More Civil War blocks

Day Five of our quarantine. I fear I am going mad in this isolated state. I am tired of watching child-friendly television. I am tired of hearing hacking and snorting and gagging. I am tired of trying to remember who had which medication at which time. Although I am feeling mostly better, my maternal compassion is tapped, and my husband, who continues to remain healthy, is completely taxed by the incessant whiny Need coming from the couch. Boo hoo to all of us.

I did a little work on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this morning, I sketched out the layout of the corner setting triangles (today's directions) in PowerPoint, added up all the remaining block units that we have made so far, and realized that we seem to be 40 units short (if I got the layout right). I spent way too much time trying to figure out the math of which 40 3" units we might still need to prepare, but then I realized I could just wait a few more hours and stop driving myself nuts. I'll wait until I see the solution in tomorrow's installment before I start cutting the third color.

Here are the next three of the Civil War blocks:

Two more red-violet/fuschia blocks. The one on the left ("Home Sweet Home") took me an entire football game to make. The other ("Enthusiasm") was a snap.

A pretty pink block ("Will Virginia Secede?") for the center of the quilt.

I am really enjoying making these cute little blocks. I haven't done a lot of paper piecing for a while, and it's so fun to watch all the teensy details come out so perfectly! This project is capturing my attention more than I had anticipated.

I will now spend the rest of The Princess Bride pressing and joining the fifty zillion postage stamp nine-patches that have been piling up next to my machine.

Delirium

This virus must have affected my brain's center for rational decision-making. A friend from Lisa's shop has been cleaning house and gave me a folder full of all the patterns to make the Civil War Love Letters quilt (thanks, Nancy!). I haven't done anything like this before, but lots of my other friends are making Dear Jane quilts right now, and I have been drooling a little over their paper piecing, which I love to do.

In my unending quarantined state, I decided to tackle the folder. It's WAY easier than Dear Jane, of course, with only 121 blocks (instead of the seven billion in the Dear Jane quilt), and the blocks are 6" (instead of 4). Those of you who know me will realize that there is no way I will be using Civil War fabrics. Instead, I'll be using the full spectrum of vivid brights, using all scraps. I started with the corners, using red-violet/fuschia fabrics. The first two came out pretty well. The next one has over eighty (!) pieces, so I decided to stall a little by blogging before I started it.

Sick Days

Somehow my husband has escaped this terrible virus that has decimated the kids and settled in my throat. Blerg. At least I'm not too wiped out for sewing. I started today by diving into the autumn colors Rapid City quilt that I have had basted for several weeks. I decided on swirly cloud quilting, using the humongous cone of thread that my healthy husband got me for Christmas. We got nine or ten inches of snow yesterday, but the sun was out this morning, so my sewing space was bright and warm. The pearly fabric that I used for the block borders was really glowing in the winter light.

When I'm quilting something this big, I appropriate the gateleg table that we normally use as a sofa table, and I set up a TV tray on my right to support the weight of the quilt. The boys were not happy to give up their ginger ale and kleenex stand today.

I got about half of the quilt finished; the swirly motif is looking very nice against the straight lines of the patchwork.

I guess I should start thinking about making some binding for this one!

River group project

My art quilting group is working on a group project, in which we are making a series of quilts with a continuous river running through all of them; we are all using the same fabric as the river, a lovely dark navy with lines and circles that look like flowing water:

our watery river batik

 I, in what can only be described as a temporary break with insanity, have decided that I want to make my 18 x 24" quilt using tiny hexagons, so it will look in the end something like a hex-grid mosaic gameboard. I will be English paper piecing these (which means by hand, for those of you who might be uninitiated in the jargon of this process). Here is one hexagon basted onto its paper backing:

Yes, these hexes are only .375" on a side.

And here is my progress after yesterday and today:

If I have calculated correctly, I will need about 1167 of these micro-hexies to complete the project. But hey...it's not due until June!

Easy Street: Week 6

The Sycknesse is upon our house, so I was glad the directions were easy peasy this week. It took me longer to cut the pieces than to sew and press them, but that is because I do not have a well-organized, sorted stash of scraps. Mine are roughly sorted by color into filing-size bins, each heaped in a jumble that needs to be sorted for size and ironed every time I need something. Oh well. If it ain't broke, why fix it? This project has taken me to the very bottom of the barrel of the light neutrals.

We made 128 of these this week:

Easy Street: Week 5

So much to do today...we're baking and decorating a cookie tree, making custard for tomorrow's trifle, peeling beets for borscht, and taking the bones out of a pound of smelts. But first things first...time to post the progress on Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street mystery project. I (and, I'm certain, many others) certainly appreciate the straightforward simplicity of this week's directions. All we had to make was 64 of these:

I still haven't chosen my third color yet...dark winey reds will be auditioning later between the beets and smelts. Wishing you all much hygge!

Free-Motion Summary

I cannot overstate how much I have learned by participating in this project. Practice, practice, practice...that is the key! Here are the twelve projects that I completed for the monthly tutorials:

January -- "Leaves" tutorial by Frances Moore

February -- "Feathers" tutorial by Diane Gaudynski

March -- "Fillers" tutorial by Ann Fahl

April -- Don Linn's tutorial on marking designs through tulle

May -- "Railroad Tracks" tutorial by Leah Day

June -- "Divide and Conquer" tutorial by Cindy Needham

July -- "Tiles" tutorial by Angela Walters

August -- "Jester's Hat" tutorial by Wendy Sheppard

September -- "Fancy Feather" tutorial by Paula Reid

October -- Teri Lucas tutorial on echo quilting/creative filling. This was my favorite one, and...I won a prize! (OK, so it was randomly selected, but it's still exciting!)

November -- "Spirals" tutorial by Sarah Vedeler

December -- progressive borders tutorial by Patsy Thompson

Throughout the year, I have used my newfound free-motion confidence on uncountable projects...here are a few photos:

Once again, I would like to offer a HUGE thank you to SewCalGal for organizing this excellent project; her ability to keep something so large so well organized is truly remarkable! Also, big thanks to each of the twelve teachers for providing such valuable information to help everybody who participated (there were HUNDREDS of us!) to grow and improve our skills. Thank you, thank you, thank you ALL!!!