Busy, busy busy

I haven't posted in so long, but here goes with the news from my life:

Had a Family Activity Night at my library, featuring Australia, and with Tazzie's kind help, everyone got an authentic Australian nickel and teeny flag to take home. We also made koala bear puppets, played bingo, heard stories about marsupials, tasted Marmite, etc. Great fun!

Also went to a Sit and Sew last weekend, with my guild, and got a lot done, sewed the last row of blocks on a string heart design quilt, and gave all three of the tops for Heartstrings to guild members who'll quilt them. And I still have about 16 red-centered string blocks and 2 blue-centered string blocks to combine with the blocks I'll get at tomorrow night's guild meeting.

I got the backing finished for my pink and brown quilt. That one's been sitting at my longarm quilter's in Missouri since our guild retreat last November. This was a quilt I didn't have a particular person in mind to gift it to, so there's been no rush to finish it. I'm ashamed to admit that it didn't take me long at all to get the backing sewn - considering the amount of time I've procrastinated on it!

I meant to quickly put together another back for this floral quilt, remember this one? I bordered it in the deep purple you see down the middle:


I had one long strip of pieced chunks, and 6 leftover blocks I wanted to use on the back, plus some assorted biggish hunks of fabric left over from the front - but somehow, the other folks at the Sit and Sew talked me into using the baggie of strips I had left to make some 'new fabric'for the backing. I spent the rest of the afternoon making the inside of the star shape:


That's the floral top draped off to the lower right there. I've never spent that much time making a backing for a quilt, and... well, don't know if I will again. I did get all the scraps used, but I think a string quilt would have been a better use for them, even if I did have to buy some 'whole' fabric for the backing.

Let's see, what else have I done besides sew? I had a root canal on Thursday... ow, ow, ow... *whines* and it hurt worse afterward than before I went to the dentist. But in all fairness, it's fine now... :) I'll have to get the root filled up then fitted for a crown next. And I detest going to the dentist, too.

When I got home from the dentist, both my neighbor and I had citations from the health department on our doors. Apparently, a woodpile stacked on the concrete of my carport (a very small woodpile less than a yard long and just over a foot high) was in violation. Our woodpiles have to be 18 inches above the ground, for rodent control. Never mind that neither of us has ever seen any rodents - apparently the HD was getting everyone. It wasn't worth it for me to go buy blocks, or figure out some other way to elevate the wood, so since I was off work Friday, I just went outside and pitched all but 7 of the best logs in the trash bin. Those 7 I moved in my little storage room.

They also cited us both for 'junk and appliances.' Here's the list of what I had out in my carport: one blue ice chest, upside down to drain, with lid; two concrete blocks, three clay flowerpots; a green garden hose; the one gallon plastic gas container for the weed whacker; a shovel; one windchime that had fallen from my porch; and about 8 cedar boards, all about 6 inches by 2 feet. Oh, and a rudolph lawn ornament, leaning against the back wall. Definitely no appliances. Isn't this pretty much normal carport stuff? Oh, well, it's all cleaned up now. Everything but the gas can is moved in my storage room, and I CAN'T put that in there, I have a gas water heater, and don't want to mix the two flammables.

My neighbors had rather more than that, but as far as I'm concerned, what they have in their backyard is their own business, especially since it's behind a fence. Any of you ever had health dept. visits like this? Geesh. So THAT'S why I haven't been posting here!

Another Heartstrings Quilt Top

Here's yet another Heartstrings quilt top made from the blocks my guild did for their block of the month:


This one's just a tad over 44 x 44 inches square. I picked out 8 of the blocks that had a slightly maverick interpretation of the heartstrings guidelines... you'll see some that have no red stripe at all, no centered red stripe, or too small or too large of a red or blue stripe. In this layout, with the red not forming a lattice, the variations don't matter at all.

I didn't chop one up to make the cornerstones, but instead made 4 new little blocks the size of my inner navy border that 'floats' the star.

Now that I look at it, if I were to do it again, I'd rotate those cornerstones so that the strips go diagonally the other way, but I'm certainly not going to rip them out and rotate them now... :)

It's Daffodils!

Well, for all of you in snowy parts of the country, with below freezing temperatures, here's a few pictures of MY front yard to give you heart:





And if it doesn't give you heart to brave the cold, at least it'll make you jealous and want to move to Tennessee! :)

First 24 Blocks Used

Well, I pulled out twenty-four of the heartstrings blocks my guild made for Feb. block of the month. I was looking for the darker red center strings this time, to go with my darkish red sashings. I saw this layout on someone's blog, (my apologies for not remembering your name to give you credit) and it looked like just what I wanted for using less blocks and making not quite as big of a quilt:


With 1½ inch skinny sashing and 2½ inch borders and thicker sashings, this one measures 47 x 69 ish. It took less than a fat quarter for the cornerstones, and I have a bit left to make a border for a little label with.

