Alphabet Panel

The last time I went to the quilt shop for more green fabric to finish the second Framed 9 Patch quilt, I bought an Alphabet animals panel and some fabric to go with it.  That kept me on track to finish the F9P so I could start the alphabet quilt. There have been delays and interruptions but I have made some progress. However those interruptions frequently lead to problems. When I am undecided about how to proceed I usually have more than one idea about what to do next. When I come back to the project after the interruption I somethings pick up on an idea that I have discarded and go ahead with it.

These photos are the top and the bottom of  the panel with the 2 side inner and outer pinwheel borders. This is an example of  what happens when I am interrupted. I meant to sew on all 4 inner borders before the pinwheel borders. There was a strip of blue scallops on the top like the one on the bottom. After I added the pinwheel borders to the sides I was in a quandary over what to do next. after looking at it for a while I realized the I had meant to cut off the scalloped strips. I undid the stitches for a few inches where the inner borders were stitched to the panel and cut away the strip, added the inner border strip and re-stitched the inner borders to the panel.  At the top left, you can see where I have not yet stitched the end of the inner border to the panel. It wasn't hard to do and it was a lot easier to do than anything I might had done if I had proceeded without fixing my mistake.

This is the panel with the 4 inner borders and the pinwheel side borders.

I need to decide what to do for the top and bottom borders .Each border block is a 6 inch four patch with 2 pinwheels and 2 background squares. The space between the corner block is 25 inches. I will figure it out so it looks OK.

The corner blocks will be 6 inches pinwheels on point (or pinwheels in a square) I need to add the corner triangles of background  corner triangles after I figure what size I need o cut. The corner pinwheels are the same striped fabric as the inner border. that stripe will also be the binding.

So this is where I am now. I am going to make more of the 4 patch pinwheel blocks and I am not sure what I will do next. I may not get back to this for a few days. I want to do it when I know I can work without interruptions. That may be a while.

I feel slightly over whelmed with everything. I have an appointment Friday to get our healthcare squared away. That is almost finished but I need to make sure that Jack's pharmacy  insurance will cover all his meds. 

My curbside grocery pickup order drives me crazy every time I place an order. The website keeps changing, They seem to be doing something every single time to make something "better". It is never better.

As if I didn't have enough to confuse me, I got a new "smart" phone. I have really lagged behind on technology. I thought all I ever wanted to do with my phone was make and receive calls. Then I was pushed into texting so I could get in touch with my grandchildren. For all the curbside pickups, I found I needed apps to make it easy. My old phone was so out of date I couldn't download apps. I ordered my phone and managed to get it set up. With the the help of some You Tube tutorials, I am learning. I connected my phone to Bluetooth in my car and downloaded some apps.  Yesterday and today I had video phone calls with my grandson and 18 month old great grandson. I said Hi to Elijah and his Dad told him  to say "Hi to Gigi" and he did.  That was special; it makes all the fuss of learning to use my new phone worth the effort.

A Finish

I have finished the second Framed 9 Patch. This one is smaller than the first one by 2 blocks in each direction. F9P 1 is 9 x11 blocks and F9P 2 is 7 x 9 blocks.  This one was a little easier to handle physically. 

This is the back of the quilt and I was happy to see that the pattern of the floral stripes worked out the way I planned. The pattern is symmetrical and straight along the sides and where the quilted sections are joined. It was quite an effort to get it layered up straight. After the first section I gave up trying to do it in my sewing room on the plastic top Lifetime tables and put another leaf in my dining table and put my big cutting mat on the table and used my bulldog clams on the ends to get the backing taut and smooth and I used masking tape along the sides to tape it where the sections were too narrow to reach the sides of the table. I could move my cutting mat to protect the table under the whole layered section when I was pinning. It was frustrating but it was worth the effort to make the floral strips work. 

I cut the inner border fabric 2 1/2 inches wide so it finished 2 inches and I like the 1 1/2 inch better on the first quilt. It seems to me the narrower looks better when the quilting is in the ditch. I made 5 inch Nine Patch blocks for the corners using the green from the inner border and four of the prints that have a white/light background.  

