Trying to Find a Gear

Did you ever try to learn to drive a standard? Remember that feeling of not quite getting the car into gear and searching for the sweet spot that would take you forward (or backward, for that matter). Well, I feel like that's where I've been of late - sitting between gears waiting for something to click.

That said, I finally made good on my remake of the yellow braid for the mug rugs to be given with the Christmas gifts for our shut-ins.

And I got over my fear of leaving too many trimming scraps on the table. I cut three roughly 8" x 6.5". The last one that's sitting on the top of the pile was too narrow so I reoriented the cut and got a fourth slightly smaller rug out of it. 

A few of the larger trimmings will likely become small HSTs to use in another one. You'd think that I don't have any yardage 😏.

A lonely little pile of forgotten HSTs made up quickly into these, which I quite like. They are approximately 6" x 8", which I hope is big enough.

And, I used some 1.25" scrappy strips to play with Log Cabin blocks. I quite like these as well and have the makings of one or two more ready to go.

Now that I have a few tops made I'm going to see if I can't get them quilted and take them with me to bind when we are away in August for a few days. It's always nice to have a bit of hand stitching to pick up. It's not a ton of progress but it's something, and I'll take it...M

Fair Season Has Begun

On the weekend, we took a quick trip to Beachburg to see what we could see. They host an agricultural fair annually that has been running for 168 years now (which seems incredible to me) and it's been a while since we went, so I was keen to see what we could see.

Much of the livestock showing had happened a day earlier, but there was a barn with some animals on display so we were able to enjoy that.

and a judging circle that was busy with young 4H members learning their way around a ring. This little fellow was Patches II and his turn was coming up. He had a lot of personality.

The biggie for me was getting into the handicrafts exhibit hall to check things out.

For a small fair I thought that they had a great showing of items, particularly quilts. 

And the workmanship was second to none.

Originally, I thought that this was a temperature quilt but I've since realized that it goes by another name - Postcard from Sweden? It was beautiful hung up high in the rafters.

As was this appliqued Christmas quilt.

The one that we were keen to see was this paper pieced fish quilt. Just a week earlier we learned that the young gal who runs the diner that we go to most Sundays for breakfast is a quilter and made this for a girlfriend's 40th. 

For a first effort I'm thinking that she did amazingly well. She will be thrilled.

And this was the last little fellow to catch my eye. He was a winner too, and you can see why.

What a terrific beginning to fair season 2024...M

We're Going Four It!

This post might just as easily be titled 'Crazy Loves Company'. 

Last weekend I saw where Roberta had pinned this gorgeous scrappy quilt called - what else? - Scraptacular by Edyta Sitar from Laundry Basket Quilts, so I sent Roberta a note saying how I have admired it for a long time and was saving to start it for a day when I was truly crazy. 

This was one of three quilts in a Go Four It quilt along held in 2015. Yup, I'm at the leading edge of quilting trends...

Well, crazy or not, here we come. Before the weekend was out, we had decided that we were jumping in with both feet. 

I recently came across a new print by Betsy Chutchian so it will be the large floral for the alternating strips. We're still sorting out what the other main colours will be.

There are 480 little square-in-a-square scrappy blocks with four patches tucked into the centre, so before committing to this I made a few test blocks. They finish up at 2 1/8" so you sort of want to be sure. Scrappy, tiny - I'm in!...M

Lemons or Lemonade?

Not surprisingly, there's another squirrel loose in my sewing room, a yellow one this time. 

All it took was an email from a friend who asked a group of our quilters if we would consider making quilted bookmarks for Christmas bundles that she gives to shut-ins - she needs about 40. Soon the idea of also making mug rugs came up, so naturally, I had to head to the scrap bins to see what I could start. I've also been pinning ideas like mad.

A braid seemed like a quick and easy place to start, and it was. Not sure exactly what size to make my strips (I want the mug rugs to be about 6" x 8") I cut them 2" x 6.5".

And very quickly I had this, which I love. 

If I trimmed and didn't waste any of the edges I would end up with a piece about 7.5". But even though they are scraps, I just can't bring myself to trim them to 6.5" wide and waste some of those corner pieces so that I can have the braid running across the mug, not vertically. Stall.

So, after I slept on it I'm changing gears (squirrels do that a lot). I will cut this strip in half and add borders to each piece to make a set of placemats for the Holly Bazaar. Then, I will cut another shorter set of strips to make mug rugs and get that braid running in the direction that I want. Not exactly what I was planning, but when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!...M

Soggy Stitching

We're home again. Thankfully the heat wave has broken to some extent, and with that change came rain. It's been nothing if not variable - sunny one minute, pouring the next - but the rain is a welcome change. And a little more cross stitch is the perfect way to spend a soggy Sunday.

This time around I decided to start with Santa's house.

Then there was a little landscaping.

And now I'm into roofing. It's fun to see it come together though invariably, as I add new colours, I see where I have occasionally misplaced a stitch. No worries. The pattern is flexible enough at this point that I can fill in as desired and it's close enough for me....M

Counting On Santa To Keep Me Cool

We're on a bit of a holiday this week and we've also been under a massive heat dome, the likes of which we've never seen before, so I have been looking to Santa to help cool things down a bit. 

