The Most Quiltiest Time...

Here's the sky outside at about 8:15 this morning. I'm sure that all over the northern hemisphere people are looking out at similar scenes these days. The clouds are so thick that the street lights come on in the middle of the afternoon, and inside we have the lights on all day. Nothing inspires me to quilt more than a day like this! To me it's the most, quiltiest time of the year.

Bonnie Hunter's first clue for En Provence came out this morning. You can read it here, for the next two months. We're making a whole bunch of all-white four patch blocks. "Woo hoo," I thought at first, "easy!" But...then I thought maybe this would be a fun place to do something silly with my flamingo fabric...

"Maybe I should wait and see how the squares are used before I make any commitments," I thought. (Although, on further reflection there's no way I'm going to fussy cut this fabric 200+ times. But, I decided to wait and see, so that's what I'll do.)

Outside, it is still perfect quilting weather:

Plus, I've been waiting all month to start a new project today. A new project. Today.

Allietare is the obvious substitution. It's so close to finished.

All the red blocks are done, and I just have seven of the black star blocks left.

So, I put this one together. Six left.

Then I remembered that it's AHIQ again this week! Thank goodness! The Allietare blocks are beautiful, but they are slow going with a lot of seams to match. 

Back in October I started a new improv-ish project. But I only made a couple of blocks before my back fell apart. Now I have like a "free week" to get that moving. This is it -- Liberated Stars!

These are Gwen Marston's style of liberated star block. I love the way they look, and they are fun to make, too. I should have had some in my Gwennie Medallion, but I wanted to re-purpose those bear claws instead.

Now I've decided to make a whole quilt of liberated stars. Liberated Stars for a New Day.

Yes! Remember this crazy thing?

That will be the centre. It's still a medallion, but Sue Garman's feathered star is the only thing left of her pattern. Last year I simplified it by enlarging all the pieces to suit my low-thread count fabric. This year I am going to liberate all the stars, large and small. 

I plan to make it much scrappier, too. I bought a lot of that Heirloom Manor collection from Connecting Threads (on sale now), which is very brown and tan. Now it will be primarily used for the backgrounds, and I'll use brighter scraps for the stars.

In fact, all those bright yellow star points are reclaimed fabric from Cardinal Stars. I had tons left over when I redesigned it, and I just couldn't bring myself to throw it all out.

I spent one evening watching tv with the seam ripper, and reduced the old hsts back into triangles. I know it seems crazy, and you may be relieved to know that the black triangles all went in the garbage!

But, I really think it was worth it, because you need triangles anyway to make the liberated stars, and everything was just the right size.

And this intense yellow does look sharp on the navy background:

There are some Brinton Hall leftovers in the centres, too. 

Scrappy and liberated seems way more interesting than my previous plans for this quilt. I've been thinking about and redesigning Stars for a New Day for years now. I guess it takes as long as it takes, because this is the plan that has traction and that I am 100% happy with. Another star quilt!

Let's hope I can do a little more before Bonnie's next clue for En Provence. :D

Summer Projects

My big project this summer has been to get my 91 year old father to stop working, and more importantly, to stop driving before he killed someone. It has required heroic persistence and patience, but I am glad to say that we have succeeded! I think he has finally accepted that retirement is not that bad.

With all that going on, I have not done that much sewing this summer. Brinton Hall has made very good progress, and I'll show you that on Sunday. When I had machine time, I'd put together a block or two of Allietare. The bright Kaffe prints are really invigorating to work with:

I love the red blocks. I am less sure about the black star blocks:

I have been so tempted to sew a few together, just to see how the secondary pattern will come out. But I do want to lay out and balance the blocks properly when they're all done, so I've held off. I only have about 10 left, and then the fun will really start!

I am not sure now if I will do Bonnie Hunter's mystery again this year. I have a colour scheme in mind already, but I also have so many other projects that I really do want to finish, and some to start! So, we'll see.

