Purple Geese

 

At this past weekend's Sew Day, I got to finally break out the purple and start making the Flying Geese units for the second clue of the Lupine mystery quilt. I was able to try out my new Steady Betty pressing mat too. It worked out great, smelled just a little bit, but overall just great. And I remembered to press towards the neutrals.

I came home from Sew Day with the right-hand sky sewn onto about half of the neutral Geese, so first of all those got the left-hand sky pieces sewn on.

Then I cut the rest of the purple sky triangles for the remainder, got those sewn on and pressed.

There they all are.

Still not trimmed, but that's for another day. 

Neutral Triangles

 

Half of the Flying Geese ingredients I need for Clue Two of the Lupine Mystery quilt are now cut out. Next up will be pink triangles for 72 of the Flying Geese. And then 72 pairs of purple for the wings of the other 72 Flying Geese. That's a whole lot of triangles! I'm honestly a little sick of cutting out the white/neturals fabric so I'll be happy to move on to some color.

And yes, the power is Still Out! That's five days now, and four postponements of the estimated time for bringing our power back. grrrrrrrrr That's honestly the worst part, they tell you one thing and then every single day they extend it out just one more day. Very very hard to plan for and deal with. At least we finally saw a big crew of contracted-out non-PG&E people beginning to get to work at 3:30 today. The latest promise is tonight at 11:00pm, but I am Very Much Doubtful. Hey, at least the internet is still on, right? Our internet provider, Comcast, has a generator going just like we do.

Clue One Done

Well, it took me a little bit less than an entire month, but I finished off trimming the last hourglass block units for the Weekly clue one of the Lupine Mystery Quilt. Yes, the power is still out. Supposedly going back on by 11pm tonight, but I am Not Counting on it at all. I am sick unto death of the roar of the generator.

I have some rather strange pink fabrics in here, but I like how they look together (24 sets of 4 matching hourglasses) and now I'm quite happy to move on and go make a Whole Bunch of Flying Geese for clue two.

First Clue Cut

 

I got a little time in the sewing room and cut out the remaining hourglass block units for the first clue of the Lupine Mystery quilt

Yes, indeed, our power is out (as of Wednesday 2 AM), so it's a Merry Merry Mountain Christmas! We're having crazy wind, and lots of rain, and today a short-lived Tornado Warning! Thankfully that wasn't an actuality, but there was a super intense burst of hail and then diagonal rain. We postponed having my mom come over for Christmas dinner today and are instead hoping for a Boxing Day dinner tomorrow.

Trimming Hourglasses

 

Feeling like I'm being extra pok-y slow on this first clue for the Lupine Mystery quilt. But I'm plugging away a few at a time. Here's the most recent batch, now that they are all trimmed up to size. That's about all I was up for as our power is out thanks to last night's big windstorm. Christmas Eve by candlelight maybe? But not on our tree, I promise! If you're celebrating, hope you're having a good one.

My total of sets of four matching hourglass units is up to a whopping fifteen out of twenty-four. Some of those lighter pinks are reading as quite yellow, if it's a problem I'll use some ink on them.

Four More Sets

 

Well, I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention, can you see the mistake that I made on these parts of the hourglass blocks for the Lupine Mystery quilt, clue one.

Yes, that polka dot is sewn with the wrong side showing.

But I think it looks better sewn wrong, as these are "supposed" to be neutrals, and the right side is much brighter, too bright.

There's a big big difference between the two "pinks". And that one batik is reading as too purple instead of "ice blue".

But from farther away, they're interesting and different enough from each other to have that variation I"m going for. That makes fourteen sets done (once these are trimmed to size), and thus ten more sets to go for Clue 1.

Ten Hourglasses

 

All ten sets of four hourglasses are trimmed and done for Clue 1 of the Lupine Mystery Quilt. Now to make either 14 or 16 more sets. I'm definitely pushing the definition of pink.

More Hourglasses

 Six more sets of four hourglass block units for the first clue of the Lipine Mystery Quilt are all sewn together and pressed, but not yet trimmed to size.

Still Clue 1

I'm finally getting back to working on the Lupine Mystery quilt. It feels like it's been absolute ages, even though it was just about 2 weeks ago. Still in Clue 1, here's another group of four matching hourglass units. 

I wasn't sure how that plaid was going to work out, but I think it looks nice.

Then because I've been think of blocks due to the BAMQ BOM, I played around with them a bit.

