flimsy finishes

i got so close to completing this top the weekend before, but i did not cross the finish line. all week the pairs of rows were draped on the chair next to the blue sewing room doors and i just let them be, working on other sunnier projects instead.

when this weekend rolled around, and i finally had time to quilt rather than design kitchen drawers, i had completed the last of my "sunny yellow crossroads" blocks and was excited to put them together. but i looked at these rows, so close to being a flimsy, and decided to do the quick work first.

voila! some pinning and two long seams later i had my first quilt top - flimsy - of the day finished.

once laid out, i could see i'd turned some blocks. in fact, half of one center row is turned the wrong way. oopsy. but it's not obvious and it's not the kind of thing that needs to be fixed. this top has a topsy-turvy, jumbled look anyway, so the pattern guidelines i used weren't brazenly apparent. i only noticed because i was looking to see if i got all the blocks in the correct positions and noticed some were turned. but no unpicking today. this flimsy is finished.

i got right on to putting these blocks into flimsy form. i timed myself: 10:15am start to 2:05pm finish. i had a few minor interruptions and took periodic water breaks, but i worked pretty steadily the whole time. i don't know if 4 hours was fast, average, or slow?  however that measures out, this is my 2nd flimsy finish of the day.

what a good saturday!

final sunny blocks

plugging away a pair or two at a time on these sunny crossroads block pairs. this is pair 21 (i think)? i really like the pairing of the heather ross far, far away 3 "sleeping beauty" with the tiny yellow gingham from her trixie collection.  i did some sort-of fussy cutting for these pieces. i didn't exactly choose where i was cutting, but i was picky about which pieces i used for this block. there are two slightly different princesses in the print; mostly the top of the bed is different. i used one of each of these offset by some of the lily-of-the-valley parts in the other two pieces. for the block where the "sleeping beauty" print was the roads, i opted for the sprays of lily-of-the-valley as a contrast to the high-volume yellow gingham. i'm quite pleased with both!

once i had my pieces cut for the crossroads block, and some squares for the hst star quilt i'm making from scraps, i only had 7" of my "sleeping beauty" fabric left. i've used this print a few times already, including as a backing. and i might still have some yardage in stash (maybe). so this piece needed to be processed for scraps, which i was really reluctant to do with such a large scrap piece. i mean, there are so many ways it can be cut! and this is a print i'm partial to. i was afraid to get it wrong, to commit to a size when i didn't know what it would be used for. 2.5" strips are the most versatile cut, but this was shy .5" to do that 3 times. finally i got brave and decided it wasn't too precious of a fabric to just cut without knowing what it was going to be. i looked at the layout of the princesses and made cuts for 2 - 2.5" strips on the outer edges, where most of the princess parts were, and 1 - 2" strip down the center that is mostly white with the lily-of-the-valley sprays. 

it's done'! i cut it and now it's in the scrap drawers.

i counted how many blocks i had left to make and realized i was one short. (or was i?), so i pulled this lovely upsized "d'anjo sky" liberty print i could see in the clear bins on the shelf in front of my cutting table. it's such a pretty print and i like it paired with this anagram print, which contrasts so nicely.

then i made a couple of blocks in not very exciting fabrics, the kind that are more blender prints. it's okay that they're not very exciting or eye catching. quilts need those quieter spots to support the feature fabrics and make the pretties shine and stand out more. they have a job to do and i think they're great supporting actors. there's oscars for those, too, you know.

the next time i was making blocks, i counted again. and i only needed two more pairs but i had six fabric pairs pulled, read for cutting. what happened? where did i count wrong? or did i set some fabrics out i didn't mean to, didn't put them away? a few weeks ago when i pulled this project out, i originally culled all the yellows down to the 16 pairs i needed, but then found about four pairs of pieces already cut. i think maybe i never decided which four to put away, thinking i would decide as i went. oopsy.

this blog could be called "oopsy quilts," couldn't it? how often do i say that? ah well, it all comes right in the end.

 i now have all 28 pairs complete and have begun laying them out! this has been one of the easiest tops to lay out yet. there are 8 blocks across, 7 rows down. i started by laying the top row alternating the yellow background blocks with the low-volume background blocks. i kept moving left to right, and down a new row, until i had used one each of the 28 pairings. this got me to the middle of the middle row. then i started using the matching blocks, which made up the 2nd half.

i kept up the pattern of alternating yellow and l-v, but i added one rule: the block could not be on the same right or left half of the quilt as its partner. it was simple to keep track of where the quilt splits in half vertically, four left of center and four right. that worked easily and beautifully. i felt like that rule kept the fabrics spread out enough from each other. i looked the top over and moved a few blocks around, mostly to spread the different tones of yellow more evenly. that was it! easy-peasy.

