Week-end update - Part 1

Well, it's happened. Labour Day week-end is upon us. In our little household (like a lot of others), Labour Day is the official end of summer. Himself begins a long season of fieldwork and I... gulp... head back into the classroom. Oh well. To everything there is a season, right?

I was very productive outside the studio in the last days of August and rewarded myself with hours upon hours of sew time. First, up the Double Irish Chain Redux. If you're unfamiliar with this old school goodie, check out this link. I made no excuses for the authors colour choices. To each her own.
For yesterday's session, I finished up the Block As. I only made one whilst quilting with Adrienne, which meant I had a pile of strips to cut into lovely little sections and sew back together. Sometimes, when I write things like that, this creative pass-time seems absurd.

Then I moved on to Block B... the one that goes together even faster! It always seems silly to me to sew strips of the same fabric together. But it does balance the seams in the completed block.

 Production line pressing... my favourite!

 Completed Block B. See what I mean about the seams?

And at this point in my day's sewing, I realized I had no where near enough fabric to make the large twin I had planned. The initial plan called for 32 Block As and 31 Block Bs. This, my friends, is what comes of buying fabric without a firm plan. And purchasing fabric in a land far away...

So there I was with only 16 Block As and 12 Block Bs. If I could just make a couple more Block Bs, the quilt could be 5 by 6 blocks... a respectable size, especially add borders. This is when having an unhealthy quantity of Kona in your stash is helpful. Enter Berry!

I managed 3 more Block Bs using Kona Berry in place of the plum dots. I'm going to say they add a little unexpected something... like in Ocean Waves by Denyse Schmidt (photo from Stitched in Colour) It harkens back to the days when you made quilts with what you had... not what you bought on-line. Right? Such quilt pretention! ☺

 
 Ah... a semi-completed quilt top. I'll save the full monty for when it's all quilted... here's a sneaky peaky!

 

On a deep subconscious level, I must really like the plum dot print in this quilt. I inadvertently selected it as the colour for Saturday's Back to S___ pedicure!

With this project as completed as it was going to get for the moment, I moved on to a "Just Because" project. Love 'em!

At the end of the school year, one of the lovely little creatures gave me a gift certificate to a certain big box bookstore. I treated myself to an impulse purchase...


So far, I've made two pillows from it... neither of which were destined to stay with me. But this time, it's for the newly made over spare room. It's not a large space, so it's tricky to photograph. In any case, it's soon going to have yet another quilty project on the bed. This room has so many it could be a post of it's own... hmmm.

The design wall got taped up again for this one... I couldn't see any other way to audition all those fabrics. I figure I'll leave it there until it falls down again! ☺ The bulk of these are Amy Butler scraps left over from the Qui-vet. Love, love, love! And that's Kona White acting as a buffer for that riot of colour.

 On to sewing.

Unfortunately, I ended up with a couple pieces that didn't seem to fit right. I went back and checked the pattern and remeasured, but never found the solution. I think the size of two pieces must have gotten switched and no one picked up the error pre-publishing. No worries...one got snipped and another got an unplanned for bit of sashing.

 Oooh... I do love Amy Butler prints. Too bad they don't always play well with others.

And here it is all together! I hate to think that my days of photographing with grassy backdrops may be drawing to a close!

 Random straight line quilting... why did I never think of this before. So easy and so effective.

And now for the big news! I've been tempted into the wide world of English Paper Piecing (EPP)... that's handstitching for those non-quilt obsessed readers out there. Try not to fall off your chairs. I like the idea of having a project (other than quilt binding) that I can stitch while watching TV. It seems like this technique is really portable... I'm picturing more productive quilt guild meetings and Bee sessions. This book from the library gave me a great overview with a modern perspective.

For my first project (and to see if I even like this silliness), I've decided on this little sewing kit. Useful if I get hooked, non?

I hit the scrap bin for these... you don't even have to cut hexagon shapes. Squares are just fine. Who knew?

I didn't really expect to baste all these hexies in one go, but it was fun once I got going. I'm particularly proud of those two grey hexies with the fussy cuts. Cute little thimble!

Tonight, I'm going to take on whipstitching them together. I'll let you know how it goes.

Off to be non-sewing productive and earn myself more hours in the studio!
And I am out of here!

J