SPOOLS, CONFETTI, AND CATS

I have been eking out a bit here and there trying to accomplish getting some Spinning Spool blocks and also Confetti blocks done.  The spools have me less than thrilled with the project, but the Confetti blocks are fun to work with all the scrap fabrics I have all over the sewing room.  It looks like a bomb went off in there.

Spool wedges are under major construction.  This particular product I am using is Quilters Select Print & Piece Fuse Lite. 

I like the project because I was able to tape the wedge pattern on to a piece of paper then copy it on to the product.  Made things go really fast, rather than tracing them.

Then it was a simple task of folding over the edge with a bit of glue and the iron.  However, I am not a huge fan of the project.  It is rather stiff, and was hard to remove once sewn on to the spools.  They say it softens with water, but all in all it seemed like a lot of fussing.

Well I have 8 of the 20 done and this is the layout.  I actually am pretty happy with the background.  I did not want to buy any fabric for this project so finding 2 yards of a background was a bit of an issue, but this is pretty interesting.

This is what the project should look like in the end.  I think once the appliquéd flowers are on it using some of the fabrics in the spools it will be a fun finish. 

On a happier note I have managed these Confetti blocks.  Row one is done and these have me headed to rows two and three of the eight I will need in the end.  

This is a basket of cuteness.  Along with our daughter's chickens, ducks, and peacocks she has 5 cats.  These 3 found a nice cozy spot in the morning sun coming through the bedroom window.

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MID WEEK MAKERS

CONFESSIONS OF A FABRIC ADDICT

THINGS I'VE LEARNED ABOUT PAPER PIECING AND THE GIFT

I have been working for a couple weeks now on my Confetti quilt.  The blocks are paper pieced.  I had done a little paper piecing, but never this much.  I have had an interesting learning curve on this project and thought to share a bit of it.  While paper piecing isn't rocket science these few little tips have made things so much easier.

In the beginning when I folded over the paper to trim my seams to a quarter inch I found that it was difficult to stay on the line.  I remembered a tip given in one of my on line classes to use a post card that is just a bit thicker than normal paper.  Folds were very accurate to do perfect trimming of the seams.

In the beginning I was using glue sticks.  Unfortunately I found they are used up fast and they were costly.  I have had this Roxanne Glue in my stash of tools for ages, but never used it.  I decided it might be time to give it a try.  

This was just the greatest thing ever invented.  You can apply it within the seam allowance so no excess smears of glue.

I also found that just a bit of a press before going to the sewing machine dries the glue so no slipping or sliding on the area.

This particular pattern has some pieces joined before paper piecing them.  A bit of a different system than I every dealt with before.

It works really great, and while other patterns might not use this method I thought it certainly could be used in similar situations.  

I did find that my patterns did not include the seam allowances.  I decided that the best plan was on the original patterns I would draw them in and also indicate where seams should extend beyond the seam lines.  Plus I even made a note of the one or two seams that should be folded and pressed in a different direction to join the two block parts.  Once all that information was on the original pattern pieces it was easier to not get confused when doing multiple blocks.  There are 64 blocks in the quilt top and each block has two parts.  So, having that information when make 128 block pieces made things easier.  

I spent some time doing some heavy duty housework these past few weeks.  We have travel a good deal over the last 4 or 5 years and one of the drawers in our guest bathroom was loaded with various travel size shampoo, lotion, bar soaps, as well as toothpaste, floss, and toothbrushes our dentist gives us at each visit.  I did a major clean out and our daughter took them to a couple that does a good deal of assistance for the homeless in our area.  As I was doing all that clean out I also found several old quilts and blankets in our linen closet that I added to the donation pile for that couple.  I was sent this photo of one of the quilts I donated for their cause.  They told me that they wanted it to go to someone special.  This photo was taken when the woman received  it.  It was nice to pass on to someone happy to get it.  It was one of the very first mystery quilts I ever made. 

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PLAY TIME YES, SEWING TIME MAYBE

 I would love to say that I have managed to accomplish a lot this past week in the sewing room.  Well, that just has not happened.  We have been hit by a hurricane of energy wrapped up in a 3 pound puppy.  Play time and cuddles have completely taken over most of our days.

I did manage to cut a good supply of strips to hopefully complete the ten additional spool blocks needed.

Half are done only ten more to go.  I am lucky to manage one a day.

I did get the first of eight blocks complete for the Confetti quilt.  These are fun to do and I am enjoying this project.  Although I must admit that my sewing room looks like a bomb went off with little scraps of fabric all over the place.  

This is the cause of all the commotion at our home.  A whirlwind of energy that beckins you to play with her.  Throw my toys across the room and I will run after them and bring them back to do again, and again, well you get the picture.  I am relegated to franticly try to make a block or two while Zoey catches a nap after playtime.

