Accomplishing Things

For awhile this week, I had a supreme sense of accomplishment - at last! 

Sometimes, I find myself with several projects on my work table that require minimal time and attention. Most of the time, just the finishing needs to be tackled. Why I delay finishing things and turn instead to starting something else defies logic, but that's the way I roll more times than I care to admit. At some point, I reach option paralysis, unable to move toward any of the projects - too many options! Deciding which to tackle is just too daunting.

I forged ahead, though, and a breakthrough occurred! Yeaaahh! 

First, I reached for the Tilda hexie flowers and finally finished the next stage that project by sewing the applique blocks to the 9-patch blocks. Small quilt; easy, quick finish. I did finish that little flimsy and I will share it in an upcoming post.

 Next, I tackled a reconstruction project - Snowbird Stars. I haven't yet mentioned it here on the blog, but once you see it, I think you will understand. Tearing into this quilt was a total unplanned event, but the placement of the two lightest setting blocks, didn't please me at all. I knew a correction was coming. 

 

Snowbird Stars, a flimsy I stitched in 2015 is one I am considering for quilting with the new backings mentioned in the last post. I knew I would redo the center to balance the setting blocks more symmetrically. I had already ripped out the blocks, then stopped - left it in a heap of blocks and threads - a deconstruction mess that would be super simple to stitch back together. 

 

Back to work and finish this thing! Yes. I am so much happier with the quilt top now that I've placed the two light setting blocks in the center of the quilt. And I probably will select this top to quilt with one of those new backings I bought.

Was I done? NO! I went back to the quilting room after supper and finally put that oft-mentioned binding on 9-Patch Strippy. I'd been planning on this to be one of my major to-be-accomplished-while-recovering projects, and yet I'd not followed through. It's a big quilt, so I expected I would be in for a bit of a wrestle, but I did just fine - no difficulty at all.  

Another 10-year-old quilt finally finished and ready for use, as needed. This has always been one of my favorite quilt tops, and it's a design totally of my own making. 

These projects had been nagging me to the point of paralysis for days, and yet when I finally put my mind to it, I made significant progress on them. Gosh, that felt good. 

Having these lifted from my mental to-do list allows me to more willingly think about going to the long arm machine to work out the tension kinks I know I need to address.  

In due time, I eventually do the things that need to be done.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne 

Quilted: 9-Patch Strippy

Continued use of the Tin Lizzie longarm machine feels like productivity on overdrive. I rather like the feeling that things are getting done, and the growing stack of completed quilts is definite evidence.

The latest off the longarm is 9-Patch Strippy, made about 10 years ago. I believe it was a UFO that I finished in 2017; before that, it had lingered over several years.

 Do you prefer it with the vertical strips or the horizontal strips? I prefer vertical, but the quilt works so much better considering the overhang if I use the horizontal direction.

I have always loved the way this quilt looks. The pale blue setting triangles used around the 9-patch blocks do a nice job of setting them off and also looks good with the vine-y red floral in the strips. It's cool to see the combinations of fabrics I used in the 9-patches - so many previous projects come to mind, as these are mostly scraps from other quilts.

If you have noticed an increase in the number of quilts coming off the longarm, then you have very astute observational skills. It became clear a few months ago that I was woefully lacking in my goals toward quilting on the longarm. Two closets in my house are packed full of ready-to-quilt tops. I have been attempting to make a dent in this backlog.

We had a sewing day yesterday at Terry's house. My first order of business was to prepare the binding for this quilt. I now have 2 quilts quilted and awaiting binding. Both bindings are ready to go. I just need to sit down and stitch them on.

What quilt will go on next? I feel like I might be on a roll here with this quilting business, so I have to keep my focus.

However, I will have a bit of an interruption as of tomorrow. I will be getting a new right knee at around 7:30am tomorrow, and will likely be away from not only the longarm machine, but also the entire quilting room for the foreseeable future. Wish me well with both the surgery and the recovery. 

Happy Quilting, Friends! 

Jayne 

Larkspur Stars

Sewing with Sharon yesterday was productive!

We agreed several weeks ago to assign June as our month to work with our Larkspur stashes. It's just such a shame to keep gorgeous fabric locked up in bins.

From the looks of things, we will have to make a new assignment for June, because both of us have a good head start and are on a course for finishing our quilt tops very soon.

For my Larkspur Stars quilt, I have made 15 setting blocks and 8 stars. My current plan is to make 7 more stars, then see what fabrics I have remaining. Should there be enough to do one more row, I will do that for sure. Actually, my concern is the variety of the remaining fabric, not the amount. I am pretty sure that plenty will be available, but I doubt there will be nothing but yellow and coral left. So, we shall see.

Sharon is making 9-patch blocks which she intends to set in strippy columns. I love strippy quilts, and the colors along with the various florals of Larkspur will be beautiful set this way. I have no pictures of Sharon's blocks, but I have made some strippy quilts, which I can show you to get an idea. I will do a better job of taking some pictures of her work next week.

9-Patch Strippy from 2017

Antique 9-Patch from 2012

Using our Larkspur collections has been lots of fun. We are sharing as needed to help each other out when we are lacking in a particular color-range. Sharon suggested that I look at other 3Sisters fabrics for possible substitutes. Good idea! I am using some of the red from Roman Holiday. What a fun addition to my quilt!

It's Friday! Are you all finding that you are returning to "normal" as we approach June? My group of card-playing friends met last night and did an adequate job of socially distancing. We didn't have enough to play cards, so we sat on the screened porch and talked until almost midnight. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sewing or Surgery??

