Middle Sized

 

I've moved onto the middle size of the HSTs required for the Lupine Mystery.

There's eighteen out of twenty-five sets done.

New Iron Day

 

As I don't do unboxing videos, here's some unboxing pictures instead of my new Oliso iron. It's a special version that I couldn't resist, because of the lovely purple and the cherry blossoms. My old Oliso iron lasted for ten long years of pretty heavy duty usage and it always worked perfectly for me, right up until it didn't. First the touch lift stopped working reliably, and then it started leaking, so it was definitely time for a new iron. For a tool that I use so much, having one that wasn't functioning properly was super annoying.

I had resisted getting the Tula Pink and the Kaffe Fasset versions, because the main colors of the irons weren't colors that I really like. But this one was so perfect for me. And I learned about a new-to-me artist, Yaya Han, she's a super talented costume designer and cosplayer,,

I didn't realize that I was getting the matching pressing cloth too. Isn't it pretty? The fill pitcher is slightly lavender which was a nice surprise. Those are just my own purple scissors, but I thought they looked nice. All photographed on DH's old lavender work shirt that is in my to-use-at-some-point basket.

I got the iron all set up pretty quickly, along with a brand new heavier duty extension cord. I like to be able to unplug the iron when I go away from home, and the wall plug is in an inaccessible spot. The new iron works very smoothly, the action of the foot lifting is quieter and to me it seemed to heat up faster and a bit higher (that may be due to the higher rated extension cord).

I got right down to ironing a bunch of purple fabrics for the Lupine Mystery quilt and was very pleased to be somewhat back to normal as far as my ironing set up goes..

Biggest HSTs Done

 

I made the rest of the biggest size of HSTs for the Lupine Mystery.

I made a few sets two many as I got too into cutting them out. Guess the extras will be going on the back or something.

Wow! That's a lot of HSTs! I think these are looking pretty good. But I think that the two sets that are really quite purple compare to the others need to not be used.

They really did stick out. I think these will work out. Now on to making the middle size of HSTs, and these will be pink and purple.

Getting Bigger

 

I decided to switch over to making the much larger HSTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt. These are so much easier to work with, so much less fiddly than the small ones that I finished yesterday. I made these pretty quickly and now I need to cut out and sew the remaining eleven required..

Lupine Pink & White HSTs

 

Postponing the ironing and getting it all done before it got too hot in my workroom was definitely the right call.

There's all 25 sets of four of these almost teeny-tiny HSTs™! Now on to the other two sizes that I need to make.

Pink and White Proceeding

Back to finishing up what I'd started on Sew Day, the rest of the smallest HSTs that I need to make for the Lupine Mystery quilt. That will make the necessary 25 sets of 4 of this size HST. I got them all cut out and sewn together. Honestly, the sewing part of this process takes the least amount of time.

But now it's just too hot in my sewing room to iron all of these open, so I'm setting them aside until the hopefully much cooler morning.

It's so terribly **Dramatic**at my sewing machine in the late afternoon in the summer.

ICAD Time

 

Time for ICAD (Index Card A Day) once again. I haven't made a "rule" for myself this year beyond this one: At least one word has to be included.

Thinking of the beginning of Pride this year.

I so often end up in a landscape

I was thinking of Agnes Martin paintings that I enjoyed seeing at SFMOMA.

Thinking about the book I read recently about mushrooms and fungi.

Then I fell into doing even more collage.

And continued

I particularly like this one.

And then back to mostly watercolor pencils and crayons.

Looking forward to doing 90 more of these.

X-Plus Block

 I was struggling with the X-+ block for the BAMQ BOM, and it turned out that the template I printed out wasn't at full size. Soooo, no wonder it didn't fit! Started over with these directions for a 12.5" block. I almost 

I had to interrupt my studio assistant's nap time. And clean off the felt pressing pad. Usually I cover it up, but he always takes advantage if I forget to.

All pressed, including the bonus HST's. They're not teeny tiny but they will probably make it into the final quilt somehow.

