Slow progress

I've not gotten as far as on this as I would like to be at this point. My hope / plan was to get to the armhold shaping last nite (2 cablesets + 9 rows), but I'm only at row 9 of the 2^nd cable set.

As you can see I've gotten around the 'blue' look of this yarn using a flash .. I just take it at an angle and have the flash skitter over it instead smack into it .. works for me ;)

I've been doing a quilt as well as this, so that sort of explains my lack of progress - as well as getting uniforms folded and reg's shirts pressed for the games etc .. basketball season is coming to playoffs for them and things are seriously heating up .. he's going at nite to scout out the games of his biggest competitors for the play offs :) Gotta love it ..

But if you are interested in seeing what's been eating up my time you can check out these posts on my quilt blog

2 Sections of 3

3 Sections Ready

1800s as ONE

Tonight's quilt work could have restarted the Civil War it was so trying for me .. but the 'hard' part is hopefully done for this quilt and I am so glad that to have that out of the way for now ...

At this point, I just want to have a some coffee and maybe done some list and blog reading, then see what's on tv (hopefully some good reruns) and knit - hopefully I'll get to the armholes tonite .. we'll have to see, I'm feeling pretty drained after the battle with my 1800s quilt

Death by borders ...

I have bordered myself to DEATH! No more .. i just canNOT stand it anymore ..

Today & tonight, I've put 12 border strips on the 1800 quilt, and then 8 more on Carmen's mystery ... her quilt calls for 1 more outer border .. and I just do NOT think that I can do it :\ heh .. to take a break from it, I squared up 40 HST units .. so you know it was bad at that point.

But I did get the border strips on my 1800 quilt .. in the picture above that's 2 of the top 3 sections .. the far right and the middle. This is going to be awesome when together. I had a nice scare earlier .. I really wanted to use the black paisley for the border and binding .. good thing I did the math first (altho in the long run, it didn't mean anything ... ) and i realized I would not be able to do both .. so I fussed and fidged and did my darnedest to get that paisley in .. i could have done, but really didn't want a 1" border unfinished .. that would have been a skinny little thing that would be useless on this size quilt .. so I started to dig .. (I do that a lot don't I??) Found some light material - but naw .. I knew I didn't want that, I really didn't want to use the brown with the darker brown vines in it .. it's nice .. but not what I wanted .. it's not dark enough .. then I remembered my yard sale find :) .. it's a nice dark green with red (colours that are in the quilt already) and with only ¼" showing, it wouldn't be a HUGE stand out .. so that made me happy there that I had a solution that I was happy with :)

I finally got a chance to get back to my '97 swap quilt that I want to repair .. I've opted to have that as my hand work while watching TV and with football season starting yesterday, I get to work on it .. it took me an hour to pick out that one ooboo'd spot and then some more places, and cut out the old batting etc, etc, etc .. I was still finding bits n pieces of that cheap 36" muslin and it was just shredding like crazy as I was picking at it .. I've decided since I'm doing handwork, to just quilt it in as I fix it ... one fell swoop .. all the patches that need to be replaced are white and I am old school and press to dark so they would be flat under the seams anyways .. so I'm just slipping them in, pinning the buggers down and stitching away .. I'll likely get this done before footballs season ends, but i'm sure I'll have a TON of things to hand sew soon enough. I did have a spot (where the pin is - see the blue dot??) where I didn't get all the cheapy muslin out and I let it goof me when I putting in the patches .. so i'll be prolly tucking that under or smucking it down .. not sure .. I really don't feel like picking that whole patch apart, but if I have to, I have to ..

I'll be starting to quilt my 1800 quilt today I hope .. I've picked out my motifs, adjusted them for my block size, all I have to do is print them out and then layer up the sections .. I'll prolly pin these or use basting spray as they are a whole quilt just 33½" sections.

Sections - Onward ...

E arlier tonite I was standing at my ironing board with a rather stunned look on my face .. and my mind was blank .. I'm thinking to myself .. that's it??? They're done?? ... oh my ... i had actually gotten all the sections of the 1800 quilt together - you could have heard a feather hit the carpeting! Then a HUGE grin spreads across my face .. borders .. all I needs to do is BORDERS!!!!!!!

Then I started to think .. (you so know that is NEVER a good thing with me) maybe I should do more dramatic type quilting for this .. I remember seeing all the beautiful handwork on the quilts I viewed online and in books ..

Sometime later ...

