My Baggie Runneth Over

For the better part of this past week I have held the kitchen table captive with my sewing - I brought the machine upstairs to make a few bindings, and there it stayed. I worked on more of the tiny nine patches for Omigosh, enjoying the view to the back yard and working in natural light. Eventually the baggie that I store the blocks in reached its breaking point so it was time to put a few of the larger nine patches together and clear that backlog.

Making these little blocks is not the speediest of exercises - it would be faster if I was using full widths of fabric and limiting my fabric choices - but scrappy is the way that I've opted to go, and I love them. Once I have the strip sets cut into one-inch pieces I always pin them at the seams...

It helps avoid missteps like this. On a block with larger pieces I might be tempted to just let this go but when the blocks are so small (half an inch finished) I feel that its doubly important to try and be accurate, so there was a little ripping being done as well.

Eventually the second strip gets added, and before you know it, the baggie is full.

I was anxious to clear the table and get my kitchen back to normal so I set myself the challenge of making up all of the larger nine patch blocks in the baggie before I returned my machine to the sewing room and put the pedal to the metal. Voilá! Sixteen more blocks now added to the finished pile. It helps to set goals, even if they are small ones, doesn't it?....M

p.s. Still no obvious signs that my basket of one-inch strips has gone down any...

A Peach of a Day

Warm Peach Cake was the finishing touch to our day yesterday, and it was soooo delicious. It is the end result of a war between me and the fruit flies and I like to think that I won 😏. Apparently it is equally good chilled, so we will test that theory out this evening.

It was also a bit of a reward for getting more of my tiny nine-patch blocks assembled for Omigosh.

Though I have to say that I'm not sure I made much of a dent in my basket of strips. I think that all I did was fluff them up when I was digging through them. Oh well, lots more fun to be had.....M

I'm Finished Churning

Omigosh requires lots of Churn Dash blocks - lots! Even though I have simplified the design of the block that I am using (I've removed the tiny four-patch blocks from the centre of the four outer cream blocks), it was still going to take some time to get the last of them all together. The pieces were getting lost amid the mess of my sewing table so I decided to pair everything up and just work at them until they were all together - it's easier to keep track of 4.5" quilt blocks rather than 1.5" squares.

Over several days I'd sit down and put three or four blocks together in one sitting and - wa-la - they are all finished now.

Or at least as many as I think that I need.

It's a happy little block and I love seeing them all together.

I'm going to modify my quilt design even more than just using a simplified Churn Dash block, which will require fewer blocks all round, but I'm pretty sure that I now have enough for what I need, with possibly some extras. I'll share my idea for my version of Omigosh with you one of these days; I'm quite excited about it....M

Enjoy the Little Things

What do you do when your air conditioning quits over a long weekend in the middle of a heat wave? You find a good, big fan and set it up near your machine so that you can sew tiny strip sets to keep yourself from going mad with the heat. I'm happy to say that after four days we finally have a fix but there were times that it almost drove us to distraction.

The Omigosh quilt requires a lot of this...

but the payoff is these wonderful little blocks. And now I have eight more to add to the list.

I also get to enjoy a little light (fabric) reading as you sew with a reminder to enjoy the little things...

p.s. This is a lousy pic but I just had to share it. As I sewed the Official Cookie Tester sat in front of another fan to watch World Cup soccer. To the untrained eye this looks like random strip sets, but it was his illustration of the extra kicks that saw England win over Columbia. 😃

Churning

Another little collection of Churn Dash blocks for my Omigosh quilt have been added to the pile - twenty-two, I believe.

I'm  still working through my stacks of 10 but each stack has a different collection of prints so it makes for a slight change of scenery.

Love this large floral.

The polka dots are lots of fun too....M


p.s. Thanks for all the tips on how to stay cool while quilting on my hoop this summer. For whatever reason Blogger is not letting me see/respond to your notes individually but it looks like there might be a fan in my future to help me fend off the high temps.

Churning

Upon doing the math for Omigosh I realized that I need about 99 of the nine-patch blocks and the same number of Churn Dash blocks. Feeling the need for speed, I decided to shift gears and spend a little time on the Churn Dash blocks rather than the tiny nine-patches so I cut all of the pieces that I need for those blocks.

I've stacked them in groups of 10 and pick one or two to sew whenever I have a few minutes. To prevent boredom from setting in I mix the colours of prints in each bundle of 10.

