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.

May Done

 

The May column for the Temperature Quilt was hanging out and getting in the way of working out how to proceed on the Trinket backing. It also was falling down piece by piece, so it was my aim to get it all sewed together today.

Instead of going day by day I filled up my pressing board with the black beginning pieces and the first three days.

I got my little Oliso project iron to sit by my machine. It worked out well sitting there on the table. The sides of it don't get terribly hot like some irons.

We had one day in May where it hit 90F, so I finally got to put in a hot color, this red-orange. It was terribly exciting which is dumb I know but I love how that little splotch of red looks in the first five columns.

It's all together except for the very end black pieces. I asked my studio assistant to pose for size comparison. Doesn't this pose look like one of those hysterical photos on an old magazine cover of Cat Fancy? What's he looking at? Is he thinking deep thoughts? Why does he have a yellow ribbon on his back?

This look says to me,"Seriously, if you have to ask all those dumb questions maybe I should be in charge of doling out the cat food from here on out."

Anyways, May is done, and I'm halfway to being caught up on the year, hah!

Long January

 

I've finally managed to do it, I've laid out the first month of my Temperature Quilt. As you can see it is quite looooooong before being sewn together. All 31 days of January represented with a high and a low temperature per day. Looking at it up on the design wall, I really really hope the darkest blue doesn't blend in too much with the black background sashing that goes between months. 

I had to make little paper markers to pin up on the design wall for every five days just to keep myself on track. It was pretty easy once I had put up a few days worth. Going from consulting the January daily chart, choosing one piece for the high temperature, and one for the daily lows temperature and then putting them up on the wall. It was easy to lose track. I went back over it to make sure I selected the correct colors. It's interesting how easy it its to see that January was s a fairly boring month temperature wise, until the last week where we had the highest highs and lowest lows. There were these wild swings in daily temperatures from 70° down to 28°. That's because the majority of January was rain rain rain which keeps the temperature pretty steady.

Solid Choices

Post Pineapple Express Storm Report: Our power is still OUT, cell service is BACK, internet is still very miraculously ON. Our solar production is just barely powering the house, with a little trickle left over to recharge our nearly depleted backup batteries. So there'll be no sewing for me today unless the sun really really starts shining on this day in-between rain storms or that PG&E gets around to turning our power back on.

I've signed up to make the Temperature Quilt with JayBird Quilts over the next year. She had some recommended tools on the first class instructions, so I went ahead and got them. First is her new release of Fussy Cut Shapes templates. They have a nice see-through yet still dark 1/4" edge which helps to figure out your fussy cutting placements. I have found that I like fussy cutting (go figure, right?!) and I think these are really usable sizes that work well with her other rulers.

The second tool was one I haven't used before, it's the Clover Hold It Precision Stiletto,  It has a silicone tip which is grippy for guiding fabric through the machine. The silicones also heat resistant, so you can use it with your iron.

Instead of doing this quilt in all solids, I'm considering using hand-dyes and/or small prints in addition. These ones in the picture are the ones left over from making the Sightlines Triptych. The problem is having enough of one particular fabric to represent that particular temperature throughout the making of the whole quilt. Also, I really really like the look of the all-solids quilt.

Along with the tools, I (of course) bought some fabrics. It's always to not pay shipping, that always works on me.

I'm pretty excited about the Pantone Color of the Year for 2023, Viva Magenta. So I ordered some of the Kona solid color of the year, Crush, which is awfully close. Along with it, I chose a few other hot colors, for a quilt I want to make this year, potentially entitle Hot Hot Hot. My initial idea is to make two versions of the same block with each color, using the Crush as the foreground and the background. I'll have to plan that out in EQ8 I think.

Time For Templates

Yesterday was template day for the Orange You Glad circles. I used a ruler and the right-angled corner of a piece of cardstock to make the three templates I'll be needing for our bullseye project.

Instead of hunting around for an 8", 6" and 4" circular object to trace out, or finding my compass, I used a ruler to mark the end point of the chord (or ray) from the center which in this case is the corner of the cardstock. These quarter circles should work well to cut a mostly accurate circle of double folded fabric.

I tried the cutting templates out on the 3 sizes of double folded fabric squares. I've already cut out all of the needed 8" squares, and have a few cut out for the 6" and 4".

I think the last time we did a bullseye quilt, I didn't use templates and just free-hand/eyeballed it while cutting the circles. Which led to some definite and possibly intended wonkiness.

I decided to try out friend Jaye's suggestion to use Wonderclips to hold the template onto the folded fabric.

And that worked out really well, as you can see. No shifting around happened while cutting. Now to cut out all those 8" circles.
 

A First Quilty Box

 Received my first Quilty Box subscription in the mail last week and I'm very pleased. I really love the fabric choices, which are both precuts. These are fabrics I would likely have bought, so---so far so good on that front. The pattern included is very clever, and a raw-edged circle (hello bullseye I missed you so) using the included acrylic circle template. And a pack of Sew-tites, can always use more of those. Also a lovely shade of Aurifil thread that I didn't already have, which is always nice not to get a duplicate. 

There's also a colorful quilt label which has a great phrase on it: 

Made With Love NOT PERFECTION.

Some of these quilt subscription boxes have worked out well for me, which is why I keep trying them out. It's always a gamble, especially with the fabrics, but looking back on the past few months of boxes, it seemed like a good fit.