Getting Spiky

The next clue I'm working on for the Lupine Mystery quilt involves making some larger block units out of already made smaller block units. Two sizes of HSTs and the HRTs combine for this interesting almost its own block. 

I only had to un-sew one bit that I'd gotten the big HST turned the wrong way around. At least I noticed before it got sewn into the quilt, right?  Before I sewed together the next few, I set up the elements in stacks that looked like the final product.

So spiky! I love the look of all the variations in the pinks and white fabrics. These don't look so great on my white design wall. I promise they all have white fabric centers. Interesting how they visually just totally disappear. The final blocks will have the four sub-blocks with blue sashing and pink cornerstones in the centers. But those haven't been cut out yet...

So Many Kitty Ears

I buckled down and got started sewing the remaining sets of Kitty Ears units for the Lupine Mystery quilt. 

I love how these "Kitty Ears" units kind of have the look of Flying Geese gone wrong, or maybe just gone wiiiiiide.

Cutting the very last set to size with the Simple Folded Corners ruler.

It took a lot of trimming and sewing and pressing, but they got put together. Check out that pile of teeny tiny hsts™!

 But here they all are.  

Twenty-four sets of four "kitty ears" all done. You may be wondering if I had run out of white on white? No, just thought it'd be fun to put in two of my favorite white with black prints. This layout would actually make a very interesting scrap (or otherwise) quilt. Looks like columns of arrows.

  I am so very very ready to move on to the next clue.

Back to Kitty Ears

 

Today I got back to work in my sewing room, and I finished cutting out all of the pieces to complete the "kitty ears" for the Lupine Mystery quilt. 

They are all ready to get sewn together into the fifteen sets of four I have left to make. It's nice to work with the blue and white combination, I kind of got tired of all the pink and purple. 

More Kitty Ears

 

On the second day of Sew Day, I made more "kitty ears". (sung to the tune of "On The First Day of Christmas") for the Lupine Mystery Quilt. I'm of course, ending up with a whole lot of teeny tiny hsts™

Are my blues arctic blues as they're meant to be? I'd say that some of them get fairly close, but many are way off. I hope it ends up working out. I'm completely using up some of these blues, so this will be the last time they appear in one of my quilts.  

It wasn't all strip cutting, there was some fussy fiddly cutting happening. But at the end, I ended up with nine sets of four (out of the required 24 sets) done. I also cut out the rest of the blue squares that will be needed. Pshew, that was a lot. What a super fun, Super Sew Day(s) it was!

Time for Kitty Ears

Time for a Super Sew Day, so I brought along my stacks of "ice blue" and "white/cream" fabrics and cut out a bunch of the next clue I'm working on for the Lupine Mystery quilt. This block unit is called "Kitty Ears."

Well, at least two sets got done!

Lupine Part Five Complete

 

It was a lot easier to zoom through the initial sewing together of the Lupine Mystery blocks I'm working on as I'd sorted them out into bundles. This is a picture before pressing the seams correctly.

Pretty soon I was sewing the last seam of the last block.

Beauty shot of the color and fabric print coordinated with my new iron (hee!) of the final block. This might be my favorite block and not just because it's the last one I made. I just like the combination of these prints, and I think the colors work really well together.

And here they all are together in a very purple class portrait. Wow some of those purples are Very Very Dark. Hope it works in the rest of the quilt. 

 Okay, that's part number Five done, so onto the sixth clue I go for this mystery quilt....

Lupine Block Ingredients

Yesterday I had the time to cut out the remaining white squares and set of four matching purple squares that I need for the Lupine mystery quilt. And lthen looking at the stack of really varied  purples, I knew that some fabrics in the hourglass units were going to play better with some of the purples, like this very much lighter overall version of the block above. 

I decided to pre-match them all up into sets of one white square, four matching purple squares, and four matching hourglass units. That means I've got  the rest of the block ingredients all ready to sew these together into finished blocks.

First Lupine Blocks

 

Time for a new Lupine Mystery quilt clue, and this time it's just cutting out four purple squares for the block corners and white squares for the block centers.The hourglass units made in part one way back at the beginning are incorporated as well. 