Hours pass and nothing hits me a "right", then it rather dawns on me .. those were on whole cloth quilts, applique, on-point or sashed quilts .. pfft .. bah .. So I head off to the quilt index to see what I can see .. What I saw was allover quilting, echo quilting and you ready for this - outline / ditch quilting .. so here I was searching for hours for the perfect motif and I already had it .. bah

BUT - I did find a site with some wonderful free motifs - Forest Quilting and she has 2 there that have definitely given me ideas for the larger blank spaces .. the points on my larger center Ohio Star, and the Double X Star in each corner .. I'm thinking of using the Cornice Motif or the Dreamy Motif in those larger blank spots (page 6) .. the Cornice motif appeals to me because it's middle is a circle and that will surround the sisters block and not interfer with it .. I'm not going to do allover quilting as this is quilt as you go and how much do you want to bet, the blasted lines will NOT line up .. I am sooo not gonna go there .. not in a million years .. so .. basic ditch / outline quilting it is .. no muss no fuss .. but for the corners and the middle :D :D :D

I want to do leaves or vines in the borders so I rather need them to be wide enough so the design doesn't get totally lost .. i'm thinking maybe 3" border .. I've not measured the fabric again so I'm not sure what there is .. worse case senario; 2" with meander / loopy quilting ..

So tomorrow, borders cut, do my first sandwich and quilting foot away :D

Sections 1 & 2 reporting for duty ..

W ell this is a nice change .. it's 2:48am and I'm actually tired .. so here's a quick entry then I'm off ..

Here's my list of things that I would "LIKE" to get accomplished this week .. nothing on here is super critical to get done (cept email of course and I'm still working on that). I figure that repairing the swap quilt can be done while I am watching football :) starts on Thursday - WOO HOOO ..

1. last 2 Ohio Star blocks


2. piece 1800 sections - 4 sections done


3. September abstract challenge


4. catch up on mail / ppls blogs


5. gran's quilt


6. put rhododendrum wc together - have some great ideas for the quilt part


7. fix my 97 swap quilt - hand work for tv time

Here's a quick overview of the sections that still need to be pieced - the center section was done months ago, I've finished the double x sections tonite. The blocks are laid out in stitching order for the next 4 sections .. then it's a matter of finding what I did with the backing material (kyle's too while I'm at it) and then quilt as you go :)

I've rather made a decision that I hope I can keep .. I can see where I'll be not following thru wtih this, but oh well .. i'm going to finish up the various projects that are on the go, and TRY not to add anymore until I've quilted them ..they dont have to have the binding on - that's great for tv time, but i do want to get these quilted .. I've a ton of projects in various stages from PIGs to basted .. so time to stop adding and get these quilted .. I do know I'll be doing Carmen's mystery in a few weeks and there are of course the abstract challenges .. so we'll see how I do with trying to follow this ..

Time vanished? It's a Mystery

I t's been a super crazy busy weekend - and I didn't go anywhere (!)

First of all I woke up late on Friday - I had an extra large tim Hortons (potent coffee) on thursday nite and was ZIIIIIIIIING BOINGGGGGGGG WIRED and didn't get to sleep until like 9am Friday AM .. woke up to Reg home from work at 3:30 - and it was one thing after another until later that nite.

After Kyle left with his dad, we went out to supper at Vang's for Thai food .. **slurp**, and then a stop at Fabricland :D :D :D They were having a pretty nice sale going on .. 50% discontinued fabrics, 33% off others, some notions were 50% - so I reconnoitered my battlefield and plotted my strategy .. I wanted to get some purples for the "All in the Family Colour Mystery that I and 4 other ladies were test driving for Carmen .. well that didn't work out to well there, but I did get some colours that I've not really used before .. This up coming year I really want to "force" myself to use colours other than my favourites .. each of these cuts is a metre and the bottom three on the left could actually be used for a quilt with the yellow as sashings or what not .. i honestly didn't even look for that! The solid red and black will be used for my discharge dyeing (when I can revisit that!)

After that it was back home and to the cutting table .. I found clue 1 in my inbox when I got home, so the race was on :) Since I didn't have full yardage for all 4 colours, I was using small cuts and scraps .. and as you all know, cutting the smaller pieces into 3" squares takes TIME! I think it was like 4 or 5am when I got done cutting and wasn't even about to start on the mystery.