It was really fascinating to see the variety of fabrics people used. You could almost tell something about their life and personality by their material choices. There's the people who just couldn't bring themselves to be completely scrappy and carefully picked strips that looked good next to each other, or kept a color scheme within their blocks. There's the Thimbleberries-loving person, whose blocks were full of moose prints, pine trees, burgundies, forest green and brown. The person with several grandbabies, whose blocks have kiddie brights and character prints. The one who uses mostly tiny florals and tone-on-tones.

It makes me wonder what the fabric I used in my blocks tells about me! :D

More Heartstrings Designs

They were talking about the busy-ness of the heartstrings blocks over on the Heartstrings Yahoo group pages, and someone mentioned that you could take a completed heartstrings block, match it to a square of plain fabric, stitch it down the middle, and make two blocks - like a half square triangle.

Then they were wondering what kinds of designs you could make with half of a heartstrings block. I couldn't resist. Off to EQ! First I tried a simple little star:


Then rotated the hsts and changed all the blocks to hsts, and changed the color of the triangles to springy green:


You could actually do any block that has half square triangles and/or whole squares for this. The depression block layout looks great too!

Because you lose some of the size when you cut your heartstrings block in half diagonally and re-sew it, it'd make sense to trim your NEW blocks to 8½ inches. If you're mixing whole heartstrings blocks with them, of course they'd have to be trimmed to the same size. This would be a good thing to do with blocks that somehow became too small or got lopsided. Then I added some blocks to my layout and played with making this one in pink:


But all of those blue whole heartstrings blocks I've used around the edges would have to be trimmed, you'd be wasting a lot, trimming an inch off them, unless you made some smaller ones on purpose. Better not use many whole blocks, I thought. Then I came up with these designs that don't use as many whole heartstrings blocks, just 4 in the center. First one with a denim colored half block:


Then my favorite, some turquoise:


And finally, one in navy blue:


Which layout should I try first?

Heartstrings block of the month project

Well, my guild had their once a month meeting tonight, and the block of the month for February was a red-centered heartstrings block. Here's a picture of all of us that participated:


We brought in 56 completed blocks. I'm the fat one in the purple shirt, back row. :) We also had two tops to show. Here's mine,using my 30 blocks, forming a pastel heart in the center and red strings around it:


I plan to add one more row of 6 blocks to the bottom of this one. Our quilts are going to be donated to a nursing/convalescent home, so we're using all sizes, from little wheelchair lap quilts to hospital bed size quilts.

And here's the other top at the flimsy stage, Peg B. made a 20 block red-stringed version where she added piano-key style sashing. I like the sashing - somehow I'm ending up with a lot of shorter strips after I use the longer bits on the long diagonals, this would help me use some of them up:


So altogether, the guild has done 106 blocks for heartstrings, and there were more who said they had blocks at home they didn't bring. We're having a contest, with a door prize for the most blocks brought in. This month was red center strips, for March, we'll do blue strips down the center. There was a LOT of interest in making these, so I'm hoping we double our results next month, so actually I'll accept both red AND blue centers.

Still Quilting

*blushes*

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but sometimes life just gets in the way. :)

I have still been working on quilts, just nothing worth picture posting about - I'll bet if you guys see more in-progress pix of the depression/kaleidoscope one, you'll scream! I have got quite a few of the blocks cut and ready to sew though.

Lately I've been just coming home from work and either making web pages or doing mindless heartstrings blocks. My guild is doing heartstrings blocks as our block of the month, and I want to make a good showing. So some nights I sit and cut strips, and some nights I sew.

But of course, I have also gotten my EQ fix in:



I think I'll try the one with the red strings and blue heart, just to be different. :) Besides, I have a lot of red strings made, but not many blue, so it'll be easy to make the 8 blue-string half pastel blocks and two full pastel for the heart.

Even though I haven't been commenting on many blogs, I have been looking and reading. Happy sewing, everyone!

Depression Blocks Done

Well, I've got my 36 depression blocks sewn now. Here's a layout of 25 of them on the big library tables at work. (I've made 36 but have only ironed 26, you all KNOW how I absolutely love to iron, uggh.)


This isn't how the quilt will look, of course, I've got my 36 kaleidoscope blocks to make now, and alternate between these depression blocks. If I were just making a depression block quilt, I'd have tried to make the outer triangles of each block a little more varied - as it was, I tried to make them using only the darker blue shades, so they'd blend in better with the dark kaleidoscope blades.

