I Can Stop Holding My Breath

The top is finished.

After I made the red numbers, 4 X 6 seemed overwhelmingly large, so the bottom letters are 2 X 3, enough bigger than the scale numbers (discussed here) to still be an easier accomplishment. Plus using all one color allowed for more chain piecing.

I think I would have liked a bit more background between the year and the top months; however, I was being frugal with the dwindling background fabric. With good reason.

That is all that was left when I finished it as it is.

Today’s project is making the back. I think I have enough of each color to make a striped pieced backing. If not I’ll add another friendly color.

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday. Lots to see there–go have a peek.

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Numbers, Numbers . . .

Luckily, the quilt was draped over the sofa, and yet more luckily, I was studying it. Otherwise I might not have noticed that December had been sewn in upside down!  (Bet you didn’t either–here in case you want to check.) I usually avoid ripping if it looks okay as is, but this one needed to be right so that the temperatures came out right. (Yeah, I know, no one will likely ever check.)

Being a glass-half-full kind of person, I noticed that it was in the easiest possible spot to rip and replace.

I might have let it pass had it been in the middle or if more borders had been sewn already.

That fixed, I moved on to the numbers. They were indeed tedious. I’m glad I started with them because the larger letters I am working on now seem easy by comparison.

Each number block is 3 inches X 2 inches. Not sure I would do it again (until the next time. 🙂  )  You may remember me complaining when piecing blocks about all the solid stretches of one color.  Had I chosen smaller increments than 10 degrees, I’d have had more interesting blocks.  But I resisted that because I didn’t want to make twice as many number blocks. Sound basis for a design decision, no?

I debated about whether or not to use 20 and 100, temperatures we never experienced as highs. (There were some lows in the 20s.) I decided the palette was more interesting with them. And so that they don’t stand alone, I’ll use red and purple in the text top and bottom.

Although it isn’t officially a block-of-the-month project, it had to be worked on monthly and I worked with a group. Besides, I want to say , HI, to BOMs Away.

Here’s to smooth finishing and enough background fabric.

When a Little Looks Like a Lot

So yesterday I pulled out an old project (here); today I cheated a bit. Instead of following up by working on the numbers, I assembled the blocks.

Isn’t that more impressive than a couple 3-inch blocks?

The papers remain because they identify the month that the block represents.  I want to quilt in month names, and it won’t be possible to check for accurate month identification when the quilt is rolled up under the Featherweight.

I don’t usually design this way, accepting some arbitrary scheme and following it. (Sudoku quilts are another example of assigning a color to a number and creating a quilt without thought to design principles.) But I have to admit it is fun sometimes. Especially when a group of friends is working on the same “paint by numbers” as it were.

The numbers/colors “key” will fill the left border. Maybe tomorrow.

Quilting Shoves Its Way In

A couple days ago, my UFOs (Unfinished Objects) started yelling. One in particular, the weather quilt I started in 2016, said I had to work on it before its information became paleoclimate studies. (I had left off here, approximately 2 years ago.) So I shoved knitting and reading aside and got the blocks out.

Nothing is worse than trying to pick up where I left off when hurriedly packing a project away, even with notes.

When I put it away, I am sure this all made sense. I had the scale noted on the note page for the numbers, and I had cut pieces for the number 20. The pieces for the 2 fit, but the 0??? Nothing made those pieces work. I finally admitted they must have been a mistake and cut more. And order was partially restored.

But the other page of notes for the letters? There was no scale noted, and nothing that I pondered made sense for the area available. So I redid all the calculations till I had something that will probably work. I’ll keep you posted.

Linking with Em’s Moving it Forward.

Weather Block for May

 

May was a very odd month as you will see from my weather block for the month.

14 1/2 x 14 1/2

This is my block with colors coded to the high temperature each day. The weather “cooperated” with more variation than in previous months. Nicer for the look but a bit challenging IRL.  Note the second week. Gold is for temps in the 80s; dark green for 50s. That was a sudden shift. Medium green is for 60s and yellow-green for 70s.

I chose to do a calendar format block; my friends are doing rows. Check theirs out here.

I have learned that I don’t really like monthly projects. But I will finish this quilt.

Weather and Baby Quilts

After a complex project, a simple one is in order. I had enough going on last month that I didn’t get the March block made. By the time I was thinking about it, April was almost over, so I waited to do both at once.

Here’s March

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

I don’t think the weather has a good sense of design; just look at all that dark green for fifty-degree days!

And here’s April

12 1/2 x 12 1/2

April was a little more interesting. There was a 90-degree day forecast, but it made it only to 89 F, spoiling my design fun.

There will be side frame pieces as well; I just haven’t decided how wide yet.