I gets up Saturday (late due to stupid bed time) and got kidnapped for a '2 hour shopping trip" .. we booked out the house around 3 and didn't get back til 8 - i should soooo know better LOL .. but that's okay, we always manage to have fun together :) Get back and like a good detective, I start at clue 1. I worked all the clues until clue 7 when my brain just went pfft It just didn't want to think anymore - so I gave in .. off to bed I went and of course, it's like 5am or later again.

Before I started Carmen's mystery, I finished up the last cut Ohio Star block - knowing me I would have lost the pieces and would NOT have been a happy camper at all! I just have to cut two more blocks and then I start to piece the sections!!!!

Between the clues for Carmen's mystery I did the leaders n enders to get all the way to clue 4 for gran's quilt (QT summer mystery) I'm maybe 1/3 of the way thru that clue .. so this quilt will be done in no time with using this method .. the next project to get done with this will be my lady bug court wallhangings that I designed a million years ago ..

I did get the rest of the mystery tested and we had an absolute blast .. I just have to put borders on it - sorry no pictures until after we start the mystery on the group and only then it will be the current clue solutions - but I can show you my fabric choices as she's already uploaded that part to the group. I'm going to do the next one in blues .. I forgot my aunt had given me some fabric and there's blues in there - so blues the next one will be :)

Poor puppy has fleas again and gave them to the cats, so part of Sunday was spent giving her another bath, giving the cats flea 'shots' defleaing our house, sweeping, vacuuming, washing everything NOT nailed down .. now wasn't THAT fun pfft! and of course we'll be doing this at least twice a week (the house defleaing part - not medicating the animals)

I have a list of things that I want to get done this week

1. last 2 Ohio Star blocks


2. piece 1800 sections


3. September abstract challenge


4. catch up on mail / ppls blogs


5. gran's quilt


6. put this wc together - have some great ideas for the quilt part


7. fix my 97 swap quilt


8. quit n baste projects that are missing me

I'm sure that there are more, but these are the ones that I screamng to me right now .. I'm sure with just plodding along and doing what I do, it'll be done in no time :)

I hope you all had a great long weekend ..

Wanted, brain cell - apply within ..

I' m using this entry as a draft for my acceptance speech for the "Twit of the Year" award. I swear that some days if I had operative brain cells I could be registered as a dangerous and offensive weapon .. pfft!! Notice how I didn't say lethal .. I only kill my stuff :\

By this time I'm sure you're wondering . what on God's green earth has she done THIS time .. oh this is a goody for sure!! I even amaze myself this time!!

Remember in my last post where my Ohio Star block was just zipping along sweet as can be and I discovered that it was the wrong size?? yeah well this is even better .. truly it is .. twit for brains here messed herself up royally - it WAS the right size .. I needed 11" unfinished and 10½ FINISHED .. "I would like to thank the members of the academy for .. blah blah blah .. FIDDLESTICKS!!!!!" See I told you it was a doozy even for me - heh not your average bear, eh boo boo .. &^%@#! **sigh** Ah well .. I have these 5 done now, one more already cut out from before and just 2 more to cut now .. bloody hell .. BUT on a good note; that is it for the blocks for this quilt .. i just need to put them into sections and then quilt as you go :D :D :D

I wanted to show you how great this combination looks even tho it is the mostly unlikely sounding combination on it's own .. It's really going to blend well together and add some interest to the corner-ish where it'll be ..

In my defense for my screw-up; things have been a wee bit interesting around here to say the least and I've been on an emotional roller coaster since I got back from up North - I guess I was more distracted and worried than I thought - granted I'm not perfect, but since I designed this damn thing, you'd think I would remember what size blocks I made for it; pfft .. ah well .. onward!!

On a good note tho .. I have half of Clue one done for gran's quilt - I even don't mind making mistakes at this point, as it gives me another chance to stitch up another seam :) .. Bonnie - thank you for your wonderful light bulb moment :)

I'll be busy stitching this weekend .. Myself and a few other ladies will be helping Carmen get ready for a mystery that she has plotted .. I think we were promoted to stitch detectives :D I am looking forward to altho that means I have to cut a mess of fabric up today as well as get those other 2 blocks made ..

Think I can be trusted with a rotary cutter?? I promise not to massacre any more defenseless fabric and I'm sure that there's not much left of my ego to shred at this point ..

Oh any operative brain cells, please fill out the application and leave it on the counter please .. I'm sure I'll find it later .. when I'm looking for my mind ..

I must have been due ....