Getting my April UFO into the finished column took a whole lot of effort. At times, it seemed as though I was doing the work of a surgeon rather than a quilter. I took some pictures as I went along, thinking that it might be worthwhile to examine the grunt work of finishing a quilt top when things haven't gone quite as smoothly as planned.

Earlier this month I pulled out this tub into which I'd stuffed the UFO that was tops on my UFO list. I really wanted to finish this! However, I recall facing some rather challenging obstacles which resulted in my abandoning my efforts. The time had come at last to face the unpleasant reality.

The problem was that I didn't know how to finish off the ends. I'd run short on the blue calico print and didn't have enough to make the end triangles for each strip of 9-patches. Cutting off the triangles would give me excess fabric, but the triangles were not big enough to fill the space.

Above is a cut-away  triangle applied to an end. You can clearly see that it was both too short on the side touching the red floral strip and it left me with no seam allowance at the point of the 9-patch. Bummer.

Students of psychology know the term 'avoidance tendencies" - well, I truly do shut down entirely rather than cope with the likes of this. I have been avoiding since October of 2015. I explained a lot of the quilt's history in this post from earlier this month. If you go back to see that post, check out how little of that blue calico remained for what I needed to do. I really had to be certain about how I used that last little bit.

The arrows in the photo above point out two problems that had to be solved in order to finish my flimsy. The purple arrow indicates that I had several spots that needed a triangle unit inserted. The pink arrow indicates too-small triangles that needed to be removed. All told, I suppose I had about 5 of each of these to correct.

Ugh. Let the surgery begin.

Above, you can see that the strips have been unsewed to a workable distance; the offending small triangle has been removed removed.

Using the small triangles, I pieced extensions onto them and re-cut larger triangles to fit the spaces.  Fortunately, the little calico is a forgiving print;  the seam lines barely show.

I like that they disappear so nicely. It made the job more agreeable knowing that the fixes wouldn't be noticeable. I have arrows pointing to the seams in the picture just above, but you still might have to click to enlarge.

Each newly-created triangle was then attached to the blocks and then trimmed to size.

A surgeon who can stitch up a patient so well that the scars are minimal earns the respect of his/her colleagues and patients; my own brand of  'surgery' passes the "eye-test," wouldn't you say? It satisfies me, for sure.

This whole process falls into the category of doing the grunt work of quilting. I really hate being bogged down by correcting mistakes like this. In this case, I knew that I really wanted to have this quilt top finished; I just love how it looks! So I was willing to do that tiresome grunt work in order to get my flimsy, at last. Yay!! I love it!

Here's another look at my finish, even though you saw it in yesterday's post. One never tires of looking at a newly finished quilty creation!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Finish!

After complaining in Friday's post about not getting much of anything done this month, I spent yesterday changing those circumstances. Yes, I have a finish, dear readers, and my streak of completing my monthly UFOs now stands at 4 for 4.

Whoo-hoo!

My 9-Patch Strippy was a devilish little bugger to finish, but I stayed with it and got 'er done. The sort of finishing required included the types of things I dislike - a lot: picking out stitches, removing things, replacing them and re-sewing it all. Ugh.

But, in the end, isn't it worth it?!! Yes!!

Here she is on the guest bed. She has 5 vertical rows of 9-patch blocks - all hand stitched - and placed on point with some ancient calico from my stash. Then there are 3 red floral (also from the stash) strips between them and two outer strips of the same fabric but a bit wider for the borders. I had not planned to add an upper and lower border, but since I had the fabric, I decided that would be the thing to do - use it  up. So the top and bottom borders are on. I have very little of either fabric remaining. Perhaps just enough to throw in my stack for potential EPP use.

The size is quite a bit larger than I ever would have imagined when I started this quilt, measuring out at 93" long by 81" wide, roughly.

I have an answer to the questions I posed at the end of my last post. The way to get over "can't-focus-itis" is to complain about it, then after reading it and realizing you sound like a whiner, just get to work, for heaven's sake! *cheesy grin*

Added later: I forgot that I signed up at Elm Street Quilts for her One Monthly Goal linky party. I have linked to her post for finishes. Click on over there to see what other quilters have accomplished this month and to be inspired to get moving next month!
Happy Quilting, Friends!

UFO Work

This UFO challenge is really making me get some things done, and I am so glad to be participating. A week ago, I had no idea what I'd do with the stack of hand-pieced 9-patch blocks I'd made and accumulated. But now, I not only have a plan, I have some stitching done on them, and I like how it is all coming together.

When I sewed with Sharon on Tuesday, I made all of these units for setting the blocks on point. I have them stacked in 5 rows because that is how many columns I decided I wanted in this quilt. It will be queen size when finished.

And then I laid the setting column fabric next to the blocks to get a visual of how well this was working together. I like this a lot! I then needed to cut the vertical setting columns. After that I took all the parts to the guest room and - TA-DA!!

Now I just need to get back to the sewing machine. This week has been filled with things other than sewing, I'm afraid. I hosted the Frankfort girls yesterday morning, so I had cleaning to do, and a coffee cake to make. I also have to get a book read for book club which is next Friday. And on top of all that, we had a little scare with Grandma on Wednesday and Thursday. She has bounced back a bit, and is improving, but gosh I was worried. You may have noticed a 2-day absence here, and now you know why. Life is happening!

I am hoping for both some sewing time and some reading time this weekend.

Happy Quilting, Friends!