It's a nice looking block.

Lots of variety going on.

Well, there's six out of the twenty-four blocks to be made. I'll definitely be cutting some lighter and medium purple corner squares.

200 HRTs

 

I was blazing through the trimming of the rest of the HRTs I've been making for the Lupine Mystery quilt (for what seems like months and months now) and I stopped at the very very last one for a picture. I don't think I could have made all of these so easily without the great Bloc_Loc rulers.

Here's the 14 sets of HRTs that were done. I was working on trimming the remaining 11 sets.

I got into the groove and then suddenly all 200 were all trimmed and done, woohoo! I'm so relieved to get this clue done for the mystery quilt.

More and more HRT's, now trimmed

 

Now that all the rest of the HRTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt are sewn together, it is time for trimming!

Five more sets trimmed up.

I put them up on the design wall underneath the previous batch. The Bohemian Wife quilt top is on the left for scale. But wait, something's missing!

There we go that's better. It's getting old trimming these, but they're turning out great, and they're almost done. So I'm pushing through, a few more sets at a time until the to-be-trimmed stack is gone.

Saturday and Sunday were my first workouts back at the gym. Here I am looking very pleased with myself for recovering enough to get to go out and do a good workout at the gym with DH. 

Well-Lit Tiger HRTs

 

Cutting the pairs of rectangles for the rest of the HRTs for the Lupine mystery quilt.

I noticed the cool reflection of the underside of the new portable rechargeable light that I got for myself when it was on sale. That's reflecting on a print I just got from Ravi Zupa.

That's a lot of pairing and pinning, I think 15 sets. And I still have 5 more sets left to cut and pin. But at least I'm prepped for some more sewing tomorrow.

Lupine HRTs

 

Here are the HRTs that I've just finished today for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Only seven sets, with so many more to go. Back to cutting I go.

Back to HRTs

 

Back to actual sewing happening today! Finally! Woohoo! But of course I had to re-teach, re-view, and re-learn how to do the rest of the HRTs with the Bloc Loc Rulers that I cut out for the Lupine Mystery Quilt.

I referred back to the kinda tutorial I'd made for myself way back in June. This is a sort of update to that, with a big deal note to begin with: Both fabrics are right side up when you cut the pairs. Very Important for prints especially.

Flip one of the triangles, right sides together, offset the triangle tips, sew together.

Press seams to the purple.

Make sure you're using the B ruler with the B units, pay attention to which side the seam allowance is on. Trim on two sides.

Keeping the ruler locked onto the seam, spin ruler 180°, slide down to the final measurement of 2"w x 3.5"h.

Repeat with the A ruler and A units.

Okay, one set all done!

There it is, an actual thing that I sewed, and ironed and trimmed.

And then I cut and sewed a whole bunch more, but they haven't been pressed or trimmed yet.

Vintage HRTs

 

The other project I worked on at Sew Day was cutting out the pairs of purple and white rectangles that I need to do clue #4 of the Lupine Mystery.

There are so many "vintage" purples in here, a lot of which were the very first quilt fabrics I ever bought as I've always been a purple person. It was quite fun to use them all and remember "way back when" and to finally be using them again. The one in the lower left corner comes from at least two yard piece of fabric that I had probably bought to make myself shorts or some other piece of clothing. That never happened and I can probably use the rest of it for the backing for this quilt - memo to me.

The rectangles that you start out with are quite large compared to the finished block unit size. It's funny to see them together. I didn't remember to bring my rulers to Sew Day, so I came home with the two large stacks of the 23 more sets of rectangles to work with.

Prints Test

 

Moving on to the Prints Test to make sure I really know how to make these HRTs for the Lupine Mystery quilt. Both fabrics are right side up together, then cut on the diagonal.

The pairs flipped into position and paired with the correct A or B ruler

All sewn together, and doing the trimming.

Okay, now that I've got my brain wrapped around the process, it all worked very quickly. And the prints were no problem-o.

That's two out of 25 sets done. I definitely have some more cutting to do.