Pin It Weekly #326

Welcome back to PIW!  My Pinterest has over 10,000 followers! How did that happen? Let's say hi to a couple, okay? Starting with

Okay, I admit it: I've already snagged a few of Phyllis' pins. Then I discovered that 

Quilt Challenge Day 3

A small modern quilt that I finally finished. (The tops are beginning to pile up somehow.) Quilting proved that straight lines are much too boring for me. Lots of fabrics, no repetitions.

Quilt Challenge Day 2

I made this quilt when my mom was fighting cancer and Alzheimer's. Life felt deeply depressing, so I designed it to give us both a little cheer. (I really need to take a better picture though.)

Quilt Challenge Day 1

I'm a scroller. You know how people post food and silly pictures and challenges and every little detail of their lives on social media? Well, this is my form of social media. The (I don't know, maybe 7?) people who come by.... you're my social media. I mean I have Pinterest and Instagram and, of course, Facebook. But Instagram is for when I'm stuck waiting and there are no old magazines from three years ago. Facebook is my grape vine, but I read with dubious interest. Pinterest, well, that's my game. However, I can play only so much, you know?

So, the reason for this post. A quilt friend did this ten day challenge of posting one or two quilt pictures every day. Just for fun, I suppose. A sort of online quilt show, if you will. Anyway, she actually named me as the next challenger. Now, how do you go about ignoring something like that? She named me! Okay, okay. I'm in. Here's what I posted. 

And there we are, the beginning of something I may not be completely committed to. 

Quilt Challenge Day 1

Thank you, Mary Coco.

I'll start with a quilt in progress. These are the first six rows of the Bernina Sugaridoo quilt along. Over 6,000 people from around the world are participating, so it's in pretty good company. I'm using indigos I've collected for a while, off whites and a touch of mustard. (Yes, momma, mustard.)

 

 

A new bad finish

A few days ago I mentioned that I'd started a new quilt top. Frustrated with one thing, I decided to try working on something new. It doesn't work that way apparently. At least not for me. If I could have the time back that I've spent anguishing over these two quilts, I'd be able to make one king. Ah well, c'est la vie.

At this point I have abandoned the front of the quilt. I don't like it. I've tried several things. I don't like any of them and am moving on. I did realize (before sewing!) that I needed to be careful how I orient the pieces.  

I've took some of the elements that I tried on the front and am tossing them on the back. Namely this lowest one in the picture above. Two reasons for putting them on the back: firstly, I've wasted time and fabric unless I do something with it; secondly, I need a little more fabric for the back. There. Good enough. 

I ripped the stitches out and played with the idea of putting all of the strips together. Placed on the last piece of dark green, it looks pretty good. So there we are. A back that I may like more than the front.

If all goes well tomorrow I will have a back and a front and I'll have loaded everything onto the longarm. I'm still a little tired from my week of CoVid19, so I expect that's about as far as I get. 

Pin It Weekly #325

Have I told you that I'm really bad at math? Here's one example of many, embarrassing many: I always check to see what number the next PIW is before actually typing in the number. Sometimes I double check. About six weeks ago I did that. Well, I did something.

I thought it was check the number and add one. Then I proceeded to number the next PIW by skipping a slew of numbers. I went from the end of the 310s to the 330s. How does something like that happen? I assume it the same way I can slam my arm on a door knob that I just opened. I can't explain it and I've quit fighting it. Other people math for me and I have bruises I can't explain. 

Any way, possibly I've corrected the numbers. On my own, so if you see #325 (it's plausible that I tossed it in there somewhere) just know that my life is an interesting series of corrections and explanations. 

Now that I've entertained you, please enjoy the pins I have been pinning recently. 

A new bad start

That worrisome thing on the design wall just doesn't appeal to me right now. It's been three weeks since I last looked at it. I'm suffering with a touch of CoVid19. It's not bad, considering people are dying. Nonetheless, I do feel yucky. I've managed to get out of bed. Some days barely. 

Today I'm trying to convince myself that I can do more, so I've dressed, sat outside to breathe in fresh air, and took a look at what was happening in the studio before this wretched virus turned me into a mopey, limp noodle with occasional severe headaches. 

Before all the CoVid nonsense, I started a new project. You know how you come back from retreat ready to take on the stash? Well, I felt just like that. So much so that I challenged myself to choose one of the old granny-looking rose prints from when I first started quilting. Back then everything roses was my game. I bought yards and yards. And coordinating solids and coordinating prints. My sister even sent me a complete kit. 

The problem with loving a fabric motif--and buying yards and yards--is that there's the very real possibility that you'll fall out of love with it. In my case, I still love the fabric. It just doesn't work with my modern aesthetic. Ahh! No mam! It's challenge. Work with it.

After much debating with myself over color combos. After trying to pull in something modern. After looking through patterns, I decided on a pattern I liked and four coordinating fabrics and began cutting. 

First small squares. Then more small squares. Those became HSTs. Lots of HSTs.

I made a block. Which I promptly disliked. So I made another in different colors.

But I pushed forward. Four blocks. Two in each color pair. Note to self, the arrangement does make a difference. I want white and yellow touching. And I want to use all of the focus fabric, so the backing may be ready to go.

Do you know what happens when Mary decides she's had enough? Well, when I get better, these four blocks will become a baby quilt. This business cannot continue. I thought I'd do 16 patches. Then decided nine would be more than enough. That became six, which became four. Four are complete, so I'm pretty sure this is it.

Traditional blocks. What was I thinking? Why? 

BRMQG Retreat -- my projects

Remember reading about the Baton Rouge MQG retreat at the River Retreat House over the July 4th weekend. In this post I highlighted some of the works my friends created. 

Finally, I get to tell you about the pieces I worked on. Admittedly, I played as much as I worked. So the end results won't be much, but nevertheless, here they are. 

I started with the Sugaridoo row that needed doing. I'd packed one basket just for that purpose. Honestly, I didn't like it but once I saw it with the rest of the quilt, I decided it fits right in. Of course I went with the improv option and then improv-ed more as I played. Sometimes I have three white strips, sometimes four. I did make one more to fill in that gap on the left, but for some reason, I didn't get a photo. Isn't the top looking good though? There will be separations between the rows. 

I brought a kit that I'd put together last year. It's as simple as a quilt can be: 8" blocks of various stripes and plaids. It took an afternoon of sewing to slam it together. Of course, I strip pieced it running two blocks through the machine like runner on steroids. I was grateful that the parts to my machine had come in and I had put them in place. Zoom! Zoom!

The plaid quilt was barely folded when I started another. This time I was working with lots of text fabric, some scraps and no one idea in mind. Naturally I kicked it into improv gear and let myself go. I got this far, having decided that I would include small pieces of green to break up the text chunks.

Then Glen decided to mess with me and threw in one of her blocks. I didn't even notice it, according to her, for quite a while. I was in the zone, man! But there was this nagging that something was needed. Boom! I'm not telling her but it think it's that tiny corner of teal that gave me the idea.

As luck would have it, I had a large scrap of teal that looks like it has strips of newspaper on it. Could it be more perfect?

So into the quilt wide chunks went. And basically, I built a chunk and found a spot for it. There was no rhyme or reason. Occasionally I'd look at the whole piece through the camera to get a clearer perspective, but mostly it was simple. 

In the end, I had three long pieces that fit together quite easily. But I do not like that line right down the center. Something will have to be done about that before it can be quilted. I have a few ideas and am open to suggestions. Please share them if you can think of something, anything.