Busy hands, happy life..............

I like to keep busy with fabric whether I have a project or not.  I have 2 project boxes full of Marcia Derse scraps and I keep looking at them and they don't look inspiring in the mess in the box.  I decided to loosely sort the strips by several lengths and slip them into plastic bags.  The odd shaped pieces will go in another bag.

Then if I decide to make blocks similar to this mock up, I will have an easier time selecting the strips.  Sorting is an easy job while watching TV.

There were a lot of pieced sections left over from other projects and from previous playtime.  They will be bagged separately too.

Yesterday morning I found another stack of 1.5" batik squares.

That meant I had to sort through them and find 4 alike of as many light fabrics as I could.  There are enough sets here for 40 more 3" 9 patches.  The dark fabrics will be assortments of fabric because there weren't any fabrics with 5 alike.

I'm working on a major reorganization in one area of my basement so I'm not sure when I'll start an actual project.  I do have a box of 16 patch neutral color blocks, enough to make 2 throw quilts so I could start playing with those to break up the work time.

I took a few garden photos from inside the house yesterday.  Look at the buds on this Coral Bell!  I think this one is called Snow Angel.  I have 2 or 3 of them.

This is the group of Tiger Lily plants in the back garden.  All of the green around them is the rampant roving Lily of the Valley.  At my age there is no chance of me being able to dig them all out.

It's hard to see the little flowers here but the Lungwort/Pulmonaria plants are getting big and bushy and full of blooms.  I'll probably dig some out and pot them and give them away.

I can't help it, I have to take photos of the pink buds opening on the Redbud trees.  They are talking possible frost/freeze early Saturday morning and early Sunday morning.  

Surprise, surprise!.  Look what I spied when I was opening the blinds yesterday morning.  This is part of an older cactus with white flowers that used to bloom at least 3 times in a season.  The plant was not doing well so I saved 3 small sections that were healthy and planted them.  This is the second time for this one to bloom.

 

Layouts...............

There are more little 1.5" batik squares to make more 9 patches but I decided to play a little with layouts.  Edge to edge isn't very spectacular.  Since the blocks will finish at 3", this would only be 12" x 18", about the size of a placemat.

Spacing the blocks out with plain blocks between would stretch this to 18" x 24".

With the blocks on point they measure about 4.25" across so this would be about 21.5" square.  After sewing 400 of the 4.5" 9 patches I'm not very anxious to sew a lot of these little blocks. I may sew a few more of them and then save them for a possible border of a future quilt.  They can rest in the batik orphan block box.

I have a stack of 32 mostly brown toned 16 patches so I'm looking for a fabric for some alternating blocks.  I had this print laying out to try.

This photo shows the fabric better.  I only have a yard of it and that might yield 20 squares.  What I need is 33 squares.  I can make more 16 patch blocks.

This will make the quilt very dark which isn't all bad but I'll keep looking through my stash.

More tiny 9 patches............

I went through all of the piles of 1.5" squares and matched 5 dark/4 light for another batch of blocks.  In some there are 5 of the same fabric or 2 similar fabrics and others are 5 different fabrics that look good together.  The same is true of the groups of 4.

We had storm warnings last night which turned into nothing in my area so I sewed blocks.  This is 23 blocks, 8 of which were made the day before yesterday.  I haven't turned on the iron yet to press them.

The Redbud trees are pinking up quickly with all of the 70's and 80's the last few days.  Now we are going to cool down a little and only one night is going to be in the 30s if the predictions are correct.

A finish for April 2024...............

Brown Bear Paw is finished.  I made the decision to use the border fabric for the binding and it is all finished by machine.  It is 68" x 82".

This will be a raffle quilt to raise money for Prader-Willi syndrome  which my youngest granddaughter's first child was born with.  It is very rare and most of us had never heard of it.  She is organizing a fund raising walk in mid-May and is including several raffles.

Here is the spectacular back.  Having a stash is so wonderful.  I had all 3 of these fabrics, no shopping required.

