Totally Tulips, Selvages, and Dogs

 I actually achieved my goal of getting all the flower heads sewn together, plus I got the stem pieces sewn to the leaves. I decided to just go with the green I had ordered--due to my work hours, it would most likely be Saturday before I could physically get to the quilt shop, and I wanted to keep moving on this one. I used all kinds of greens for the leaves, so nothing is going to be a perfect match for all of them. The darker green doesn't look that bad with the some of the darker colored leaves.

I got a few complete flowers assembled, so I was happy about that.

So I'm just going to say--I have no issues with the quilt shops cutting their own layer cakes, but for heaven's sake, cut the selvages off! This pattern takes all 42 pieces of the layer cake, and two of the pieces had a pretty deep selvage on them. I used them anyway hoping the little selvage dots would be taken up in the seam allowance. Nope.

I pressed the seam allowance toward the dots, so maybe it will be okay, but still, it is disappointing. 

It turns out I'm not the only one at my house who was disappointed yesterday.

She is so unhappy. I don't know what happened to her back paw, but she won't quit licking it. The vet said it was irritated but couldn't see any cuts or puncture wounds. The only solution for healing is to keep her from licking it. The main problem, besides the fact that she hates it, is the doggy door. The cone doesn't fit through the doggy door opening. 

Totally Tulips

I had a pretty chill weekend--lots of time to sew. I did some some house cleaning Friday and Saturday morning so that was out of the way and off my mind. Saturday I finished all the hst's for the leaf blocks. It was a lot of trimming.

I ordered a solid green for the stems, and now I wish I had waited until I could get a day off to go to the quilt shop. I didn't want too pale of a color, but what I got might be too bright.

It's actually not as dark as the pictures, but when I took the pictures and looked at them, I decided I hated it. I went ahead and finished the leaf pairs, but I will have to decide what to do about the stems.

Saturday night I got all my 5" squares cut for the flowers, and Sunday I sewed all the corners on.

There are 112 of them. The diagonal seam tape helps speed things up as far as not having to mark a bunch of diagonal lines on the little white squares.

My goal for this evening (after work) is to get the flowers made, and figure out what I want to do for the stems.

Nine Patch Square Dance

 While I was outside taking pictures of quilts a couple of evenings ago, I decided to get one of this top now that the borders are on it.

I have actually had the borders on it for a little while now, but it was when we were getting all the rain, and I couldn't get it hung up outside for a decent picture. This one was the 2021 quilt along for American Patchwork and Quilting. This one was so much fun I started a second one in the Sanctuary fabric line, but not much has been accomplished on it. I will need to get back to it soon and maybe set a goal of a block or two per day. 

I started cutting last night on this.

I have the 1930's layer cake Alan and Dave gave me, plus I added five or six more greens so I can make all the leaves some shade of green. The piece at the top is my background. It's a lovely Darlene Zimmerman print that will be perfect with the layer cake. The leaves are made by pairing a 10" print square with a 10" background square and making eight hst's at one time. I got quite a few of those sewn before I called it quits last night. I only need 14 of them. I'll try and get them trimmed up and pressed today. I need to work for a few hours this morning on my real job, but I should have some time this afternoon to finish these leaves. I really need to get back to the sewing room cleanup--I seem to have lost my motivation, and that is not a good thing. I will have figure out how to motivate myself to get more done in there.

Prairie Flowers Quilt

 I got it together after a few mistakes and some seam ripping.

After I got all the blocks laid out, I stack them by row and numbered the rows 1 through 5. Somehow or other, I didn't assemble the rows in number order, and I had some very similar fabrics all in clumps. I didn't like it. I got them sewn in the right order and then cut the inner side borders 2.5" too long. I really was trying to get that extra eased in, and then I realized I really don't often have accuracy issues. Organization issues and distractibility issues, yes, but not accuracy. I took them off and remeasured and sewed the corrected ones on. Anyway, it took longer to get this top done than I would have liked, but I really do think like this one. The Bonnie and Camille fabric line is so pretty. I think it is called "Shine On". It will have an orange binding similar to the cornerstones, which I think will make it even prettier.

On another note, I noticed how long the days have gotten. I went outside at 8:35 last night, and it was still pretty light outside.

I love the longer hours of sunlight, even though the temperatures have been in the 90's, and I dread the time change later in the year. The dark evenings don't make me happy.

I hope someone will drop a comment and let me know what they have made from this Bonnie and Camille fabric.

Part Two

 I don’t know what happened to the rest of my post (below). I think it’s hard to blog on a iPad, but it’s so much more convenient than pulling out the laptop. It was a picture or two of the Happy Block quilt that’s on our couch. It was one of the first ones I quilted on my Voyager 17, so sometime around 2005.