I'm starting another Good Day, Syre Christmas cross stitch. The one that I made last year was lots of fun but you work it over two threads of linen so at times it's tough to keep your stitches where you need to. For that one, I basted a line through the centre of each axis as a way to help keep me oriented to the pattern, but it still made for lots of counting and recounting.

So, this time I'm basting a grid every 10 stitches apart. It's not the fastest process, again because of the linen, but I've finally finished. Sort of reminded me of Sashiko stitching but more stressful because it is finely woven. Time to start putting a few stitches in and see where that takes me. 

Hope that you are finding ways to stay cool in this heat....M

A Blue & Yellow Lozenge Flimsy

I didn't know what else to call this quilt so I'm calling it Lozenges. Boring, I know, but I recently saw that name used for the block on Pinterest, so that's what I am going with.

To be honest, I had a little lunch bag letdown with this one after it was started, which surprised me because the blue accent fabric is beautiful, almost a deep periwinkle; but it was looking pretty drab down in the sewing cave. That lighting wasn't doing it any favours.

After bringing it up into the natural light everything changed. All of the colours just came to life and once it was pressed I was impressed. So happy because I did enjoy making it and there's nothing worse than finishing a flimsy and all you feel is 'meh'.

I hit a bit of a slow patch trying to figure out the sizes for the border pieces. In the end, I just made more full blocks and then trimmed them half the size of the block plus a seam allowance. So much quicker, and it was a much better finish (you can see how the blue one in the upper right is starting to do it's own thing...

Trimming was a breeze,

and there was much less waste than I had imagined, so that was a bonus.

And, I was thrilled to have just enough blue for a narrow border, similar to my inspiration photo. I did lots of calcs before making the first cut because my piece was only about 16" x 39" and I wanted that border to be as wide as possible. It's cut at 2.75" so it will finish off at 2.25", which will be nice. A border will also help corral all of those bias edges. So, with the exception of a 2" strip, that piece is all used up. 

I took a look through the rest of the fabrics to see if there was enough for a binding and again the remnant gods were shining on me. This one always reminds me of olives for some reason. It was just slightly larger than the blue remnant so I cut the entire thing up into binding to send along to QFS with the flimsy. Another piece leaves the stash.

If I hadn't been fretting over whether or not I had enough of the blue to make this quilt work it would have been a fun quilt to make because it really did come together nicely. Another time I would ensure that I have lots of the main colour. 

I am still thinking that I need to try making a table runner for the Holly Bazaar using this pattern, but with a smaller block, so I will look forward to that....M

Gingham Zen

In a week chock-a-block with meetings and appointments there was little or no opportunity to sit and stitch. Until Friday. I had my car in the shop for a brake job and when they called to say that they needed more parts and I wouldn't have it back for a few days, it sounded like house arrest to me, but in a good way. The perfect excuse to slow things down.

I wasted little time cutting a hot pink gingham bias binding for the yellow star quilt. It felts SO good to sit and be soothed by a little hand stitching.

As I worked my way around the quilt I came across a few joins in the outer binding that I'd forgotten about. There were three in total, and as luck would have it, the way that I had cut the strips allowed me enough flexibility to get great joins on two of them.

I'd also taken a stab at joining the butterscotch check that I used for the backing. It's not perfect but I was pleasantly surprised with how well that went too because it was done while burning a little midnight oil to get it ready for the quilters.

Here's a close-up of the narrow striped border. It just makes me smile that there are little red stars in it, a nod to the larger white stars scattered throughout the quilt.

The quilting is simple diagonal lines with a little bit of an echo within each of the stars so we were able to get this one quilted in record time. It might be a pattern to remember when we're looking for a quick finish in the future.

The last stitches went into the binding today. I'm delighted that it's finished and itching to have more hand stitching to work on. But there's the blue and yellow QFS flimsy on the design wall and I think I'll focus my attention on getting that together to free up some head (and wall) space first....M

My Latest QFS Quilt

And here is the yellow Quilts for Survivors star quilt that we just took off the quilt frames at the church.

It's based on Pat Sloan's Oh My Charming Stars pattern, with a few modifications. You will recognize it because it seems to be a frequent visitor to my TO DO list, sometimes as a quilt and other times as table runners. 

It's such an easy pattern and it always produces a lovely result. And I never seem to tire of making those stars.

It also proved to be a great excuse to try out my new Folded Corner Clipper ruler (say that fast three times!). Initially, I wasn't convinced that I had actually needed to buy it, but once I got into it I was very happy that I had. 

You simply place your large and small blocks right sides together, as usual, line up the block size that you want to cut - in this case 3.5" - and trim the corner; then you sew your seam. Easy, peasy.

And you still end up with a beautiful pile of HST made from the trimmings (sometimes I just eyeball my trimming with scissors so my seam allowances can vary a bit). It makes for very, very little trimming to get them squared up to use in another project.

My quilt is slightly larger than the pattern so I just laid squares out on the design wall and then played around with where I wanted my white stars to go.

I didn't know what I was going to do for borders so you can see with the top star that I opted not to run my stars into the first border, as suggested in the pattern, though I do like that look.

In the end, my first border became a narrow white and blue stripe and then I finished it off with a large yellow floral. Love that fabric. There are now only a few scraps of it left. The butterscotch check made for a nice backing....M