My box of Kaffe fabrics has been getting a good work out with Brinton Hall. While the fabrics were out I also made one lonely butterfly for Down in the Garden:

This butterfly was going to be gold, and I had the wings fussy cut 18 months ago already. But, I lost one! The one thing that became crystal clear this summer is that I have too many things happening at the same time, and that is hurting my projects. I have made new resolutions --

• Fewer current projects
• STICK WITH THEM
• No more BOMs
• More original work

-- and we'll see how that pans out!

But in any case, this new pink butterfly matches the purple and pink/orange flowers in the block surprisingly well too:

And I still have all the wings for the second butterfly:

Then I can get back to some stitching and finish the block. I had a lot more stitching planned for this project, but I've changed my mind and decided to fill in with some extra pieced blocks instead. It's time to move on!

I bought a couple of those adult colouring books this summer, as part of my effort to get my Dad refocused on something positive. No luck! "Silly stuff," he said. He used to draw well, but maybe colour was never his strong suit. My Mom did this nice one, though:

It is totally different from how I would have done it, which is very interesting! And better, I think. I was very impressed with her turquoise and green roses. I have to see if I can use this colour scheme for a future project.

I coloured a couple too:

Kaleidoscopic?

To me it seemed like a low-risk opportunity to try a more radical colour scheme. I've been obsessed with orange and green leaves lately. The one above is ok, but I like the second one better:

It seems like it could be a nice quilt, couldn't it? The round drawing is from Flower Mandalas by Thaneeya McArdle (New Design Originals, 2016), and the two square pages are from Magic of Flowers & Birds (Barron's).

There are two link ups on today. Please check out Ann and Cathy's Kaleidoscope of Butterflies right here. The brave Gwennie Medallion quilters are still at it too, right here. My medallion went to the basement at the end of June, and just came back up a couple of days ago. But, I've dealt with the road blocks on that one, and I hope to catch up over the next month. October 1 will be the final reveal, but I'll have updates before that.

Finally, for two days this summer we had a new lodger:

You can barely see the brown rabbit in the brown grass there. Hottest summer ever! This was right after a heavy rainfall, and the green comes back quickly. I was out checking the eavestroughs and foundations at the back of the house (still dry!). I turned around and he was right there, less than ten feet behind me. So still, he didn't even blink. Was he there the whole time? Hopefully he's moved somewhere safer now.

A week later I was taking the garbage out at dusk, and I noticed the neighbour had a new chimney. I looked again and there was not one, but two raccoons way up on the roof of the second level, with all four ears pointed straight at me! We are just grateful that they like the neighbours roof better than ours!

So, that is me mostly caught up now. As I said, Brinton Hall is well along and I'll post that on Sunday. I may need some advice...

Old and New Stars

...or "This and That"

...or "Still Sewing, Thanks!"

I know I've been absent from the blogosphere for a while, but I'm just resting my typing joints again. I've still managed a little sewing!

I put together two of the enhanced star blocks for Bonnie Hunter's Allietare:

Now it is just the steady work of putting together all the remaining Allietare blocks.

For a change of pace, I tried out one of the "feature" stars from Sue Garman's Stars for a New Day:

I'm going to be making dramatic changes and simplifications to Sue's design on this one. The fabric I bought for this project has a very low thread count, and a fairly large printed design, so I've decided to enlarge all the feature blocks from 6" to 9". That's a 9" block above, and you can see how much it is fraying, even with minimal handling. It's also quite stretchy. Sue's pattern uses mostly paper-pieced HSTs. My plan is to reduce the number of seams, and use the F&P half and quarter square ruler (that I bought for Allietare) to cut and piece it traditionally. It worked well enough.

Despite the low thread count, I still really like the fabric. I know that with washing it will get nice and soft, and a cozy brown quilt for late autumn is what I have in mind. Scaling up the blocks means I'll need fewer for a queen-size quilt, and a couple of the borders have to be eliminated too. So hopefully it will go fairly fast! (Once I finish all these other things...)

