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!!!!

This poor quilt ...

I've changed my mind again .. this poor quilt .. I could almost feel sorry for it .. but at this point, it's not feeling *MY* pain and frustration ... ;)

I started to look at the layout pic I did again this am when I finally got up .. and i realized that the sections with the underground railroad that I'm having such kittens over, won't even been seen when it's on the bed for crying out loud (!!) You'll see part of it .. but not all .. I'm like .. "Grace, you're a twit!!" .. so I shifted the sections over towards the big Ohio Star all around and rather liked that .. it did disrupt the sister's hearth variation I drew up, but at least it would be visible .. and of course I've not measured our bed .. every time I go to think of it .. Reg's sleeping in it .. he might not appreciate a tape measure across his nose ;)

Then I looked at it again and the flow seemed to stop abruptly, I put the split background underground RR back in the corners. I moved the grouping of 4 Double X for the same reason the underground RR got moved .. so that pushed my simplex stars and sisters off to the edges, where most of them won't be seen again .. (@@) (<- rolling eyes .. ). Reg LIKED that sisters hearth .. that is the ONLY block he picked .. so i took the simplex star out of the edge and center blocks in the big Ohio and put them in there ..

I do like this layout - (heh .. I liked the last one too :S) .. but with the shifting around, I have the 'big' blocks in the middle and then framed by the smaller blocks .. which means I'll be able to get away with a more simplistic border as well, since I will already have the middle of the quilt framed ..

I'll let this gel in my mind again .. I'm off to work on the math for this - I might even start cutting .. heh .. I had better cut soon before I change my mind again ..

Changes again ...

For some reason this time I wasn't able to look at fabrics tossed willy nilly on the table and pick them out for my blocks - (which should have been my first clue) .. so here i was scanning all my fabrics in to do them in photoshop .. well i started with one colour, then decided to do the rest as I KNEW that I would just have to add more ..

Long and short of it - found some fabrics that really worked out well, but then it dawns on me .. this isn't going to be scrappy; this was gonna look crappy!! Not enough of this or to much of that and the colours that I have just weren't working together .. I really want to have the underground railroad in this quilt as it really shows motion and was a popular block at the time - but i'm still not sure of it .. I suppose I could use Crocket Cabin (slightly earlier period) or jacob's ladder - there's also buffalo ridge too .. this layout might not stay at this point either .. It could just be because i've used the default colours for the blocks and not used other's that are closer to what i have available .. that green for the ohio star .. blech!! At any rate ..

I do like this one better .. I have cut down the number of railroad blocks that i'm using and that will mean that I can likely use an FQ for each section .. that's not set in stone yet .. heh .. i have to do my math all over again :S .. **SIGH** But I trust my math now, and it'll be a snap to get it going .. altho I do have rather have to start from scratch with block meaurements etc ..

The basket blocks just seemed to make it to busy to me as well .. plus i figure i'm going to have enough qst and hst with the other blocks .. I used simpler blocks - more simplex star, added the double X to replace the basket block (and used them so they look like an Amish Star ;)) - Kept the one block that reg loved and picked out for the quilt .. the one block he picks - I guess I had better keep it, and used more ohio stars .. that i think is a nice compliment to the center block being an Ohio star block ..

Okay i've been fussing with this since 11pm or so and it's now 3:50 am .. I'm off to bed .. where did the bloody time go!?!?!?!?!

trees, yard(age), I'm whacked!!

Good news on my quilt math :D :D :D .. I'm right - thankyou everyone that downloaded my pdf file and checked it for me ... it has been suggested to change the usable width to 40" as the newer fabrics aren't as wide anymore .. what's up with that .. they increase the price per yard and give us less .. BAH! .. A lot of my yardage is older, but that is great advise and I will measure my widths just to be sure.

With checking my math, I've realized that I don't have enough yardage to do the background all the same .. what I can do is have the inner blocks one background and the outer blocks a different one .. I do have more than enough for that .. And I think that it would look great too and I have enough to do the backgrounds all the same this way. For the inner ring and the Underground Railroad ring, I really want these backgrounds to be the same. The foregrounds I've already decided will be scrappy - quilts back then were made from scraps of this and that, so this would be more to the period - i have some nice yellows and reds that would be perfect for the foreground for this ring .. and ½ yards of each colour, so getting 4 - 5 blocks per piece won't be an isssue ..

