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...

March Butterflies

The Kaleidoscope of Butterflies continues this month, and I've been stitching all weekend to get my next butterfly block done.

I'm glad this link up came along! I've been feeling a paralyzing amount of angst about the fabric choices for this project. But, these stitched sections are all decided, so I can do them now, and worry about the rest later. And I have a feeling that once these are done, and I can put everything up on the wall together, it will be easy to see what's next. Or at least, easier.

This is Block 2 of Leanne Beasley's stitchery quilt, Down in the Garden:

There was a lot of stitching on this one! And most of it yellow and gold. I seem to be on a yellow theme right now. But, given that this is the scene outside today...

 ...I think it balances out. No real life butterflies here! A spring green needleturn butterfly will have to be enough for now:

For more kaleidoscopes and butterflies, check out the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up, right here.

Butterflies

I know it looks like I've done very little hand stitching since my summer break, but it's not true! It's just that most of my hand stitching time has gone into my English Paper Piecing project, Texas Star. I'll be glad to see the end of that one!

I've been dying to get back to some embroidery, so when Ann (Fret Not Yourself) mentioned that she and Cathy (Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting) are doing a Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up this week, I immediately thought of this project, Down in the Garden by Leanne Beasley. (Click here to see all the posts on this project so far.) Last spring I finished the four birdhouse stitchery blocks, and the large centre panel is also stitched. Now I have the four watering can blocks to do. I finished the first one yesterday:

The big hold up on these has been the needleturn applique butterflies. You can see that I fussy cut the wings from a variety of Kaffe fabrics -- Roman Glass, Millefiore, and Paperweight. So that is a little trickier, but the main challenge has been the applique stitch. I want it to be invisible, and after some trial and error I settled on ladder stitch with 100 wt silk thread in light grey. I can't do more than one butterfly a day. And then I wonder if it's worth the effort, and that slows things down more. But, now that I look at it again, I do think it's worked well.

Once the applique is done, it's a relief to fill in the rest of the stitching:

In some light it seems to me that the Tsukineko ink that I used to paint in the design is starting to fade. I don't mind, because I do want the stitching to stand out. But as I write this, I'm thinking that maybe it's just the white fibres in the Kona PFD fabric that are starting to get fuzzy while I stitch. I will say the fabric is really holding up well to stitching. I don't use a hoop, and it hasn't puckered at all.

Who knows? If the butterfly link up continues, I may get the next three blocks done too! Two butterflies per block. In the meantime, you can see a whole variety of butterflies in the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies right here. Gotta love that name!

Finally Fussy Cutting Allietare!

At the same time that I was writing my post for Week 5 of Bonnie Hunter's 2015 mystery quilt, Allietare, Bonnie went ahead and did the final reveal early! For the next few weeks you can see it here. I had already figured out that we would need some type of 4" square in the middle of all the blocks, and I had my heart set on some fancy piecing in there. So I was actually a little disappointed when I saw they would be plain 4" squares. But then I came to my senses! I realized that those big squares were the perfect opportunity to do the fussy cutting that I decided against in Week 3:

This was my chance to showcase all those larger prints from my collection of Kaffe Collective fabrics. So, first thing yesterday morning I hunted high and low through my stash for everything Kaffe and reddish.

Some things I knew I had, but were hard to find, and some things were a nice surprise. In Week 4 I was sighing over my last strip of red Kirman. Yesterday I found almost a yard more!

These red squares will be used in 20 of the Allietare blocks. When I finally rounded them all up, I had more than 20. Charms!

I laid out a couple of blocks to see how they will look. I think this combination will be too tempting to resist:

And, best for last:

It's like this quilt was designed for my stash. I am so amazed at how well it's all coming together! That first flash of inspiration to use my Kaffe fabrics, based on Bonnie's photo of the gold hotel walls, has totally paid off. I'm glad I listened to it!

Now I am loaded with fun things to do. Soon I'll get these 20 red blocks up on the design wall to find the best points for each middle. And I am still making the Week 4 "bowtie" units, after I had to take a rest that week. Only 8 sets are done -- 22 left! I really like the shape of those, and they go together well, so I will probably do that first.

We certainly won't be looking at a flimsy here on Monday. But, I'm going to stick with it until it's done!

Allietare Matched Sets

If part of my intention with this project, Bonnie Hunter's 2015-16 Mystery Quilt "Allietare," is to figure out why all my projects seem to take forever, then this past week has been a huge success!

The answer is "scope creep." Scope creep is a term in product or program development, when the thing you are making gets fancier and fancier, until the project is both late and way over budget. Say you are building a house, and then halfway through you decide you need bigger windows. And some extra cupboards in the kitchen. That's scope creep.

Right before the clue came out for Week 2, I decided that since I don't know the whole picture with this mystery quilt, I will just focus on the details. Then the clue was published, and it called for 20 matched sets of these red flying geese:

And somehow, between "matched sets" and "details," I became obsessed with the idea that some of my fabrics could be fussy cut. Not those ones above, but these fabrics below:

Those fans in the first fabric would fit exactly into one of those red flying geese. And wouldn't it be cool to match up the Oriental Trees in the bottom fabric? And then I had to decide how best to do it, and that used up the rest of the weekend. By Monday I simply couldn't think about it any more, and I decided to work on those Christmas Crumbs instead. That gave me enough perspective to see sense! Was I going to do the same thing when it came time to cut the gold fabrics? No way! And any way I cut it, it was going to waste fabric.

I did try it out with the stripes:

Then to cap it off, I realized that the fussy cut pieces were going to end up too far apart for the effect to work. My best guess for how the pieces will be used looks like this:

Fussy cutting makes no difference at all! I cut the remaining fabric normally. I did match up similar colours though:

And, it's fun to play around with the pieces:

But, the whole experience has now made me clearly aware of how corrosive scope creep can be. It's not just that it slowed down this project, but it also sent me haring off to start other projects as well. I realized that I've done the same thing many times before.