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SPINNING SPOOLS & ZOEY

 I have been watching Alex Anderson on her weekly shows since the beginning of Covid.  She has offered some fun quilt along projects.  I took part in the first one, but have just enjoyed watching her with the last 2 or 3 since early 2020.  This last week she started a new project called Spinning Spools.  At first I didn't think I would bother to get involved with this one, but after a while though that it would be fun.  I am using my own fabric.  Alex was making available a fabric pack on The Quilt Show shopping store, but I have way too much fabric to be buying more until I use up some of what I do have.  I have the first 5 blocks out of 20 done.  They are sewn onto a fusible interfacing using the flip and sew method.  Lots of fun doing this scrappy new project.    

As many of you know our little Yorkie Ginger passed away a couple weeks ago.  My husband was pretty upset, Ginger was his pal and we both loved her very much.  Well our house is just not a home without a dog it appears.  Our daughter was able to find a breeder of Yorkshire Terriers just a couple hours from our home.  She just had a litter of 5 ready to go to their new homes.  She was able to show us the 2 little females and my husband immediately fell in love with this little girl.  He has named her Zoey, she is just 2 months old. A smart little girl, easily trained to a potty pad and crate trained.  We have had her to our vet just this week and she is in tip top shape. 

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CONFETTI

 I have spent most of last week planning and starting a new scrap quilt. After finishing my Drummer Boy I spied a new pattern on Stitched in Color called Confetti.  It is a bit addictive.  

It is primary paper pieced.  I have done paper piecing now and again.  It seems at least for me it has a learning curve for the first couple of hours when I have been away from this process.  

This is my first block.  It was accomplished after two complete failures after the first one or two pieces started.  I cut off the piece instead of the doing the seam allowance.  I finally got the hang of it and finished the original block.  I forgot to cut outside the finished lines 1/4 inch, and as this is two parts sewn together to make the block that didn't work.  The block was 7 1/2 inches instead of 81/2 inches.  Finally I got the hang of it and things began to come together.  One would think that after 30 years of this craft I could manage better than that.  

However, there is finally success.  Only 60 more blocks to go.  I have enjoyed deciding what fabric to put in each block.  There are bits and pieces all over the room.  We are talking very small scraps.  Some as small as 1 1/2 square up to no bigger than 3 1/2 inches long or square.  That little itty bitty blue square one is 1 inch finished.  

While digging around in my closet for scraps I found this paper pieced pattern.  For a lark I tried it out as well.  I'm two down for the count, time to read the book and try to figure out what is going wrong.  That angle is giving me fits.  I just can't seem to get it right.

Some of you might remember Houdini my daughters way ward  chicken.  She is an escape artist and is in and out of her fenced in chicken yard while all the other hens stay put.  My daughter kept watching her in and out of their burn pile and decided to find out what she was up to.  

Seems she has been laying all her eggs in this nice little nest she has made for herself.  While all her chicken family politely lay their eggs in their nice cozy coop boxes, where my daughter collects them for the family's use and all the neighbor too.  Houdini has gone renegade, of course they had to be tossed and my daughter surly doesn't need any more chickens hatched either.  Fact is she wasn't sitting on them either, she is much too busy for that sort of nonsense.

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DRUMMER BOY AND SEAGULLS

This week as been more productive.  The floor in our home office was installed on Tuesday, and the installers were so nice they even moved our huge roll top desk back into the office for us.  It weighs a ton, so we were very appreciative of their help.  All the furniture is back in and now just doing a bit of touch up painting on the closet and room entry door and the job is finished.  Plus we did a good deal of cleaning out and organizing.

I finished putting my Drummer Boy quilt top together this past week.  The original plan was to be 100 blocks, but when I pulled all the blocks outs of a container that was stashed away I only had 80 done, so I sewed one more together and called it done. I laid it out in 9 rows of 9 blocks, a good size at 54 by 54 inches.  I bought the pattern from Stitched in Color a good 2 or 3 years ago.  Rachel has since moved from South Carolina to the Netherlands.  My hope was to have her quilt it, but postage being what it is I will have it quilted in the US.  I love the multiple scraps in this quilt, there are lots of them and many really different.

I finished my Gadget Girl's Tool Kit this week as well.  This was a really fun project and great for taking with me on the go. 

I have been fussing around with this Seagull Paradise Block 1pattern put out by Suzy's Crafters and Quilters.  I am not sure I will actually go on from Block 1.  I have 9 blocks downloaded and I think more to come.  They are released each month.  It makes a 52 by 68 inch quilt, so not sure I want to continue beyond this one block. 

We sadly had to have our little dog Ginger put to sleep on Sunday.  We have been back and forth multiple times to the vet since January with heart problems.  Lots of up and downs, but by last week she was having a good deal of problems breathing.  When we took her into our vet Sunday morning, he told us she was experiencing severe heart and kidney failure.  We loved her dearly but could not see her suffer.  We will really miss her.

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MYSTERY SOLVED & GADGET GIRL'S TOOL KIT

Well this past week has finally solved the guild's mystery quilt lay out problem.  I finished my guild mystery quilt, squared it up and then received this correction.  

