New Star

Today I'm working on a project with Nine Patch Stars that I saw on Pat Sloan's YouTube video. Pat's quilt is on her design wall behind her and it's so attractive that I wanted to try it. I Googled her name and a description of the block which took me to her friend's blog, Carole of From My Carolina Home, where there is a free PDF pattern to print out.

I wanted to use scraps for this project, because I was going to be using a lot of purple, the RSC color for August. This is the first time I've tried a larger project all from scraps and I was surprised to find that I had lots of very dark purple and very little light purple. So, doing it all from scraps was a bit of a challenge. My purple scrap piles are more even in the picture because it was taken after I had cut the pieces needed for the project. I used up most of the dark purple and as much of the light purple as I could, filling in with medium purple.

Before I started cutting fabric, I wanted to decide the best use of the purple to make the star points pop. I did a couple of sketches of the block and got my colored pencils out. Option one used the dark fabric as the center of the stars. Seemed to me that too much intense color was concentrated in the center of the block. 

Option two used the dark fabric as the background to the star points. I was leaning toward option two but asked my good friend Kathy what she thought would work best. She came to the same conclusion. I'm finding that doing these little sketches to determine my color placement is working out well for me. 

I am only making 5 blocks to use as a cover across the bed pillows. I wanted something that kept with the star theme, but was different, even with many of the same fabrics. So, the Nine Patch Star block seemed ideal. I could use leftover chunks from the Magic Stars quilt but was surprised again to find that I didn't have as much left as I thought. I was going to make one yellow star from the same fabric I used in the center of the Magic Star quilt, but there was only enough for one pair of HST blocks and I needed four pairs. So, I used another yellow from the quilt and pulled two more yellows from my scrap drawer. I had enough orange fabric to make two star blocks from that color. I also used the green and teal fabrics from the Magic Stars quilt.

I have three of the nine patch units put together so far, and think I can get the other two done before dinner tonight. This blog post has taken way longer than anticipated, as they usually do. I had to change servers mid-post because Firefox was taking forever to upload photos. I’ll try to finish this up quickly and link up with Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

While working on the Nine Patch Stars quilt project I've also been making progress on my small Magic Stars quilt. I'm using it as a leader/ender project and it's coming along. These are the blocks that got sewn so far today. They just need to be trimmed and put in the "ready for the design wall" box. 

I'll also be linking up on Saturday with Angela at So Scrappy for the August RSC 2020 challenge.

It's been horribly smokey here all day, and yesterday too due to the many lightning fires burning in our area. Thankfully none are dangerously close. My heart goes out to the many people in California who have been effected by these fires. 

I hope your day is going well, that you are safe and well and enjoying some sewing time today.

Saturday 8/22: Update

Just a quick note. Was able to get quite a bit done on the Nine Patch Stars. Loving its scrappy look, especially loving the bright star points amid all that purple. 

I'm linking up with Angela at So Scrappy for August RSC in purple.

Hope your weekend is going well! 

 

Purple Passion

Good Morning Friends!

 It's Scrap Happy Saturday and August is PURPLE month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2020. I chose purple as the one consistent color in the Magic Stars quilt. Every block is half purple, and every block has a different purple fabric. Perfect for making scraps or leftovers for scrappy purple August.  This pile is left over after cutting out blocks for two quilts. 

Suzette is trying to get my attention here. She just woke up from her nap and wants to eat, and she thinks she needs me to stand next to her while she does. Sometimes I humor her with that, but I know if she is really hungry she will manage to eat without me being near. We had another female kitty years ago who did the same thing, always preferred that I stood by while she ate. My male cats have never done that. Your cats?

There was enough fabric leftover from my large Magic Stars quilt to make a smaller version of the same quilt. So earlier this week when I had completed the blocks for the large quilt and finalized the layout, I took some time to cut fabric from the leftover chunks for the small quilt. Even though I made some changes in the fabrics, purple remains the consistent color in half of each block. As I cut I kept fabric pairs together and when I had all the fabric cut for each block I clipped them together with little binder clips and stacked them in a box of their own. That's made it so simple to pull everything I need for one full block (each final block is made of four small blocks) to add it to my leader/ender box next to my machine.  

More information on the Magic Stars quilt is available in previous posts. If you are interested in a tutorial check the Magic Stars label on my sidebar it should take you to the previous posts where there are links to follow.

Today I'm continuing to sew little Magic Star blocks, in leader/ender fashion as I finish the final seams on my large Magic Star quilt.  Once it's done I need to make a few Face Masks. I will choose some purple fabric for at least one of those.

These little blocks are in various stages of completion. When I have the side strips sewn onto two or three block sets I take a few minutes to trim them up and slice them diagonally. Then the diagonal pieces go back into the leader/ender box next to my machine. 

Once I have three or four blocks worth of those pieces sewn together I'm pulling them out, trimming them down to size and putting them in a separate box to await their turn on the design board. 