next time you see this, it will be a completed top! yay for a flimsy.

learning curve

i really like how crisp and flat my pieces are when i've left them under the floppy books after pressing. it's a sight this quilter likes to see. they don't stay that way once they've been handled again for further piecing, and of course once in the quilt they get crinkly and soft, just how we like a quilt to be. 

but for a moment, they are perfectly flat and stiff, as good as if i'd starched them.

for reference, quite often after i've pressed pieces, i set a couple of "floppy" soft-cover books on top of them for a bit to help flatten the seams i've just pressed. originally i used some old phone books (and still do). now i also use some sewing books i was going to purge and donate but found work really well for this purpose, too. i stack 3-4 of the floppy books on top of the pressed pieces until either i need to move them to do more pressing or until i'm ready to use the pieces. often the last pieces i press in a sewing session get left on the pressing table under the books until next time i sew. those tend to look especially nice.

d5 and i had another sewing session after school a few days ago. she has finished all the row sets for the "pinky stinky" edna 16 patch blocks and told me she wanted to press them herself. i was not going to argue with that! at this point, pressing is my least favorite part of the whole quilt process. (well, maybe basting? but there's a lot more pressing to do all the time, so i guess it wins.) usually i press for her, but she was ready to take on a new skill.

it was harder than she thought, of course. and she's a little perfectionist! she didn't fully follow my advice for how to lay out her pieces to make it easier to remember which direction to press the different rows (so they nest). naturally, this meant she got mixed up periodically and pressed in a different direction than she intended. she's still wrapping her head around how all that works. i know the more she does it, the better she'll get with the process and the more it will sink in for her.

after pressing a whole lot of sets, she decided to join a block. this was another learning experience for her, one with it's own frustrations. seam nesting and matching such small pieces was harder than she expected. but she's learning! and she sticks with it. i showed her how to nest the seams and pin in the seam directly. it worked pretty well. there was one pair of rows that didn't match up well enough for her and she was happy to unpick and redo.

after a while she had her first 16 patch complete! i'm so proud of her. she did another one before feeling done for the day. only about 30 something more to go. a few more of these put together and i'll start assembling the quilt top.

side note: linda asked me recently which of us gets to decide on background music when we're sewing together. actually, we mostly opt to listen to audible books together. this session we finished up the very end of our previous listen (julie berry's "the emperor's ostrich; fun, creative, well-read, recommended) and had to pick a new one. we did have a bit of a skirmish deciding on a new one from the extensive library we have. i started one she immediately vetoed; she picked one but after two chapters said, "okay, let's listen to "jane," the book i was trying to get her to choose. so l. m. montgomery's "jane of lantern hill" it is for now. although i've got to say i can barely stand how entirely horrid and toxic so many of the characters are! i read the book years ago and really liked it. listening now i'm appalled at the grandmother and aunts. but i know it will get better, so we're suffering through the set up of how bad jane's early home life is. the reader isn't great either, but she's tolerable to listen to.

inspired #4, yellow hsts

all those yellows i pulled for "sunny crossroads" that i didn't get to use have been nagging at me. i've subconsciously been searching for a use for them. my first yellow quilt was hsts set in a flying geese formation. hsts did cross my mind for a new project, but i had no plan at all for a configuration.

from moglibalu51 via instagram

the browns add a nice touch

at the same time, i've been enjoying watching my IG friend, ms. balu, put together this lovely yellow hst project. it makes me smile whenever this pops up in my feed. she's making a golden version of the "cool blue stars" hst quilt from jolene's "scrap quilt diary." the quilt has a subtle star pattern to it, but what i mostly see because of the arrangement are qsts when i look at it. there are ways to make the star pattern more visible, like the browns ms. balu added, but i also like it just barely there.

the other day the two ideas collided in my head - why not do a yellow version of the jolene quilt myself? i already have all the yellows pulled and could cut for both projects at the same time. so when i cut the next set for "sunny yellow crossroads," i cut some squares for hsts as well.

i've been piecing "sunny yellow crossroads" with a light grey thread on the same machine as "groovy liberty" and "lemonade at sixes." but when i decided to try out the idea for the yellow hst project, i chose to put yellow thread on the third machine. the grey would have been fine, but that machine has a  1/4" guide foot on it, which doesn't' work for making hsts. so really, it was the foot that determined the need for involving the 3rd machine. and why not? it wasn't being used. one of the reasons i own two machines myself is so i can do different types of work on each one instead of constantly changing feet.