I've used so much of my blue fabric, I may actually have to go buy some blues, just so my stash isn't totally lacking in blue! I set aside a part of each FQ that I'd cut to make hsts from, so many of my kaleidoscope darks will match fabrics I've used already.

So, tomorrow, a new blade in my rotary cutter, and start on the blue kite shaped wedges and beige triangles. Just what do people do on long cold afternoons if they don't quilt or do some kind of craft?

A Package!

*sings*

I got a Paaaackaaage! I got a paaackage!

Tazzie sent me over $700 in the mail!

My library is going to do a set of special children's programs, on different countries, and I volunteered to get on the Australia group. So I got to e-mailing Tazzie for some ideas, and she sent me an Australian newspaper, plus a bunch of other stuff! Now before you get all excited and start wondering why she'd send me $700 cash, most of it was Australian play money... :) There's also some cute little Australian flag picks, and enough nickels so that each family that comes to the event can have their own Australian nickel.


Thanks, Tazzie!

And if you look UNDER the things she sent, you can see some kaleidoscope and my first few blue depression blocks, that's what I'm working on quilty-wise.

Counting the Blues

Calico Cat got me curious, so I went and counted as I shuffled the stacks and started ironing - I have a grand total of 66 different blue fabrics. This has really been a stashbuster for me. I'm almost out of blue fat quarters now. Each FQ made a nice combo of hsts and matching wedges for the kaleidoscope blocks or, if it had stripes, and I didn't think it'd look good as a wedge, then I got 36 hsts out of it.

I also had a whole bunch of precut 4 inch squares I bought on eBay for a dirt cheap price. They make PERFECT 3½ inch hsts. I sorted out the royals and navys and turquoises and periwinkles and used about 50 of those. SO nice to have them pre-cut, so nice to get them out of the stash. :)

There's only about 14 beiges and tans and creams. I didn't get any of them off eBay.

Finally, 576!

Well, here they are, 576 half square triangles, arranged in 16 stacks of 36 triangles:


Sure doesn't look like that many, does it? Each of the sixteen stacks has different blue fabrics, so I can make 36 blocks with no two fabrics the same. Four stacks have 36 identical blue triangles all the way down, but different tans and creams and beiges... a couple of stacks have 18 different blues, and all the rest of the stacks have 3 different blue fabrics. I'm really looking forward to sewing the blocks now! I'm not into football, so that's what I'll do instead of watch the game.

Anyone want to come over to my house Sunday and iron all these before I start to sew?

434

I was going to just post the number... 434, and get back to sewing, but I'd been showing people at work the EQ pattern I put up way back in December, and got tired of having to go back in the archives to show the bright scrappy one, and explaining that the version Mom had decided on would be done less colorful, only in blues and beiges.

So, here's a blue-toned EQ version of where all 576 (if I ever get done with them) half square triangles will end up:



I've also got one kaleidoscope block done, and ten more cut out. Back to sewing!

Fish Strings and HST's

Heartstrings Fishy, anyone? I was thinking the one with the heart wouldn't be too good for a guy, so here's a fishy one:


Now I know that green isn't one of the 'official colors' for the centers of the blocks, but they also say in the guidelines that if you make a whole top, not just blocks to send in, that you can use any string pattern you wish. Anyone got lots of blue and green strings to sew with?

And I haven't only been playing on EQ lately designing headers and string block layouts, I've also been sewing up a storm. Unfortunately, while I've been very productive, there's not much to show:


These are 204 half square triangles, waiting to be ironed. Over there to the left are 8 pages of 8 more hst's waiting to be cut into triangular bits, get their dog ears trimmed, and be pulled off the paper. And yes, those of you with sharp eyes can see that I'm arranging all my finished hst's on a cookie sheet... lol

No, I'm not planning on baking them, I just have to be able to move them to a place where kitty midnight-rampaging/racing can't send my neat little fabric-sorted piles flying. Do any of your cats wake up from a sound sleep then suddenly tear off on a cat version of invisible ghost-chasing?

Bunches and bunches of these 4½ inch blocks yet to go, hundreds. These will be part of 36 depression blocks, for a king size quilt, so I'll be plugging away for a while, sewing hsts in my sleep... till I get 576 of them done. :) I don't want to start sewing any of the hst blocks together until I get over 16 different blue fabrics I'll be using, so I can mix them all up in each block.