Here are Jan and Feb blocks. And here is the Facebook group where you can see what others are doing with their temperatures.

Then the firefighters called my local guild to let us know they were out of baby quilts, so I am making two or three quickie quilts and letting the cute fabric do most of the work. I have two tops made.

36 x 36

I thought every house needs a space kitty. I have enough of the space-kitty fabric for backing.

36 x 36

Love that fish fabric. Here’s hoping this quilt goes to a baby whose parents do some diving. Or at least have an aquarium. The backing is a companion fabric, the small fish school, with a strip of each soli.

I’ll make an envelope closure and quilt a rather large meander. Speed is more important than intricate quilting.

Linking with Em’s Move it Forward Monday. And later on with Let’s Make Baby Quilts (link in sidebar).

February Temperature Block and F2F

It’s been a blocky couple of days. First February’s high temperatures:

Mostly 50s

It’s looking a little boring. If I’d chosen colors for groups of five instead of ten, I’d have had a little more variety, about twice as many  in the 55-59 range as in the 50-54. Oh well, I’ll stick the plan. The first three days were in the 40s. That is probably the last we’ll see aqua till autumn.  And always fun to introduce a new color, light green with the 60s. I imagine it will dominate March.

January was a little more balanced. Too bad the weather doesn’t accommodate design.

So this is my month to receive F2F blocks.  I’ll be making three on behalf of Pat, the woman who died recently, and my own three. I have made one set of three but am saving the second set to see if any colors need to be balanced out. I chose red/orange/brown with cream or beige as background.

Dutchman’s Puzzle 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

If I keep making patterns that use the Flying Geese blocks I’ll have a good supply of “bonus triangles” to use for leaders and enders. I prefer this method because I get a more accurate rectangle this way.  Some people sew both seams before cutting, but I prefer using them as leaders and enders.

You can easily make Flying Geese any size you want this way.  Cut a rectangle of the “goose” color that is twice as long as wide then add seam allowance; i.e. a 3 x 6 block would be cut at 3 1/2 x 6 1/2. Cut the “sky” color a square of the smaller size, in this case 3 1/2.  Mark the diagonal and sew a needle width toward the part to be cut off. Sew one. Press. Trim. Then apply the second one. You must press the first one before adding the second.

Someday I’ll dig out the pile of my unpressed, untrimmed triangles and take their picture. I have no idea what I will end up doing with them, but their day will come.

Jacob’s Ladder 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

And a non-traditional block

Layered Curves 12 1/2 x 12 1/2

I’m still enjoying working with curves from Sherri Lynn Wood’s Improv Handbook. I am eager to begin getting squishies in the mail. I will probably make three lap quilts, but I won’t decide for sure till I see the blocks.

Linking with Needle and Thread Thursday (button in sidebar).

 

 

 

 

Finished Red Tahoe Quilt and Jan. Weather Block

Back in August there was a retreat, and in the next week or so I finished two tops from blocks sent to the retreat. Finally, I got to quilting one of them.

~40 x60

Inspired by a recent guild workshop with Christina Camelli, followed by her second Craftsy class, I pulled out the top and tried the vine quilting design that she had demonstrated.

Quilting detail

I thought it went well with the border and backing fabric.

Love those animal musicians

It was easy in that vines could go any direction and leaves be any size. It was difficult in that some directions of stitching blocked the view of the stem I was trying to travel stitch on. Also, the prints that hide quilting mistakes also hide quilting, so occasionally I’d quilted over another motif. Luckily the quilting was not invisible on most of the fabrics. When a box is full, this quilt will be sent to Quilts Beyond Borders.

As often happens, the quilt lay flat until I stitched the binding–in this case the back brought around to the front as a shortcut.

Another project of the day was to make my January weather block.

January high temps in Portland, OR

The basic project is to assign a color to a group of temperatures, then make a square, a rectangle, or knit a certain amount in the color that represents the high of the day. Here is a public Facebook page if you want to see other approaches to weather based design. As you can see, most people are designing by row.  I decided to try calendar format.  My squares are 2 1/2 inches, so that will give me 14-inch blocks if I fill in the top and bottom as above.   Here is my palette:

I may never get to use purple and red; we’ll see. Purple is for lower than 30F and red for higher than 100F. I could have gotten more variety if, like some, I’d divided into groups of five. But since I plan to make numbers in the relevant color for the legend on the back, I didn’t want to double the number blocks. Lazy, aren’t I?

It will be fun to see how it turns out. Not random in that every color does not have an equal opportunity to be selected each time, but also not exactly planned by design principles.

I’ll link with Free Motion Mavericks  , TGIFF (click on the frog to get to the thumbnails), and Finish it up Friday ; click and enjoy.