Guiding Star

Now on to the eighteenth Patchwork Palooza block, which is named Guiding Star. Yes, I'm using the Bloc-Loc 2.5" HST ruler again.

Making the four-at-time version of Flying Geese. This is what I call the "Big Chomper" stage.

These turned out to be quite oversized, but they trimmed down easily with the 2.5"x4.5" Flying Geese Bloc-Loc ruler.

This might be my favorite block so far. I really love this fabric combination. Sometimes your scraps really do surprise you.

Here are all 18 of these beauties hung up together with the chain blocks. Do they look matchy-matchy? Nope, not exactly. But is it close enough for me to "somewhat coordinated"? Yes.

By Land, By Air

 

There was lots of rainy driving coming back from Portland. As I was only navigating and not driving (thanks friend Jaye), I got to work on the rest of the sky on the Snake in the Garden.

Definitely coming along.

A few days later, I was in the Spokane airport, stitching away as my flight home got delayed several times by the FAA/government shutdown silliness (and high winds).

I was very glad I was prepared to sit and stitch for a while.

BAMQ BOM Begins & Home Chaos Reigns

It was down to the wire, but I got my first block done for the BAMQ BOM, this month was...HSTs. 

Yes, it's a bit odd, but the idea I had was to turn around one of the two-HST sections each time and it'll be a whole different looking block. Yes, these are two of my newly purchased Portland Trip fabrics, good noticing. They're going to be part of the BAMQ BOM quilt top I'll be making month by month in blacks and grays.

 I didn't get to go the meeting on Saturday where the new month's BOM was presented because of these two jokers. Oh yeah, someone (me, it was me) made the yearly vet visit with the double trouble crew. A two-cat appointment for a change. Sorry, Korben.

Sorry, LeeLoo. We had to dismantle her carrier to get her out so that the vet could check her out. Both of them yelled about not liking being in the car on the way there and on the way back. Thankfully it's only a once a year thing. But I do believe they were easier to handle together, especially with DH along as helper.

Then I got to go home and empty out the refrigerator (and freezer) to get this--DEFROSt IT! Yes, that's the warranty company's solution before investigating whether or not it needs repair (same symptoms as last year's debacle). I honestly thought this defrosting business was a thing of the distant past...I remember my mom doing this close to 60 years ago. Hope it works! I'm not happy with having to entirely discard the contents of my freezer once a year because it stops being freez-y enough. Boo, don't ever buy a GE if you can avoid it. They're on my Never Again list.

 

Starlight Path

On to making the next Patchwork Palooza block, this one is called Starlight Path. I don't know if I'll achieve any path making or twinkly starlight in my fabric choices or not. But either way I'm marking my solid with a white pencil and getting ready to make lots of HSTs

Now to trim all the HSTs down to size, handy-dandy 2.5" Bloc-Loc ruler comes out to help me out once again. Along with the little spinning cutting mat.

Playing around with arranging the HSTs and the squares.

I turned a couple of the square around and liked how their fabrics looked next to their neighbors.

There it is, the seventeenth block in the Patchwork Palooza quilt.

Safe Harbour

 

Another Patchwork Palooza block is done, it's the sixteenth. This one is named Safe Harbour so I thought the tree/bee fabric in the center would work. I really like how the first center triangle's fabric design swirls around the center square. More teeny tiny HSTs™ to add to my envelope that's getting a bit full now.

Wool Plans

 

One of the places we checked out in Portland was the Pendleton Wool Mill store.They had a very nice traditional Pendleton design painted on the outside, very eye-catching.

We were stopped in our tracks by this enormous and gorgeous wool quilt .

I found some great wool in the header bin, about two yards worth for $9.

Buy 1 get 1 Worm Free!! I think these are the edge trimmings, basically the wool schnibbles.

The worms bins were fascinating, and they had examples of rag rugs made out of them. It made me very sneezy there was a lot of fiber floating around in the air.

I knew I wanted wool to make a messenger bag style purse from a Charlie’s Aunt t pattern I bought last year. I snapped a picture of the back of this pattern (I think it’s close) to get the yardage requirements.

