Blue Squares Stages

 Here's a chronicling of continuing to sew the Blue Squares quilt together. I tried to take pictures as I sewed each border onto the quilt.

 It's starting to look like I was hoping for, yay!

 The lighting is so strange in this picture, half of the colors are perfect and the rest are??? I have no idea.

 Noooo, the purples ended up right next door to each other on the right hand side. Gotta switch it up.

That's better. Now to cut the very last border fabric pieces and finish assembling this beast.

Blue Squares Start

 I started in on my Finish-a-Long list by working on sewing together the Kaffe Fassett quilt
 I'm calling it Blue Squares (it's Red Squares in his book, Heritage Quilts) This is how it started, I only had one row sewn together but most of the other pieces cut out and sorted and labelled. (Wow, unusually organized for me!)

When I first cut this out at a CQFA retreat in 2017, I didn't have the central image fabric on hand. As I'm not following the fabric formulation exactly from the book, I did consider using something else entirely, but then I found it in the right color way. I like it a lot, the formality of the still life in the unusual colors is just great, very Kaffe, right?

The border fabric I'm using is an Amy Butler print, and after putting that on the central square, I had to try out fabrics for the larger second interior border. I had the basket swirls fabric in two color ways and one other to try. Time to "Make Visual Decisions Visually".

 

Here's the lighter color way of the basket swirls. I thought it was too light compared to the majority of everything else. I didn't want that much contrast at the center of everything.

 Then I tried this fuchsia/blue large polkadot, it's the right colors...mostly, but it doesn't go with the stripes and solids well enough. It fights too much.

With it filled in more with the smaller squares, I really don't like that fabric as the large border, it jumps out as too different to the rest. I'm going with the first one, the darker basket swirls.
Now back to sewing all these squares together.

Finally Fall

 It's not really fall around here until the Poison Oak turns color.

And all of a sudden: **Pow!** the brilliant red shining in the forest.

And the birds are apparently making dried figs out on our deck railing. Maybe they're storing them up for the winter??

New table

One of my two tables has never been ideal. It’s a drafting table and I’ve always liked the size of it, but the height isn’t adjustable. It’s too tall when I’m sitting down. And it’s way too short when I stand up to rotary cut. But now there are these newfangled height adjustable tables. I talked myself out of splurging on one, but then my husband insisted. Primarily because he saw one for sale at Costco and secondly because I was complaining about my back hurting after doing a bunch of cutting.

 So here it is at standing and rotary cutting height, it can remember four heights and has usb charging outlets. It’s glass topped and the controls are on the lower right hand corner. Like a mini built in touch screen. It feels so space age!

And here it is lowered down to sitting level. It’s not the same size or shape of the drafting table so I’ve had to move a lot of stuff around. But it’s a huge improvement in my workspace. Now if the power would come back on! It’s been a couple days and I’m itching to sew again!

One Batik Block

A friend in an online quilt group I've belonged to for a Very Long time asked for a block. As a group we used to do block swaps way back when and she hadn't gotten quite enough of one to actually make a quilt. Batiks was the only requirement.

It's a very easy block, just rectangles and squares, and makes for a great scrappy quilt.

 I hope she likes all the new blocks that are coming her way.

Wandering Wednesday: Needles Studio

Last Saturday was a CQFA meeting and we met at Needles Studio in Palo Alto. It was a great meeting and a very nice space. It's nice to try out new places like this with friends.

This is a picture of one of our members, my friend Sonja (Colorific on instagram) who is meticulously dyeing all the fabric she needs for an upcoming Nancy Crow class. She wheeled in a giant suitcase and showed us her efforts, very impressive right? Can't wait to see what she makes at the workshop.

There was a lovely amount of sunlight in the shop, a bit much at one point, which made me think this would be a nice place to come in the wintertime.

The space is set up very well, a huge counter height table with comfortable stools, and many sewing machines, one of which was an industrial strength type. There are clothing patterns, a small amount of fabric and notions for sale too. 

I bought this embroidery kit, the picture makes it look like it's already done, doesn't it?

Finish-A-Long 4th Quarter List

Time for my list of proposed finishes for the fourth and final quarter of the 2019 Finish-A-Long,

I'm adding some things from previous quarter's lists, adding some new things and taking one off last quarter's list. Ten is the total number again, because that worked well for me last quarter. Not too big of a list, but enough things to choose from at various stages. Sometimes I feel more like quilting instead of sewing bindings and I go to the list and pick something that works.