Another Heartstrings design

I'd chatted via e-mail to a couple of you about a slightly different versions of the heartstrings heart design - this time with the diagonal blue lines rotated so they'd radiate out from the red heart. Don't know if I like this one better than the other one or not. :)

The single heart, with pastel strings, that I used in this month's header would make a cute quilt too, if you have a lot of pastel strings.



As always, if you want to copy either of these designs for a heartstrings quilt, feel free.

Anti-Depression blocks

I was making the two Blocks-of-the-Month due for my guild meeting and got interrupted when I was about to start sewing the last two halves together. When I came back to my machine, I saw this. Wouldn't that make a cool border idea? I like pieced borders, and this one would make good use of all those scraps. :)

Then, of course, I went on and attached the top half of those blocks to the bottom half, and got these two depression blocks:

Heartstrings Logo and Link

I made a small logo of a heart made with heartstrings blocks, did some talking with Mary J., and after getting her blessing, I stuck it over in my sidebar, linked to the Heartstrings Quilt Project website. Here's a big 400 pixel wide version of it:


If anyone else making these blocks wants the code for the little 125 pixel logo and link, just e-mail me and I'll send it to you, all ready to paste in your sidebar. :)

I'm not a member of the Heartstrings yahoo group, but I have already made... *counting on my fingers* ...nine complete ones, I think, and will be making many more blocks. I'll be sending some of them off and using others here with my guild on our local charity quilt project.

In fact, I'm going to make it our block of the month for two months running, (red stripe vs. blue stripe) so hopefully our guild will get several quilts done. I'm a fabric shred hoarder, and I'm ashamed to admit that there's not a noticeable dent in my strips and strings stash yet, so this is a GOOD project for me to be working on!

Heartstring blocks

Well, just like I heard, these string blocks ARE addictive! One blue middle, and 5 red middles, all done in an evening. And not only fast, but easy too. Here's the first ones I've done, another 6 on the way. I plan to mail a couple off to Texas, then I think I'm going to try to do it as block-of-the-month with my guild, we have several charities we give quilts to.


And of course, Toby had to check out what I was doing with fabric on the floor. I was able to distract him with a ping pong ball I found under the couch so I could get the cat-free picture above. He can play pretty good soccer with the ping pong ball, but the game is over if he bats it too close to the couch.

Ostrich Round Two done

Well, here it is, hung up on my fireplace mantel, with my collection of brass cats holding the upper edge. Looks a lot like the plan I drew up in EQ, doesn't it?


People have been asking if I paper pieced it, well, some of it was. The center compass and the teal/white kaleidoscope blocks were paper pieced. The middle round of log cabin pineapple blossom blocks were not paper pieced, and neither were the green/white connector blobs between the kaleidoscope blocks. I'll spend tonight picking out the paper from underneath them, uggh. It would have been easier to do it before I attached it between the borders, but with all the bias edges, it was less stretchy to leave the paper on every other block till it was attached.

If I'd scanned in my exact fabric, it'd look closer to the EQ drawing - all of the fabrics I used were already in EQ's palette. The only one that was really too dark was that marbled teal I used.

White setting triangles are next, to put the whole thing on point, so I cropped and rotated the picture so you don't have to tilt your head. *grins*

Where I'm Going

Several of you asked where I'm going with the kaleidoscope and connector blocks, so here'e the EQ version of it:



I've only got seven of these blocks left to make, then I'll attach it. The final size, including that outer marbled teal 2 inch border, will be 40 inches square. I'm thinking, after this round might be a good time to set it on point, so tilt your heads to see where it might be going... I'm thinking 4 big white triangles maybe? And (correct me if I'm wrong) but I think putting 4 big triangles on this will take the size of the quilt to 60 inches square. I'm going to need a lot more if it's going to be king size. :)

Back to work on my Ostrich

Well, the deadline for the next round for those of us who're doing the Ostrich over at Peach Quilting is fast approaching! I agonized over this round, we had a two color limit, and I kept finding blocks that would look good in three or four of my colors. I'm not doing this one scrappy, I've picked white, two shades and a marbled shade of each color.

I went back and forth between Quilter's Cache and Blockbase (by EQ) and spent an afternoon going thru all the blocks that might look good in ONLY two colors. Here's the two I finally picked and started on:



I'll be connecting the kaleidoscope/windmill type blocks with the ones on the right. All the blocks will finish at 4 inches. I'm done with the connecting blocks, except for trimming them, and I have another 6 of the dark centered and 7 of the light centered kaleidoscopes to do. Paper piecing blocks always takes me longer. :(

Anyway, when I'm done with all 32 blocks, they'll go around this center and first round that I made for the ostrich challenge.