too dark but The raindrops are colorful and bright. The fabric is gray with no brown tones but I can't get a photo to show the true color. I will see how they look after I make more blocks.

I am not at all happy with my camera or Picassa or my Windows photo program.



 I am getting cranky from staying home and not having any social interaction with anyone except for a few short visits from family, either through the window or doorway or a few minutes outside.  When your family members are in the health care field they tend to stay away from those of us who are vulnerable. I had a chance to see the one year old and one of the 2 1/2 year old great grand kids for a short visit out in the front yard.  They change so fast a that age, if you don't see them for a while you miss all the fun of the milestones. We also got to attend a Zoom birthday party for the one year old.
I speak to my neighbor coming and going.  She asks if I need anything when she goes to the store and  I ask if she needs anything when I place a grocery order.
I spent one whole 8 hour day on the phone with a Microsoft suppport person. fixing my computer after an up date wiped out everything in Microsoft Windows. She was very nice and very patient and even did not put me on hold but the left the line open when I asked not to have to listen to the music. Everything was back and working; although it took a few more hours after her day was finished for the repair to download and finish. She called me back the next day to make sure everything was working again. Any other time I would have been frustrated with it all but it gave me something purposeful to do.

 I am really surprised that I am so busy all the time that I have little time for sewing. I am not doing any more laundry or cleaning or cooking than I used to. We don't go to the park to walk because the buildings aren't open. Until recently, the weather hasn't been nice enough for Jack to sit outside on a bench while I walk. If it is nice we try to get out for a drive to see the trees leafing out and flowers blooming. I really don't enjoy driving but Jack needs to get out  even more than I do. I am thankful that I have been able to drive again.
I  am reading more than I use to, although I have always been and avid reader. I am really thankful for my Kindle. I know I spend more time on the computer, I spend more time placing orders than I did shopping in the store. Navigating the grocery store website is frustrating; It seems to change every few days. When I get frustrated with everything I tend to play solitaire and do jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles online. I guess that beats crumbling at Jack about all the little picky things that don't matter. I should have more time to post on the blog but when I don't have anything  to write about I don't bother.

 We are fortunate that our church services have been available online for a few years and they have even stepped up some other things online as well during these times.

I don't see much change for us in the near future we are not ready to go out around a crowd of people. I will continue making masks but since I am caught up with requests I will make a few at a time alternating with making blocks. I may even finish the F9P quilt.

Finished!

The Framed 9 Patch quilt is officially finished.  The binding is on, turned to the back and stitched.

 This is the best photo I can get of the whole quilt. It is on my king size bed and completely covers the top. It will not be used on this bed  is only here for the photo. I can't get far enough away to get a better photo and I can't put it up on my design wall because it is too heavy for me to do it by getting up on a ladder.

This is one section of the piano key border, which was sewn to the inner border and quilted before adding to the quilt. There is stitching in the ditch along the seam where it was added.











This is that section on the back showing the machine stitched edge of the backing.  I had turned the edges under and pressed them and fused them and then stitched in the ditch from the front. I was really happy that all my machine stitched edges on the back  turned out so well.

These are 2 of the corners with Double Four Patch Blocks.  I stitched on the front, in the ditch along the binding.

This is one of those corners on the back. I caught the binding on the back along the whole quilt and all my corner miters came out well.
However, the width of the binding on the back was not even all over. The weight of the quilt at times dragged the quilt and made it hard to manage a uniform 1/4 inch seam. I did examine the edges and fixed some ares before turning the binding to the back but I missed some places and because I had already started to fuse some of the binding down, there was not going back. It is good from the front and because I use double fold binding it is not going to come loose. It probably would not pass inspection from the judges or the quilt police but I'm happy.

This is the last quilt this large I will ever make. Even quilting it in sections, it became really hard to manage after I added the third section.  I don't see how I can make my sewing space different to make quilting something this large easier. I know I will be content to make smaller quilts and I intend to make another smaller Framed 9 Patch and I have other projects in mind also. After all, I have all those scraps to use.

