Design Wall Monday, Sept. 10, 2012

Not much sewing going on this past week, and not much happening today, either. I don't know what I did, or how, but I was reaching to put one of my little triangles onto the wall earlier this afternoon, and suddenly had a great big "OOOWWW" right in between my shoulder blades. One of those - I can't move I have to lie down on a heating pad please don't make me breathe - moments. Scott kindly went out to the drug store and picked up some of that Robax stuff, and I promptly downed a couple. It feels better now, but now I'm a bit spaced out, and using a machine with sharp parts that move at high speeds might not be too smart at this precise moment in time. I've added 5 purple boxes in the last week to my Think Inside the Box quilt. I'm not sure how many of these I need to do, but they are fun to do. I'm linking up to Judy's Design wall monday, and then I'm going to watch War and Peace with Anthony Hopkins, and work on block #2 of Promises and Borders.

Stash Report and Sunday Stitchery

Well, I can't say that there has been a whole lot of sewing going on in my world this past week, so not a whole lot to report for stash usage. And there hasn't been a whole lot of hand stitching this week, either. A large hunk of time last week went to planning for our move into our new apartment that needs some work. And before those meetings was a large hunk of time just getting ideas of what we would like to do with the space. It is fun planning it, but it sure does take an awful lot of time. But I'm sure it will be more than worth it in the end.

However, I did get the first stitchery block for the Promises and Borders BOM finished, although that isn't saying that much since there wasn't a whole lot left to do on it. I added in the yellow centers in the orange flowers, painted on the textile fixative to make the coloured pencil permanent, and pressed it. After I finish here, I'm going to get the next square ready to do.

As for the stash report, here goes:

Used this week:                                            .7 yards
Used this year:                                          84.4 yards
Added this week:                                           0 yards
Added this year:                                      147.3 yards
Balance:                                                     62.9 yards more in than out.

I'm linking up to Judy's Stash report and Kathy's Slow Sunday stitching, although there is nothing slow about this Sunday for me, considering I have to work this afternoon. But tracing out the next block in the Promises and Borders series will slow me down, and focus my mind on where it should be, on my Father in heaven, and His promises.

Grandmother's Choice- Amethyst

Here is this week's Grandmother's Choice block, called Amethyst. I must confess to a bit of nervous trepidation when I saw this one. Not because of the "Y" seams, but because of the need to print off templates. To say that our printer and I have a love/hate relationship would be kind. It took me longer to print this than to sew it. The first copy came out the wrong size. So I tried changing the size, only to get a message that the printer wasn't responding. So, I had to turn it off, go through all the start up stuff, before I could print. I'd changed the size to print, and that one came out to big. I'm starting to sound like Goldilocks here. So, I decreased the size, tried to print it, and got the non-responding printer message again. Grrrrrrr.............. That meant turning it off, turning it back on and going through the start up sequence again. By this time I was beginning to wonder if it would get done, and if I would have the patience to sew it once it got printed.  But, it printed, and came out the right size. Then I could sew it up, and here it is. It took a bit of thought to figure out the best way to do it, and away I went. It wasn't a perfect 8 1/2 inches square when it was done, but an 8 1/2 inch square drawn on my ironing board cover, some straight pins and some steam for blocking fixed that. Two down, 47 to go.

Think Inside the Box Layout

After my design wall Monday post, when I showed this picture of the current project I'm working on, called Think Inside the Box, there were a couple of comments asking about Y seams.

 There are NO "Y" seams in this quilt. I've separated the individual triangles out a bit on the picture to the left so you can see how they go together. The big blank triangles of design wall you see there will eventually be solid triangles of the background fabric. It will visually separate out the individual boxes. The individual triangles are sewn into vertical rows, the narrow space where the design wall fabric shows through between each of the 60 degree units in this picture shows where the seams are. After all the individual units are sewn into rows, the vertical rows, shown by the wider area of design wall showing through, are sewn together. There will be spacer 60 degree triangle units sewn onto the top and bottom of the rows that will be squared off to make the straight edges. So, you see, fairly easy construction, and nothing to make anyone afraid to tackle a project like this. The hardest part is making sure that the appropriate triangles are placed in the correct place in each row, and that nothing gets turned topsy turvey. Looking at this now, I can see that I can sew the one light and two medium triangles together, and them sew the one light and the two dark triangles together, which might make the final assembly a little easier.

