Lego Quilt finished

And here it is on our queen-sized bed.  I had decided to back it with polar fleece, and skip the batting.  With all the seams on the front, this is a HEAVY quilt.

I asked Catherine to use an over-all quilting pattern with some curves to it.  This scroll pattern shows up well on the back with the black thread, and really disappears on the front.

After I got the quilt back, I simply cut the fleece one inch bigger than the top, turned it to front and zig-zagged it down.  A very easy finish as a break from my work on clearing the bed in the sewing room.  But nice to be able to add one more finish to the list for 2011.

Sara

Gratitudes:


A light dusting of snow to brighten the ground
Progress on clearing the bed
Beginning the pre-Christmas "O" Antiphons tonight

Wordless Wednesday

Sara

Retiring a phone

This phone is going into retirement.  It has been eligible for retirement since May we found out.

Since we are on a Family Plan phone contract with our son and DIL, I had to get permission from my son to change phones, and I had to get two different passwords.  So there were about five phone calls between the Apple Store and Peter before I was able to walk out with the new phone in my possession and working.

My new iPhone, shown resting on the old phone, is NOT the just issued version, but a previous edition at a much lower price.  Nevertheless, it does a kajillion things that the old phone did not do.  And I am in deep technologic ignorance.

So far I have entered all the phone numbers from my old phone, but today all but six of them are gone.  On the other hand, all six that I have kept, now have their email addresses listed, which I did NOT enter.  Hmm.
Ain't technology wonderful?

I did, I think, manage to record three songs that the Women's Chorus was practicing last night.  And they did download to my computer, where I could name them, and delete the most incomplete. [The director keeps interrupting us!]  But then I couldn't/didn't find the way to "sync" the tunes back onto my phone so I could listen to them.

Enough talk of that.

I finished up the light strips going onto the Lego quilt as the first border.

It worked out to be four strips on most of the sides.  I saw a royal blue fleece at JoAnn's that I think I will use on the back.  Maybe I will turn it to the front also for the binding.  So what to go between those light strips and a royal blue binding?

I think I'm going to see what red and orange strips I have that are already cut to 3 or 3.5 inches.

Sara

Gratitudes:


AAA membership took care of last night's flat tire
Anticipating two week trip to the Mediterranean
A few nights of no late-night baseball
Childrens' Hospital in St. Louis taking care of granddaughter Sara Rachel

Lego - first border

But FIRST of all, here is the drawer that held all my 1.5 inch strips and squares.  The squares were in the inner box, and the strips were PACKED around that.

And now the first border:

At the suggestion of one of my blog readers, I pulled out a bunch of the light strips and saved them for a border.  I am sewing them around and around until I run out of them, which hasn't happened yet.

What, if anything, will happen after that is yet to be seen.

And here's the current state of the project, lying on the living room rug, which is 6 feet by 9 feet.

Sara

Gratitudes:

An empty drawer!
Leftover lentil soup for lunch
Going to Lake Michigan this afternoon

Lego conundrum

I'm now sewing the Lego blocks together.  Here's what I have so far:

I have more blocks to add on the bottom.  I was planning on having ONE non-railfence block in the next row. Either another checkerboard:

Or this other block:

Whichever one I don't use on the front can go on the back.  Or not.

Maybe I need one more row to make this long enough to cover an adult person.  Do I have enough 1.5 inch strips to make more? [Can always cut 3" strips in half.]

And on the subject of the back..... I'm thinking that this is going to be pretty HEAVY with all those seams, so I'm considering a fleece back and no batting.

What do you think on all these heavy decisions?  Go ahead and weigh in!

Sara

Gratitudes:

None of these decisions are life threatening
Breakfast with old friends
Tigers won last night!

LEGO continues

These blocks are not yet sewn together, I just wanted to see how they looked laid out.  Each block is 12.5", so this would make a 36" X 48" piece.

What I DO have sewn together is this piece which is 24" X 48":

I'm aiming for something like this:

which would be about 60" X 72.

Need to make some more blocks.  This is good because I am finally seeing the drawer of 1.5" strips getting closer to EMPTY.

I have given up my idea of quilting this "As You Go", or even doing it myself at all.  This is going to the LA quilter when the top is done!