Yes, the original layout given was not correct. 

The big question was do I fix the lay out.  Well, I thought about it and came up with an absolutely NO!  It would involve ripping out four rows, six blocks and I just am not going to do that.  Once it is quilted I think it we look OK.  Now, however, as I put this up on my blog I am having a great deal of misgivings.  Not sure maybe I will fix it after all!

To sooth my misgivings about his whole mystery delemi I decided to search through my UFO piles.  I bought this kit while on a mini vacation in the spring of 2019.  Yep, two years ago.  Smart me for a change after this week's madness, all the needed supplies, thread, and even fusible interfacings and fleece are in with it in the storage container.  I had cut out all the pieces and that was as far as I got before something else caught my eye.  This seemed like a great thing to escape my creative problems.

The pattern calls for using vinyl for the pockets, I did modify that to this mesh instead.  I happened to have the nice matching blue color and thought it would be fun to use it instead.  

The pattern calls for this tape to use when securing the vinyl to the zippers.  I had never used this before.  I am a huge fan!  This was great stuff and a great solution when pins or even clips get in the way.

All the pockets are on and the inside of the tool kit is complete.  Yes, a bit fussy but the directions are absolutely right on.  I am excited to finish it up.

My husband called to me to come out into the yard to see the pretty flowers we had growing.  I called out and said pick a couple and put them in a vase.  He said no come see.  They are chive seed blossoms.  Actually really pretty too.  They will seed them selves and we have fresh chives growing all year long. 

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QUILT MISHAPS AND TURKEYS

This past week has not been terribly productive, at least not in the sewing studio.  A remodel of our home office found me painting, ripping out carpet, and ordering new laminate flooring.  The last coat of painting of baseboards has me at the end of this ordeal.  This a a beautiful site.  I am done, the floor installers will put these on and caulk them too.  I survived!

I did finish up the cars quilt.  It will go off with its prepared binding and then make its way to the local Pregnancy Center along with several others finished off in earlier weeks.  I still have three more cut out, but I am a bit burned out and want to do something more artsy.

This quilt had me wondering where I left my brain.  I had all four rows completed and when I went to sew the top rows to the bottom two they did not fit.  The red strips between the car blocks at the top finished at 4 inches wide, cut at 4 1/2 inches. So I cut the bottom row strips at 5 inches instead of 4/1/2.  However before I was done I ended up un-sewing rows several times.  Sometimes the simplest things cause the most problems. 

I have all the guild's mystery blocks done and started putting it together.  I think there is an error in the lay out right in the middle where two pink florals touch each other.  It just doesn't look right.  I have checked the pattern over and over several times and according to the directions I have laid it out correctly.  I will get the last three rows on and see if in the end it makes since.  Maybe its me, given my sewing week so far I will not be surprised if it is.  Will I take it apart if in deed it is me.  NO!  It is a charity quilt, and hopefully the person getting it will be less of a critic than me.

The wild turkeys have come to town.  You can see boss man Tom Turkey with all his ladies taking over the park area  A bit of an issue for everyone.  They are not nice, leave a big mess behind themselves, and make lots of noise too.  

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JUST A LOT OF THIS AND THAT

 I have spent this past week just finishing up a few things in-between  working on painting our home office.  I am the painter, husband hates to paint, but is a great wing man.  He holds the ladder, pours paint into paint trays, and cleans up brushes and rollers when I am finished for the day.  This project is a bit of an over haul, the very old carpet is coming out and a new laminate floor going in so it has become a real on going project for the next week or two.  I am not a marathon painter though and 3 or 4 hours in the mornings and I am DONE for the day.  

One thing I did accomplish this past week is a clean up of the floor in my sewing room.  Walking over piles of in progress projects just got to much.  JoAnn's had this cart on sale and I decided it was the perfect way to solve that issue.  The hope is three trays so only three projects at a time.  That is a bit of a joke for me!

I have finished up several projects this past week though.  This first baby quilt for our local Pregnancy Center is ready to go to the quilter.

And this second one is done as well.

Plus another cat project finished for a fund raiser one of my daughters participates in that trap and neuter stray cats.  With our area opening up a bit after Covid closures they hope to have an event in the next couple of months.  So I may be putting another one or two of these together for her these next couple of months.   

A yes another baby quilt project.  This one is going to take a bit of work.  I am fussy cutting out the little cars.  All different sizes of fussy cut pieces that have to be fitted into a 9 1/2 inch block.  Not sure what I was thinking of but these last three baby quilt tops have been an exercise in getting rid of rather small left overs.  I am very much a math person so the challenge to do this type of thing is fun, at least it beats painting.

No photos of my youngest daughters peacocks, chickens or ducks.  Only this guy one of her cats.  Not sure what he was looking for, but seems very intent on watching something or someone.  

DESIGN WALL MONDAY

MID WEEK MAKERS

CONFESSIONS OF A FABRIC ADDICT