Tuesday check-in

Last time I posted I was all excited about working on my Rosy Red St. Nicholas redwork piece. I had foundation pieced the borders and was all set to try the mitered seam to join them. It worked so well (NOT!) that I threw in the towel after I had three borders on. I ended up taking the seam ripper to the borders and removing them. There was no way that it was ever going to lay down flat. I folded up the whole deal and decided that I would work it into my re-designed Oxmoor House Christmas quilt. I tried and will try mitering again but much later down the line.

After that humbling experience, I opted for making the donation quilt shown below. It was next on my list anyway but how easy was it to just make a bunch of strip sets when you think you can’t do anything right? The pattern is from Quick Cozy Couch Quilts by Sandy Thompson, specifically her quilt number 2 from that book. (I ordered mine from Connecting Threads). Because we shoot for about a 40 x 60 quilt for WTIL I re-sized the block by using 2 1/2 inch strips rather than the 3 1/2 inch strips so it is about 42 x 54—close enough for me.

I left off last night with just the seam to join the top and bottom halves. I know that the yellow is a bit much but it a fabric challenge project. It would be worse if I had not used the flip side of the blue—all those veins on two fabrics would probably make your eyes bleed, LOL.

The Wrap Them in Love listers call this “THAT” fabric. There is a lovely cobble stone piece that goes with it. Ellen, the Wrap ‘Em founder had received a huge donation of the stuff, maybe on more than one occasion, if I remember correctly. There were two color ways---red and blue. At one point Ellen was kitting up the yardage and we could have the whole deal for $5 bucks in our choice of colorway. Needless to say, we have used a bunch of it over the year, often for backs to get rid of it. Pieces show up in various quilts in the gallery pages and you have to smile and say to yourself “there is some more of THAT kit fabric”. Now, I love the gold tone on tone piece to the point that Ellen sent me a large roll of it. Any guesses what I plan to back this top with, LOL?? The yellow with red or blue vein on it----ugh!

Anyway some time back I posted pics of three different quilts I used with this stuff. Actually I was working in series---the cut aways and overcut strips from the first one became the two that followed. I dug through my archives and will direct you HERE. You will spot the lovely cobblestone, LOL.

Today 4 friends and I were invited out to another friend’s home to do some handwork and visiting around the kitchen table. Our hostess is recuperating from surgery and is starting to get a little stir crazy with her activity restrictions. It was good to get out of the house for a while and sit and stitch with like minded friends. I met up with two of the girls at a local Fred’s to share a ride out to our friend’s home so took the opportunity to get a few more 20 qt hinged containers before I came home. I got a bit more of the under table stuff packed away a bit more neatly when I got home. Truth be told, I probably should have bought a couple more.

I got a bit more done on my February Bird Brain Designs “Here Comes Santa” redwork block at her house. It is shown HERE in my WIP Wednesday post from almost a week ago. Currently I’m working on the basket area where there is a lot of concentrated stitching and down to one strand of floss with the fine detail. Super Bowl Sunday was occupied with knitting so the golf head cover you see in that post has grown to starting on the required color bands. I don’t really feel like revving up the sewing machine tonight so may grab that to keep myself busy.

And, I almost forgot---on Sunday afternoon DJ handed me another mending job. I swear he thinks I can fix anything from pants pockets to trying to sew the zipper back down in his shag bag! This time the repair was replacing the no longer closing Velcro on a nighttime neck support band that we have rigged up for him. I was not sure which of the sections--the hook or the loop--was not working so I took off both. I only had industrial strength no sew variety on hand so I told him if he wanted it fixed than HE could go off to Walmart to pick up what I needed while I busied myself with the seam ripper. Armed with explicit directions as to just where the fabric department was located (between electronics and shoes on the back wall) so he would know which door to park near and the basic locale in the department (to the right of the cutting table on the hanging board) he still said "I don't suppose you would want to ride along?" Nope, said I, LOL and kept ripping. By the time he got home with the product I was ready to fix his product.

This is what I was working on yesterday. The quilt is called "Two of a Kind" and was featured in APQ April 08. They gave the number of blocks to make the quilt full/queen but I was having a hard time picturing the rows should I decide to make one bigger than the article showed. I drew a version up in EQ to play with and make a coloring sheet. See Below. No surprise, I love the 30's version since I don't have many batiks on hand as the cover article shows. The actual construction is different than what I drew it up to be so I would be back to referring to the magazine for piecing. Being a visual learner a picture helps!


What’s up next? Tomorrow, I will probably be on to the Be-Attitudes “Be Loving” block. With its Valentine’s theme, it would be nice to have the mini-quilt completed for the holiday. Piecing? Not sure yet—maybe get those string blocks that Theramae had made up turned into a top. I got a whole bag of strings she had leftover for more—might suggest that at our next quilt meeting.

And that’s how it goes around here---thanks for stopping by.