BFF Progress

I haven't posted in a while, because although I'm still stitching away, there doesn't seem to be much to show. But, I figured I better at least show what there is, if you know what I mean. Month 1 of Best Friends Forever is coming along:

While I'm working on one motif I'll have an idea for a colour or stitch on another motif, so I've been working on them all together. But for a while now all other stitching has come to a halt, because I've become obsessed with preparing the background setting, which is English paper pieced. I've basted 60 x 2" hexagons:

I know the photo looks like just three hexagons, because I didn't want to take everything out of the bags. Trust me, there are 60 there! For Texas Star I don't pre-baste anything, it is all basted and sewn in one step. A number of these units for BFF have to be pre-basted, and I've been surprised at how fun it is! So, in addition to the hexagons, I basted a further 32 x 6 green 2" hexagon kites:

Some of the green 2" hexagon kites have already been joined up with two more yellow kites each to make these triangle units:

I've been piecing Texas Star with Superior's Kimono, 100 wt silk thread, which is completely invisible and perfect for all the different coloured fabrics in that project. But it's a strain to use, and I've been piecing this project, BFF, with regular 50 wt cotton thread instead. There are fewer colours in this project so it is easy to match the thread to the fabric. It is SO much easier to use! I think that's part of the reason I've been doing so much of it lately.

Somehow I managed to precut too many of the green pieces, and not enough of the yellow pieces, so I'll have to scrounge some more yellow from my stash down the road. But I have plenty to keep me busy for a while yet!

A Cold Winter Coming?

Here's the Mountain Ash outside our house. I have never seen it so full of berries! The branches are actually bent under the weight. Traditional wisdom would say that this is a sign of a long, cold winter coming. What do you think?

Here in the Northeast we had a couple of hot weeks in early July, but late July and August so far have been unusually cool. Personally, I've loved it! But I do have a threshold for how much snow is too much snow, so I have some concerns, too, lol.

At least there is a good meal here for all the migrating robins and other birds, once they start to travel. Anyway, a stitching post is up next!

More Shopping

I have been spreading the wealth all over recently -- a few fat quarters from here, a few fat quarters from there... every shop has its own speciality. Early last week I was in Newmarket at The Quilt Store to fill in the rest of my fabric palette for BFF, which I'll show soon. Then on Friday I went up to Quilter's Cupboard in Uxbridge because I needed some very light traditional-style blues for my Hourglass quilt. Here they are already washed and cut:

I did not want to buy fabric for the Hourglass quilt, but I ran out of lights before I used up all the darks. Plus, the whole thing had so much gold and brown that it was starting to feel syrupy, so I thought the light blue would perk it up. It looks nice with this old dusty pink floral I had:

The vast majority of the fabrics in this quilt are busy, high contrast fabrics, and I am starting to realize that these low contrast lights are going to end up being very important in the final assembly. Here's a variety of lights with the same dusty pink floral:

Isn't it interesting how the two, almost solid, blue fabrics stand out? Even though the middle one on the bottom is almost white:

It will be interesting to see how it all comes out in the end. Despite my best efforts to predict, I think it will still be a surprise! This batch brings the Hourglass Ticker up to 353, so I'm on a roll. :)