so yellow for hsts it is.

jolene wasn't specific about fabric placement, but the photos reveal a sort of pattern to how she laid out the hst pairs in a block. you get two hst units per pair of squares, so i'll be using each combination more than once in a block. you could totally mix it up randomly, but i'm going with a little bit of a placement pattern. the outer squares use 3 different combinations 4 times each. in the center diamond, i used 2 different pairs, twice each.

this is my test block for the stars. it's subtle, no? if i mix in some brown stars like balu does, which are so fabulous, then they would show up more in the top. i don't know what i'm doing just yet. there are so many yellows in my pull! 

i haven't done the maths yet, either, but i think there are a lot of hsts in this quilt! that it could eat up a lot of yellow fabric. 

and there are a lot of yellows on the cutting table. i can cut my crossroads pieces and squares for hsts all from the same strip. that's efficiency!

i do admit as i was making these yellow hsts and thinking about aaaaall the trimming that will be involved, i looked up on the design wall to "gypsy child hst" and thought, "do i really want to do another quilt with so many hsts?" i guess the answer is "yes?" i do eventually want to make another yellow quilt and why not this one?

 i dove into the scrap drawers for all the leftover strips from the crossroads blocks i already cut for to make more squares. and i am getting so many squares from the strips i'm cutting now that a few are going into the drawers to fill those up as well.

i don't know how soon or quickly i will be working on this project, but i'm happy to have another use for all the yellows i pulled. and i love that i'm making something from jolene's scrap diary, too. there are so many good projects in there and i never imagined this is the first one i'd do, but here we are. when inspiration strikes, you run with it!

girls night in

 

this photo doesn't do justice to the volume of these pieces d5 sewed together for our "pinky stinky edna" quilt. but isn't it a lovely stack? it brings to mind the layers of a croissant. 

last saturday afternoon she came to me and said, "mom, let's quilt!" i had house design projects (custom drawer inserts) and planning for an upcoming family event that i needed to be doing for deadlines, but i was burnt out and could not resist her siren call to the quilt room. so we had a girls night in together, both piecing away.

so many cute bits of fabric spread out on the sewing table! lots of fun projects going at once, just how i like it.

we both get a kick out of chain piecing "bunting." this was the first string she pulled off. later it stretched across the room and then some.

she worked away quite diligently on piecing the rows of four while i jumped around doing some yellow projects.

this is what i got done:

• hsts and a test block
• two "sunny yellow crossroads" pairs
• one leaders-and-enders "lemonade at sixes" block

ducks in rows

 just popping in to say i have all the blocks for “groovy liberty” complete, sashing and all. and one to spare. the rows are in pairs. as soon as i join the pairs together i’ll have a top!

lining up

 

my last bits of liberty arrived, and while nice, were not what i was fully hoping. but i switched out one print for the pink and brown print i wanted to remove; then got on with finishing the blocks and assembling a quilt top.

i added the grungy crossweave as sashing and am happy with the look. i was thinking as i put the short pieces on the sides of blocks for the vertical sashing that it's so nice how sashing makes it so you don't have to worry about seam matching as you do when the blocks join each other directly.

then, as i began joining up rows with the horizontal sashing in between, i thought how cornerstones are a really good idea for getting the sashing to line up. i was thinking this because i wasn't using any and immediately had issues with the vertical pieces matching up across the horizontal pieces even though i pinned right from the start this time. ugh. i thought they were lining up and everything was going well. but when i pulled the first pair off and opened it up, things did not look good. the photo actually looks pretty good, but it got worse from there the further down the line i went.

i was a bit stumped. i thought i was getting them lined up as i pinned them. i was feeling the seams further away from the sashing where the block and sashing joined together, which felt lined up. but they weren't.

i don't think louise (my quilt mother) every taught me how to line up pieces that have sashing in between. and i haven't seen anyone else talk about it, either. so i had to come up with an idea myself.

this time i marked the horizontal sashing piece with where the vertical piece already attached to it was. i made small pencil marks where the seams were at the outer edge of the sashing that would be sewn to the other blocks. i lined the edge of the ruler up with the seam between block and vertical sashing, then marked down the line from it on the horizontal outer edge. it was the right side of the fabric, so i kept it under a 1/4" where it would be included in the seam allowance and not show.

the pencil marks blended in with the crossweave fabric, but i could see them well enough in person.

then i laid the next row on top, right sides together, lined up the vertical sashing ends with the pencil marks, and pinned at each seam. it worked! whew. i was happy to have that figured out. 