Here’s the purple and green wool I found in the headers bin. My plan is to machine wash it (on purpose) to felt it so it’ll be sturdier. But I have to read the actual pattern first. I may use the stitching and color changes in the design of the purse.

Wandering Wednesday-Bletchley Park

 

Off to the English countryside, for a visit to a fine stately mansion. This is Bletchley Park which was actually a super secret code cracking operation during WWII. 

What a gracious entrance this is.

I found the entry floor design to be very interesting.

There were some beautiful details, like this fancy ceiling in the ballroom.

These titles in the library cracked me up!

Most beautiful picture I’ve ever taken in a loo.

The official code cracking cat. 

There were so many great presentations of all the memorabilia, both technical and human.

This desk fan design is very cool and also a bit terrifying.

The D in D-day is made to look like the paper tapes they were working with.

These machines were all so fascinating, 

even the fonts.

I thought this curl of code tape had a lovely form.

DH enjoying his second visit 

I would have bought a copy of this if it had been in the gift shop.

Patchwork Palooza Catch-Up Parts

 

After a few weeks away from my fabric scrapbox, I'm back to assembling the three blocks that I missed out on making for Patchwork Palooza. Blocks 16, 17, 18 are ready to be sewn.

Travel Shop

 

The fabric shopping on the way to, and in Portland with friend Jaye, was pretty great. The above picture is  what I found at Sewlarium. First is the new Ruby Star toweling, I'll be making napkins out of this beautiful stuff. I think it'll go well with my pride month table runner. FQs of the PDX airport fabric, a black on grey houndstooth, and odd yellow grid, a pink/caramel ribbon print. A mushroom print that I plan to make a pillowcase with, a really interesting print with odd yellow shapes (I thought it looked like a tile floor), a beautiful (instead of ugly) Frida Kahlo print, and an on-sale pearl bracelets in a dark grey almost black. 

At Pioneer Quilts, I found more of the Ruby Star toweling, because I hadn't bought enough at Sewlarium. An odd grellow star print, a pretty purple halloween print and then the ingredients to make the witch hat "pin keeper" (not a pincushion I guess?). They have a great selection of wools in this shop.

At Mill End, I think I was fabric shopped out/overwhelmed with the vast array of choices, so I only got a couple buckles and a Tombow textile glue that I'd never seen.

In Eugene, we stopped in at Paramount Sew-Vac, a really great store, especially for sewing machine selections as they had all the brands and tons of room displaying them, I found a great remnant of this white and grey print, and then was excited to see Marcia Derse print on a lovely cotton jersey, I got enough to make myself a top.

In Ashland, we checked out Sew Creative and I found that I was really drawn to the Australian Aboriginal prints, they have a huge selection, but I managed to narrow it down and chose three and then found another print that I thought would work well with them.

The last shop we stopped at was Purple Frog Quilt Shop, where I found these 4 FQs, a Peanuts print, blue Grunge, and two lights on a string one dark green and one charcoal. They had a great selection of the American Made solids, so I bought the last of the light grey, a little over a yard. And a new nail file, because my travel one is worn out now and needs replacing.

And finally, at Powell's Books, I found this book, Ahead of the Curve(which includes 5 patterns!) by one of my fave curvy pattern designers, Jenny Rushmore of Cashmerette.

That was plenty of shopping to last me for quite a while, and now I get to add the new fabric purchases into my fabric tracker. At the last update, I was previously at a net increase of 11.8 yards. After adding all this new stuff in,  and subtracting out what I've been sewing since the last update, I'm up to a net of: 18.3 yards. I better get to finishing some big things before year's end to get that number down!

Eleven More Stamp Blocks to Come

 

By the time I finished sewing all of those Stamp Blocks, I was honestly a little tired of it. But, I'd brought along some more Tula Pink fabrics that had motifs destined to be Stamp Block centers. So I cut those out to be all prepared to make more blocks when the moment came.

And then I cut out the four pieces of Stamp Stripe fabric required for the frame for each one.

All paired up, and ready to sew. Kind of like my own precuts for this project.