I sewed this top together while I watched Scorpion last night. It is 48" x 60". I think it needs a yellow back and a yellow binding. Part of the back will be the fabric with the white background and squares of yellow in the print. The yellow with white dot will probably be a strip to make it wide enough. If you go back to this post you can see the one in the book that inspired me.
Yesterday morning I found the backing for this quilt and chose the thread to quilt it. The piece to the left is all that is left of the backing yardage but there will be a long piece to cut off the side of the backing after quilting. You can go here to see the full shot of this top. Did you notice the date on that post? This one has been waiting a long time to get quilted.
In the end I just couldn't do the matchy-matchy blocks (see yesterday's post). I played with the quarter blocks on the design wall and decided to group the blocks by value changes in the yellow backgrounds. The colors are truer on yesterday's photos too. This is all ready to sew together today.
We have broken the high temp records for 3 days in a row with the 60+ degree days. Now they are predicting 70 for Wednesday. I'm hoping the flowering trees and bushes don't get their buds all formed because we will get cold weather again starting next weekend.
Something was still bothering me about the colorburst piece so I left it on the wall one more day and yesterday I decided that it needed the blue at the top left edge instead of the red and orange going all the way out to the edge. I left the pieces I removed so you can see what was changed.
Here is the whole transformation: top left - the beginning, next row left -first reveal, center - one more row added top and left sides, right - top left edge changed to blue, purple area changed a little, final design. Now I can sew it.
When that was done I sliced the stratas for 32 more 16 patch blocks.
I needed to clean up the Farm Girl Vintage fabrics so I finished cutting the sunflower blocks and last leaf section. Now I will put those in a container for the next time my 2 friends come over to sew.
In the back garden my blackberry and lemon lilies are blooming.
These pretties are right outside my bedroom window. I have to dig out some of these lilies (again) so I can get to my outside spigot hiding back there.
I like to work on my the Farm Girl quilt blocks when my 2 friends come to sew. The blocks take so long to make and it is great to have conversation while doing them. I got the two sunflower blocks done. They are 6" x 12". I also modified the pattern slightly and made a double tall stem and leaves for which I still need to make the flower block. I have one more set of the short leaf block all cut and ready to sew. I will do the next 2 flowers when they come next time.
Here is a closer view of the block. Those little connector corners on the leaves are tiny little 1" squares sewn diagonally. I want to make at least one 12" sunflower block and maybe won't need the stem and leaves if I position it above the small flowers like it is in the background behind them.
I sewed a bunch more of the pink strip sets on Sunday and got them pressed yesterday. I'll start slicing them soon so I can make more blocks. I have one more batch of strip sets to make.
I have half of the blocks sewn for the pink 16 patch quilt so I decided to try another layout. This is on a 7' tall design wall and the vertical rows will be the horizontal rows of the quilt. I took the rows down and numbered and clipped them. I have a lot of sewing to do for the other half before I can design the rest of it.
A little info: there are NO batiks in this quilt, all regular quilting cotton prints. I have a tutorial for the 16 patch here. It assures seams going in opposing directions all through the quilt if you follow the directions.
The Rudbeckia are starting to bloom. I see I have one plant in the back garden now too. I don't remember if I transplanted one last year or just spread the seeds back there.
The elephant ear plant isn't growing very tall yet but the leaves are getting big.
Here is the other one. So far there is just one leaf.
Some of the blogs I read use this size font. My old eyes don't like this size. I have to strain to read it. This is the font called normal and yes, you have to choose it each time you do a post, but it is so much easier to read.
This is the font I choose to use. Maybe that pinpoints me as an old person who can't see well but I think I am being kind to you readers too. I am much more likely to read something that I can read easily. Any comments?
More mindless sewing, more blocks. This is about 1/4 of the quilt. The blocks are 8" (2.5" strips) and there will be 9 blocks one way and 12 the other way. There will be a larger proportion of the darker blocks than I show here.
We got more rain yesterday afternoon and my zinnia patch is loving it. I have never had a sunny spot to plant zinnia seeds and this year I had finished digging out unwanted plants in a round bed in my front yard where there is sun most of the day. I had planned to plant grass seed but then I figured why not plant zinnias this summer and then decide in the fall if I want grass there instead. I planted 2 different kinds so I hope I get a variety of colors of flowers.
I thought I had taken one set of every fabric combination to the machine but when I was counting strips last night I discovered the other dark pink in the pile. There will be enough of the dark pink of both fabrics to make a lot of blocks, like 12 or more of each.
We had a big rain very early yesterday morning. I had almost 2" in my rain gauge. This is the view out the kitchen window when the sun came out a few hours later. There are 2 squirrels on the ground, several birds at the feeders.
This is one of the crazy critters burying seeds. It is no wonder there are all kinds of strange plants coming up back there.
This one was watching the other one bury the seeds.
Way in the back are 3 of the cannas, 2 of them about 3' tall.
I sewed at various times of the day yesterday and got these combinations sewn for my pink 16 patch quilt. There are several sets of some of these. I will press them and slice the sections today and make some blocks.
I started out the day watering the flowers in pots and the tomato plants. My hose doesn't reach around to the back of the house so I use a large watering can. I tried to clean up the table where my studio die cutter is.......it is partially cleaned off....maybe I can finish that today. I have more cutting I want to do. It is hot and humid again, A/C running.
On March 19th I showed all of the pieces of mindless sewing that resided in drawers in my studio. For the last 3 days I have been trimming them into even widths. I put them back up on the design wall in rows of the same width strips.
This is the photo that I posted in March. Now that they are trimmed I'm not sure if I'm going to do a wallhanging like this. They can stay up on the design wall until I decide.
I have two Redbud trees that planted themselves near my driveway. I think this might be about a 10 year growth. I was admiring all of the pinkness as I mowed the grass.
The flowers aren't open on the ones in the backyard but one of these two trees has started blooming.
I wish they could bloom all summer.
This is a section of day lilies that I have dug out twice. Last fall I thought I had it down to three plants. I guess I was wrong. I need to dig some of them out again so I can get to my spigot.
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.