Framed 9 Patch Debut

The Framed 9 Patch quilt made it's debut. Well, kind of, it is almost finished. The binding is sewed on but it still needs to be turned to the back and stitched down.  I was showing it anyway. We had family over yesterday and 2 of our youngest great grand children were here.  I had spread the quilt over our bed to show their moms and grandma. The 2 year old and her 10 month old cousin wanted to get up on the bed and have a look. They spent the next 15 minutes jumping and bouncing round on the bed. It was too much fun watching them laughing having the best time and no harm done to the quilt or the kids.

These are 3 photos of the fun, terrible photography I know; photos are all manipulated for clarity. However, they captures the spirit of the moment.

I think in this one he was just landing.

I hope to sew the binding down on the back today and then I will post a photo of the real finish.

Almost There

It seems as though I have been working on this quilt forever.  In the past when I was excited about a quilt, I worked on it every day and sometimes all day. That doesn't happen anymore but I have maintained my level of enthusiasm and I am closing in on the finish.

This is the body of the quilt with all 3 quilted sections and the quilted side borders sewed together. It is laying on my King size bed because it is too large and heavy for me  to put it upon my design wall. I am not foolish enough to try standing on a ladder to do that.

This is a section of the front of the quilt showing the green inner border and the quilted border sewn on the quilt. I stitched in the ditch on both sides of the 2 inch inner border. I quilted 2 parallel wavy lines along the  length of the borders and then some angled way lines about a hands width apart across the width of the border. It is more utilitarian than artist but that serves its purpose.

This is the same area on the back of the quilt. The black arrow is pointing to the stitching line. it is where I stitched in the ditch on the top edge of the narrow inner border. There were some fiddly steps  I took to get it to com out this way but it was worth the fussing around. I can't hand any seams that long anymore and every seam that I did this way came out the way I hoped for. 

I have  sections for the top and bottom borders on my design wall now and I need to make the blocks for the corners and stitch it all together. I might be optimistic in thinking I can get them on the quilt by next weekend but I am going to try.

Borders

I finally got around to sewing piano key sections together. No matter what I tell myself, or anyone else, about random being RANDOM; I always end up agonizing over sections that don't look right to me. I even fuss around using my seam ripper and "improving" an offending area. I spent a lot more time working on the two side orders than I needed to. Working with scraps is not necessarily mindless. However I did get them together and layered up and quilted. I need to pin a note up reminding myself that I have never been unhappy about the piano keys once the quilt has been finished.

This border is 82 inches long and this is about half of it. I am still thinking about adding another row of wavy quilting between the 2 rows that I've done so far. If I had quilted in the ditch over all the vertical seams or even quilted feathers I think the stitching would have been too dense for the body of the quilt. I am not gong to rip out the quilting but I am thinking about whether I might add something.


I need to trim the backing and batting and that is a process that requires Trimming away the batting and backing edges different widths and there is a lot of fussing around. I know think I can eliminate at least one step. I am going slow and rethinking my process.

In the meantime these top and bottom borders are still in sections up on my wall. One of the narrow green borders is between them so I can work on both of them at the same time.  I will be putting 7 inch blocks on both ends so the piano keys are able to fit across the wall.  I can agonize over them every time I look in that direction.











Maybe I need to pin up that note reminding me to think about the PK borders on the finished quilts.

Moving Along .........Slowly

I am moving along with the framed 9 patch quilt. I got the left top and bottom sections together and I have all the rest of the sections layered up and ready to quilt. I used to get a lot more done, not because I was fast but because I use to have more time for quilting.

Warning!! This is a long post and may be boring,
I took some photos as I went along so I could show the steps I take when I am quilting in sections.

