Epiphany

When I revisited Melody Johnson's post from October 17 I had a moment of clarity. I have too much stuff,  leftover pieces and parts, EVERYWHERE. They need to go. I have so many half square triangle blocks in various sizes and vintages that it would be a way bigger project to use them than I want to handle. The same goes for 4 patch blocks and most of the odd blocks that I have. They are taking up time and space. They are taking away my creative energy.

I have been trying to make myself work on the backing panels for the Framed 9 patch quilt sections. I can't stick with it because it just sucks up all my energy. It is not fun or even mildly satisfying.
I have used up a lot of left overs over time and almost of of the fun stuff has already been used.


This is what I have been wrestling with the last few days. I got as far as the side strips and stopped. I didn't sew the top and bottom strips. I am not going to try to make this work. I didn't use these border strips when I made them because they were a mistake. I should have kept each set of strips together instead of mixing them up. They weren't cohesive when I made them years ago and they still aren't.













I found this fabric at Joann's on their clearance shelves, at 70% off. It has a nice hand and it washed up nicely. I bought all of it, over 9 yards. I have enough for the back of the quilt and I hope that there will not be much left over.










So what to do with all my pieces and parts. I am pretty sure this borders on hoarding. I started to go through some if it.  I put it all away again.I found myself picking out parts that would make a block or two that were all ready to put together or that maybe needed another square of HST. I am not going to look at any more of it.  I can't do this myself, I need help to do it.

For now, I am keeping some of my odd scraps that I use for improve blocks. I find those fun to  make. I will also keep strips for piano key borders. There area few projects that I want to finish for which I have actual plans. There are some things that are long term projects that I work on from time to time. Maybe I will finish them up in a smaller size and maybe I will pass them on as is.
I have a lot of fabric I like that is less than a yard or half yard, that should satisfy my need to make scrap quilts. There are some pieces and parts for which there are plans.  However, I will not keep anything that does not speak sing to me.

Backing Sections

I seems as though everything I do lately gets bogged down while I am either waiting for something or doing something I have to do that has nothing to do with quilting. Of course sometimes I am wavering over what I want to do or how to do it.

I am working on the backing sections for the Framed 9 Patch quilt. I will be quilting it in 6 sections so I planned to have a scrappy back.  I pulled out a bunch of pieces but nothing was big enough or looked good together. Some fabrics looked good but there wasn't enough to make anything cohesive for all six sections. I will be quilting separate border sections as well. I am really serious about using up everything I have but sometimes that just doesn't work out.

I found some picket fence borders that I had planned for another quilt several years ago. I didn't use them because they looked like they belonged on a different quilt. That was my thought when I tried them out and when Jack said that, without my prompting, I knew they didn't belong on that quilt.  I drag them out every time I try to use something from my odds and ends but they never work.

This is one border section.




 This is 2 sections showing the pattern in the  way I will sew them together.
The borders are sewn in long strips and I will be taking them apart in short sections.




This is the way the sections will look when I get them made. At this point I am not worrying about the colors. Random is random and this time it is really random and it looks like it.

I went shopping and bought the floral fabric, it was on sale and I bought all of it. I will have enough to frame all the picket fence sections and for the borders and even enough to change my mind.




Years ago, when it was my turn, I asked the Friendship Group to make 71/2 inch HST blocks; probably 3 blocks using different fabrics in each. I sliced them in 2 1/2 inch strips and rearranged them. I mixed up all the colors and if I remember correctly I had quite a mixed up time getting them in the right order. It would have been easier to keep each original block together like the one here. However I wanted random. I am counting on the floral fabric to make it all come together.

I would have felt guilty if I didn't use the blocks I requested, like I was rejecting their efforts. These have been hanging around chastising me. I will be really happy to get them off my conscience and out of my Odd Blocks Box.

Table Toppers and Piano Keys

I finally finished my autumn table mats for my mismatched end tables. I had been waiting for a walking foot for my lightweight Brother that I bought for a "take along" machine. I never expected to use it for quilting. I ordered the foot from Amazon and after 2 weeks they informed me the order was lost. I ordered  it on line from Walmart and got it in two days.
 I also finally got my Bernina out to the sewing center for service this week.  I was waiting for  family member to drive me there. The walking foot worked OK on the Brother but I really miss my Bernina and I hope it will be coming home soon.


So the mats are finished, they are on the tables  adding some color. I didn't even bother with a photo of the one on the table next to Jack's chair. It is pretty much covered up by an assortment of things he wants within arm's reach.

 This little 8 x 10 quilt on the other table is slipped over one of those clear plastic stand up sign holders. I made several of these for my mother in law when she was in assisted living. Some were for a month, some for a season or holiday. I have some of them now and I remembered to get this one out since the theme here right now seems to be leaves and pumpkins.

