I spent a lot of time in the basement yesterday. I cut lots of 6" flannel tumbler blocks but didn't get around to sewing any rows of them. The other thing I did was to go through 2 boxes of miscellaneous stuff in the basement. In one of the boxes I found these 7 crazy pieced blocks. They are a little too large for mug rugs or as a double row in a table runner. I will probably throw them in the batik orphan block box. Today I want to sew some rows of tumblers. I also need to press fabrics for backings, a job that I hate to do.
Crazy piecing makes a big mess on the sewing table but it is worth it. This pile was about twice this size when I started sewing.
This is what a block looks like before trimming.
with trimmings
nice and neat!
All seven blocks.
I hand basted this wallhanging yesterday afternoon.
I also cut and pieced backing for the X quilt that I added the border to Tuesday. I got the roll of batting out and am ready to cut it. I needed to finish the basting first since that is the set of tables I cut the batting on.
It was a fun day with my art quilters yesterday. They all made great progress on their projects.
When I was cleaning up before they came I ran across these 3 stacks of crazy pieced blocks. Last night I was too tired to start working on a project so I sorted my batik scraps into color groups so I can make some more blocks. I found one more bag of red scraps after I took this photo. Here is where I played with these blocks last, a year and a half ago. I have errands to run this morning and then I'll probably make some more of these blocks. I also want to get a border on one more quilt top before I make my collage of finished tops and finished quilts for my January recap.
I made this quilt in 1993. The quilt shop that I taught at had just become aware of Hoffman batiks a few years before that. I was giving programs and workshops in many areas in northern IL at the time so I shopped at all of the quilt shops in the area and finally had a good selection. I started out with 1/4 of the center portion thinking I was going to make a colorwash vest. After I had made 3 sections and liked them together on a design wall I designed the 4th section to melt them all together.
Most of the batiks in that time period were pink, gray, purple and turquoise. The name of this piece is "Cosmic Beauty". I loved the crazy pieced columns on each side. In fact I loved this piece so much it hurt to sell it but I needed the money. That was in 1995 if my memory hasn't failed me. My friend who purchased this one and 2 others has moved a couple times and thought it was time to send them back to me. I am overwhelmed with her generosity.
She also purchased this one that was made in 1994. It is called "Doorway to the Unknown". I was going through a major change in my life at the time I made it. I did a lot of crazy piecing during the early 1990s. I put on facings instead of a binding on this piece. The crazy pieced columns are mostly batik fabrics and all of the rest is regular quilting cotton prints.
This is the third piece that she purchased in 1999. I started it in 1998 and at the end of that year I started experiencing a heart beat irregularity, a severe one. In January 1999 I finally went to a doctor when I was afraid I was dying. After all, we need our hearts and there was no heart disease in my family so this was scary. The healing began but I still was scared and I had to hurry and finish this piece, one that I thought might be the last piece I was ever going to make.
I used Cherrywood hand dyed fabric for the stylized flowers that are free motion embroidered before the layers were assembled.
I made several pieces with this type of flowers but this is the best one.
They are generic flowers with a slight resemblance to the shapes of real flowers.
This photo in low light coming from the right shows the quilting. At that time I free motion quilted all of my colorwash quilts with clear monofilament thread. I quilted grass at the bottom and circular 4 and 5 petal groups in the top and meandering in the border.
I wanted to sew some crazy pieced blocks last night but one of the 8' fluorescent bulbs is burning out and flickers. That will give me a migraine so I turned on a lamp instead but decided there wasn't enough light to make it fun. I have a bulb burnt out in the basement too so I bought 2 new bulbs yesterday and now just have to wait for someone 6' tall to change them for me.
I needed a new steel tray for my AccuQuilt Studio die cutter so I bought a new die on sale at the same time. The trays eventually become warped and the dies don't cut as well as they should because they are sitting a little too low in the tray. You can tell if you need a new one by setting your tray on a flat surface and if you can rock it side to side (or end to end) it is warped. I have had 3 trays in 5 years. The AccuQuilt company says you may need to replace it every year but it depends on how much you use your die cutter. I do a lot of cutting on mine.
Here are some of the variations using this die. Diamonds aren't a lot of fun to cut with a ruler and rotary cutter. This die will cut some nice accurate blocks.
I mixed 2 batches of cookie dough yesterday because the art quilters are coming Monday. I'll probably wait to bake them on Sunday because I like to serve fresh cookies. Today will be spent cleaning the basement.
This is another of my very favorite quilts that I have made. It has blue, turquoise, green and purple batiks in it. At first I added a border of purple batik (see here) but I just didn't feel that finished it. I eventually took that border off and pieced the wonky piano key border (see here). I gifted this quilt to a great-neice as an early graduation gift (several years early). Her sister graduated that year so I sent three quilts in the box - one for her sister, one for her mom and this one. I hope she is still enjoying it. She lives many states away from me so I have never met her.
Last night I just wanted to relax while watching TV so I made some crazy pieced blocks. I used some small centers which I had made earlier and just added more strips to them.
I think I completed 6 or 7 altogether but I had already taken some down to the basement before I grabbed my camera.
I couldn't resist this spring cactus at my local W*lm*rt store. I have 3 spring plants already but they are sickly and have never bloomed so I'm going to toss them and hope I can keep this one alive.
I cleared the leaves off another area of my big backyard garden and I have hostas and Jack-in-the-Pulpit coming up. The coneflowers are starting to grow too.
Last night when I grabbed my camera to record my progress yesterday I was thinking I hadn't done much all day. I started the day by trying to clean off my sewing cabinet and found a pile of batik scraps so I made a few blocks with them. I finished them around noon.
After lunch I got out this project and sewed on the light pieced borders and also cut the next border.
Then I prepared the backing for this quilt and got it loaded on the long arm. I'm ready to baste the top edges together and then start quilting.
Earlier in the day I sewed 3 rows onto this quilt top and then last night while watching TV I sewed the 2 bottom rows that are pinned in this photo. I also sewed the bottom 3 rows together so they are ready to add to the top and then I need to decide if it will have a border (or 2).
While looking for all of the pieces in suitable sizes for the mug rugs I also pulled all of the small mindless piecing stash and put it randomly up on a design wall. I need to do a lot of playing around with the pieces, turning some in the other direction. It will be similar to the one on my right sidebar that I call my second favorite but it will be larger.
When I went through the kitchen late yesterday afternoon I saw this crow walking on the path around the tree that I created in my back garden. The crows rarely stop here and it is amazing to me how huge they are compared to the other birds that do stop at my feeders.
Here are more photos of potential mug rug mini quilt tops.
This is the only group that is batiks today.
This group is 6" or smaller so they will need some additions.
I think this group is around 6" also. These are a mix of batiks and regular quilting cotton prints in each block.
Leftover dotted fabrics from an all dots quilt that I made in 2006.
I added strips to 13 of them and then pressed and trimmed them. I just cut them as large as I could so they vary anywhere from 6.5" to 10.5". Most are rectangular.
My favorite pink cactus is blooming again. The sunlight was coming through them this morning.
