More. Candy.

For the next part of the quilt I designed for the MQG challenge, we’ll that is now past due. But I really like the design and the Color palette so I’m carrying on. This part  is a big sort of pine cone paper pieced block. I’m using the fold flip method.  So, as I watched part of the 18 inning (!!)World Series game, I took the time to fold on each line before ever sewing a stitch.

First stitches and pieces of fabric.

Beginning to see the point(hah) of all this…

All three sections pieced but not sewn together.

Woohoo 🥳 done! And now for 3 more of these babies…

Palooza Setting

 

One of the projects I worked on during yesterday's wonderful Bay Area Modern Quilting(aka: BAMQ)  Sew Day yesterday was finishing off the rest of the background (or setting?) blocks for Patchwork Palooza. I had pre-sewed all the block pieces into the three rows per block, so they were ready to sew.

Here's how they look with the nine Patchwork Palooza blocks that I've made so far. I think I might need to make one more of them. But I'm feeling good about this project, keeping up with one new block a week is very do-able. And I'm really enjoying trying out new blocks that I haven't sewed before.

PrePalooza #9

 

This is a KaleidaCam version of the Patchwork Palooza blocks, it didn't make the cut for the monthly marker, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Getting to work on the ninth block for Patchwork Palooza.

Time for the ol' 8-at-a-time-HSTs method.

.

They turned out pretty well, thanks to the handy-dandy Bloc-Loc 2.5" HST ruler. But they don't get used in this block exactly like this...

They get used as the "skies"for Flying Geese.

The brown checkered fabric will be star points if I do this right. 

Executive decision made, I'll be sewing the rest of this block together tomorrow. I have to go crash out for a little while after getting my Covid shot today. I tried something different this time and did a fairly heavy weight workout, to try and help move the shot material around in my arm muscles. It worked well for the flu shot I got last week, no lump, no soreness, no fever like I usually get.

Pre-Sewing Setting Blocks

 

I've been working on making more "background" or setting blocks for the Patchwork Palooza quilt. I've cut out all the fabric WOF strips and I'm cutting them down to size.

It's a lot of pieces, but I'm chain piecing and it's going pretty quickly. Now to iron all of these and make the actual blocks.

Not Exactly Navy

 

I got out the bolt of not exactly navy solid that I had bought a while ago, and pre-washed. It's been in an un-ironed, but washed and re-rolled onto the cardboard bolt state for some time now. So it took some ironing before I could get to cutting strips. Then I found two other solids that I thought looked good together. Hey, maybe that's a good title for this quilt, "Not Exactly Navy", I'll keep that one on the back burner for a while.

The first block I made looks pretty good to me. Now to make a few more and try them out up on the design wall with the weekly blocks and see if they work together. The not exactly navy looks so different to my eye than it does to the camera, I wonder what's up with that?

I'm going for the look of the version on the right hand side by using the not exactly navy. 

Andover Fabrics, the sponsor/host of this "block at a time" sew along, has a huge free resource of free quilt patterns. More than a 1,000! I was just randomly paging through and looking at some of them and I really like this one, which would be super interesting as an all scrappy quilt. Putting this in my "maybe someday quilt designs" tag.

Just Barely A Box

 

My final subscription box for the Pink Door Fabrics Tula Pink club arrived. The box itself was still barely still taped together on all sides, yikes! I was a little worried for the contents inside.

But everything was safe and sound, and there's as usual, a whole lot of goodies. This is the newest Tula Pink release of Full Moon Forest II line of fabrics along with all kinds of coordinating stuff. I love the Emperor's Wheel pattern example done in these fabrics.

The coordinating Tula Pink solids are great. and the webbing has a beautiful tree print on it.

There are a lot of FQ's and it's always so hard to untie these beautiful rainbow bundles.

A Bob-Sled was the most clever new notion I've seen in a while. It's a bobbin holder that has a little front part (like a bobsled) that lifts up and you can put needles in there. So cute, and I love the Deco-Bob pre-wound coordinating threads included.

A Tula Pink neon pink bee key fob, Renaissance Ribbons sampler pack of the coordinating ribbons,  and a long 72" of ByAnnie zipper with contrasting hardware.

An interesting bag pattern, 1"hexagon papers and these clever plastic mini bolts for organizing fabric. They included an idea of making feature parts of the fabric you'd use for the bag out of hexies which I thought would be very cute. Especially with using that printed webbing and color coordinated zipper.

The Tula Pink solids are really nice color choices.

A better view of the print FQs, quite a wide variety of big and little prints. 

A lot of these will be really easy to use in block making.

And the more interesting detailed prints will be used elsewhere in bigger pieces.

I like the inclusion of the light greys and white prints too.

Yesterday's Mail

 

Yesterday was a Good Mail day™ because my subscription box from Pink Door Fabrics arrived. It is chock o' block as per usual with all kinds of fun stuff. But I have to say, I really really enjoy the boxes and have a hard time throwing them away. I've been using them for storing current projects, they're roomy enough and easy to move around. Better than buying even more P.O.T.S. (Plastic Organizer Thingies).

There's always a pattern included and this one is super intriguing to me, I've always liked this block but have never tried it (due to the curves and needing to make templates. Well, it includes the acrylic templates, and equipment for doing it EPP style. There also directions for piecing it by machine. We shall see. I quite like the examples on the pattern cover of the fussy cutting these great Tula Pink fabrics.

I'm excited about the Renaissance Ribbons that were included, they're so pretty and match the fabric so well. Another Sewline fabric glue pen is always useful, now I can have one in my to-go box and one in my workroom, some very pointy butterfly scissors, John James Milliners needles, a spool of DecoBob for hand sewing. Oh and a package of seeds, alyssum.

There was also a swatch deck with pictures of each of the prints in the Untamed fabric line. Not sure what those are really for, maybe I can use them in a collage?

Untamed is all about flowers,  there are no animals included in any of these. Except for the check and houndstooth fabrics, it's all gorgeous flower or plant related shapes like seeds..

I really enjoy the variation of patterns used in the backgrounds of the florals.

I'm really into the rainbow houndstooth fabrics. And the patterns on the seeds (or water droplets).

The neons are Very Neon.

A lot of these would play very well with other Tula Pink fabric lines, there are similar motifs that are similar and the colors would work together.

The Tula Pink solids are super pretty. The fabric quality is very good for a solid.

The neon checkerboards are super stinky with the heavy neon print. It's very stiff and plasticky as well. I hope that it washes out and softens somewhat.

Always fun to check out the selvedges.

I like the colors on the selvedge being represented in water droplet (or seed) shapes.

I used my laundry marker to write in the names of the solids, just in case I end up needing more of one color.

Gone in Circles

 

Back to hopefully finishing the walking foot quilting on Running Out of Raincloud. I want to do some piecing and I need to swap over the feet, so time to get this done.

Even though I didn't get it done in time to submit it to the quilt challenge, I still want to see where I'm going to end up with this one. After alllll those straight lines, it Needed Circles.

Yes, yes it did. It was hard going at some points to follow and echo the correct line of stitching.

The complexity of all the lines of quilting intersecting is really fun to look at.

Am I now done with quilting this thing? Maybe. Probably. 

Most of the quilt has more than one direction of quilting line, some more than four. But there is some space that only has one line of quilting. I think it's okay. It lies flat enough and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Really like the look of this circle. I think I"ll put the facing on and sit with it for a bit.