B ack in January I posted about fabric quality and how getting the thin / low thread count muslin could bite you on the nose in later years .. if not sooner.

This is one of the blocks from my swap quilt from 1997 that I used the cheap muslin for filler blocks for this swap. As you can see it shredded away. So I'm fixing it .. I have Guide to Vintage Quilting by Sandra L Hatch, where she shows you how to fix vintage quilts (I'm not sure I would go THAT far with THIS quilt) and also neat period patterns for the older vintage tops / quilts you may find in your travels. Because this was my first swap quilt and the blocks are signed, I really wanted to try and save / fix it.

I got all sorts of WOW, muslin and batting scraps ready to do this block first .. this is the only one where I have to replace all the white parts - the rest are just QSTs. I decided to quilt these pieces in one shot as they are all going under the other pieces as they are white and I was replacing the batting too.

I did really good with the first QST - cut away the shredded batting, frogged the quilting just ever so carefully and then took out the stitching from when they were pieced. The first part went just about perfect - that should have been my first clue .. It was rather tricky with the quilt stretched out of shape from over the years of these bits n pieces missing - this poor QST had more pins than a porcupine - but as you can see the QST worked just fine ..

So with more confidence I went to the square .. it was the square that did me in .. yes a stupid simple square! For some reason I just could NOT get all the material under the seam for this one .. and this was TWICE this did this to me .. YOu can see the two spots where it wouldn't tuck under. I had it all pinned in and it looked fine - but get it on the machine and start quilting it down and it goes all wiggly piggly on me .. okay nuff of that .. i'm going to lose my temper and I was getting tired. So I just might put them in all by hand then quilt them down .. I just wanted to keep the batting in place as all this shifting and moving was going on with this quilt .. I can use my Sullivan's basting spray for this I guess - or a glue stick :)

Two days ago I cut the greens out for the Ohio Star blocks for my 1800 quilt and yesterday I did the pink paisley for the background .. While i was sewing this I did the leaders n enders for Grans quilt and actually got 7 nickels stitched on one side .. I used Around the Block by Judy Hopkins for this block as these blocks are rotary cutting and she has 6 different sizes for each block

The Ohio Star went together just nicely .. I squared the QSTs after they were stitched to avoid any issues with it being out of kilter - I find that taking that extra step after doing a section construction helps to fix ooboos that would later have me on the endangered list for baldness and sanity .. well okay - not sanity .. baldness then ...

I press the block out and all my points line up (but one little corner - bet you can't find it!!), then I head over to the cutting table to square it up .. and it's a perfect .. 11" ?!?!?!?!?! My heart does the demon drop .. that can't be .. I didn't do a scant seam on this block! I did a flat out ¼" seam - bloody hell .. what the devil is going on .. So I grab the book from my bookshelf and see that it's for 10½" FINISHED block .. NOT unfinished .. oh jesusmaryjoseph I needed a 10" finished .. crap crap crap .. and I was soooo proud of myself that this block just zoooomed together quicker n all get out .. yeah it got out all right .. pfft!

Well I've figured out that I need to have 4½" squares for the QSTs and then 3¾" or 3⁷/8" for the squares .. not a big deal .. I'll just cut down what I've already cut .. but will do the 3¾ block first and test it for size ..

Bloody Hell . only me!

**Throws paws up in frustration, shuts the sewing room down and leaves while there still IS a sewing room .. which in this house is called the cat cave ..

Moving ahead; gran - 1800 quilt

W ell I did have a more quilt-related day than yesterday .. I actually did quilt-related stuff ;) then again .. I didn't do anything quilt related yesterday, so there is definitely room for improvement ;)

Before I left for up north, I pulled out fabrics for Gran's quilt .. I got those cut out and will work on her quilt 'in-between' - i read on Bobbie's blog yesterday about Bonnie Hunters "leaders / enders" and thought it was a capital idea as I do the scrap leader / ender now .. **Hmm .. why does light green always looks yellow!?!?!?

Since I was cutting Gran's quilt, I figured I would cut out the greens for Ohio Star blocks in my 1800 quilt .. Since there is only 8 of them, it went rather quickly. I've laid the pieces out on the background fabric that i will be using .. I know this looks rather funky, but the greens are managing to work itth the blue/green in the paisley - AND, this was the one fabric that worked the best with the mauvey brown background colour that is being used throughout most of this quilt .. so tomorrow, I cut out the background fabric and maybe the muslin for the repairs I want to do on my swap quilt from 1997.