Cable crashed last night a few minutes before 9 p.m., no internet, no TV.  It didn't come back on until 10:20 so I started sewing the little 3" nine patches.  I don't think I'll make a lot of them so they will either be a small project or go into the batik orphan block box and someday get used as filler blocks to make everything fit together.

Sorting..............

I didn't have anything lined up to sew last night so I sorted 1.5" batik squares instead.  I sorted into colors and into light value.  Then I went through the light squares and pulled all of the ones that had at least 4 alike or 4 similar.  I have over 30 light groups ready now to pair with 5 darker squares for 3" finished 9 patches.  This will be TV night sewing.

I was going through a closet to find my father-in-law's slides to give to my son.  In there was a box of nostalgia.  In the 1940s and early 50s we got award certificates for certain things.  I had perfect attendance 4 out of 8 grade school years.  We didn't have kindergarten at our one room schools so I started with 1st grade.

There are perfect spelling certificates for grade 2 - 8.  I'm assuming we didn't have spelling in first grade since it was our first year in school.  We were only learning to write the alphabet.  What a change from then to now.  Kids nowadays are probably learning to write the alphabet in pre-school. 

I still haven't made a decision on the binding for the Bear Paw quilt.  This is what the sashing fabric would look like.  The border fabric (my other choice) would just continue black out to the edge.

I spent a lot of time outside yesterday with garden and yard clean up.  It was 68 degrees on Saturday and 83 yesterday.  I was actually too tired to do much inside after that.

A finished top and garden walk.................

It made sense to go with 16 blocks instead of 15 to use up as many of the die cut pieces as possible.  It ended up at 39.5" square.  Square quilts are nice floor mats for little ones or this could be a wall hanging for someone who likes graphic designs on the wall.  Meanwhile the best part is that I emptied the box that held these pieces in an area that I am reorganizing.  

Last October I bought a sad looking Flare Hydrangea on sale for $8.50.  I planted it right away and hoped for the best.  It has new growth on it so I guess it had a good root system. The tag on it says it is a compact bush and the blooms will be white aging to bright pink. It also says to water it once a week and maybe more often in really hot weather. 

In the back garden the Brunnera is up and blooming.  The flowers are tiny, about like Forget-me-nots.  This is the largest plant; there are a few small plants too.

The Columbine in the back garden is getting big.  Behind it the Lily of the Valley is making its presence known.  It has totally invaded this area.

The earliest Peonies are getting tall.  I have about 20 Peony plants in total, most in the back garden.

This Hosta needs to be dug up.  It looks like the center might be dead.  I will probably get about 6 plants out of this.

Last week I showed this Hosta and it had just started growing.  It  is near the Sedum plants and my mailbox post in the front garden.  I'm not sure of the name of the variety but it is a compact plant that only gets about 10" tall,

 

Trimming and sewing..............

Yesterday afternoon I trimmed the next quilt to finish.

Here is a peek at the back.  I had quite a bit of the border fabric left to use for a backing but not quite enough.  I had 2 other prints that looked good with it.  My longarm quilter pieced this backing for me because I didn't have it ready for her when she dropped of my Charley quilt.

This close shot shows the center fabric better.

I haven't decided on binding yet.  There is enough of the border fabric to use but I also have enough of the sashing fabric to use for binding.  Both look good so I just have to make a decision.

I started sewing these blocks together around noon and finished while watching TV at night.  There was one more block to sew and I decided to check the 3 parts that were left over and see if there were any 2 pieces left to sew a 4th quarter of a block.

This is what I came up with.  That 4th quarter that isn't sewn yet is pretty boring.

Now I have to decide if a 16 block square quilt would be as useful as a 15 block rectangular one.  Size comparison is 40" x 40" or 30" x 50".

While I was trying to decide what to do I started 2 dishcloths.  The one on the left is a denim blue, not quite as dark as it appears here.

The last bud on my white cactus decided to bloom.  It was touch and go whether it was drying up or planning to bloom.  I expect this to be the very end of the cactus blooming season.