This is the center top section. I will quilt all the way to the edge on the top (the left side in the photo).
I will leave 2 inches not quilted on all 3 of the other edges. I have pinned strips of selvage along those 3 edges  to remind me not to  stitch beyond the 2 inches.  I once believed that putting safety pins across the area where I wanted to stop would work. However I just removed the pins when I stitched up to them and kept on stitching. I did it more than once until I started pinning selvage scraps or ribbon along in those areas.

My finger is pointing to where I will stop stitching in the ditch seam between the blocks. I will be quilting in the ditch around the nine patch center and across the solid diagonal patches. Later, after joining the sections, I will only need to finish the stitching in the ditch on that 2 inch section.

                  These next 3 photos show how I prepare the edge that I have left not quilted.

On the left I have folded the backing down from the edge where the quilting stopped 2 inches from the edge.
In the center I have turned the section over to the front and using my long ruler I trimmed the batting even with the quilt top.
On the right At this point the backing is still pinned out of the way. I have folded back and pinned the edge on the pieced top that has been left not quilted and I trimmed the batting. The measurement of the batting that I trim away is 2 x the width of my seam allowance when using my walking foot. This will allow the batting that is quilted to the edge to butt up against the batting that has not been quilted to the edge.  I always test what that measurement will be because I have found that it is not an exact 1/4 inch using the edge of my walking foot as a guide. Changing a needle will sometimes change the measurement. This time it was a little over 1/4 inch so I trimmed 5/8.  This might not be so important using 80/20 batting but with Warm and Natural I noticed if the batting overlapped.

I don't have a photo of the section that I quilted  to the edge. I trim the batting and backing even with the pieced and quilted top. I trim only the edge that I will be joining to the next section as I am ready to join the sections.  That makes me confident that I have an easy option in case I quilt to the wrong
edge on a section. For this quilt I am not really worried about that because  there are only 6 sections.

In this photo the section with the backing turned back is on top of the other section and ready to be pinned. Usually, I will have unpinned the folded back backing and trimmed it so that it can be folded under enough to cover the stitching that joins the sections. I would then pin it out of the way again. I do a lot of pinning and re pinning because I have learned a lesson the hard way about not doing it .

I pin first where I will match seams and then ease in the fabric between those pins,
 The edge that is not quilted will be slightly longer; if there are not seams to be matched I start pinning in the center of the  entire edge and on the ends and divide and pin by half  and half again in order to ease in any fullness.

This  photo shows the edges pinned together; the stitching will not catch the batting.













After I stitch the seam I always check the front to make sure it is OK before I move on to whipping the edges of the batting together.

I pressed seam to the  section that is stitched to the edge. I use a long needle, about 5 inches long, and catch the edge that is quilted to the edge and the loose batting from the other section.
You might seethe needle if you enlarge the photo.

It seems as though I do a lot of fussing around making the batting butt up against the next section but I am happy with the result.






When I am ready to hand stitch the backing to cover the joining seam I start pinning in the center and ease in the fabric as I did when joining the quilted and not quilted edges. The first time I quilted in sections I just started at one end and started pinning and stitching a short distance and then pinned again and stitched again, About half way down a very long seam I realized that something was not right. I would have ended up with tucks in the seam.  Hand stitching is much more difficult to rip out that machine stitching.

On the back I hand stitched the backing to cover the seam and it looked good. But I knew I had to find another way. It was way too slow and difficult and painful for my old hands.

I did not remove the hand stitching.

On the front, I stitched in the ditch on the joining seam between the blocks.  The seam here is between the 2 horizontal rows. It looks good!



I caught most of the edge on the back The arrows show where I didn't catch the edge and where I did.
If I use the same technique that I use for binding I know it will work. I will take care to cover the seam by just a little more than when I do the binding.  I might use glue instead of Wonder Under for basting,




I am moving on to quilting the rest of the sections and finishing the piano key borders. I ordered a subdued green fabric for an inner border and binding. I am hoping we get the snow the weather people promise us, even though I usually hate snow.