Design wall Monday, Sept. 3, 2012

I have a new project up today. It's from a book called Geometric Gems by Cathy Wierzbicki. The pattern itself is called "Think Inside The Box". These are using those novelty fabrics that I picked up in Hamilton a couple of weeks ago. So far, I have a box of Christmas candies, beach toys, firemen equipment, rocks and shells and the last full of umbrellas. As the quilt grows, the outside of the boxes will be different colours, but I thought it would be easier to do one colour of box at a time. This way I can cut a few, then sew a few, then go and cut some more. I have been eying this pattern in this book ever since I bought the book to do the Nine Patch Pineapple quilt as a quilt along back in 2010. It is actually turning out to be a fairly quick one to do, so far, at least. The challenge is going to come when laying it out and sewing the rows together without something getting twisted or misplaced, But that is going to be a while from now, yet.
I'm working this afternoon at the hospital, so this is going to be a short, quickie post. I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times design wall Monday linky party. There is lots of inspirational stuff to see over there.

Stash Report and Sunday Stitchery

I've set aside posting about stockings for a while, as I can't show pics of it because I'm now working on Laurie's. But, I started a new stitchery project this past week. I have been drooling over this project since it first came out in January. It is called Promises and Borders and it is a stitchery block of the month that will eventually finish into a wall hanging. I hadn't started it earlier in the year because of wanting to focus on the Christmas stockings that I wanted to have done by this Christmas. Well, 3 out of 4 of them are done, and the 4th is about 30% done, so I figure I can start something else.
Earlier this week Denise did a post about an owl stitchery she was working on, where she was using coloured pencils to add to the stitchery, and I had an "aha" moment. So, I got out my own coloured pencils and started doing some shading into the stitched areas. I love the added depth the shading gives it. I still have a little bit of stitching left to do in the center of the orange flowers, and then I can add the textile medium over top of the coloured pencils, and I can count the stitchery on this square done, and then go on to block #2.
And now, I get to add up all the numbers from all the projects I've been working on this past week.

Used this week:                                       7.7 yards
Used this year:                                       83.7 yards
Purchased this week:                                   0 yards
Purchased this year:                            147.3 yards
Balance:                                                 63.6 yards more purchased than used. I am hoping to crack the 100 yards used by the end of this month. I've started a Newfo for September, actually, make that 2 of them, that might help towards that 100 yards goal.
There is a new block of the week by Barbara Brackman that started yesterday. I read about it on Denise's blog yesterday here. She's such a good influence....... LOL!  I'm even using the same fabric collection, since I loved the way her block looked so much. So, I immediately ran, well make that walked quickly, up the stairs and pulled out my fabrics and made the block in the 45 minutes I had left before having to go to work.
The theme of the whole quilt is Grandmother's Choice and it will follow the history of the fight for the right to vote for women that took place in the early years of the last century. Did you know  that women in Canada didn't get the full right to vote until 1919? Women in Quebec, according to Wikipedia, didn't get that right until 1940! In the USA, the right to vote came in 1920. So, we've had this precious right to have a say in what goes on in the government of our countries for less than 100 years!! Every week, along with a block, there is going to be a bit of history about the fight for this right. I am an history nut, and love finding out the history of various times and countries. I am also, as everyone knows by now, a quilt nut, so what could be better than to combine the 2? I am going to try really hard to keep up with this one.
I'm linking up to Judy's Patchwork Times for the stash report and Kathy's Quilts for the stitchery report.

Pieced backing......

I have to say here, that I am not a fan of pieced backings. They take up a lot of time that I'd rather spend on working on quilt tops. Plus, unless the pieces in the backing are accurately cut and pieced, they sag on the machine, and are really difficult to load onto the machine. However, having said that, I really didn't want to go out and buy a backing for Avery's truck quilt, so the only alternative was to piece it. Plus, I really wanted to use up the leftover squares from the layer cakes that I used in the top. So, pieced backing it is.
 
So, I searched through my fat quarters and fabrics for Avery friendly stuff, and found things I could use. The top left and right corners are actually meant for stuffed animals, or for appliques.  I don't think I'll ever use them for that, so I thought i would use them up here. There are also a couple of alphabet fat quarters in there too. Avery loves books, so I put a book fat quarter in. They live near a very large body of water, so I put in the sailboat. They have a chocolate lab, so I put in some fabric with lab puppies on it. And the maps of the world just because it fit with the colours and I had no idea what else to do with it and it balanced off the green on the other side. Looking at it now, I really like it. Oh, the blue and white fabric in the middle has all kinds of inspirational sayings on it. And now, it can go into the pile of my quilts that are waiting on my own personal Mount To-Be-Quilted.
I have to work this weekend, but before I go in, I'm going to do some cutting for my September Newfo.......... I really like that concept. LOL!! I just might have something to show come Monday's design wall post.