backing up a bit - i did a good job laying out all the blocks in a pattern and sticking with it as i sewed them into rows. i've seen other quilters have a system for stacking the blocks and ways to mark them, but that never works for me. the only (nearly) failproof system for me is to take a photo of the blocks in the order i want; then set the photo up in front of me when i'm sewing and consult it constantly as i sew the blocks together. constantly, as in, for each and every seam i'm sewing i check and double check i have the correct blocks going together and turned the correct direction.

and somehow i still manage to turn one or two overall. but its so much better than when i don't do this!

when putting this top together, i laid out the blocks in rows. first i sewed the short, vertical sashing pieces to the blocks, then sewed the blocks with sashing into a row. next, rows were joined into pairs with the long, horizontal piece of sashing between them.

the above photo is the blocks for one row with the short sashing attached, ready to be sewn into a row. i keep them on my lap and consult that photo propped up in front of me constantly. i put the sashing on two blocks in the first row on the wrong side, so had to unpick those, and put one or two other blocks together the wrong way, and had to unpick that. but for me, this was doing really good!

the lining-up of the short sashing across the long pieces between rows was giving me a bit of a headache, so i had to break out the chocolate for a pick-me-up. it reminded me of a small instagram trend a few friends and i had going once apon a time where we used the hashtag #chocolateonquilts. i'm not sure why it was "on quilts" instead of "and quilts," which makes more sense, but i'm not the one who started it. i just remember we would occasionally share a chocolatey treat photographed with a quilt and mark it with that hashtag. in the good old days before ig ruined hashtags.

summer sunnies

one of the summery wips i'm itching to complete is this "sunny yellow crossroads" project. i've been working on a few others, but this has been hovering in the back of my mind, waiting its turn. i cut some low-volume leftovers into pieces for a block, so i got the project box out to put them away. that's all it took. i was curious how far i'd gotten and if i'd gathered enough other fabrics to complete the top.

the box contained 12 complete of the 28 needed blocks sets  and two sets of low-volume pieces cut.

then i pulled down the basket where i've been chucking all the cuts of yellow and low-volume fabrics i might want to use for this quilt. it was literally overflowing with fabric. so much yellow! sadly, way too much yellow. i could easily do another yellow geese quilt or some such thing with all this yellow.

i selected my 16 favorite prints to use and then paired them with low-volumes to make the rest of the block sets. i had one or two already cut from scraps, but needed to complete the set with more scraps. so i went digging through my scrap drawers and baskets searching for a few more scraps of the needed fabrics. instead, i found four other sets of yellow fabrics already cut. oh no! more culling of all the yellows i'd already selected. 

i tried to keep a balance of monochromatic prints and those with some touches of other colors already in the blocks i made first. i also selected which stayed based on keeping a range and balance of the yellow shades. it was a little tough!

eventually, i got my choices narrowed down and settled in to cutting and piecing. i made sets 13, 14, and 15 while d5 and i were having a sewing-and-listening session (we're on to "the emperor's ostrich" by julie berry). she's back to working on the 16-patch blocks for "pinky stinky edna," which i should be able to piece the top for pretty soon.

the next set of 16, 17, and 18 got made the next day. there are some really old pieces from my earliest quilting days in these blocks and one or two brand new ones. because i'm such a fabric nerd, i'm going to talk about them.

the butterfly print is from sandi henderson's "meadowsweet" collection, one of my all-time favorite collections. it's more than a decade old and has been used in a couple of my quilts over the years. it doesn't always work up nicely in large cuts of the fabric because it tends to not be printed perfectly straight. but it works well in this block, which makes me happy.

 the bees are from a newer heather bailey collection called "local honey." i'm working a number of bee prints into this quilt and really like this one. i had this rather odd netting print, low-volume fabric already cut for a block set, but had no idea what to pair it with. it's really rather strange. i think it works nicely with the bees, thank goodness.

this mismatched set breaks some rules and gave me quite a headache figuring out. the sprigged yellow fabric in the "road" pieces is a momo print from the "it's a hoot" collection, a last leftover from nearly the first quilt i ever made. i searched high and low for another morsel of that fabric and couldn't find a bit. i really wanted to use it in this quilt, so i kept looking. i noticed i still have two jelly rolls of the fabric line (??? i already used one, why did i buy that many?), but didn't want to take out the best fabric from the roll (that i have no plans for). but as i couldn't find any scraps anywhere else, i finally pulled the strip of this print out of one jelly roll.