This is on my front door. Everyone else on our apartment hall had something seasonal and my door looked neglected. I wanted something that is not so big it covers the number on our door.  I used MS Paint to cover my apt. number in the photo (that is the brown rectangle above the leaves). This covers the peep hole on my door but I can see through a little space looking from inside. I feel like we are now decorated for autumn with various pumpkins sitting around and table toppers with leaves and wall hangings in autumn colors.

My Brother machine is very nice for piecing so I haven't been idle while waiting for the walking foot. I worked on the piano key borders for the Framed 9 Patch quilt.

 I have been sewing strips of different lengths together together. Most of the strips are around 2 inches some a bit more narrow, some a bit wider. The longer sets will be cut in sections that are the needed size and the sections joined with other sections. 

If there are pieces left when I cut the long sets into sections I often get one or two  narrow widths that I turn and use between sections like this little strip on the right side of the set. I think it adds a little interest.
A few days ago I went through my scrap bins and pulled out strips that were in with all the assorted odd pieces and sorted them into similar lengths.









I still have to decide on the backing for the 6 Framed  9 Patch sections. I don't know if I want them all different, all the same, or some pattern of 2 or 3 different fabrics. I don't know if I want to quilt all the border sections separate or add them to the outside edges of the sections. These things are in the back of my mind and I haven't had much chance to bring them to the forefront and finalize my plan.

Brown

 Jack is feeling pretty good and we are having a short break from doctors appointments and I have a little time to sew.

 I made some table toppers for my mismatched end tables and they are all ready to quilt. I am currently without my Bernina and I am waiting for a even feed foot from Amazon for my Brother. I bought the Brother for a lightweight machine to take with me  to classes and sewing events. I like the machine for piecing but I thought I would never be quilting with it. It will work just fine for small things.

I keep saying I don't like brown but brown is what I needed for these and I found some brown fabrics in my strips and scrap bins that I don't hate.

For this one, I sewed 2 inch strips together on the short edges and cut 23 inch sections and sewed them together on the long edges.  This will be on the table next to "Jack's chair". He has a bunch of things arranged precisely on the table and a mat eliminates the need for coasters as well as adding some color (even if it is brown color).


















I like this one a little better. I had a larger size piece of the left print and I was able to cut a square and corner pieces. I used more strips from my scrap bins.



















I guess I don't really hate brown. When I started quilting I used a lot of it. Cotton fabrics were mostly in the mauve and blue, peach and green, red white and blue, or rust and brown range, not colors that fit with our decor. My first big quilt was rust and ,gold and brown with small amounts of turquoise for accents. patches.

Right now I have my autumn quilts out and guess what, they are mostly brown. These 3 quilts are on my walls.

 The one above is an early color wash made sometime around 1997-1998. It is in the living room. I named it "Lake County Autumn A Real Ohio Star". I happen to think autumn in Lake County Ohio rivals anywhere in the world.

 The one next to it was made in 1998 and is in the dining room.  I consider his one a watercolor quilt instead of a color wash. They were both made with 2 inch squares. I named it "Flower Basket"

The quilt on the right is a panel that I used as it was, except I trimmed it down on the sides to fit a narrow wall inside our front door and added the narrow green border and the orange and black border.
I made this last year after I saw the panel in the quilt shop. I passed buying it 3 times before I went back and bought it. The border fabric was displayed right next to it and was part of the reason I couldn't resist.



This is on my dining room table. You can see the brown curtains beyond the table; the living room drapes are the same color, ugly brown, the same as the carpet.

This is a painting by a local artist.

 The reason  I bought it was the autumn colors shout of Lake County and we used to drive past an area that looked just like this on our autumn foliage drives. It is in the dining room also.















So.... maybe I should rethink my attitude toward brown. I don't think I really hate all browns. I don't mind the carpet. I don't actually hate the color of the curtains.

I hate my curtains.

I hate them because they are so big when they are closed and make the room so dark. We were in a big hurry to get the windows covered that day because the sun glare on the TV made watching TV impossible. Jack picked them out and I allowed him to just for expedience.

I will change the curtains!
Without input! 

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.

New Blocks

I finished 9 more blocks yesterday. I am working a little faster since I got things organized better. I started out making one or two blocks at a time. I usually work that way and then decide how to be efficient. I cut all the strips in the lengths I would  stitch together and paired everything up so now I don't have decisions to make for every block.   That seems elementary, and it is, but I don't have many big blocks of time anymore. It just takes me longer to get to the efficiency mode.

These are all nine new blocks.

 I was looking for something in 3 baskets I have on the top shelf of the bookcase and found the prints that I used here. They were bundled up as projects that I started as something to work on when I met with friends. I had no specific plans for them and there was almost no progress made on any of them (I was always too busy talking to get anything done.) so they just got set aside. 
While I was taking the bundles apart and cutting for these blocks, I also cut for Donna Poster blocks and double or triple 4 patch blocks. I put a few blocks from those bundles in my "odd blocks box"

I found enough fabric in those bundles to make more blocks of  these prints I had already used.