I know it's been forever and a day since I posted anything about my 1800 quilt so to help you visualize how this will look - voila! the final layout .. and this one has the background changed for these ohio star blocks ..

I am sooo close to getting this all put together .. I got the flannel now and just have to stitch up these last 8 blocks, then cut the border and it's time to quilt-as-you-go. So this quilt should make up pretty quick once I get it all pieced in sections .. heh .. just in time for the end of summer for our summer quilt (@@) ... that's okay .. I can start on our winter quilt right after this ;)

Locked myself in ..

Today I squirreled myself away in my sewing room and worked on the wc more until i was happier with it - got it to the point where it was pretty good, then started to change things .. made it more central single flower, and other smaller flowers scattered in the background - that's the part i'm working on and also getting the central flower more 'there' .. it's close, but not there yet. I need to take out the 'string' of background flowers that was originally there and develop smaller darker clusters of flowers .. I have maybe 3 of them just so .. I'm not sure about the inner border just at the edges now .. will have to think about that one some more ..

Well the sister's block's are finall done - all I have left is the 8 Ohio Star blocks, then I start to put the sections together and quilt (!) .. WOW! I have flannel on the way for the batting, have decided to just do a narrow strip (2½") for the one border and that will be it. Of course there's still the back stitching by hand when I have these sections together - but it will be a LOT better than trying to manhandle this beast in my 15-91 - I love this machine, but this quilt's a LOT bigger than we are ;)

I'm hoping tomorrow to get the Ohio Star blocks cut out and start to stitch, but I've a few things to do and might not get the chance .. I'm really hoping .. would hate to resort to locking myself in my sewing room again ;) Altho I rather do like it in here!

Lots of little stuff done ..

Another day with stuff accomplished, but not a red letter day like yesterday ... but still a nice productive day.

While watching the Tigers play tonite, I decided to put that time to good use and finally frogged the Underground Railroad blocks .. so those are all done and ready for me.

All of the pieces for these blue Sister blocks was cut out, and I pieced 4 of them. I opted not to do the draw the line then sew, then cut. What i did do, was make sure that these squares measured 3" and then put them right sides together and then cut them in half for the HSTs. After they were stitched and pressed, I squared them up. Yes this took a bit longer, but I knew that my pieces were good to go and that sewing them together wouldn't be aggravating. I didn't have to spend as much time hiding wonky seams like I did yesterday - so it did go faster in that regard. Four more of these left - the the Ohio Star blocks :)

I changed my mind about the backing for the Ohio Stars - It was a yellow cream with red berries and blue flowers on it - quilt pro doesn't take these to size and it makes it tricky to figure exactly what the scale will be - and that is just way to much math for me to bother with .. so I did it the old fashioned way .. i pulled out my choices and then put the blue sisters block on top of it .. I showed it to reg and he goes .. well definitely not THAT one .. guess what "THAT" one was .. yup - the orginal fabric I had picked LOL .. so I pulled some paisleys that I have and one was all various shades of pink and just didn't look right ... I decided on this one because of the blue and cream in the pattern .. I have more than enough of it and it's a good compliment to the rest of the quilt . the Ohio Star blocks will be near the red Double X blocks and the Sisters Blocks .. so I needed something that would go well with those colours.

Last night I cut all the squares for the summer mystery quilt for August 9^th. I made a few changes in my fabrics and these are the final ones .. no going back now .. they are cut - my first mystery :D :D :D

I joined a new list a few days ago - this list is called abstract challenge .. there is a monthly challenge based on a concept, and you need to create an 8" quiltlet that shows this concept .. you can use any embellishment to help you do this .. paints, buttons, lace, ribbons, rickrack - whathaveyou .. I'm really looking forward to this and can't wait .. This is really going to stretch my creative muscles in a way I would like to grow them ..

So didn't get HUGE amounts of stuff done, but did get a lot done - little things that needed to be done - But I do have a few really neat things to look forward to - the challenge, the mystery, getting my blocks done for my quilt, then attaching the border - Not much longer till I have all the blocks done .. wow .. I need to think about my next project - heheheheheheh - Like that's ever been a problem

I'm my own worst enemy somedays :S heh

You know, I just couldn't figure out for the life of me why my rectangles in these sisters blocks were giving me so much grief .. my test block went off without a hitch .. so - I decided to get very extra steps .. with each star point that I did, I square up the pieces .. the squared pieces would be 4¾" square, so i squared them up and then realized immediately, that my rectangles were cut for 2⁵/8 x 4⁵/8 - Oh Bloody HELL!! NO freeping wonder - AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH - **deep breath** Okay .. no big deal, sew my seam an ¹/8" shorter - well that worked .. my block laid flat - whew!

