Roll, Roll Cotton Boll, Step 2

Big stack of triangles cut in pairs this morning.  After lunch they were all sewn together into squares.  Quilters call them Half Square Triangles, or HSTs.

120 are made, and now need to be "squared up", or trimmed to the exact size, 3.5 inches.  I tried to pick out dark enough browns to contrast with the medium blues I had chosen for Step 1.  I found that I had fewer browns that I had thought-- or a lot of them were too light.  The ones that look RED are really more of a RUST brown.  Now I'll store these away until Bonnie Hunter gives us Step 3 of the Mystery next Friday.

I am challenging myself to add a row a day to a "strip" quilt I am making of left-over trimmings and blocks.

I started with the remaining strip-pieced HSTs and so far have added a row on each side of the two 48" long pieces.  Now I am looking through groups of orphan blocks.  I hope to find enough that are the same height to make a couple more 48" strips.

Just between the kitchen sink faucet and the window we have these "Christmas" cactuses.  My experience is that they decide the time to flower is Thanksgiving, rather than Christmas.  So I am enjoying them right now, and a hope for a week or two.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Lynne packed LOTS of leftovers from the feast for us to bring home.
Buttered toast and turkey for breakfast
No need to go out shopping with the crowds today!

Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll, Step 1

"Roll, Roll Cotton Boll" is Bonnie Hunter's current Mystery.  This week we are working on Step 1, in which she uses Pink and Green.  I have decided to substitute medium blue for the pink.  Mostly I picked pretty bright, limey greens.

I put my 2" strips of green and blue in these little bins, then I pulled out one by one and made the three strip strata.  Now they are all crosscut into 2" sets.  We are required to have 172; I have 201 because I wasn't using just one size of strip and I didn't realize how many I had cut toward the end.

---------------

I'm having some blurring in my LEFT eye, not the one I usually have examined by the retinologist, so we are going to check that out this noon.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Good health care, and Charlie to drive me there and home again
Warmth and shelter, now that the cold has come
MUSIC

Election Day accomplishments

As I began clearing off the bed in my sewing room, I found some two-patches leftover from a previous zig-zag baby quilt.  Rather than hide them away (as I probably should have done), I used them with some other scraps to make a checkerboard.

Today I added the borders, including this "wild" batik outer border.  I'm not madly in love with this project, so I am going to hand it on to Margaret's Hope Chest for them to finish.  I know they will find a happy recipient.

This afternoon I located the little top I made from the scraps of Peter and Lynne's quilt, Emerald Forest.  Lying near it was a leftover piece of green polar fleece -- ah ha! -- a perfect backing AND batting.  Since Tuesday is my "dedicated to quilting day", I rushed back from voting [rather than running some errands] and quickly quilted this one and even got it bound.

I also found on the bed a set of FQs I took to Florida two years ago and augmented, but never had started a project.  I also found a book about FQ projects. . . . but I managed to NOT begin anything with these treasures.  Instead I laid them aside and looked for a particular UFO I had been musing about.

That True UFO is finally on the sewing machine for the next time I get in there.

Nevertheless: I am glad to be ready to get those two projects away and out of my sewing room!

Meanwhile Bonnie Hunter has announced the start date of her next mystery: Nov. 19.  I'm uncertain about participating.  He quilts are labor intensive, and I want to keep working on my UFO goal for this year.  Well, I can always start in the new year.  And she does intend that we use everything from our stash - something I also want to keep working on.

Sara

Gratitudes:

No real line at the polling place

Lots of sun out my window as I was sewing

Charlie panfried some yummy talapia for dinner

Sashing done

I used some "soft" blacks for the cornerstones. That is, they are not DEEP black, but have modest white prints toning them down a bit. I didn't want the cornerstones to really stand out, just be a little noticeable.

The outer sashings have no cornerstones.

This is a square quilt, right now about 84", which is wide enough for our bed, but not long enough to tuck under the mattress. My current plan is to wait until it is quilted, and THEN add another 12" of length to the bottom edge. This additional piece will not be quilted, but will give me a "tuck under" that will hold the quilt in place. My mom used to do this to blankets that were too short.

Furthermore, I also have the back almost completed. One more really long seam.

Company for chili tonight, so I need to leave the sewing room and work in the kitchen.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Catherine says pick up two quilts tomorrow

House smells like chili

Charlie's night to cook, so he'll do everything else

Snow melted off the front walk, so we don't have to shovel

"Design Wall" Bed

Dianne provided me with the matching green fabric so I could add another thin border to match the sashings she had used. So now I think this top looks much better. On to making the binding strips and sending this off to Catherine for quilting.

I have gone back to working on Bonnie Hunter's last mystery, "Carolina Christmas". [ I went with Black instead of Christmas Green.] I have the blocks sewn together into "foursies", and now I am working on the sashing. Bonnie didn't suggest sashing, but these blocks are a little to busy for me to put them slam-up-against each other. I have the cross-wise sashing attached.