A Detour And Back On Track With The Framed 9 Patch

I was starting to cut the backing sections for the Framed 9 Patch quilt when I decided to move some things out of the way in my sewing room. I needed to move my table away from the wall so I could work around it when I started to layer up the sections.  I piled some things on a chair and pushed them into my bedroom. I looked at one corner and it struck me that maybe a 16 x 22 tall chest that is in my sewing room closet would just fit in that corner. I made the mistake of asking Jack what he thought, fully intending to think it over and do it another time (or maybe not at all). The next thing I knew we were moving furniture. That involved more than moving one chest because we had to move his bedroom dresser and desk a few inches. We could not budge the dresser without taking the drawers out so we did and moved things over. He measured the space for the chest and then I measured a slightly different way and we discussed it. Hmm!!   There is baseboard heating that runs along the wall and turns the corner that had to be taken into consideration and we each had a different idea about how to measure. We decided it would work and began the process of moving the chest after taking all the drawers out and emptying one drawer that was too heavy to take out with all the stuff in it. We had to move some furniture in my sewing room in order to get the chest out of the corner of the closet We finally moved the chest and IT FIT.  This was a no small thing for us to do.  We are both over 80. It's done and we are both no worse for wear but next time I want something moved I will ask one of our kids or grandkids.

It took me two hours to get the sewing room in order, not perfect but I gained a some closet space that will make things easier.


I cut all the backing sections and got the 3 bottom sections of the quilt layered up and pin basted. I even got started on the quilting. This morning I finished one section.

I quilted in the ditch between the blocks in both directions. On this section, I quilted all the way to the edge on all 4 sides. I will trim away the batting and backing on all 4 sides when I am ready to join it to the next section.



























This is a close up of 2 adjacent blocks.

I quilted inside the frame strips and on the diagonal across the solid squares in the 9 patch.  After quilting a couple of blocks I determined the best way (for me) would be to quilt around the 9 patch and across one diagonal and then decide which side I would stitch over to get to the diagonal line that would take me closest to the next block, about 2 inches. I quilted inside of one block at a time and I stopped and started my ditch stitching with tiny stitches.  I do not be bury my threads I cut them after the tiny stitches and I have never had anything come apart.  It looks good on the front and the back.

Now that I have some of my basting pins free I am going to layer and pin baste the left top section. I want to get the left top and bottom together so I can determine the exact length of the side borders. I want to alternate between the quilting and the other things that need to be done to finish this quilt. I helps to give my fingers a rest from the pinning and my neck a rest from the quilting. I will want to give myself a break once I start doing the hand sewing on the back when I get as far as joining the sections. I will also be taking bits of time for adding things to my laundry basket of things to say goody bye to, We'll see how it goes.

Flimsies - Sort Of

I have reach the flimsy stage as far as being ready to layer up but I have the top in six sections. I am gong to quilt this in sections so I need to make six backing sections. I am not sure if I am going to add a piano key border I have parts of it made and if I add a border it will be quilted in sections as well.

This shows all 3 top sections and the top 3 rows of the bottom sections. I can't get far enough away from my design wall to get the whole thing in one shot.























I am giving up on trying to add any more photos to this post as Blogger is giving me all kinds of problems this morning.

I am not sure when I will get around to working on this or some other small projects that I have going. Jack has some health issues and spent 2 days in the hospital this past week, We have doctors appointments coming up in the next few weeks and we will see how it goes from there.

It is likely that I will not be posting much for a while especially with all the problems I had today with Blogger. Keep us in your prayers.

Finally Ready to Sew

I am finally ready to sew the Framed 9 patch blocks together. They have been up on the wall for almost a month. I did some tweaking with the arrangement while I cleaned up the scraps and strips I had been  using for the blocks. I also did some sorting  and sewing of various length strips for piano key borders.

I had some fun days during those weeks. Jack's birthday dinner out with family and then everyone back home for cake and ice cream. There was a shop hop with some friends and a day sewing with a new friend who has been sewing since she was 8 years old but never quilted. I didn't get get a photo of her small piece but I will. She used some of my scraps and it turned out very nice and well done.
 There was also a lot of time spent doing all the everyday things that life throws in out path. That list seems to be getting longer or maybe everything just takes longer.