I've made myself a note about trimming, because if this continues as a leader/ender project it's going to take some time and I'm prone to forgetting just how I decided to do the trimming.  I'm storing the note and the ruler I'm using to do the trimming right in the box with the trimmed blocks. 

Boxes for the different parts of this project are sitting on the bottom shelf of my sewing desk.  So everything I need is perfectly handy when I need it. 

Just 3 more seams to go and I will have the large quilt top finished, unless I decide to add a border.  Here are the first two rows sewn together laying on the pressing table. 

That is a mirror image you see in the  background, not a second large quilt. 

The next two rows are on the cutting table in the midst of getting pinned. I was not careful to be as accurate as possible in pinning the first two rows and it shows. But I'm not ripping out that long seam. I am being much more careful this time and hope my points will match up better. 

Getting points and intersections to line up has been a challenge in this quilt. I didn't stop to figure out how the blocks should be pressed before I dove in and started slapping it together. I pressed toward the points on every block and that was a mistake. Pressing every block the same way made it so I didn't have nesting seams, but rather stacked seams, not so good. On the little quilt I'm pressing all seams toward the purple fabric so that I will have nesting seams to work with later. 

I don't know how one would figure out which way to press the seams properly if every block was a scrappy block, I think you would have to refrain from pressing until you had decided on the final layout. 

I have one more row of the large quilt on the design wall and hope to have the top completely sewn together in the next little while. Then I have a few face masks that need making either today or tomorrow. Before I do that however, I think I need to clean up the tables and put away what's left of the fabric used for these quilts. I have gained a lot of small, under 1", strips from the trimmings on these quilts and have decided to keep them to use for a strip quilt. I've seen so many on various blogs recently and think they look wonderful, there are so many different ways they can be laid out, it seems like a fun thing to play around with. I've not done any kind of quilt like that before so I want to give it a try. Before I do that though I need to pull my Cowboy Boot quilt project out and get working on it.

I'm linking up with Angela at So Scrappy for the August RSC 2020 challenge.

I hope your weekend is going well, that you are having some fun, and staying safe and well.

Design Time

 Good Morning Monday!

Today I will continue working on sewing the Magic Stars blocks together, I have three of five rows half done minus one block that needs some help. So I'll begin my sewing time with seam ripping and trying again on that block. 

Over the weekend with all the blocks completed I began arranging them on the design wall.  But before I did that I pulled out my random quilt notebook and did a little diagram of 5 x 5 one inch squares to help with the layout prior to getting up on the ladder and moving blocks around.

After counting how many blocks I had of each color I did a lay out by color. The only randomness in this quilt took place in the fabric shopping. Each block is half purple, but each one has a different purple fabric. I chose the purple fabrics first then went looking for contrasting fabrics to go with them. That's not too random, but I didn't plan how many of each contrasting color I would use, just looked for the best fabrics I could find to go with the purples I had chosen. I purchased fat quarters for this project and found them over the course of several trips to our LQS. I also used a few fabrics from my stash. That left me with multiples of some colors and a couple of one offs.

Once I had done the layout on paper I started moving blocks around on the design wall. I've not done any such pre-planning before and was glad I did, as it made it much easier and faster to get the blocks arranged on the wall. So this was my first lay-out. I wanted yellow in the center - it's the brightest of the contrast colors and I wanted to draw the eye to the center of the quilt. 

 All three yellows together turned out to be too much. So I grabbed my notebook and colored pencils and went at it again. I moved two of the yellows out to the corners and rearranged everything else too, except the original center block. I brought the greens in closer to the center and connected the oranges into a diamond pattern around the center. Blocks with teal fabrics got moved out to the opposite corners from the yellows and that left me with just the two red blocks and two random color blocks to fit in along the outsides. 

I liked this layout much better, but I had just randomly placed blocks by color and the arrangement of which block of each color went where had to be adjusted. I know there are quilters out there who can do fabulous quilts with seemingly random placements of blocks, I've seen them and admire those who can do such things. I can't. I need balance and symmetry, and the color placement in this layout just didn't cut it.

This time I didn't do a sketch - since that was basic color only. So it was stand back and look, move up and down the ladder, switch blocks out and stand back to look again. I wound up having to replace a block that, though I think it's really pretty by itself, just didn't work anywhere I put it in the quilt. After making a new block to replace it I finished the new arrangement. There are still some blocks that I would rather have different fabrics, but I chose the best I could from what was available at the time. I'm content enough with the layout now that I'm keeping it. The blocks that I'm not so fond of I've got on the outer edges, keeping the ones I think are closest to my original idea in the center. Not all the purples show as purple in the photos. I think they will show better once the top is finished and I can get a picture in the sunshine. 

Here is the block that just didn't work in the quilt, and beside it is a sample block of a smaller version of the same quilt. My friend Dorian of Ridge Top Quilts worked out the dimensions and posted them on her blog. When I saw what she'd done I realized that I had enough fabric left from the fat quarters I had purchased for the original quilt to make a second smaller one. 