And surprise, surprise, I have been known to fall asleep once or twice while making these blocks as well!

I'm really happy that I opted to make all of these blocks in shades of brown.

My pile is now up to 34. Still a ways to go but at least I don't feel like I will be six feet under before I get even close to finishing all of the blocks that I need for this quilt.














The occasional nine-patch block slips into the rotation; this one needs a good pressing....M

Omigosh Redux

Still not much stitching happening on this end but I do believe that my cold is finally breaking so hopefully by the end of the weekend things will be back to normal. I was off today so I went down and halfheartedly moved a few pieces of fabric around in the sewing room, but that was it. Not very productive. I did, however, notice my Omigosh blocks so here's an update on where that project is going.

I've got all of three nine-patch blocks sewn - that's 142 squares together now 😏. Lined up they would measure 5 x 15" finished - ha!

Earlier I had mentioned that I was planning a few changes to the original design which is very scrappy. The longer that I looked at it the more I wanted a little more structure to mine. I also wanted to simplify it a bit, so my Churn Dash blocks are all going to be in shades of beige and brown.

The idea came from the Edyta Sitar-inspired Basket of Scraps runner that I made a while back (ahem, not quite finished). Those browns really set off all of the tiny squares in the basket beautifully and once I hit upon the idea of using the same scheme for this project there was no turning back.

I'm also simplifying the Churn Dash blocks - there will be no tiny four-patches on point in the cream blocks, just a scrappy collection of creams and neutrals. I toyed with totally mixing the creams throughout the blocks so that all four corners were different too but it was easier just to make them all the same and I think adds a little subtle structure as well.

This photo is a little on the dark side (not the Star Wars kind of 'dark side', but dark) but the overall feel of the blocks together is very warm and almost caramelized. So anyway, that's the plan, at least for now....M

Stuck in My Scrap Basket

Most sane people would cut the 1" strips for the Omigosh nine-patch strip sets from yardage to move things along and see some real progress, but to me, this is the perfect excuse to use up all of the teenie, tiny scraps that I save.

I have weeded through my largest scrap basket - a real catch-all - finally pitching anything that I couldn't get even a single one-inch square from and pressing the bits that remained. Once I'm through with it I will move on to other baskets of scraps that I've sorted by colour and finally supplement it with yardage, but I've got a ways to go.






The tiniest of pieces are being trimmed into 1" squares/strips. It's such a kick to give those little scraps that I just couldn't part with a purpose. They are the last lovely bits of some of my favourite fabrics and some day they will be a quilt. Yay!












A few unexpected treasures have also been unearthed, like these strips of a fruit print that mom used in a quilt - just wide enough.

It was all too much for one of my rotary cutters though, who gave up the ghost...

You wouldn't think that it would be worth the effort but after just a little sorting and pressing I've cut two nice little piles of cream and coloured strips and a small collection of 1" blocks. It would have been so easy to just pitch the works but then I wouldn't have all of this, would I? I am so thrilled to finally have that basket dealt with and now I'm keen to see how many two-inch nine-patches this makes.....M

From Here to Eternity

I've been distracted. Again. There are already two quilts that I consider my 'forever' projects - Minnie and Anna Levens - and they will now be joined by a third, the late Sue Garman's Omigosh. I have succumbed. This one will be done by machine whereas the other two are my hand stitching projects, which you would think would give it a definite edge, however, it involves seemingly billions of 1.5" nine-patches. OMG!

I debated long and hard over this one (I mean, seriously, those little blocks finish at half an inch!) and then before Christmas cut a few strips to see if I liked working on it and, ultimately, liked the blocks. I had a hard time committing. It got put away over the holidays but the other day I pulled it out again and played a little more. I  finally realized that it all came down to colour.

Many of the quilts that I'd seen done up in this pattern were made from reproduction fabrics and that's where I started, but they just weren't doing it for me - it's not a palette that I use in our home and I just couldn't get excited about it. I toyed with quitting but it just wasn't letting me go so I sewed a few more blocks. Now that I see a small collection of the 1.5" nine-patches made from my scraps it has made all the difference.

And, when they came together into the larger nine-patch (a huge 4.5"!!!) well - again - OMG! I'm toying with a slight change to the design but still need to work that out. Either way, it may well take me from here to eternity to finish, but it's so darned cute that it will be fun trying....M