And ultimately, scope creep is bad design. It's much better to have a single cohesive concept than to try to fit every idea I ever had into the same project. Good design is something that I take seriously, and I'm hoping that will be the thing I remember in future. If I'm not completely immune now, at least I'm inoculated!

I missed the Week 2 link up, but you can still see everyone else's work here. Week 3 looks pretty straightforward, so it is a good chance to catch up. Heck, Mary Ellen finished her Week 3 pieces in one day, so I should be ready by Monday, right? ;)

See you again soon!

Feathered Star

I'm still not sure that I should have done it, but I did, and here it is!

This is Sue Garman's feathered star pattern, which is Month 1 of Stars for a New Day. It was the 2009 Block of the Month at The Quilt Show, and now you can buy the pattern on Sue's website. I've been holding onto the instructions since 2009, waiting for the right time to start it.

Almost three years ago I bought some of the Victorian Modern collection by Weeks Ringle for this same quilt. But that just never felt right.

This fabric is all from Connecting Threads, and most of it is their new Heirloom Manor collection. I loved it immediately, and I also thought it would work well for some fancy, fussy-cut English paper piecing. "But I'm not going to do that," I said to myself! "I'm still working on Texas Star, which is all EPP, and after that I have Best Friends Forever."

Then I remembered Stars for a New Day, and I bought it. While I was washing it all, I thought again how ideal it would be for fussy cutting. "But that would be stupid," I said to myself. "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Ironically, it was while I was doing some improv sewing that I decided to just go for it. Improv seems to foster a "why not?" attitude, I've found.

This freezer paper frame idea is adapted from Janet's idea at Quiltsalott. You position and lightly iron down the frame...

...then iron the template down in the middle, and peel off the frame. I reused the frame, but made separate templates for each piece, and scissors cut them all with a generous seam allowance.

I ended up fussy cutting almost every piece. The navy diamonds and small tan triangles were cut to avoid the pattern and make them more solid-coloured. In for a penny, in for a pound!

In the end, though, the fussy cutting was not the tricky part of the block. The tricky part is right here:

If you ever find yourself judging a feathered star, that is the place to look. But, you definitely shouldn't judge it unless you've tried it yourself! The first one took me five tries, and then I wised up and basted each seam first.

Until I got to that point, I was thinking that it is a surprisingly forgiving pattern! The blue feathers are foundation paper pieced, so it is easy to keep them all sharp, and Sue's pattern eliminates the Y seams.

Anyway, there it is, and now I will pack it away until the new year. While I was working on it yesterday, zoned out in the blue, white, blue, white, paper piecing, I had another idea for a new improv project! But, surely I have enough already...

Hen Party Flimsy

Hen-rietta says hurrah!

The third entry in my Friday Fall Flimsy parade is Hen Party. I started this in 2012, and it sat in a box for the next three years while I struggled with the border. I thought that I was struggling with how to quilt it, but over the summer I realized that my border design was the problem. It was too stiff and formal for the scrappy centre blocks. So I simplified it, and now it's done:

Hen Party flimsy, 60" x 60"

Hurrah! I don't think I've given enough credit to simple borders like this. They really do give a clean, satisfying finish.

Looking back at my explanation of the border three years ago, it is easy to see, with hindsight, that I was trying too hard. Square peg, round hole, etc. But don't worry, I have another use for those seminole borders!

Also looking back, I noticed that I didn't give many close ups of the blocks. I'm quite fond of Hen-rietta there at the top of the page, but I think this big guy is my favourite:

He barely fits in the 6" block. There's also a happy couple:

And a few eggs, of course:

The new border has some chicken wire, and chicks on the loose:

The blue hen is the state bird of Delaware, apparently. If you were wondering!

Those peeping chicks in the border must have escaped through this hole:

So, it feels really good to get that one moved off the shelf, and onto the quilting pile. I still would like to clean out a few more, but I'll have to see how that goes. Plenty to do!

In the Groove

This was on the radio the other day, and I've played it quite a few times since then!

I was pretty rock'n'roll when I was younger, but these days I mostly listen to dance music. I like the happy upbeat mood of dance music, and I think I'm too old for all that rock'n'roll angst.

I am really enjoying my new "one at a time" approach to my projects. It's so much easier, and a lot more relaxed. Less angst. As I mentioned in my last post, I've pared it down to one hand sewing and one machine sewing project. My machine sewing project is an old one, Collector, started back near the beginning of this blog in 2012.

In January I was re-evaluating all my UFOs, and I decided to make this one smaller than originally planned. Just nine more star blocks would be enough to finish it up. Here they are!

This one is my favourite. Remember this old Kaffe Star Flowers design?

What an edgy mix of colours!

These went together pretty easily, and I already had so many other good fabrics pulled, so I've decided that I have room for 9 more:

Then that really will be it. The original plan was for 9 x 9 of the light blocks, which would have been about 76" square. I realized that would be an awkward size, too small for a bed and too big for a lap quilt. The new size, with the extra 9 stars, will be 9 x 7, about 76" x 59".

The alternating dark squares are also all cut now and ready to go:

It's going to be fun to see how it all looks together!

High or Low?

When I started to collect fabrics for this quilt, I had something of a "let's see what happens" attitude. My goal with the quilt is for it to "sparkle," and my theory was that a lot of contrast in the quilt would do that.

So, is this block high contrast, or low contrast?

I think the star almost disappears, but there's still plenty of contrast in the fabrics themselves. Same with this one:

Cute, eh? High contrast or low, they're sure fun! 5 down, 20 to go.