Anyway, time to get ready for another week. I hope it’s a productive one.

A Few More

 I worked all morning yesterday and part of the afternoon too, but I actually did a little sewing. I've been trying to stay disciplined on getting the room reorganized and take my time figuring out what goes where, and like things together, and all of that, but I took a break from it all and just did some mindless sewing. I did a little more improv piecing from small pieces I didn't have a place to store, and I made a few of the happy blocks from the squares I found last week.

 

Happy Blocks

 I was surprised to find these while sorting and cleaning.

I guess by sorting, I really mean digging things out of random bins and boxes. I did a monthly swap of these "happy blocks" for quite a few years back when we had Yahoo quilting groups. This group was called Stash Builders, and you got a list of people to swap with. You sent each person around six 4" squares, they sewed 2.5" strips around the outside of each, kept one, and returned five bordered blocks back to you. It was fun and low stress, and the concept was easy enough most people couldn't mess it up.

I ended up with tons of these. I made quite a few baby quilts and charity quilts. We even have one on the back of the couch. Last year, when all the wildfires happened in Australia, a group of quilters in Australia was asking for orphan blocks to make quilts from. I sent a big box of these. I was glad to get them gone even though it cost around $65 to mail them all. I really thought I had gotten rid of all of them, hence the surprise when I opened a box a found these stragglers.

I have a few groups I can put together and make some tops from.

There's also some un-bordered 4" squares that I can finish up and add to the pile. I am actually looking forward to doing something with them. I really thought I was over all these, and I actually left the group because of a comment that was made by a member. We also did a swap of log cabin blocks. The swap instructions said scrappy darks and lights. Well, no doubt, I like scrappy, and I like a lot of bright colors so I happily signed up for several sets. I was a little disappointed as the ones I got back weren't really very scrappy and had lots of pastel colors. One of the ladies who was a pretty fast quilter and who had also signed up for several sets, posted a picture of her finished top and I didn't see any of my blocks in it. Later, she posted another top and said she had made it with all the "ugly" blocks she received. Well you guessed it. It was mostly the ones I had made. I actually went back and re-read the instructions to make sure I hadn't misunderstood what I was supposed to send. I don't know if her remark was careless or passive-aggressive or what, but it hurt my feelings enough that I couldn't stay in the group. It also taught me a good lesson, and I try to find something nice to say about every quilt that gets posted on blogs, facebook, wherever. Not everything is my taste, but that doesn't make it "ugly". 

I'm glad I'm finally over it enough to be excited about doing something with these. 

Sewing Room Cleanup and Sewing

 I am plugging along.....with all the hours I spend at work, there is not much time or motivation left to do much in the sewing room. Maybe a few hours a week if I can manage it. I spent a little time yesterday, but I'm getting down to the point where the easy decisions have been made, and I need to decide on the iffy stuff. I have a bag started for Goodwill but it's not really too full yet.

There's still a little room on the shelves; I actually have room for another shelf, just not a wide one. I will get it set up soon.

I got to the point where I really just wanted to sew, and I had planned ahead and left a pathway to the sewing machine and ironing board. I picked up some small pieces from the floor and started sewing pieces together that were close to the same length.

My ironing board cover has a big scorched spot on it. After a little bit of sewing, I felt a little better about everything. I went and bought a new ironing board cover and did a little more straightening up. 

Not sure where these blocks will end up. I saw some somewhere, maybe Pinterest, that had narrow strips of black running through them. I don't now if I'll try that or just keep chugging along on these. I probably have enough scrap pieces to do both. 😊

I'm not good for much in the evenings after I've worked all day, but maybe this evening, I can do just a little more straightening up. I need to get some of the smaller scraps cut into some type of usable pieces. I can for sure use more 2-1/2" squares, so maybe I can work on that.

More Blooms

 Here’s a few more pictures. Aren’t they beautiful?

Late Bloomers

We had a week-long freeze in mid-February which is not normal weather for South Texas. Lots of plants froze, but many came back, and look healthier than ever. The Lilies of the Nile usually bloom around March-April, but I'm just now getting full blooms.

I actually counted 16 blooms which is more than double what we've had in past years.

The Lantana survived and is finally blooming.

Something is eating the leaves of my Canna Lilies. Bill is going to spray them and see if that helps.

They look so sad with the chewed up leaves. 

The zinnias I planted are finally blooming also, but just barely. I'm looking forward to more blooms on these.

Now, back to cleaning house and getting the laundry done!