Almost Finished

I worked on this on and off all week and all six rows are pieced. The last two rows still have to have the blocks sewn together but that will take little time. I had a very tiring day, working most of the morning and early afternoon putting the garden to bed, not my favorite task. I cut down perennials, pulled out annuals, weeded, emptied the containers and railing planters on the deck, washed the furniture and deck, and disassembled and cleaned my little table fountain. Whew! I was beat. My front garden still looks good since it is mostly annuals and I have been diligent in watering and fertilizing. Then I came inside, took a shower, had a little late lunch, read a little then headed to my studio to finish piecing this quilt.

I did enjoy working on it, especially seeing all those pretty prints that I hadn't used in ages. When I was making traditional quilts, I liked to do controlled scrap quilts. Why use two fabrics when you could use 200, thus my huge stash. I had made a log cabin for my bed in all blues, dark and light. I also made a large Storm at Sea using teals and blues, not separating them as I did in this current quilt, but just depending on darks and lights. I then hand quilted it (something I can do longer, nor do I wish to do). It took nine months of quilting every day. More on that quilt in another post.

I could probably make 25 charity quilts with what's left of these blues and teals, but that's not likely to happen. I may make a few, but they will be a very simple pattern, such as nine patch or rail fence.

I will have to buy fabric to back this quilt. I suppose I could piece the back, but my pieces are mostly quarter yard scraps and I want the back to look nice, since this will be a gift. I do have a large enough piece for the binding. I plan to make a pillow or two out of the left over triangles (yes, there are left-over triangles). I think this would look very pretty at the end of a bed or as a snuggle up quilt on the back of a couch.

So ye of little faith who said this would be a UFO, I am a finisher (well, most of the time). I hope to quilt this on my Sweet Sixteen if I can get it to behave. I ordered a pretty variegated thread from Superior Thread and will start the quilting this week. Stay tuned.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

What Was I Thinking?

While looking for something else in my studio I came across a zip lock bag stuffed full of dye cut triangles. I remembered that I had bought them many years ago when I was still making traditional quilts. I had seen a cute quilt in the Quiltmaker magazine and ordered these precut triangles. Obviously I did not make that quilt and I have no idea where that magazine is or what the pattern was.

I first thought that I would give them to a friend who makes charity quilts and then thought that it might be fun for me to do. I have a HUGE stash of traditional printed fabrics that I no longer use. They are stored in big bins under the guest room bed and in the guest room closet, sorted by color. I do love blues and teals and I have an abundance.

There were a lot more darks than lights in the bag and I sorted them accordingly. Then I sorted them into teals and blues. There are countless patterns that use HST and most rely on combining darks and lights. I knew I would have to cut more lights, so out came those tubs from under the bed .

 I played around with several different patterns, including these two stars.

 I really liked this pattern and I started piecing, alternating blue blocks and teal blocks. It's been a long time since I've done any traditional piecing. Matching points.....oh, my! I have made a few baby quilts but I just do a simple nine-patch for them, relying on very cute fabric for the impact.

After piecing together these two rows, I decided to make it 4 blocks across and 6 down for a nice lap quilt size. The blocks sew down to 11 inches. I quickly ran out of triangles and had to start cutting more triangles and more triangles and more triangles. What was I thinking? But I don't have much else going on in the studio these days and it gives me something to do and maybe I'll make a little dent in the stash.

I went to a friend's house the other day and she had the prettiest paper napkins. I took one home and printed it onto white fabric. Ta dah!  It's going into the quilt.

So now it's back to work. I just finished piecing the blocks for row three and have to sew them together.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

SAQA Benefit Auction

It's that time of the year again, where you can bid on and purchase some fabulous small quilts at the SAQA Benefit Auction online.  All 443 pieces are available today for $1,000. Bidding on Section 1, where my quilt is, starts on Monday, Sept. 16 and runs for a week, ending on the 22nd. The prices go down everyday.

Please go to this website to read all the particulars. Here is the quit that I have donated. Like all the others it is 12" x 12".

Here is a better picture. The one above I took from the SAQA website.

So go take a look. There are some fabulous pieces there and you have a chance of getting a piece of art from some very big names in the art quilting world and some not very big names, like me. 

 

I was pleased to see that my piece was used in an advertising banner. There I am, fourth from the left in the top row.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go see what some talented people are up to and leave a comment. We all love comments.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2019/09/excuses-mentally-strong-women-dont-make.html

Monthly promts

I just realized that I never showed you the small pieces that I made for the last two monthly prompts, so here they are:

RAIN.....I searched all through my photos and I couldn't find anything. I guess I don't take pictures on rainy days. I found this one online and thought it was perfect. The misty flowers and the rain lines were already there. I just stitched over them by hand, some with two stands of pale gray floss and some with a sliver metallic thread.

REFLECTION.....When we went to Tuscany last fall one of my favorite places was the small island of Burano, part of Venice. It is known for the brilliantly colored buildings. Supposedly they were painted those vivid colors so that the fishermen could find their homes after their fishing expeditions. Now the island is known for their lacework. I just did minimal machine stitching on this one.

Protest #2

I just finished my second piece for the Tiny Pricks Project. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please scroll down to my last post which will give you all the details.

This quote was directly from his Twitter feed a couple of weeks ago and is so typical of his rants and  his being more concerned about crowd size than anything else.

I was happier with the lettering on this one. I originally had printed the words on graph paper, then transferred to fabric. After stitching a few words I realized that my spacing was very uneven so rather than beating my head against the wall I thought I would get much better results if I used the computer to print the words. Why hadn't I thought of that before? I chose Helvetica Neue pt. 38 since it was the same size as my hand printing and looked very much the same.

I used a vintage heavy linen luncheon napkin and two strands of embroidery floss. So much better than my last one on a thin linen hanky. My carry-overs do not show on the front, a big plus. I used three strands for Fake News and the Twitter bird.

I think this is my last one, although it was fun and cathartic to work on. Has anyone else been inspired to join me in this stitched protest?

I will be joining up with Off the Wall Friday.