1. Body Double - I got the quilting done on this big piece last quarter. At least I think so, it may need more quilting. And then it needs a binding, sleeve and label.

2. Stripes -Finish piecing the top, quilt, bind, sleeve, label.

3. May You Ever Return - Finish assembly of quilt top, quilt, binding, sleeve and label.

4. Celestial Round Robin -Baste, quilt, and then add a binding and label.

5. Between The Cypress - Design on remaining appliqué, finish quilting, embellish, binding, hanging sleeve and label.

6. Kaffe Fassett Blue Squares - Piece top, make backing, have quilted, bind, and label.

7. City Sampler - Piece top, make backing, have quilted, bind, and label.

8. Color Box - Square up, binding, hanging sleeve, and label.

9. Griffith Park Skirt - Hem and waistband.

10. Four Living Room Couch Cushions - Piece cushions from Fabmo, and other upholstery fabrics, assemble, install closures.

If you're interested in getting stuff done, making lists, checking things off and seeing what other quilters and makers are working on, come join in the finishing magic.

Thread-Filled

I had to get a new glass block holder for all my thread snips as the first one got completely filled up.
This picture is a little confusing, that's the new almost empty one in the foreground and the filled-up one behind it.

I also throw in any pins or needles that break or get dull. It sits perfectly on my windowsill and I think it looks pretty cool. I'm using this as my new version of witch balls, with the intention of any and all bad stuff getting tangled up and stuck in the mess of threads.

I do wonder if you could use this as an actual glass block in a wall, that could be visually very cool if they were all filled up with threads.

All I needed was Black Thread

All of a sudden, in the midst of stitching down all those black facings, I ran out of black thread. I found a bit to finish, but then it was on my mind. I could have ordered some online, but I was near one of my LQS and dropped in.

All I needed was black thread.
At least I stuck with the color theme?

In addition to said black thread, two new Carolyn Friedlander FQ's, and this purple one that made me think of rounded roofing tiles, maybe for the Halloween House quilt?

Quarter Three Finish-a-Long Finishes

Here's my omnibus post for all of the finishes I completed this past quarter.
Thank you to the Finish-A-Long bloggers that run the challenge, it really helped me focus and get some stuff done.

So out of the ten things I had on my third quarter list I finished the following six:

1. Weekend Whatever #19 -  I pieced the backing, had it quilted, sewed the binding down, and stitched on a label.

2. Technology's Spine -  I squared the piece up, completed the machine embroidery and quilting, applied a facing, and stitched on a sleeve and a label.

3. Our Sister's Huts - I made this quilt from start to finish and sent it off to the show that it will be a part of in Washington DC and elsewhere.

4. Shenzhen Skies -  I squared the piece up, well sort of. I turned over the raw edges and did a few rounds of stitching on the edge of the quilt instead of adding a facing or a binding. I also stitched on a sleeve and a label.

5. Slurpee Stitched - I squared the piece up, did some additional hand stitching in the edges, applied a facing, and stitched on a sleeve and a label.

6. Color Collusion - I finished the free-motion quilting, stitched the edges in lieu of a binding or facing, added a sleeve and a label.

Six out of ten, not bad. I feel good about what I got done this quarter, and I'm thankful for the finish-a-long group to keep me focused.
More on the what I didn't do and why tomorrow.

Color Collusion Done

Here's Color Collusion all completed, another one to check off the finish-a-long list. (Or should it be Colour Collusion? I do like that spelling of color a bit better, it tastes different in my mouth if that makes sense. Do I have synesthesia or hmmm?) It's made up of scraps of my hand-dyed cotton fabrics. Each shape was free-motion quilted with a near-matching color of rayon thread. It measures at 30"w x 27"h.

 The above is my favorite section of the whole quilt. I just think that the arrangement of the shapes and the colors really works.

Slurpee Stitched Finished

After so long (twelve years!), it's hard to believe that Slurpee Stitched is actually finished. It ended up being very close to square at 15"w x 14.5"h. This is another one off my finish-a-long list, and it took more work than I'd thought it would. I really like how it turned out. But without the list deadline, I'll honestly say that I most likely would not have actually put in the time to finish this. So yay! For! Lists!

 All that hand-stitching was worth it. And yes, I'm going to add a teeny dab of fusible to that corner that's lifting up.

 I learned a lot about what kind of needle to use with perle cotton.

Overall, the fusible web really held up after so many years (twelve years!) of being handled and taken on so many many car trips.