1/4 square triangles really make for different block options than HSTs.

Four out of 26 sets are done now. And then my wrist said "Hey!' so I stopped for the day.

Border #3 and Done

 

Border #3 for the Old Town mystery quilt is pieced squares, alternating red and white/neutrals. There are a lot of intersections to try and match up with the four-patches in the second border so I pinned each and every one. 

The majority of the intersections matched up on the first side, so I did the same with the other three sides.

All of them worked, each border fit on pretty much perfectly, I was really happy about that.

A lot of ironing to do.

And then stay-stitching around the entire thing. Gosh, it's hard to sew "not-quite 1/4" after doing this whole quilt concentrating on doing and exactly 1/4". 

And there it is, all done! Now I'm looking for a title and then I'll have some backing and binding to be made. So it doesn't count as a "quilt finish" yet, but it's a quilt top finish and goes into the finishing category for me.

Second Border

 

Instead of working on actually assembling the quilt center of the Old Town Mystery (hey, I need a title for my version), I worked on the second of three borders. That would be the checkerboard one, which I was looking forward to. I think I'm hesitating on assembling the quilt center because I'm just a little intimidated by the thought of sewing all those blocks and sashing pieces together. It's silly because I'm the one that has already sewn all those small parts together to make the blocks and sashing.

Maybe I'll just add on the pieced sashing to just one block and see how it goes.

Also to note, I randomly ended up following the checkerboard directions entirely by mistake. Or maybe my subconscious made note of the point that two of the four sides of the quilt sew the red and white four squares together in one of two orientations. Phew I guess? That would have been a whole lot of un-sewing

Twenty Five Old Town

After a little more work of pressing open seams, I was up to 20 blocks up on the design wall. That means five more to go!

Oh my goodness, here's the final block, ready to be assembled, feels like a finish line being crossed.

I was really really excited to sew that last seam.

And tah-dah! All twenty-five blocks are up on the wall with the pieced sashing. I'm so excited to play around with arranging them until they're looking just right.

And after all the block finishing excitement, there's a little more...I worked on another part of the Old Town quilt at Sew Day. These red and white four patches are on their way to becoming a checkerboard border. 

I was super excited when I saw this was one of the features of the mystery quilt design. I am a total sucker for a checkerboard of just about any kind. I had piles and piles of four patches left over after assembling all the blocks and so I paired up a bunch and sewed them together. At home I sewed a bunch of the now 8 patches together. So I'm on my way to getting one of the borders done for this quilt. Now to press those seams so I can use them once the quilt center gets assembled.




 

Flying & Long Geese Varieties

Well look at this, I actually got all of those sashing units sewn together. And I only messed up repeating a blue fabric once.

Because I took the time to trim the smaller units to size, everything went together very easily.

I got really excited with this once I started pressing the most recent seams. The combination of the hourglass block with the two smaller flying geese and then the two longest geese is great. Especially when I managed to keep the points pointy.

They're all so pretty together and I'm really looking forward to making the blocks that will be surrounded by these sashing pieces.

I went a little crazy taking all these pictures, so here they all are.

So many distinctive fabrics when you see them up close.

And then from farther away, they blend into a nicely varied wash of somewhat matching colors.

Onto the actual block making next...
 

The Long Flock

I spent time on Sunday cutting out the rest of the parts for the remaining Long Geese left to be constructed.

I decided to do the rest with the drawn diagonal line on a square method instead of using the ruler.

The completed flock of Long Geese look kind of like little rows of beach cabañas to me.

And here's the next step with these units joining together with the two Flying Geese plus an Hourglass blocks to finish the "sashing".
 

The Longest Geese

 I think I like calling this block unit the Longest Geese. And isn't this an interesting arrangement of the twenty Longest Geese? 

Now to go cut some more blue/aqua strips to use in making the rest of these.

Long Geese & Lilacs

 

I'm working on the final clue for the mystery quilt, Old Town making these Long Geese. Just a rectangle with a Flying Geese situation at one end. They're going together pretty quickly, especially because they're meant to be scrappy. I'm using the Simple Folded Corners ruler instead of drawing a diagonal line and it's working out very well.

And just in time for Flower Friday, here are the lilacs all blooming. I contrived a reason to be out underneath them (weeding) just so I could spend more time smelling their heavenly fragrance. I don't know who to thank for planting these as they were already well-established when we bought this house way back in 1994. But they've been a garden reliable stalwart and I'm always so thankful for them every year.