I thought I made all the corner blocks the same. I had cut the strips at the same time even though I didn't make them all at the same time. I never notice there was anything wrong when I layered up the borders. I had concentrated on having the length of the piano keys exactly the right length because the corner blocks had to line up with end of the inner border to which I added a 2 1/2 inch wide strip which would appear to be part of the side border. I measured and measured again and then again before adding the piano keys to the inner border. It all looked good and I proceeded to layer it up and quilt it. The first end border was good. The second end border had a block the was a half inch too big.

Here are the two corners on the second border. I just trimmed it square so it fit and sewed the binding on. Because the border was already quilted and sewn on to the quilt, I decided I can live with it.

I like this quilt and I am keeping it. I don't mind that there are similar solid colors close together.  I didn't pay much attention to that aspect. I laid it out  alternating light and dark blocks. That checkerboard pattern is not so apparent because the value range is somewhat narrow. There is not any really high contrast.

For the most part I relied on contrast between size and density of the prints for contrast.

This shows two of the darkest blocks and they do not really appear dark except in the photo.

The areas where similar colors are close or lumped together don't bother me. I did spend some time arranging the blocks but I didn't agonize over each decision. I only wanted each block, in some way, to related to the adjacent block. 

I wanted light, bright and cheerful and that is what it looks like to me. There are a few other issues, like that corner block, and the binding is folded over a little too wide on the back in a couple of places. Overall the workmanship is good and I make no apologies for the things that didn't turn or quite right.

As I was nearing completion of this quilt I knew it would be the last large quilt I would ever make.  I had to push myself to work on it. From now on, I will not make anything larger than a baby quilt. I will make only things that do not require moving furniture to accommodate each step of the process. 

I am scaling back on the amount to supplies I need to keep on hand. I am still paring down my scrap stash. After all, you have to make sure the people who receive your scraps will use them well. As I write this I am laughing at myself.  I have never given a second thought to what has happened to what I have given away. I love seeing how someone has used my leftovers but I never worry or wonder about them once they are no longer mine.

I do have something in the works now. I needed thread and I went to the quilt shop and saw an alphabet panel and some coordinating fabrics and they came home with me. I almost walked out of the shop without my thread. So I will still be quilting for a while but only the small stuff and only when I feel excited to make it.

What happened to September?

Here it is October and I'm still here but something seems to have happened to September. I'm not sure how I missed a whole month without posting.  Well, I suppose it is because there was no quilting to post about. I did get all three sections layered up and quilted. There were a few roadblocks along the way. I didn't have the color thread I wanted to use for the quilting and I had to order it from Superior Threads. It really wasn't a long wait till it arrived but it was an interruption and I didn't get started on the quilting right away. When I got started it did not go smoothly. My foot pedal quit working on and off. My sweet cat, Lucy, had chewed the cord a couple of years ago ( I did forgive her because she was a sweet cat). Jack had spliced the wires together  and it worked well for a long time. Several months ago the pedal quit working and I tackled the job of fixing it because Jack can't see well enough now to do it. It took me a few tries to get it right. The foot pedal worked well until I started quilting the FNP. It worked on and off but then it quit. I could see there were other places that looked like Lucy had chewed and I could see cracks in the covering. Probably with the foot pedal moving all over the place the wires cracked. I ordered a new foot pedal and all was well ......... until my tension was a problem. I cleaned the machine and changed the needle and it was OK on and off. I changed the needle again but the stich balance was still not really OK. I went to the quilt shop and  got different thread. Finally, everything was good to go.

I trimmed up the edges where the sections joined and I sewed the three sections together.

This is the back where I sewed 2 sections together. After I stitched the front together I turned it over and made sure the batting butted together along the whole length of the seam.  I carefully pinned the backing edge over the stitching line on the back and pressed it then removed the pins and fused the back edge down with 3/8 inch fusible web. You can see the seam here where I have stitched in the ditch from the front. I don't sew by hand anymore because my hands are too arthritic.

This is the same section form a different angle. I had planned to have the sections joined in the wider stripes where it would not be so noticeable if they were not perfectly aligned. I am happy with that decision. Getting the front and back lined up was a pain in the neck but it was worth the effort.