Sara

Gratitudes:
That I have a LA Quilter
Survived another exercise class
Mixed pesto into the lunch salad dressing, and WOW, that's good!

Lego progress

So I have put together four of the 12 inch Lego blocks, and I have sewn them to two sides of the large "inchie" block.  I am gung-ho to add more on each side, BUT maybe I should quilt this much before adding anything more [?].  I'm not sure which to do next.  This piece is 24 inches wide and 48 inches long.  That seems to be a good size to get quilted.

Guess I'll go watch the Tiger-Yankees baseball game and leave this decision until tomorrow.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Warm, sunny day with leave beginning to turn
Spent about an hour downtown looking at Art Prize entries
Tigers are ahead!

Wordless Wednesday

Sara

Inchie center

The center of the Lego quilt is put together.  I only have to decide in which rotation to sew these four blocks together.  [One of my blogging friends commented that she calls these little squares "inchies".]  There are a few HSTs and one 9-patch in the mix.

My plan at the moment is to frame this in some shades of gray-- a subtle frame that might go unnoticed for a short while.  I'll have to see if I have the right grays for that plan.  OR I might use a pile of red and white HSTs, left over from a Bonnie Hunter romp, and make the frame out of them.  Not so subtle.  Then the Lego Blocks will go around the outside.

======

We accomplished a lot of music learning and eating and fun at the Women's Chorus two day workshop.  Next Saturday there is another workshop in choral singing by a local expert in which we can individually participate;  not using OUR music, of course.  I'll go and see what more I can learn.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sun twinkling on the frosty grass and leaves this morning
A dog who likes cantaloupe rinds
Tigers beat the Yankees!

I was warned

When I woke this morning I KNEW how to use up more of those pesky 1.5 inch squares that I had created some years ago.  Sew them into "twosies".

The sew those into "4-sies" and then "8-sies", and then "11-sies".

Then sew those strips all together into one big block.

My plan is to make FOUR of these blocks to put in the middle of my LEGO quilt.  That will make a bigger square that is 22 finished inches across.  I can add a one inch sashing [to separate it a little from the Lego squares], and that will bring it up to 24 inches, perfect to match the 12 inch finished Lego blocks.

Here's an imperfect glimpse of what that might look like:

 So with all this construction going on today,  I got NOTHING done about cleaning up my sewing room.  I WAS WARNED by Clare that this Lego business is a huge distraction from cleaning. [Ask her how she knows!]

Sara


Gratitudes:

Grand Rapids Women's Chorus fall workshop tomorrow and Sunday
With Charlie's push out the door I walked for 41 minutes today
SlimFast makes for a quick lunch
Baseball playoffs start tonight, Go Tigers!  Go Cardinals!

"Lego" blocks

Tonya Ricucci of lazygalquilting has a tutorial for making a "Lego" quilt top, and now I have seen several bloggers that are following her lead.  It uses scraps that are 1.5 inch in width, and I have a whole drawer full of those that I need to get rid of!

So I am sewing them end to end until I have about four yards in length.

Then I am sewing the two lengths together along the LONG dimension.

After pressing that seam, I cut the double strip into 12.5 inch lengths, and sew two of them together.

I now have a stack of 30 of these sets of four strips.
And I'm not making them into "12sies" until I have more made.  Don't want to have to put the same fabric next to itself, you know. And maybe I'll start using more pieces that are longer.

 Anyway later three of these will be joined into a 12.5 inch block.  Something like the last photo.

These are, or can be set in alternate directions, like a rail fence.

Tonya's looks like she is using a lot of short pieces, so her blocks look more like they are made of Legos.  I'm just throwing in 1.2 - 3 inch pieces every third time, because I am impatient.

But this has now caught my attention.  Will it turn into ANOTHER ufo? I'm planning on getting that drawer fairly empty because in general I don't want to work with pieces that small.

Meanwhile I am mentally gearing up for a clean-up and clearing-out of my sewing room.  There is too much chaos here and it has become less than welcoming to creativity.  I need to cull out the projects that no longer give me joy.  Doing that will make me more productive....I hope.

Sara

Gratitudes:

I own enough stuff to make a mess
Other bloggers inspire me with projects and the urge to clean-up
Amazing night of baseball on the night of game(s) 162