And, I've also finally finished off these old star blocks:

Mysteriously out of focus

Truly, a "soft focus" is a blessing on those blocks! I realized over the holidays that this is now my oldest UFO, started in November 2010 and intended as a Christmas present that year. Chuckle.

I've been itching to clear out some old projects, and this one is maybe a day and a half away from a finished flimsy. Each block will get a jade green border...

...and then the eight blocks will be set with some wintry sashing and borders and it'll finally be done! So as usual I am spoiled for choice around here. I've noticed that every winter and summer I'm in the mood to finish things, and every spring and fall I tend to start a bunch of things. So I'm hoping to make room for the new projects that are inevitably around the bend!

Allietare Stars

All those Allietare Week 4 sets that took me so long to make, will be used to make black star blocks. Here are my 25 sets, laid out and ready for their centres:

Bonnie Hunter's instructions call for 4" squares of our gold fabrics in the centre. I decided to make 4" gold stars instead:

My theory was that with the large variety of gold, taupe and brown fabrics that I've been using, sewing them into stars with a consistent background would give them some uniformity, and hopefully a little pizazz too!

Some of them are quite a bit darker than I expected.

It's funny how my camera sees those blues differently on different days! Anyway, some of these stars are a little risky...

...but I hope they'll be fine in the end!

Now the layout for the 25 star blocks is also done:

It is all darker than I expected, but....I think once the blocks are all sewn together the blues will tie in well to the blue in the red blocks. In any case, I'm not changing my mind now!

I think sewing them together will keep me busy for a while. :D

And today I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. Click here to see what everyone else is up to!

Cheating

Today I have a choice of musical accompaniment for you! Vintage:

Or new:

Cline's voice is just liquid, but personally I think the second track is a good cure for the first! It's not healthy to spend too much time that blue. :D

But, why am I writing about cheating today? Because I've done a lot of things that aren't Allietare, that's why!

It started with those Hourglass leaders and enders. I forgot how long it takes to prep them for sewing! With the first step done, now I have to cut them apart, iron them open, and draw the line for the second step...

...300 150 times. (300 blocks, 150 sets.) And then I realized that I should keep up with the final cut and iron too...

...so I don't have it all left to do at the end. So, the leaders and enders did get me a little sidetracked, and they're not quite as unobtrusive as I first thought!

To clear my head, I sewed four more rows on Aloha Kisses:

Then I thought that if I'm going to cheat on Allietare, I should do something that really needs to be done. So I finally sandwiched and pin basted Mod Trips:

That's a very traditional back for a modern quilt! I was going to make a pieced back for it, but when the mood struck me to baste it, I didn't want to stop and make the back. So this is a wide back that I bought for something else. Now I know that if I have a specific desire for a pieced back, I should make it at the same time as the front!

AHIQ is next week again, so I've also been making a push on the "modern utility quilt" I started in November:

I am definitely naming this one "Picnic." This week I joined the rows in pairs. Then I just have to sew together the pairs, and add the border.

Next, while I was working on Allietare in December, I decided to join in my guild's Crayon Challenge. This is the crayon I got:

Long time readers know that I have a blindspot in the fabric store when it comes to purple, and I have hardly any in my stash! But, it was a good excuse to shop. The idea of the challenge is to use a wide range of values in your colour. These finally arrived this week:

They are gorgeous! I already have all the blocks made, and the layout finalized. Now I'm afraid that's the last you'll see of it until after the last guild meeting in May.

I also received my Kaffe border fabrics for Allietare. They are gorgeous too! In fact, I like them so much that I decided to make the borders wider, and cut a row of blocks. Instead of a 5 x 6 layout of the black star blocks, I cut it down to 5 x 5. Now I only need 25 black star blocks, and 16 red blocks.

Reducing the number of blocks, however, has not saved time. I felt it would be a good opportunity to "optimize" the blocks, and make sure that my most favourite fabrics stayed in the quilt. The red blocks went back on the wall:

The four finished blocks are on the left, and I chose my favourite pieces for the last 12 on the right.