I discovered another issue while doing this .. with my 'testing' my sewing and doing the speed piecing method, I did those HSTs at a spot-on ¼" seam, well my math / directions etc called for a smidge less .. so my HSTs aren't exactly 2⁵/8" when finished .. talk about being your own worst enemy. I'm going to end up with squished points on these stars, but some will be okay.

So these next 4 blocks with this blue, will be done VERY carefully .. but they will be a nice flat 11" unfinished block :D

Thank God I only have 8 more of these blocks to go after these 4 - the strips are cut out already so I can correct the rectangle for the next 8, and will do my smidge seam for the HSTs .. those blocks might actually be 'perfect' .. heh .. I certainly don't have to worry about this quilt being perfect .. it's well past that LOL

Good things do come :)

My son has been trying to get back into my good graces by doing some yuck work in the basement .. well in his workings yesterday he found a box that I've been crazy looking for - you know ... the one that is listed in my projects to find?? The one with my dyes, green pigma pen, pooh bear stamps, handing quilting thread and all those betweens?? I asked him this morning to please keep his eyes open for a box that had this stuff in it .. wouldn't you know, the little darling said, "Oh, I found that yesterday!" I dared not hope too hard - but he brings it up and voila! There's my missing stuff .. the box wasn't labelled so no wonder I couldn't find the blasted thing!! But I have my fabric dyes again - oh and novelty buttons that I forgot I had .. altho, I thought I had more of them - He's going to keeps his eyes open for other sewing related stuff .. this is just GREAT news!!!!

Blue Sisters in progress; piecing methods

Tonite I tried a technique that I'd not done in a long time. My HSTs were a wee bit wonky, so I decided to try speed piecing to see if it was my cutting or stitching. I really am not fond of this method for several reasons;
1) It seems to take forever to get the lines drawn;
2) I am crouched over my cutting table longer than I wanted to be and
3) my smaller rulers are MIA at this point and time, I know that one is broken, I found it when I was packing up the basement before we moved (GRRR - KIDS).

I really do prefer chain piecing - for me that is the quickest and most accurate way to piece. You rather get into a groove with doing the pieces.

I just happened to be looking around when I spotted my corner marker ruler that I don't use anymore and saw my 11" cutting mat - light bulb went off ... I can sit at the machine and do my lines, stitching and cuts. Well that's what I did and I have discovered that it's not my cutting or sewing, it's my pressing .. I'm dragging the iron over these pieces and it puts them out of whack! Well there's that problem solved :D So in the meantime, I've my HSTs done for 8 of the blue Sister's blocks and only 3 sewn up .. it does take longer - or so it seems ... I'm not sure at this point, because even though I started later, I fully expected to have the 8 blocks put together tonite .. ah well .. there's the 5 to do tomorrow (later today actually :S) and then cut out the other 8 blue sisters blocks. I'm still moving forward - slowly but surely .. I'm sure the the rest of these will make up in no time at all

Moving along ...

Today was productive :D Not HUGE productive, but definitely moving forward.

I finished the inner sisters blocks so those are all done now, and have cut the strips for the 16 outer blocks. I had 2, ½ yd pieces of blue that I really liked and wanted to use and happend to get lucky as these strips needed 16 ⁷/8" and I had 18" of each ;) **kittyhappydance**.

Please pray for no cutting mistakes .. because there is no room for error .. BUT if I do mess up, I have 2 other blues that will fit in nicely here .. matter of fact, if I didn't have enough of the two blues, then I would have used this other 2 FQs as fillers - so it works out.

My adjustments worked for these blocks .. I did ¼" seams instead of my smidge less, and my blocks were just about spot-on! Heh .. only 16 more to go (!)

Since I just have these blocks and the 8 Ohio Stars to make, I've been starting to think about my borders .. I played with a few tonite and I really like a few of the 9 patch and 4 patch variations - but this border is only 2 ½" wide .. so I think that either an alternating block border or just a strip would be better .. the quilt has it's own personality and a pieced border isn't going to be necessary ..

