I cut some more diamonds last night.
This is the size of the Accuquilt Studio die.
I didn’t do a lot of rearranging diamonds, just added some in. I’m still not sure where this is going. I will take all of the diamonds off the wall and start over today or tomorrow.
Here is one photo I forgot to put in yesterday’s post showing the contents of a drawer.
I started cutting diamonds with my die cutter. This is the leftover of one of the smaller stratas. I can sew those 2 ends together and cut another diamond.
And here it is.
This of course is creating a lot of leftovers too small to piece together for more diamonds. I wish I could make my hand drop them in the wastebasket, but I can’t.
I just put the diamonds up on the design wall as I cut them. There were a few stratas not wide enough to get a diamond with crosswise stripes so I cut them lengthwise. I don’t know if they will stay in the project.
I’m planning on looking through my batiks and cutting some plain diamonds from them too. I know I have one with bears and other wild animals in similar colors. I think I have some tree batiks too. I have no idea what I am making. I’m hoping the blocks will tell me what they want to be.
Yesterday morning I pulled out some previously pieced groups of Kaffe fabrics. I want to slice and insert them in some of the blocks of the strippy quilt. Then I decided to clean off the sewing table which meant hemming the 2 pair of pants that have been laying there for a week.
You wouldn’t have noticed it yesterday but there were some blocks already in the quilt that had a pieced strip.
Now that regular fall shows are back on TV I will be sewing a lot in the evenings. I made 23 blocks while watching Scorpion and Castle.
I also designed one more block for the other quilt.
My 2 neighbors mowed their yards yesterday so I decided that was a clue that I needed to do mine too. It was a perfect day for outside work.
Thanks everyone for your kind comments yesterday. I decided not to respond individually to everyone and just do a group thanks.
I put all of the Kaffe strip pieced blocks up on a design wall to get an idea what I’m doing. I have used up all of the 7″ scraps which were trimmed to 6.5″ blocks when sewn.
I have a pile of 11″ strips left over from this quilt. I was thinking about cutting them down to 7″ but then I played around with math. The blocks I have made will finish at 6″. If I sew the 11″ strips I can cut blocks at 10.5″ which will finish at 10″ If I made the center of the quilt with nine 10″ blocks (3 rows of 3 blocks, 30″ on a side) I can add rows of five 6″ blocks around it (also 30″). It will take 24 six inch blocks to go around the center 10″ blocks once. I have 37 blocks made. So…………the plan is: make nine 10″ blocks and then cut the rest of the strips down to 7″ to make more of the smaller blocks.
Yesterday was the twice monthly sewing day. I took my machine and more of the Kaffe strip scraps and pieced 24 blocks. Last night I started trimming them.
I thought they were so pretty for the tote bag and wondered if a bunch of them would be too busy as a quilt.
I worked on the lining of the tote bag (see yesterday’s post) both in the morning and after I got home from the sew in. I had forgotten how long it takes to make tote bags. The pocket for the water bottle is a little short for the tall bottle but would be perfect for the little 8 oz. size. I used my favorite Martha Negley fabric for the lining, tree rings. There is some of the same red/orange color in it.
This was a social week, 4 days in a row being with people. I think I’ll be a hermit today.
I needed some instant gratification last night so I sewed the first nine 16 patch blocks.
Here is the next batch ready to sew.
I was outside most of the day yesterday so I only sewed 2 more sets of strips together.
I planted my tomato plants in the raised bed and the whole time I could smell the lilacs at the other end of the house. They are one of the Korean varieties so they are late and not especially pretty but very fragrant.
The first peony bloomed in the 70 degree weather with the sun shining. What a difference from 47 degrees the day before.
I also planted 6 more pots with flowers. Oh, and I mowed the back yard and side yard. I think I got my fresh air and exercise yesterday.
I wore a jacket while mowing my grass yesterday. It was 47 degrees! I also emptied 10 bags of dirt into my raised bed in the backyard. Then I went inside where it was warm….the furnace running in mid-May.
Last night I decided to do some strip piecing for a 16 patch quilt. I have hundreds of 2.5″ strips of batik cut so I just chose some summery looking colors and got 20 sets sewn. That will be 40 blocks so I need to sew more.
I inventoried my Nancy Crow fabrics. She designed for 3 different fabric companies back in the 1990s. I want to cut for 2 quilts at a time so I will be thinking on this for a couple days.
I bought 2 hanging baskets for my back garden. I forget what the flowers are called but the tag said hummingbirds like them.
It is supposed to be warmer today so maybe I can get the rest of my pots planted.
This is the first set of 12 Kaffe 16 patch blocks that I made. I am using 3″ strips so I’m only getting one block out of 2 strips sewn together but I also get 2 four patches. I might try some double 4 patch blocks with these.
The next 8 blocks haven’t been pressed yet.
I’m also contemplating alternating them with a large print but probably not this print. My first set of blocks are predominantly blue and green and high contrast between the 2 fabrics. I will have a lot more low contrast blocks as I continue.
Last night I went to see “The Imitation Game” at our local theater. I was a very small child at the time of WWII and my parents didn’t talk about the war so as I see movies about it I realize how devastating it was. History class in high school in the 1950s didn’t prepare me for the destruction shown in the movies either. This movie is based on a true story; a rather amazing story.
I spent a good part of December putting borders on quilt tops that had been waiting for their finish. This is one more that needed a border. It is the mini Soul Searching (from Kathy Doughty’s book). I had the leftover 1.5″ wide strips in my main floor studio for over a month so yesterday was the day to tackle it.
This is one border of 3 rows added to the top of the piece.
Now I have both borders sewn on and this piece is about 42″ square. Here is the post where I showed the whole top before the borders were added.
Now I have to decide which 2 other pieces to finish before the 20th (second 10 days in January). Since the art quilters are coming Monday and my TAW class is Tuesday, I only have until the 18th. Since there are 31 days in January maybe I can steal the extra day and tack it onto this group of 10. Also fit in there cleaning the basement, baking 2 batches of cookies and sewing another strata for demonstration purposes, my great grandson’s baptism and first birthday party (for which I’m helping my granddaughter with the cupcakes).
My two friends came over yesterday for a day of sewing and I decided to experiment with something I saw on the internet. It turned out to be a failure because of my choices of fabric. I still have 10 strips on the bottom to sew on.
The two fabrics in the center are too close in value. The large beige leaves in the brown print blended into the zebra print in the piecing. Also the shape of my template wasn’t curvy enough.
To see how to make this, put Interleave quilt into a Search and it will bring up many photos of succesful pieces as well as Lorrie’s blog post that is a tutorial. There are other blogs that will come up in the search too and they show the pieces they made. It is a very interesting concept and I want to try it again with some better value and color choices.
Exuberant Color 