One more for the tree

In the annual quest to clear out my Christmas stitching projects drawer, this year, I managed to finish this little Mill Hill beaded stocking ornament.

Merry Christmas, all!

The Bias Tape quilt, part 5: A top and a back

To prepare the top, I cut 5 yards (plus a little extra for insurance) from a bolt of Moda solid white purchased years ago for occasions just like this.

Check the price tag!

After washing, it was torn in half to get two 92″ pieces. One of those pieces was torn in half again, this time along the lengthwise grain to create two ~21″ x 92″ side panels.

The ~21″ x 92″ side panels were sewn to each side of the un-torn piece like this:

Easiest top ever pieced.

This fun striped print was perfect for the back.

Like the white solid, I had purchased several yards of it on sale years ago and was glad to have it in my stash to finally use in a project.

The backing was pieced just like the top with a center and two side panels, and I was dumbstruck at how perfectly the print aligned with the grain. Check this out:

Notice how the tear follows exactly one of the stripes printed on the fabric – all the way across.

To match the stripes when sewing the panels together, I pinned excessively. Mom would be proud.

Happy 2021

January’s vintage tree block is done. My intentions were to finish it early in the month since I had started it in December, but loss of interest led to procrastination so it didn’t get finished until this morning. I’m not sure why, but my sewjo has waned the last few months and I’m hoping it will return to full strength soon. In the meantime, I appreciate whatever good days I do have in my sewing room.

In December and January, I did manage to work on the inner border for the plaid stars quilt. I hadn’t planned to post any progress pictures of it until both inner and outer borders were attached, but after sewing on the inner border, I was so surprised (and pleased) at how much better the top looked with it, I decided it was worth sharing:

The black frame, a Robert Kaufman woven, provides much needed contrast to the top and really makes the stars come to life – love it!

I had enough yardage to cut each border strip in one piece along the lengthwise grain. To ensure that all four borders matched, I determined which section of the plaid to center in the width, then counted out six threads from each side and cut along that sixth thread with scissors instead of a rotary cutter. My OCD needed tending to and this did the trick!

The outer border will be pieced with the fabrics used for the stars, so it will take some time to pull it together in order to achieve a pleasing distribution of colors and plaid scales.

Back to that sewjo issue . . . would love to know if you are experiencing a slow down of your sewjo and what you’re doing to push yourself over the hump. Thanks for stopping by!

Continuation of a love/hate relationship

Mission accomplished! My goal to have 18 vintage tree blocks completed by the end of the year is a reality, despite the conflicting love/hate feelings I have about these super cool blocks. At this point, I’m just happy to be more than halfway done.

I’ve whined in previous posts about how time consuming and difficult it is to manage and stuff 83 pieces of fabric into 8 square inches, and yet, after making the first block, I realized that there was another detail needing management: print direction. I failed to be mindful of the direction of the shirting fabric in that block and was disappointed in how much busier it made an already busy block.

While I wasn’t about to redo the block, I resolved to ensure consistent print direction for the remaining 29 blocks. Doing this adds another 15 – 30 minutes to the cutting and construction, but it’s worth it.

Sometime around the middle of the month, I took a break from sewing to stitch a Christmas ornament from my stash – one of those cute little Mill Hill cross stitch/bead kits. This one was more involved than ones I’d previously made because of three add-on pieces to make the ornament three-dimensional.

And after watching an internet video on how to make this adorable little tree ornament,

I pulled some ribbon from my inventory and made one, changing one thing when finishing it. The instructions called for a clear, 6mm bead at the top of the ornament, but it looked too big and clunky, so I used one sequin plus a seed bead instead to secure the loop of hanging ribbon at the top. It’s much prettier and more in proportion to the size of the ornament.

Thanks for checking in!

14, 15 & 16

The creation of vintage tree blocks is slowly being ticked off with three more made this past week, bringing the count to 16 blocks in all.

I am beyond ready to tuck this project away until December when I hope to make two more. Then in 2021, if I make one per month, I’ll reach my desired block count of 30.

The beauty of these little gems hides the slog of a process to get there – so much fussing and managing of all those tiny pieces and the bulk they create. Still, it will be worth it in the end.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage tree block #2

I took a break from machine quilting the last couple of days to piece another vintage tree block:

With 83 pieces and 82 seams, those tiny, oh-so-darling one-inch finished squares look sweet and innocent enough, but they hide the piecing nightmare that accompanies this block.

