What I Did This Summer

...And What I Didn't...

This foundation-pieced pine cone was designed by Cyrille Zellweger, who has an Etsy shop full of cute camping-themed paper piecing patterns. I bought several of them last fall...

...and promised myself that I would make them this summer. Full of enthusiasm, I started the pine cone right after my last post in June. I'd really enjoyed all the paper piecing I'd done previously, so I thought I would take it to the next level. My plan was to make the entire project with fabric by Art Gallery, which is really beautiful -- lightweight and with a high thread count. And it is great for paper piecing. The only problem...

...is that they seem to have banned forest green from their production line. So that didn't work, but fortunately I still had a lot of my trusty Kaffe Aboriginal Dots in forest green left over from Sedona Star 1.0. I used that in the first photo above, and also in my second block:

You can also see that I used a medium scale modern print for the aqua sky. The colour in the pine cone photo is more accurate. It was an experiment, but I think it worked quite well.

But, even though they didn't take too long and all the problems were solved, I lost interest at that point. The thing I like best about paper piecing is the rhythm of sewing all those points. You can pre-cut your strips, and just sew -- light, dark, light, dark. When I looked at the rest of the blocks, I could see that every piece was a different size, and that templates would probably be needed, and it looked more like stop-and-go city driving than driving on the freeway. So I put it aside. I'm not saying I won't go back to it, but it wasn't the big summer project that I planned.

The big event in Toronto this summer was the Pan Am/Parapan Games. Although I didn't seek them out, the Games still found me. Near the end of the last week I was driving home from the grocery store, far from any of the venues, when I passed a couple of cyclists from Chile dressed from head to toe in their team colours. They caught up to me at a red light, and I could see that they were having a fantastic time, laughing and smiling from ear to ear. Toronto cyclists are not usually that happy, lol. It was like seeing a couple of flamingos among the pigeons, and a very nice moment.

It was also in July that I became very motivated to work on Texas Star again. Surprised me! After reading EPP guru Karen's blog for a while, I noticed that she sections her large quilts in rows, and then joins the wide rows at the end. My diamond section experiment was a total failure, but I decided to try Karen's approach. So far it's been a lot easier to manage, and I now have 245 of the stars joined up:

That's 99 more than last time, and there are just 88 left now. Isn't it funny how the numbers keep working out?

In my Summer Break post I thought I might work on Down in the Garden (DitG), Jacks and Cats, and Best Friends Forever (BFF) over the summer, but I've done very little on any of them. I think I need to pack DitG away for a while, because I've totally run out of steam on it. I may still pick up Jacks this fall. BFF is on hold until Texas Star is done, and I'll probably be happy to get back to it by then. I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't bound those Homegrown placemats, but at least the potholders are done:

I really like them, actually, they're like fun little mini quilts.

And, over the next three Fridays I have three finished flimsies to show you, starting with Collector. I was hoping to bring that up to five, but I promised myself that I would make a big push to get some things quilted this fall, so that's a higher priority. But then again, after less than a week of catching up in Blogland, I was captured by the Ad Hoc Improv Quilter's link up that Ann and Kaja are starting. I knew immediately what I wanted to make for that! And then the next day this order of Laura Gunn's Painters Canvas, for a completely different project, arrived in the mail:

It is awesome, so you can understand how I am torn between too many options.

I know it seems like I am picking up right where I left off before the summer, but the long break from blogging was actually very helpful, and I will probably do it again next year. It gave me chance to step back and gain some perspective on all my projects. I'm tired of working on ideas that are three or four years old, or more, so I'm very motivated to clear out some old UFOs this fall, and get more current with my projects. We'll see how it shakes out!

Summer Dreams

aka Dreaming in Colour

Doesn't that block look like the very definition of dreaming in colour? I chose a "high summer" colour scheme for my version of Lynette Anderson's 2015 BOM, My Country House. So I guess it was natural that I gravitated back to it during my summer break. I'll tell you more about my break next week, but right now I thought I'd slide in just one post before the long weekend.

You may remember the centre block:

After a couple of inner borders (still to do), the design has 13 pieced blocks and 7 applique blocks. I planned all the piecing in advance, and one day ironed and cut all the fabric in one fell swoop. For me, that's just easier and less confusing than ironing and cutting the same fabric multiple times.

My goal was to make each block as interesting and unique as possible, and to see how many "looks" I could get from the same designs. This is the second churn dash:

One light, one dark, but actually a similar idea with the negative space, I've realized. Still, I think it will take the viewer a few moments to realize they are the same block.

Despite all my plans, somehow I still ended up with two red Ohio Stars:

For Month 5, Lynette Anderson made this Golden Gate block:

I changed the placement of fabrics to make them look more like Shoofly blocks:

Doesn't look like the same block, does it? In general, I changed the blocks to make the main motif less dominant. Because I used such bright colours, I felt the pieced blocks were in danger of dwarfing the applique blocks. We'll see in a month or so if my plan worked!

Anderson's Month 6 block was Night Vision:

This is nice and balanced in her subtle colour palette, but I really struggled to make it work in mine. Finally I decided to replace it all together:

I've been seeing these Rolling Stone blocks everywhere (Lori Holt calls them "sunflowers"), and they fit with the same 3 x 3 construction that Anderson uses, so I went for it.

I'm not sure of the name of this last block, because it hasn't been officially released yet. But, after playing with it for a while I found a star shape in the centre, so I'm calling it Found Star for now:

It's like playing with crayons. :D

Here's all nine:

Just four left now. Have a great long weekend, if you're having one, and I'll be back next week!