It took almost 2 hours to press all 180 triangle squares last night. They are 5" finished squares. I was calculating how big of a quilt I can make with them. If I do 12 rows across by 15 rows down it would be 60" x 75" using just these squares. If I added some plain squares in I could make it larger. I have a couple larger print Australian fabrics that I didn't cut into triangles. Actually a 10" finished square would show off the print even better. I was gone for over half of the day yesterday. I had to move my appointment with my eye Dr. in Chicago after I had my pacemaker surgery. We traveled in rain both ways, 2 hours getting there and an hour and a half getting home. My vision has improved since my last visit and I don't have to go back for 6 months so no winter driving. The tumor (which was treated with radiation 5 years ago) is stable and has a good appearance. No further radiation damage of healthy tissue at this point. My pop-up shop closes tonight CST and it will be a few weeks before the next one opens. This gives me time to continue making quilts and do more photography for the next one. Thanks to everyone who has visited the shop and to all of the purchasers!
I cut triangles (5" finished squares) from the Australian fabric back when I was making the Hunter Star quilt. I sewed 180 pairs in the last 2 days. Now it is time to turn on the iron ..........
and on the ironing mat are all of these 2" finished triangle squares, also waiting to be pressed. It is supposed to be cold today so I guess it will be a good time to work on this.
I took the last 3 blocks down to the design wall and then spent about a half hour rearranging blocks so I could space out the blocks with red/pink and also the very dark and very light blocks. The only block I'm still questioning is the light one in the top row. I could exchange it with the second star from the left in the second horizontal row. It should finish at approximately 56" x 72".
Last night I just wanted some mindless sewing while I caught up on some TV shows. I brought all of the 2" finished triangles upstairs and got all these sewn. I need to cut some more light triangles to pair with the remaining dark triangles. I'll probably do pressing tonight while I watch a couple shows.
The blocks for the last 4 stars in Hunter Star have been cut. I thought I might start sewing them but read and knitted instead.
I also cut the little pieces for the last four 2" pinwheels out of the scraps. They are sewn but not pressed. A couple of them don't have much contrast between the dark and light but I think they will be fine. Maybe I'll get the last 2 rows sewn onto the table runner today.
I sewed the last 8 blocks, 4 of each of the two shown, and 6 pinwheels. Looking back at my previous post of the other blocks it looks like I need to find 4 more fabric combinations. I'll work on that today.
I used 5 of the 6 new pinwheels to add 2 rows to this little piece. At 10" x 20" it is almost a table runner size. With 4 new combinations plus the 1 pinwheel left over I will be able to add 2 more rows.
I want to clarify the 6" distances that I mentioned yesterday. They are 6" from the pacemaker, not from the rest of me. If you hold a 6" ruler in front of the area below your collarbone on the left side of your body you can see I'm more than 12" from the sewing machine motor which where the interference with the pacemaker could occur. Being too close could cause dizziness or heart palpitations. Magnets are a danger too. Anonymous, you want me to go back and label all of my 16 patch block posts. I intend to do that someday but it will probably take about 4 hours to search for all of them. If you want to find the 16 patch posts go to the search box at the top left corner of my blog and enter 16 patch. It will bring up any post where I said "16 patch". If I had known I was going to make so many of them I would have created the label with the first post.
One of the waste areas after cutting the Hunter Star blocks was large enough to cut 1" finished triangles. Since there were 4 alike of each fabric I decided on pinwheels that will finish at 2"
So far I have cut 20 combinations for the Hunter star so there are 20 pinwheels. I'm not done cutting the blocks yet so there will be more. If I sewed this right now it would be 8" x 10", about mug rug size. I'm thinking about alternating with 2.5" squares of another Australian print that isn't going to be used in the blocks. I also sewed some more parts for the Hunter Star blocks and pressed all of the pieces.
I also started basting this quilt for ditch quilting with my straight stitch machine. That is the leftover piece of backing fabric laying on it.
Today is the big day for the eclipse and the Chicago area is supposed to have clouds. Hopefully there will be some breaks between them.
I decided to cut up some neutral color scraps last night. There are black, gray, brown and beige in there as well as a few brighter colors.
After sewing for a couple hours this is the selection from last night and the leftovers from last week added together. I need to cut some jewel tone scraps now to sew more triangle squares before I design any more blocks. I need to make 5 more blocks.
I saw 2 Rose Breasted Grosbeaks yesterday but they flew away before I could get to my camera. A little later I saw the cardinal and he stayed there for quite awhile. I love the red spot amongst all of the green.
I sewed #20 block and then tried to do a layout with the last triangles that were previously sewn.
There are 2 ways I can do this. Now I have to piece 8 more squares of 2 triangles to finish this block. Nothing is planned so far in the first 20 blocks. I just sewed random sets of 2 triangles together (always with contrasting values), some batches of 8 alike, some of 4 alike, and lots of miscellaneous pairing. Then I would just play with them to create blocks. If I planned each block and then looked for fabrics to make them I would be bored with the project really quickly. I like spontaneous surprises. I don't plan colors ahead of time. I choose groups that I think I will like from the supply of sewn squares and start the layout. If it isn't working I try another color.
The bunny came to clean up under the bird feeder yesterday morning. He/she was there for quite awhile and then hopped on to eat some weeds. Luckily the bunnies don't eat any of my perennials.
Last night I sewed enough triangle squares to make 5 blocks. Each pile is either 8 alike or 4 alike. If I don't like some of the combinations when I lay out the blocks I can always make a few more that will work.
I didn't have much ambition yesterday with the barometric pressure change. We didn't get much rain during the day. It sounds like the big rain is coming on Saturday and Sunday.
I also started hand basting the redwork baby quilt I pieced in February. I will ditch quilt between rows of blocks in both directions and also the diagonals along the triangles. Then I will decide the rest of the quilting.
My two friends came over yesterday to sew and I spent the day cutting with my die cutter. I concentrated on cutting dark triangles since I had only light ones left. After sewing last night now I have piles of dark triangles left over so I'll have to cut more light ones. I need to count how many I still need for 7 more blocks.
For everyone asking (and most of you were NO REPLY so I can't email you) I am using 2" finished units for 12" finished blocks. If I used 1.5" finished my blocks would be 9", 2.5" finished my blocks would be 15" and if I used 3" finished my blocks would be 18". You can make these blocks any size you want that is divisible by 6 since it is a 36 patch block.
Here is one more photo of part of my pink back yard. We are supposed to get rain several times from Wed. night through Sunday so it will probably knock the petals off.