These next 2 photos are shots from different angles of the quilt thrown across my bed. I didn't worry too much about the center nine patch color placement. The blocks a light and dark checkerboard. That is not so apparent because there is not high value contrast. I wanted this quilt to be light and bright.

 I am starting to sew the piano key borders for the top and bottom. I was going to use foundation paper piecing and when I finally fund my Carol Doak paper I found that the whole package of paper had blocks printed on it.  I have no idea why I printed those blocks; they don't look like anything I remember planning to sew. Anyway I cut them into 5 inch wide x  11 inches and used them as foundations without lines and stitched on the front and it works fine to make the 5 inch width I want. I hope I can finish this quilt this week.

I wonder if there is anyone who is happy with the changes in Blogger. 

 

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.

Life just got easier

I got a package in the mail today and my life just got a little bit easier. Last Friday I spent an hour looking for my keys. I was finally convinced I lost them outside when I went back for the rest of my grocery order.  Jack found them in about 30 seconds after I quit looking. They were right in the dining room under a silicone hot pad.  Let me say, I did not put them under the hot pad but I must have moved the hot pad for some reason and placed it on top of the keys.

Searching for my keys, among other things, is a regular occurrence and I have been this way  all my life. I don't pay attention to what I am doing so of course there is nothing to remember.

After my keys were found, I went right to my computer and ordered a set of fobs and a remote. They came today and I am impressed. There was a little remote and six fobs along with 6 lithium batteries for the fobs and  6 rings  to attach them. There were also little sticky labels with pictures to put on the remote to identify which button work for which item and some sticky foam pads to attach them to other things that people might misplace, like phones and remotes.  I did have to use my own AAA batteries.

The sound is loud enough to hear if the object for which you are searching is in a purse or under something like a couch cushion.  I should have done this years ago.

Now all I have to do is keep track of the remote..

New Solids

I ordered 9 solid color fat quarters last Friday to fill in some gaps in my solid fabric stash. they arrived late yesterday; they are Moda Bella and I am quite please with them. I would usually rather choose solid fabrics in person but these are not usual times. The colors are very close
to what I expected.










I only need 10 inches x 2 inches for the Framed 9 patches so I will have a good amount left for some other kind of blocks using prints and solids.

I probably won't post each set of F9P blocks as I finish them but will wait until I get the top to the flimsy or maybe finished stage. Maybe by the time I get that finish some of the wrinkles in Blogger will be ironed out.

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.

A Few Blocks

I finished the blocks I had stacked up on paper plates and put them up on the wall with the blocks that were left over from the first Framed 9 patch.
The 8 blocks on the left are the left overs. They will stay left over again as they are too dark for the way I want the next quilt to look. The second block down in the middle row is the one I found with the leftovers that needed only one strip and I thought I would use it but after looking at it on the wall for a while I decided it should stay with the left overs.









I exchanged it for the bottom lock in the second row from the left and I like this line up better.




















I am setting everything aside for now and getting ready to make masks. I gave my daughter a lot of fabric and supplies to make masks but I wasn't going to make them myself.  I didn't have elastic and anything for the bendable strip for the nose.  I wasn't so sure that homemade masks were really going to be used.  I have changed my mind and believe that it really is a worthwhile undertaking. I have been looking at patterns and instructions online and I see that I have what I need and I believe I know people who will use them.

I am not watching the all day news, just 6 and 11 o'clock.  In general I have an optimistic outlook and depression has never been a problem but I am realistic.  It certainly is a sobering thought that there are people I may never see again. I believe that all of us will lose someone that we know, someone dear to us or someone part of a large circle of more distant friends, maybe someone we don't know but see in passing and notice something about them and they become familiar to us.  I am not dwelling on the negative but looking for the joy in each socially distant encounter, each phone conversation and each text message  or email.  I am praying for my family and friends and the people I see out walking their dogs or riding their bikes.  I thank God for all the first responders and the health care  workers, for the many people behind the scenes that contribute to the fight again this virus to keep things working and I pray for their safety.