 

 

 

 The fabric is all cut for that one and I'm using it as a leader/ender project while I put the large quilt together. Once the larger quilt is done this will become a focus project on it's own. Now that I've spent the time looking over the various pictures I've taken of the larger version I think I will delete the fabrics that I'm unhappy with in the big quilt from this project. Some of the original fabrics have been traded out already, so this little quilt will not be an exact copy of the big one.

I'm linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

I'm linking up with Beth for Monday Making at 

Love Laugh Quilt

 I hope your week is fun and productive. Stay safe and well.  

Quilted Garden

Good Morning Friends ~

Today I'm linking up with Rebecca Grace of Cheeky Cognoscenti in her brand new linky party called Long Arm Learning. I quilt on my domestic machine and don't have a long arm machine but anyone who machine quilts is invited to participate. Click the link on my side bar to visit the linky party and read Rebecca Grace's interview with long arm quilter Cheryl Degan.

I'm not currently quilting anything, busy in the piecing process for my Magic Stars quilt so I am sharing one of my past quilts that I'm especially fond of the quilting I did. This quilt was finished in September of 2016. The front of the quilt isn't that special, in fact it's rather incomplete because the pattern called for some applique, mostly around the border and I never got that done. The top was otherwise finished and had been sitting on the shelf for quite a long time. So when I shifted from my sewing corner into Flo's studio I decided to finish the quilt so I could give it away. Sad thing is I don't remember who I gave it to.

I

It's the back of the quilt that I really fell in love with. I used Minky fabric in purple, my favorite color, but it's the cuddly softness of the fabric that I love. Also the solid color allows the quilting to really stand out. I made the template for the large daisy design myself and used purchased templates for the smaller designs to fill up the spaces in between. Those little roses and butterflies don't show up well on the front of the quilt unless you have the quilt in front of you. But they show up nicely on the back. I had heard that Minky fabric was difficult to quilt. I didn't find it so. Well, no more difficult than any other quilting I've done.

Thanks to Rebecca Grace for hosting this linky party!

Stay Well and Enjoy your week!

Morning in the Sewing Room

Good Morning, the sewing room is open. I'm at my sewing desk, feet up, enjoying my first cup of coffee. I often begin my day like this, sitting here looking around at what's going on in the room, enjoying the canyon view from my window, as well as the cool morning breeze. We keep the door closed at night to keep the cats out of the room, a simple preventative of overnight mischief. Suzette often sleeps outside the door and waits for me to open the room for her in the morning. Here she is taking her first morning sniff of the world out there. She has her own blanket there on the table as well as her little cuddle. If I could trust her to just spend the night on her blanket there I would leave the door open.

She has begun her morning nap, happy by the open window. I am still waking up and contemplating the day ahead. (Ignore the clock on the sewing desk - needs  a battery. It's much earlier.) Yesterday my head was somewhat messed up, lots of stress recently, mostly for heartaches and difficulties that friends are enduring just now. Though health issues of my own also enter into the mix. And Covid just makes it all worse. I'm tired of the limits, I want to see my family, blah, blah, blah.

On to my One Monthly Goal for August. I would like to complete the blocks for my Magic Stars quilt, and begin playing with design on the design wall. That will mean obtaining some more fat quarters. I've been thinking of visiting some quilt shops that are a little farther out from home, just to see what they may have to offer that our lqs might not have, though it does have a nice selection of fabrics. My plan for this quilt is for every block to have different fabrics - half purple and half something that contrasts nicely with the purple. So I've pretty much gotten all I can that works from the local shop. I enjoy exploring new shops and haven't done much of that lately. I have found a lovely shop about 90 minutes north of us this year and have been there a few times already. I have family living near by so take a little side trip to the shop after visiting. Only now is not a good time to be visiting family. The virus is expanding quickly in our county and I don't want to risk exposing my family if I've picked it up out on a shopping trip and just don't have symptoms.

I've finally joined the community of mask makers. I ordered the Creative Grids face mask template early this month and after completing my quilt for the Christmas in July Then and Now blog hop got busy and made a couple of masks for Dan and myself. I'm pleased with how they turned out and will be making more for family members. You can check out my Christmas tablecloth quilt I made for the blog hop in my Christmas in July post. It's listed under the 2020 Finishes tab.

So, morning is getting on. I need to get my breakfast and get moving. Porch and patio plants need watering. Then I have to tackle yesterday's mess up. My messed up head resulted in a very messed up stack of backward pieced blocks. Fortunately I discovered my mistake prior to pressing the seams, so it will be a little easier to rip them all out. Sadly they are long, bias seams. This fix will be slow and careful. I also messed up while I was cutting pieces for these blocks and wasted one of my purple selections so I have four blocks to complete instead of five. More fabric needed.

One thing to share that brightened my day yesterday. My niece Sheena sent me this picture of her son Beckett sleeping under the elephant quilt I made for him. Really made my day.

I hope your day is safe, productive and happy!

I'm linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for OMG 2020. https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/08/one-monthly-goal-august-link-up.html