All together now. Hey, I actually like this one! After all the hassling around because of my mistake in printing it really wasn't a hard block to do.

Note to self: Always check the size of the printing - not fit to print, but 100%

I may still do the giant (24" square) version.

Here's how all the blocks are looking together. Some of the "mistakes" from making this block are on the upper left, they may or may not make it into the quilt.  It certainly would make a very strong border if I continued those!

Back to BOM

 

Back to the BAMQ BOM, two month's worth of blocks are due at our upcoming June meeting. I got the Drunkard's Path 6" block done very easily, which was a nice surprise as I usually have some struggles with piecing curves.

I think it turned out pretty nicely, and I'm happy with my fabric choices.

Here's how all the blocks are looking so far. Not a final design at all, just putting them all up on the wall.

Now on to doing the next one, which is an X Plus block. I am struggling so far, so I may just make a ginormous one using this tutorial from CapitolaQuilter.

Post Sew Day

I brought a few things home with me from Sew Day yesterday. As we were cleaning up at the end, there were several items left on the Free Table. I chose to bring home this lovely half yard of tree peony fabric as well as an interesting piece of perforated "Stitchable Felt". Not sure what it's meant for, but I am definitely going to sew on it, and will likely use it in my ICAD pieces this week ahead. Two new Fudenosuke brush pens that I got in the mail. And in the back there, a Community Giving quilt that needs to be bound.

That was the first thing I did today, I unrolled it to measure the size to see how much binding I need to make. And also which color/type of fabric I should chose.I'm thinking green blue or orange, maybe prints? There's one of the great embroidered BayAreaModernQuilting.com quilt labels that one of our members machine embroiders for us to use on these Community Giving quilts.

First I stay-stitched around the outside of the already quilted quilt. And then I trimmed off the excess batting and backing. There was enough of the green print backing fabric left over to use for the binding, I just need to find another print to add in to the mix and cut it all down to size. This is a really happy bright quilt and I love the all-over quilting design that was used.
 
 

Pink Range

 

Switching back over to working on the Lupine Mystery quilt. It's been a while, I haven't worked on this since March! Concentrating on finishing quilts for deadlines and the UFO challenges. I started with cutting out a whole lot of strips yesterday. I brought the smaller pink and white strips with me to Sew Day today to get to work on one of the sizes of HSTs I'm supposed to make. 

Quite the range of pinks at work here. Hope it helps with the variation in the quilt overall.

These are all pressed and ready for trimming.

All trimmed up and ready to go home. Ten more sets of four, added to the two I'd already completed, that leaves ten more sets of four left to do of this size.

6x6 Finished

 

Well, 6x6 is now officially finished and even more importantly: LeeLoo-Approved™.

I used self-threading needles to bury my thread ends. There weren't a lot of them as I went from edge to edge with the quilting lines.

There it is, all finished, but not yet washed. Consider this the before picture.

Here it is post-washing. So much more texture, but not too much due to pre-washing the fabrics used. 

There's a side-view of the quilt surface.

And that's my #6 done for the CQFA UFO Challenge, hooray!

Binding Chicken

 

Binding the 6x6 quilt began yesterday. The great tool that I have, Binding Baby , was put to use once again.

The green that I bough for the binding was a "close enough" match to the green in the quilt for me to use for the binding.

Kona Peridot or Bella Solids Leaf are the two green solids I bought last week to use for this binding. I didn't have any scraps of the green I used in the quilt top, and I didn't feel like bringing the entire quilted quilt to the store with me, so I made this card with two green fabrics that were on my worktable. One is the much lighter bright lime green that I used on the backing. The other was closer to the green used in the quilt.

As I was attaching the binding and rounding the final corner, the end of the binding came out of the binding baby as it was getting to be all used up. And I knew then that I wasn't going to make it.

First time I've ever lost at "binding chicken"! Many times I've lost at "bobbin chicken" of course, but this was a surprise. I guess I didn't round up quite enough, usually I make a lot too much of a binding. Not too hard to add more of course, but just a funny thing happening on the way to getting this quilt finished in time for the BAMQ UFO challenge.