I have 65 blocks now and 34 to go for a full size quilt. I found working on 9 blocks at a time was tedious, Maybe I like the diversion of making fabric choices. I think I will cut that down to 4 or 5 blocks at a time. As a diversion, I might start sewing some of  the strips together for the borders. Or, I might get out one of my portable design boards and lay out some Donna Poster blocks. There are a lot of decisions and agonizing of fabric choices to be made for those projects.

Efficiency serves a purpose but sometimes it gets boring.    

Five More

These are the 5 blocks I sewed this morning.

The solid fabric in the green block is really much more purple or fuchsia than it shows here.
I had only enough of the 2 for one block each of the 2 print fabrics on the top right. Of course they are now my 2 favorite blocks. I think I like the combination of the light blue green with the light floral print better than the other 2 solids (pink and green)  I used with that print.

I am probably never going to really like the small scale brown print no matter what solid color I pair it with. It doesn't look terrible among all the other blocks because it doesn't call attention to itself so it will stay.
The purple fabric, along with 2 other purple monochromatic fabrics were left over from juvenile quilts. They were just right for the juvenile quilts but I am not enchanted with the  combinations or purple with pink and yellow, they will also stay.

Maybe I am getting a little too critical of each block. I like the way they are all looking up on my wall.  I am looking forward to getting the blocks finished and putting it all together. At the rate I'm going it will not be this week.

More Blocks

I have seven more blocks finished; that makes 49 locks.  I haven't yet decided what size I will make the quilt; after thinking about making either 23 more blocks or 50 more blocks, I am leaning toward a twin size.

When I put the blocks up on my expanded design wall I got a better sense of what colors I need.  I am using leftover pieces and scraps and I am determined not to buy any fabric for the blocks.  Well, maybe I will buy some solid fabric. I have a lot more that I thought but there are 3 or 4 colors  or shades that I am lacking.  For each block I cut only a 12  X 2 inch strip of solid fabric. I know what ever I add to my stash will be used because I like using solids with prints and I have some other ideas. I am looking forward to using up my scrap stash.

These are the blocks I made right after I finished my design wall.  I am not a lover of brown but I though I needed something that kind of stepped back instead of trying to grab attention. I also wanted to use some blue and green and purple solids.
These are not my favorite blocks but they will be used, maybe!

I finished these this morning. I wanted to use some of the purple prints from my scraps. It was hard to make a decision about the solids with which to pair them.

I am usually drawn to prints that have many colors and shades and mostly steer away from monochromatic prints.  Floral fabrics always call my name from the shelves in the quilt shops. I had a huge stash of florals from the time I made colorwash quilts. I decided to use them all up and I did pare that down to almost nothing and I have missed them every since.

These are not my favorite blocks either but I will also use them. They will probably play nice with the more flamboyant "Divas".



I usually wait until the body of the quilt is sewed together before deciding on the border.  I may use a solid red for a narrow inner border and a scrappy pieced, random strip, piano key border.
That has been in my mind from the beginning. We'll see.

Design Wall Addition

When I put up the panels for my design wall I knew that I really needed to add more flannel covered insulation foam panels.  I never got around to it until I ran out of space for the Framed 9 Patch blocks I've been making. As I finish blocks I put them on the wall and rearrange what has already been put up. I want to keep  an arrangement that requires tweaking but not a complete "start over".  I ran out of design wall width though there was room for 4 more rows in length. It seemed like it was time to add those flannel covered panels. A trip to Lowes for the panels and Joann's for the flannel and I was ready to DO IT.

These are the four new flannel covered panels; I added 2 up  and 2 down. I already have one vertical row of blocks up.
They will be behind the door when the door is open. Here it is closed and you can see the tote bags that I have hanging on Command hooks on the back of the door.  I have to take advantage of every inch of space in my room and they never show when the door is open.

My wall is not very elegant. Some of my earlier panels were left from another room and covered in off white instead of white.  I do not have all of the drywall screws in the new panels. I secured them with enough screws to hold them and the two end panels would have stayed up by themselves anyway because they were pressed tightly in place. I could only reach so high from the first step on the ladder so someone else will have to put in a few more screws. Jack would have done a much neater more professional looking job if he could have done it but there are a lot of things he can't do anymore.  At least he doesn't criticize and he does give good advice.

These are all 42 blocks.
 I think I will add one more vertical row and 3 or 4 more horizontal rows. I am not yet sure what size I will make.
I know that I will be rearranging the blocks; with everything up on the wall I can see what solid colors I need to  use for the remaining blocks.
I am rolling around in my mind the idea of a narrow solid border with a scrappy random strip piano key border. I have been saving strips of piano keys for a long time and I have a lot of strips left from these blocks.  We'll see.