I also had to optimize the fabrics for the black star blocks. It turned out that most of the Week 4 sections with blue backgrounds, like this...

...were the ones that didn't make it into the quilt. Now that the mystery has been revealed, I see that the white backgrounds work better there. So that is one advantage of being slow!

Now, all the Week 4 sets are done:

Next week I will finally get to the layout of the black star blocks. I'm hoping that once all the decisions are made, it will go fast from there!

I certainly recognize that all this fiddling around with the colours and layout slows down the finishes. But, I have also realized that the opportunity to play with the colours and patterns is the main appeal of quilting for me. So as the saying goes, I'll keep "following my bliss!"

Allietare Red Blocks

Well, this is the last link up of the main phase of Bonnie Hunter's 2015-16 mystery quilt, Allietare. I feel like I've been working steadily since the reveal on New Year's Eve, but I don't have a lot to show for it yet. I do have a random selection of photos and reflections on the whole mystery process, and I hope they'll be in some kind of order by the time I finish writing!

While many people have already finished their flimsies, as you can see in the link up here, I know many more have not, so I don't feel too bad about that. I hoped the challenging pace of the mystery would shed some light on why all my projects take so long. It sure did! My lesson about scope creep, which you can read here, has led me to rethink many of my projects.

I admit there is some more scope creep happening now. But I hope it's justified! Fussy cutting many of the red squares, which you can see here, was one extra bit of work. The other "issue" is these star blocks:

I folded up one of my gold fabrics just to lay out the block, which is why it looks lumpy. Fortunately, I don't like the way it looks at all. The bright gold makes the red look dull. And in other blocks, the bright reds make the golds look dull. So, I say fortunately, because now I have the excuse to make the pieced centres that I wanted to make before the final reveal.

It's funny, too, because I went to so much effort to make sure the reds and golds looked good with my blue batik, but I didn't consider how they looked together! So, that's a hint about where things are going, but you'll have to wait until the next post to see the outcome. :D

Even though I don't like my golds with my reds, I was surprised at how nice the block looks when all the light backgrounds match:

I won't be able to do that every time, but it will be a fun thing to keep in mind when I finally lay out the star blocks.

Laying out all the red blocks was the big job this week. First I put all the Week 2 matched sets up on the design wall. Then I put in all the centre squares:

It seemed ok at first, and I thought that was pretty easy. But then I added all the corner units, and a lot more tweaking ensued! Some blocks never changed, and some changed several times:

My goal was to show off the fabrics to their best advantage. As I learned with the stars, not every Kaffe fabric looks good beside every other Kaffe fabric! But I think I got there. I quite like this combination of the Herringbone and Shirt Stripes patterns:

I also lucked out with those red hearts -- I think they tie into this block perfectly. It felt a little lazy to cut all those black squares from the same fabric, but it really worked well this time.

I wanted to use that same red hearts fabric for the black border, but I couldn't do it without making the border a lot narrower. So I went online. Both the Herringbone and Shirt Stripes shown above come in a great dark blue that would have been a nice, calm finish for the quilt. In the end, though, I went with a more exuberant scheme. I can't wait to get the package and see how it looks!

In the meantime, there is still tons of sewing to do:

After these 20 red blocks, I have all 30 of the star blocks, with many Week 4 sets still not finished, and the extra piecing as well. Plenty to do! But, I am sticking with it until it's a flimsy.

Overall, this mystery has been a great experience, and I really appreciate the time Bonnie takes to publish this free design and organize the link ups each week. It's like a design workshop where everyone else does the work! It's so interesting to see all the different variations. Even though I'm still sore, I would certainly consider doing another in the future. I envy those quilters who can sew all weekend! "Run your own race," is what I keep telling myself.

And even though the link ups are over, I'm sure I'll have plenty more to share. (Edit: Click here to see all the Allietare posts before and after this one.) I know I've added a few more followers, so welcome! I'm sure everyone can squish up to make room for a few more. :D