I am bloody tired today! I woke up to my dad knocking on the door (the man has a cell phone, he could call (@@)), and he asked for my help with shopping for a tree for him and doing the plot at my mum's gravesite ... we spent all day it seems running around going here and there .. didn't get the plot done .. needs to have some maintenace done on the ground there first, but we did buy a hanging basket to hang on the shepards crook he had already bought at the gravesite, so that was really good .. and it looks really great too .. I think that mum will like it.

We ended up coming back here to get the dog and then go to his place to cook supper. We made a beef stir fry together that was pretty good!! .. We were missing a few things that makes it just perfect like fresh ginger and broccoli, but we made up for it in other ways with garlic and lots of other veggies ..

I got home and finally got a chance to beat the snot out of the weeds that have been growing in my backyard. In mid to late April, we dug up, leveled, raked, rolled and planted grass seed in our back yard. Well the grass was finally long enough for me to cut it. I wanted to do this earlier this week, but Monday I was busy with other stuff and it's rained just about every day since then. Well I could have done it yesterday, but Kyle broke my weedwhacker so I needed to fix it before I could use it. Didn't bother .. got a new Black & decker one today at Home Depot for like $15 :) .. so it was late when I got home, but nice and cool. Took me bout 30 - 45 mins to whack thru all the weeds in the back .. they were half my height and I'm a shorty ;) .. then to cut the grass. I went over it twice and am pretty pleased with the result. I'm happy enough with it that I finally let Orion out the backyard for the first time since we did all that work :) .. she was pretty happy too. But now I'm pretty bloody whacked .. being outdoors today in nurseries and at home depot then at the gravesite twice, THEN doing my backyard .. Yup I'm tired. I'll have Kyle rake up the weeds and grass tomorrow, then toss some more seed out there and we should be good to go .. all I need to do out there now is to hang my box planters, lay some stone next to the deck and move the old bbq off the deck - just basically rearrange some stuff.

I've gone stark raving mad (!)

I think that I've gone mad .. truly and totally mad!!

Yesterday I pulled out all my reproduction fabrics to pick the ones I wanted for my quilt. Well the background for the lighter parts is a definite - I just needed to find a darker fabric that I had enough of for the background for the Underground Railroad Blocks .. according to quilt pro I needed like 5 1/2 yds of this stuff .. i'm like .. that can't be right .. so I set it up again and redid the yardage calculations - I ended up with 2 different totals :S .. I don't expect the foreground of the railroad blocks to be the same .. I just want the background the same - the rest of it can scrappy .. I just want the backgrounds of each block to be the same. Then I decided - "Okay .. I can have the backgrounds of each 'set' of 10 blocks to be the same .. I can live with that .. so I do the math for a set .. I end up with needing ¼ for the background for the sets, but when I did another calculation I got ½ yd. I need to redo my calculations again. I've done them all the long way instead of counting on quiltpro as it doesn't seem to be able to make up it's mind ..

I thought I would be slick and use excel to do the math for me quick like .. and I got another total .. I ended up with 1 5/8 yards needed for the whole background for that block .. that is 'consistent' with needed about ¼ yd per set of 10, and 2 yards for all 40 blocks .. but I'm not sure .. will do the math again and see.

As you can see, I don't have a HUGE amount of yardage - I have quite a few choices, but not yards and yards of anything but the background fabric for the lighter ring - I think that using the browns or dark blues would be GREAT for the Underground RR ring - those are the ones where I have yards of material .. just not enough to do it all one colour - I have a lot of ½ yd measures and FQs. If these numbers I did last nite are correct, then I will have enough of a brown vine pattern to do for the background - but just barely .. that means NO cutting errors .. no pressure at all .. BAH!

when i did the math by hand last nite, i was so tired that I'm sure that I made TONS of mistakes, so I'll redo it all from scratch again .. but am likely going to wait until after the kid and reg go tonite so I can have some quiet to do this in .. All I need is to get the same measurement twice and I'm good to go ;) ..

I hope ....

Math Wizardess ;)

Woot Woot .. I finally got my numbers to agree :D :D :D .. happy days!!! now .. do i have the confidence in my numbers to start cutting heheheehheheheheh .. i might do a test strip with some other material i have here just to see ..

Thank God that my numbers worked out this time .. i was really beginning to REALLY doubt math for quilting .. and while math isn't my strongest suit .. I am pretty accurate with quilt math