I laid them on the "design wall" bed to consider whether or not I want to use cornerstones where the sashing meets. Right now I'm thinking black cornerstones.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Smell of fresh bread baking

Good stretching at exercise class

Light covering of new snow refreshes everything

Mistake slows progress

When I got to pressing my "Poinsettia Stars", they were looking very good, until I opened one up and found this:

Not so good! How can this happen when I only have to do the SAME thing over and over for 48 times? Oh, well, I have ripped it open and resewn it. Now I DO really have 48 blocks that look the same. [Yes, Bonita, it does get a little tedious at times, so it is good to do them in sets of 10 and then take a break!]

I picked a Un-Finished Object [UFO] that has had two different "waiting" periods, and I have made the binding strips and the backing. Now I am quilting it on my machine; since it is only about 40" square, I can maneuver it through the small space of the harp of the machine.

A few more T's to quilt and then the borders.

I'm calling this "T is for Tessellation".

Charlie got to the airport at about 11:30 last night. It was quite a change for him to find 11 degrees instead of the 80 they had in Haiti.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Fun to sing the GRWC program again at MAJIC

Learning about Food for the Poor from Charlie

Met Opera on the radio while I sew.

Starting Step 5 of Carolina Xmas

Piles of units are lying on my cutting mat awaiting their first opportunity to bond together into a larger block. I finished these piles just last night.

I even had the black ones squared up, but then my eyes began to fail me, and I needed to put some more time in to the C.J. Box mystery I am reading. So I quit.

Now I am following Bonnie's instructions

on how to join these together. There are to

be 52 of these blocks at the end, so 104 of the half-blocks. I have made a "lot" of these.

And I have also put together 12 of the blocks. She says they are called "Fox and Geese".

Well, isn't that nice!

However, I have many, many more to make.

And I'm not going to show you the alternate block until I get done with this one and go on to work on that one.

-----------------------------------------

But other news from today: My every-four-weeks trip to the eye doctor.

"Everything is perfect," he said.

Therefore no injection again this month.

That makes two in a row that we have skipped.

Hurray! Someone has been saved the $2000 cost of the injection material [Medicare and Blue Cross] and I have saved an afternoon for sewing because I didn't have to keep my eyes shut for 5 hours to recover from the insult to my eyeball.

Sara

Gratitudes:

A warm house [wind and snow outdoors]

Electricity [may go out in this storm]

Kathie being my driver [Charlie in Haiti]

Carolina Xmas, Part 3

Last night I finished the 48 sets of 4 slanting matching-red-fabric patches. And below them you can see some of the waste or bonus Half-square triangles that were cut off during the making, I think the total is 384 of those. [There may be a feathered star pattern in my future which would use a number of those.]

Tonight is the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus winter concert. Maybe I can get Charlie to take a photo. I'm still shaky on my Macedonian and French words for two of the songs. That's what I need to work on this afternoon instead of Part 4 of this mystery. But between practices I am cutting more 2.5" strips.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Lovely "lake effect" snow floating down

Warm house

New computer working well

Carolina Xmas, Part 3

The final look of Step #2, with the large triangle sewn on. Ten piles of ten with a few extra. Black and neutral.

Photo #2 is where I got to today on Step 3. LOTS of cutting! Those are stacks of 2.5" background squares and stacks of red 2.5" x 4.5' bricks.

One stack of about 72 red bricks with ONE corner sewn, cut, pressed. Only TWO pieces finished with both corners sewn, cut pressed.

Oh, yes, there is also a developing pile of 2" HSTs that have been cut off the back of the sewn corner, "waste" triangles. These await some OTHER, later project. [Quilting seeds.]

Sara

Gratitudes:

Birthday lunch for Iris at The Electric Cheetah

Progress on mystery quilt

Progress on learning some GRWC foreign language words

Carolina Xmas, Part 2A

Lots of small pieces.

Lots of triangles.

Lots of fun really!

Next a black triangle as big as this whole piece will be added to make them into squares.

Hope to have a photo of those before the day is over.

Bonnie has already posted Part 3. Now that the grocery shopping is done, and the food put away, I need to finish Part 2!

Sara

Bonnie Hunter's new mystery

Okay, I missed two clues while away in St. Louis, so this AM I started work on the 192 "twosies" that are the first half of the first step in "Carolina Christmas".

Lynne and I had paid a visit to the famous fabric store Jackman's while in St. Louis. There we found lovely batiks for a quilt for their bedroom. AND I found a terrific gold/mustard paisley print for the mystery.

I have decided to substitute Black for Bonnie's Green in the Xmas quilt. This will make it less tied to a season, and I hope it will be very striking: Red, Yellow,and Black (with neutral background). Everything but the Yellow will be scrappy, multiple fabrics and a range of tones/values.

Now back to the sewing room!

Sara

Family Thanksgiving

On Saturday afternoon Martha coralled us all into Babys 'R Us for a family photo.

So here we are: Charlie and me in the front row, our son Peter and his wife Lynne, and our daughter Martha with her husband John and their three kids: the combined Homeyer and Thomas family.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Great time together with the above folks and more!

Saturday their school WON the football championship, Sami in band.

Safe and uneventful travel on Wed. and Sunday.