Today I was ready to sew, however.........
I noticed the two red prints in the lower corner looked almost the same. I started switching blocks around and I thought I was good to go sew. But then I remembered that I had decided to use three blocks with yellow solids across each corner and that meant more switching. Once you start switching blocks it always leads to messing up another area and then more switching and more messing up and more switching etc. It brought to mind the book  "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie".




Once again, I thought I was ready to sew until I noticed that block with the pale orange center (next to the red print in the photo above) now didn't look right next to the green print with the  yellow center . more switching and still more.

This is most of the quilt; 9 blocks by 11 blocks fits perfectly on my wall but I cant get a photo of the whole quilt.

Finally, I am ready to start sewing. Unless I make a lot more blocks and make 2 quilts, one with medium and dark value prints and one with medium and light value prints.
Or maybe I will sew it all together as it is and make a lot more blocks to make those other 2 quilts. I already have a start on the medium and dark print blocks. Even though I said I was going to leave everything in, I made some replacement blocks and took out about six blocks.

We'll see!

Blocks All Done

I finished these last 8 blocks today.  It has been a challenge getting time to work on them. I seem to have so many other things I have to do.













I made these 12 blocks a few at a time since my last post. Three of them are single blocks and the rest are half of a pair of prints blocks with a different solid in the 9 patch center.  I didn't get photos of everything because I stuck them up on the wall and moved tings around before I thought to photograph them. I  know there are a few more different prints too but I don't remember which ones they are.





























I am going to spend some time rearranging the blocks while and put away anything I won't be using. I want to get rid of the clutter before I start sewing the blocks together.

New Additions to the Wall and on the Wall

After sewing 9 blocks last Thursday, I could see that I was going to run out of space on my design wall. There was a 9 inch space between the top of the design wall and the ceiling. I had 2 foam panels left from the bundle of 6 and enough white flannel left. It didn't take me long to cut the panels to fit and cover them with flannel.  I was able to "press fit" the 9 inch panels without the need to attach them with drywall screws. I did put one finishing nail in each.  The reason I left that 9 inch gap at the top  in the first place is because that was as high as I could reach to screw the panels to the wall while standing on the lowest step of my ladder. I knew that was as high as I could reach anyway to put blocks on the wall.

There will be no explanation or discussion about how I got those panels up there or how I put the top row of blocks up there.

Here are the 67 blocks I've finished, only 32 more to go.  When I put the top 2 rows up on the wall, I tried to lay them out in the way I will sew them together. From the third row down I used a little judgment about placement but I know that with 32 more blocks to make there will be some shuffling  around.









My plan is to take the top rows down with my long grasping gadget. After the top five rows are sewed together I won't have to reach so high to put them back on the wall.



I didn't do any more sewing since last Thursday until today. I did some cutting instead. I searched through my scraps and bins again and pulled out some things I overlooked when I started these blocks. I wasn't in the "almost anything goes" mindset. After making over 60 blocks I am not so fussy about everything looking good together because it just does. Some of the scraps were not quite big enough but I found more of them stashed in other bins. That is a good indication that my organizing system for scraps is really more disorganized.
 This is the one block I made today.  The quilt was asking for something pink and pretty. I wanted to see if there was enough to make the block and there was just enough without a fraction of an inch to spare.



This is my stack of paper plates with 26 more blocks with strips all cut to the right size and paired up and ready to sew.  I am adopting an idea from  Quiltdivajulie , organizing all the pieces for blocks on paper plates,  What a great idea, it doesn't take up a lot of space and pieces are not so likely to get lost.

I almost went to the quilt shop today to buy more fabric for this quilt but I'm happy that I didn't. I have enough! I went to Holden Arboretum instead and walked. There wasn't time after that to shop for fabric.