Now the other thing that I was thinking that since I am doing quilt as you go, then maybe i should just add my strip on when I put the pieces together .. this will just add the 2" or so at the one side. And they should (hopefully) be square-ish when they are put together. Oh this quilt measures 100½ x 100½", so a wide border will not be needed to finish it off - matter of fact, I think that it will pull away from the flow and design of the quilt top

Why write notes if you don't review them ...

I thought I would try and save some time by reposting the previous pic of my inner Sister's block .. well i looked at it and it was the one that was all wonky .. Heh .. to bad I didn't look at it before I started to sew this one up. **Future Note to Self: Go back over your previous notes you twit!! (@@) Might have saved some frogging. Nothing to major though.

Lately my cutting seems to be off a bit, not sure why - the ruler's not moving - I might not have the fold lined up properly. So I've 'adjusted', I've gotten in the habit of making my seam a smidge - no not scant - smidge less than ¼" just to leave myself some wiggle room - well I'm also doing that when I cut .. just a few threads past the lines .. well combine the smidge with a few threads on a block that has a lot of pieces, and you are looking at ¼ - ½" of extra fabric sticking out the edges when you make a block that has this many pieces. With less pieces, it's not that much.

If I had looked at the block before i started to sew, I would have went - ahhhhh .. and not made the same mistake twice .. see what happens when you don't come back to something for a bit?? Creates all sorts of mischief with yourself LOL

At any rate, I fixed it as I went along, and while I'm going to lose the points on this block, I'll know what NOT to do for the other 3 inner Sisters and the 16 outer Sisters.

Well, it's after 4am (again) I'm off .. let's hope I can sleep .. was up til round 9am yesterday, then slept to 2pm I think .. I dragged all day with sleeping like that :\

You know .. I'm wondering why all the pics I take of my blocks look 'off' .. I KNOW they they are squared, but you sure wouldn't think so looking at this picture ...

Prairie Queen - Check (!)

W ell i finally got them done .. I was so frustrated earlier today, i didn't think that I would get this far. But I did :D I have 8 of the pink background, 6 of the burgundy and 2 orphans which are twins but for the background fabrics.

Basically I had to go back and square up every single piece that I hadn't sewn .. and then the pieces that were wonky I had to think about what corner was going to be my outside corner - the wonky cut was hidden in an inside seam .. that way I could square the blocks .. some of my inside seams are ... "interesting" to say the least .. but my blocks are 99.99% square! And you can't ask for better than that .. I have more of the pink flowered background than originally planned, but with the wonky cuts I did, I'm glad that I had some background to use - Of course the worse ones had to be the burgundy ones .. can you guess .. I really liked that particular background fabric :S ... ah well .. these blocks can be said to be DONE and that's all that counts .. next ones .. Sisters ..

To err is human - but must I be so good at it?

S ometimes I'm a total twit .. but of course you already know that - My cutting for the squares on the corner pieces for this block is off .. so no matter how i twitch, tweak, tug or pray .. they are not going to be perfectly square .. so all I can do know is minimize the mess the best I can - I have 9 blocks left to do and one is half-finished .. Not sure I'll do them tonite, we'll have to see .. it's almost 1am now

I had a busy-ish day with 4 hrs sleep, so yup .. I'm whacked .. as long as I don't get to frustrated, I should be okay .. I've realized what I did .. had an inkling when I did it - you know the .. "I just didn't do what I think I did, did I? "moment .. and hope for the best. Fabric shifted while I was cutting and I didn’t stop when it shifted .. And of course Miss Twit here was cutting a stack .. So this twitch affects a good chunk of the blocks. Well more than half the battle is the realization and acceptance that you screwed up .. Okay .. now to work with it ..

They are making up pretty quick - so we'll see .. I want to get at least ½ of the 9 done tonite.

Oh and I've already sewn one block upside-down lol

I'm seriously thinking of calling this quilt "Century of Progress?" yes question mark is intentional ..

Early evening Update:

I think I'm really going to be struggling with these blocks .. course having another headache doesn't help :S ... Plan of action is to square up each section as I go along - that way, it should be closer to being square and I'll know what pieces are good and use them as the guide for the ones that are really wonky .. wish me luck! I've been frogging a bit today

Meet the Orphans

I figured this was going to happen - I ended up being 2 squares short of the dark green - and 4 squares short of the light green - how did I know .. for once, my wacky math was right .. but I kept hoping that I had measured wrong .. hey .. one can always hope ..

