Snippets and such

I've been working on the last round of the medallion, sewing the long strips and some more 4-patch blocks. Interspersed with this I've put together some of the Doors and Windows blocks, which are so easy that they mount up quickly.

Bonnie has been showing photos of her hourglass block and a little bowl of snipped-off dog ears. That reminded me of how I corral my little triangles to stop them floating around. I filled up this glass bear (finally) in 2019, but I was astonished to find out that the last time I posted about the bear was in 2011. 

I confidently predicted that he would be full in 6 months time, and instead got another 8 years worth of snippets into him. I just kept packing them down until it was solidly full.....

and then found a glass pig to take it's place. I haven't even started the compacting process in him, so I should get at least 10 years more till he's full!

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What focus?

I've reluctantly decided that I have to add one more round to my medallion top before I can put the border on. I really did just want to be done with this, but in the interests of artistic merit I will do what the top demands and choose another fabric. Then I'll choose a border for it, darn all these decisions!

So why is it that I found myself  'procrasti-cutting' a whole 'nother project?!!

I've been setting aside scraps to make another Doors and Windows quilt, because I sold the first one I made and sort of regretted it afterwards. Never mind, I'll just make another one! But the fact that I've chosen to start hacking up fabric now, when I should be finishing the other top is the reason for my growing list of  projects. Talk about incorrigible!

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Inching towards the finish line

This is where my medallion project currently stands. I added one more row all round and that brought it up to 72" square. Although I'm ready to be done with this I'm wondering if it needs another round, which would make it 80" square, and then a border of some description.  I'm leaning towards an early floral, like this fabric. 

Hmmm, I do still have some of the 4-patch blocks left. I have to give this some more thought but I'm going to finish this top one way or another.

In other news, my DIL went to a first aid course and brought home all the practise bandages that they were throwing out. Just as well, because Lily's horse had four broken legs! She soon set that to rights. 

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Next...

The Chosen project at the moment is this medallion (for want of a better description) that is based on an antique quilt from ebay. I think. 

I thought it would be a good way to use up some browns and greens, of which I seem to have far too many in my stash. I didn't bother too much with the dimensions of the little block because I already had a bunch of 3" four patches made, and I could use them up too. Bonus. 

However the original quilt must have used much smaller measurements because my top is already quite large (it has to be folded to fit on the design wall) and I'm about 5 rows short of the old quilt. I was a bit sick of adding one row at a time and the project was a bit bossy about which fabric it would have where. So I put it all away in disgust. Wasn't working out, pout.

But now I want the whole cumbersome thing dealt with, so I'm adding another row, and then I'll hang it up in the workshop and see if I want to just stop, or put a border on it instead of more rounds. 

Decision time.

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 It was March of this year when I was trying to conquer a huge tub of flannel and began cutting several kits from it. I made about 150 of these 'staircase' blocks and set together this top. I'll be able to piece another one of similar size when I'm ready to work with flannel again. 

I congratulated myself on the four or five baby quilts that I'd kitted up and moved the remnants that were left into a small tub, progress at last! And then I found somebody's stash at the op-shop, many rolled up lengths of two and a half metres or more, beautiful old flannels that were thick and soft and.....

Well, I need backings and borders. The big tub is full again, but now I have the means to finish all the kits off, don't I? And it only cost about $10 and, and, and... It seems like the universe conspires against me sometimes.

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I put a small border on the 16 patch top, so that's done. It's a printed check material, offcuts from a backing and I decided to cut along the lines with scissors instead of using a rotary cutter. That worked for the strips that were cut parallel to the selvedge, but across the width of the fabric the pattern ended up very off-grain. So some of the borders were almost on the bias, and have a few ripples in the edges.. Not to worry, it will quilt out.

Keryn mentioned our very sudden storm and hail. Usually hailstones here are like round white marbles but I've never seen hail like this before. It came down with great force and made a deafening noise on the roof. Son Matt happened to be walking to a friends house when it started and pieces of it actually drew blood on his hands as he tried to shelter his head. Our back lawn looked like someone had emptied ice cubes all over it. Very strange goings-on indeed.
 

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November's focus

 

I'd like to document every top I've finished this year that hasn't appeared on the blog yet, because according to my notes I've finished nine so far. This is just a little top made with leftover 2" squares from Bonnies Jewel Box Star. It's so cute I'm thinking of making another larger top, it would be a good leader-ender for sure.

I seem to have decided that November is going to be a big push to get tops finished. I was inspired by Cathy at  Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting  who made a giant effort in September to concentrate on quilting a huge number of tops. No piecing or cutting or anything else. Now that's crazy!

It's taken me all of October to think it over and while I have amassed a huge number of tops throughout my years of quilting for others (and not myself) they don't seem to bother me that much. And no, Rose Marie from the comments, I'm not prepared to admit the number just yet. You would be shocked. You could probably think of a number and triple it....

What does bother me are the UFO's.... (think of a number and triple it) that I truly love and yet are stalled waiting for a simple decision that I'm avoiding. I would like to work on those this month and hopefully finish them or move them past the road block. I won't project a number, but I will earnestly try to get a fair few chugging along to the finish line. 

Should be interesting.....

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Found Fabric

 I've been admiring Wanda's 16 patch tops for ages and when I found a big bag of precut 2/12" squares at the op-shop I decided I would try to make a cot quilt with them. Not really fabrics I would choose myself but still attractive non the less.

I had to add a few of my own paler squares to pad them out and suddenly I had another top nearly completed. I love this block, it's so easy to do, even allowing for the fact that I couldn't use strip piecing. I think I'll add a small border to finish this off nicely. There will be more of these in my future, I'm sure.

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Another top finished

I started Bonnie's Jewel Box Star in Aug of 2020, over a year ago and made pretty good progress until it was time to add the borders. 

I'd already picked out the purple fabric, and I knew I was just going to make an inner border using 12 1/2" white based prints. I wasn't even procrastinating about the choices and I still did nothing.

So flushed with the success of finishing the green checkerboard/album top I just got right down to cutting and piecing and suddenly that top is finished too.

I didn't really like it when I was making it but after I'd put it on the workshop design wall for it's photo I exclaimed to Keryn "It's quite pretty!" Her reaction was  "Der! Of course it is!"

Sometimes I wonder about my judgement in these matters. And I certainly wonder why I let things sit for months, years, decades when I can finish them in a few days of concentrated effort.

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Woohoo,  the borders are on!

The stripe seemed perfect to add a bit of interest to the edge and the green has been hanging around in my stash for literally years. I'll make the binding out of the same fabric and that will be another piece used up.

I was so chuffed at finishing this project  quickly that I put the borders on another project which has been  languishing in it's container. It will be nice to have a few more tops finished before the end of the year. 

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