Still, you endure the nightmare when you believe you’re creating one of the coolest blocks on the planet. I try not to think about how many I need to make a decent sized quilt, so my goal for 2020 is to make one per month. At that rate, it will take two and a half years to get to 30 blocks, but my vintage fabrics will have been depleted, which was the original goal. The block’s cool factor is a bonus.

Thanks for stopping by!

Time wisely used

Happy new year! I’ve taken advantage of our work slow down at the office this month by progressing nicely on a few projects here at home, bouncing back and forth on them so as not to get too bored or burned out on any one of them.

Two more beaded Christmas ornament kits in my stash were finished:

The lawn chair quilt top – green version – was layered, basted and ditch quilted. I revised my plan for the overall quilting design, choosing gentle, wavy lines spaced 3 inches apart. It’s about half done, and I hope to show you the finished product next month.

I also re-engaged with a cross stitch project begun a few years ago and recently finished the purple section in the lower left corner.

Thanks for checking in!

March star blocks

Progress on my plaid star blocks continues, albeit slowly.

I forced myself to make the blocks for next month as well, and in the process, used up all the background pieces I’d cut when I first started the quilt.

There was enough of each of the 12 background fabrics to cut one more block’s worth,

with a little left over from some of them to cut one or two more background pieces. This would yield 48 blocks, but with a little finagling and the addition of 3 new background fabrics,

I figured I could eek out another 8 blocks for a total of 56. This would allow the quilt to grow from a 6 x 8 setting to a 7 x 8 setting.

In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to find out how much time it took to mark the seam lines on all 11 patches of this block and the result was one hour. It’s borderline crazy to spend this kind of time on one quilt, but I think it will look really cool when it’s done—that is, if I can keep up with it!

Snow days and star blocks

We have been enjoying real winter weather here in the south. I should probably rephrase that to say “I” have been enjoying real winter weather. Most people who live here are sub-70s wimps and don’t do cold. For me, I’ll take 30 degrees over 90 and humid any day.

Proof of our snow! We covered the camellias and they survived just fine and continue to bloom.

I would have posted about our unusual weather sooner, but my computer died and it’s taken this much time to order a new one and bring it up to speed. The old one got stuck on a Windows restart loop and John said to bring it back to life would require a complete overhaul, including reinstalling the operating system and re-configuring the hard drive. Thank goodness for Carbonite! I was able to retrieve all my files and emails, and although a few tweaks are still needed; I’m up and running close to 100 percent.

Back to the winter weather: Two weeks ago, we experienced temps in the high 20s/low 30s, had our second dusting of snow this season, and rain, which iced up the bridges and overpasses. With weather like that, things here shut down, and for us, that translated into two days off work.

I took full advantage, spending two glorious days in my sewing room making five more plaid star blocks:

I decided to try to make one star block a week until I have enough to put the top together. That kind of a goal should not be too difficult to manage around a full-time job, and since I do fairly well with deadlines and schedules, I thought it was worth a shot.

Hope you’re sewing something fun today! Thanks for stopping by.

Stain pain

Since last September (1.4 years before scheduled occupancy) we’ve been pressed to choose a stain color for the front and side entry doors.

We waffled, a lot, and finally, after several months of failure to choose, we were given the opportunity to delay the decision until some of the brick on the exterior of the house had been laid—great.

Not surprisingly, that offer was recently rescinded so we’re back to it.

We had received some samples,

but they were not on the type of wood we’d chosen for the doors, so we made our own.

Last week John ran over to a place that sells hardwoods and bought a five-foot plank of ash. We split the workload, each of us going to a different place to pick up some stain options.

He spent Saturday applying different stains to the board in one-foot sections.

We took the plank and our bricks over to the house Sunday morning to review the options.

The door will be in shadow most of the time, so that’s where we set up.

I was having trouble processing the different choices in indirect light and finally suggested we move upstairs to be in sunshine, knowing that if it looks good in natural light, it will look good in shadow, under a covered porch.

It was the right decision and we quickly decided on this one:

Next is determining stain color for the kitchen cabinets.