While I was able to match up the light green pretty close to tone, I wasn't so lucky with the dark green .. I probably should have done the olive green that I had ... but I thought this matched the lighter print well .. hmm for some reason the light green looks yellow in this picture .. but it's actually very close the lighter green calico print ... go figure :\

As you can see the background fabrics aren't exactly the same .. one is like a burgundy and the other a pink .. they do look well together and I am making 8 of each fabric - so there's a nice balance .. this background fabric is so delicate that I'm leery of giving a tug as i'm afraid that it will stretch all out of true .. Thank God for Speed Starch .. gives it the weight i need it to be and stops my fear of the odd tug. Another thing that I rather hate to do is I'm pressing away from the 4 patches .. the bulk of the seams created all sorts of havoc in the first block i did .. So instead of pressing towards the dark .. i'm pressing towards the light .. I hope it won't be to obvious when I finally get this quilted.

Prairie Queen ...

One down .. 15 to go :D

This block is super simple to make .. strip-piecing on the 4 patch section - and the rest a 9 patch - and what's even better about this block .. no crazy 8^th inch measurements - whole inch or ½" cuts .. this is a nice treat.

These will make up in no time as the cutting is all done and I have the strips all stitched for the 4-patches. I just had to make one up to see how it looks. I rather like it and am pretty pleased with it and myself - The corners are off a wee bit, but i'm really not going to worry about it .. now if it was upside, okay - I'll start doing frog stitch .. but it's not, so I won't. My background for this is really soft and delicate, so the less ripping i do on these blocks, the happier I'll be

Well, it's only 3am tonite at this point - I'm tired so the one block is it for today - that way no mistakes (hopefully) and I can be fresh for it tomorrow

Oh I DO like this one!!

Click on image to enlarge in new window

Sometimes when something just doesn't sit 'right', then you need to fiddle with it a bit - and the last few layouts I did .. they just didn't feel right.

I opted to go with the Prairie Queen block - this block will have the same blue, but the greens will be scrappy - I'm going to use as much of the dark and light green from the Big Ohio as possible and use other greens that are close to it to fill in the spaces.

I have another fabric that has red flowers, blue berries on a cream background - I think that that is a better choice for the smaller ohio blocks .. now i might not have quite enough, but I have a few other fabrics that I can use as well that will work very well with it.

I moved the Underground Railroad blocks inwards one 'ring' and moved the prairie queen blocks outward - that puts the light closer to the browns and seemed to make a huge difference .. it changed the whole look of the quilt. And now the browns seem to be more balanced ... I took the one set out with the red dots on a background that made it seem to blend in with the rest of the quilt .. I think that also made a huge difference .. i did NOT like that blending spot at all!

This is pretty close to how it's going to end up - of course the greens and some of the blues will be different fabrics, but they are very close in tone to what i have used here.

I'm giving a kudos to myself and a kick in the backside as well .. i discovered the reason that quilt pro wasn't taking my fabric scans .. twit for brains here, had the images to large - they are supposed to be no larger than 100k bah! :S **shakes head** So this layout was actually done in quilt pro and paws are crossed that the library holds this time .. I'm still upgrading when I can tho - this version is so old that my serial number wasn't accepted when I tried to upgrade before. I'll call them this time and see if I can't push it through that way.

Welp - it's late and I didn't want to be up at 4am ... but I am tired, so that's good news .. I'll be asleep shortly

**kittyhappydance**

Simple Works me thinks ...

The more I think of it, the stronger I feel that the blocks that are needed should be more simplistic. The rest of the overall design is 'busy' enough .. not that it's too busy .. but could very easily end up that way .. So Quilt-Pro was booted again .. I really need to update my software for this program ...

I started plopping blocks in and again, it wasn't simplistic enough .. would have been nice to be able to implement the 54-40 or Fight block, but ah well .. just to busy for this. So running through my mind are the easy blocks to do (heh .. I can live with that!!) I thought of the split 9 patch, double 9 patch (Irish chain), steps to the altar (that didn't look good) and the Prairie Queen (patch variation).

None of these have the actual fabric scans in them, just used whatever was on 'hand' so to speak .. this was just a fishing expedition .. These will be made with all the greens and I think that I have some unbleached muslin kicking around that should work quite nicely .. if not, I'm sure I'll figure something out :D. So far the top two pictured here (Double 9 patch, Prairie Queen) are appealing the most to me ..

So - I'll let these sit for a day and see how they feel ... I am going to go with a more simplistic block here .. the other blocks past this part are complex enough that I really don't want to confuse everyone - including myself lol