Flood!

Our basement flooded this morning.  Fortunately, it was not widespread, but unfortunately, it was right where I keep my stash!

I woke up to heavy rain, and when I looked outside the street was flooded, so I went straight down to the basement.  The usual problem areas looked ok, but then I heard water rushing in the room where I keep my stash.  I'm sure you can imagine my horror when I saw that the window well (like the one in the photo) was completely full of water.  It was gushing through the seams in the glass and literally falling in a little waterfall down my plastic storage bins.

So much water fell so quickly that our neighbourhood storm sewers were completely overloaded, so all the water from the eavestroughs and window wells had nowhere to go.  On the side of the house that flooded you can see how the water was running over the grass:

Fortunately we were able to bail out the window well just as the rain was slowing down, so the damage seems confined to just the one room.  Thank goodness for the plastic bins, because it doesn't look like any of my stash was damaged, even in the bins that were directly under the waterfall.  Several other cardboard boxes were damaged, but I don't think I had anything too fragile in them.  The carpet will probably have to be removed, and maybe the plywood subfloor as well.  Fortunately again, it was just rainwater and not sewage, otherwise this would all be another story!

There's nothing like a minor disaster to make you realize that you have too much stuff.  Hopefully this will motivate us to do some clearing out!

Banner Corners and Borders

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally realized in April that I had to simplify the design for my banner, because I still wanted the stitcheries themselves to be the focal point.  These little 2" finished square-in-a-square blocks were an idea that I had rejected early on.  But when I looked at the stitcheries I realized that the designer Jim Shore had put different blocks in each corner of his borders, so I could make my blocks more interesting by varying the colours!  I went to my stash and pulled the fabrics to match the stitching.

I mentioned a few days ago that I planned right from the beginning to use Flying Geese around the sides of the stitcheries.  I also planned all along to do them in green and yellow, echoing the colours of the top border which are consistent on all three pieces:

But during my final design phase in April I worried that green and yellow would be too high contrast, too busy, and therefore distract from the stitcheries.  I went to my stash looking for two shades of green instead, and found these:

I really, really love this fabric combination!  The small print against the big one, the slightly warmer geese versus the cooler background, the geese are defined without being "in your face."  These sections will finish at 2" x 6" each. I am foundation paper piecing them, which I did for the corners as well, using my own home made foundations copied onto vellum.  They are quite slow to sew, but at least the points are perfect!  There will be 10 in all.  Here's a preview of how it will all look together:

Imagine if I had gone ahead with those stumpwork daisies!  This is so much better.

I took advantage of a break in the humidity last week to piece these side sections, but I still have six left, so I think it will still be a while before this is finished.  I have found, though, that I stay cooler working on something small like this, rather than trying to manage large pieces of fabric and long seams.

There will also be a little bit of needleturn applique in the triangle at the bottom.  Hopefully I'll be able to show you that soon!


Previous Posts:

Percy Pig

Sophie Sheep

Clarissa Cow

Clarissa Cow

You saw yesterday that Sophie had a nice quilt on her back.  Clarissa's blanket also features a great quilt block:

I think the colours stand out beautifully against her black and white cowhide!

Quilt blocks are featured throughout these designs, in the blankets and also in the upper corners, so sewing them into a quilted banner seems like a natural evolution.  My first plan was to put a solid fabric border around them, with just enough quilting to hold it all together.  Then last summer both my quilt guilds were sending out reminders for us to submit our quilts for their shows in the fall.  Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, to put some fancy pieced borders on these cross stitches (the last one, Clarissa here, was almost done), and enter them into the show(s)?  Well, I missed the entry deadline, and it is probably just as well, because the shows are long over and I am still not done!

That "fancy pieced border" turned out to be quite a sticking point.  Once I had the idea I couldn't give it up and go back to the original simple plan.  I came up with the idea to put 1" x 2" Flying Geese around the sides almost right away, and that part has stuck.  But the big question has been what to do in the corners.  The plan got more and more elaborate!  First I thought about tiny pinwheels.  Then I was obsessed with daisies.  Maybe I could design a little cross stitch daisy for the point at the end?  What about thread painting it?  Maybe I could fussy cut some daisy fabric?  At one point I thought I would do stumpwork daisies in the corners.  Thank goodness I backed away from that!

Finally in April I went back and pulled out the actual stitcheries again for inspiration.  This seems more reasonable:

Stay tuned!

Previous Posts:

Percy Pig

Sophie Sheep