but that strip isn't wide enough to make the background pieces for the block, so i paired the low-volume i used for the sprigged momo print with some pieces of heather ross's "far, far, away 3" moon print to make a set. i already had those moon pieces cut and pairing it as the other half of the momo set meant i didn't have to cut any more of it from what i have left. good enough!

most of my yellow prints for this project are very yellow, with yellow backgrounds, i have a handful like these two prints that are low-volumes with large spots of yellow. it mixes things up a bit, breaks up the hard-and-fast rules i made for the quilt.

another thought to note about cutting for crossroads blocks - if cutting a directional print from yardage, cut the strip the to the wider measurement so the print runs the correct direction. thinking to save a 1" smidge of fabric by going with the shorter cut first, i ended up with a few pieces that are not facing the way i'd like, such as the moon print. that one isn't too bad, but some others would be much more noticeable (to people like me who notice these things). it's something i noted and implemented with later cuttings.

last pair to share for now - one that's gold and bold and a softer, buttery yellow. i especially like the combination of the the sun print juxtaposed to the raindrops low-volume print in the set on the left. that's 19 & 20 of 28 complete. only 8 more to go!

mini crossroads cutting

this is a little process post about how to cut for my mini crossroads blocks (my own modified measurements) and then how i process the rest for scraps.

i've been cutting in sets of three when using fat quarters, but this time happened to be cutting just two since i was using two half yard cuts of these fabrics. the half yards are folded in half, which means i'm cutting through four layers of fabric total and each cut yields twice the pieces of each fabric

each mini crossroads block is composed of:

• four 2" x 2.5" cut background pieces
• one 1" center square
• two 1" x 2.5" vertical "road" strips
• two 1" x 2" horizontal "road" strips

arranged thusly, sewn with a 1/4" seam allowance, they make a 4" x 5" cut/3.5" x 4.5" finished block.

i am working with mostly half yard cuts of fabric, pressed and folded selvage to selvage, which measures approximately 21" across the wof (width of fabric, from selvage to selvage) in usable fabric, doubled because it has two layers from the folding. if you're using layered cuts of the same width but different length, say quarter yard or a yard, you can cut just like this. 

if you are using fat quarters, you won't have two layers of each fabric, but will have the same width. you would just need to make the initial length cut twice for each width and then cut across the two strips the same way.

this quilt will be laid out 16 blocks x 14 blocks, which equals 224 blocks total. i have 34 green fabrics so am doing sets of six blocks for each green fabric.* that means 3 blocks each of the alternating arrangements per block set. i'll need 12 background pieces, six 2" long road pieces, and six 2.5" long road pieces from each green print. (*if you're doing the maths, 6x34=204, and i need 224 blocks. i'll be making the remaining 20 blocks with the pink "capel" accent pieces i'm adding.)

let's look at how i cut my three sets of each green print for my "lemonade at sixes" mini crossroads blocks.

after pressing both half yard cuts, i lay them out on the cutting table, still folded in half, one on top of the other. i line up the folds at the top, trim the edges square, then make a single wof cut. 

i got a tip from dana knott's book "strip quilt secrets" (one of my recent reads) that when cutting multiple strips of fabric, it helps keep the fabric in alignment and avoid slippage if you overcut the total width for a few strips from the yardage first and then subcut backwards. for this set i wanted one strip 2.5" wide and one 1" wide, so i made my first cut at 3.5" from the yardage.

then i rolled the yardage out of the way to the right (i'm done with it until i put it away) and moved my ruler back an inch to the left to make the subcut to create my 2.5" strip and 1" strip from the larger cut i just made. 

i don't always remember to over cut this way, but i've been trying it and have liked it so far when i remember to do it.

now i'm going to cut the 2" length pieces from both strips. (it's getting confusing with differentiating the widths and lengths of these pieces. i'll try to stick to one name for each measurement. the width is the width of the initial strip i cut, the length will be the next cuts i make.)

i left the wof 1" wide strip and 2.5" wide strip together, so i can cut all pieces of the same lengths together. i first cut 3 sets of background pieces and shorter "road" strips, which will both be 2" long, at the same time. the fabrics are folded in half, so i am getting double the amount of pieces from each cut i make. i need 4 background pieces for each block x 3 blocks, which means i need to make this cut 6 times for the backgrounds. i need half as many for the "road" pieces, so i'll be pulling that fabric away after the first 3 cuts.

after the first 3 cuts at 2" long, i separate the two strips widths because they will now be cut differently. i need 3 pairs of 1" x 2.5" "road" pieces for the blocks, so i cut those from the 1" strip.

i still need 3 more pairs of the 2" x 2.5" background pieces, so i cut them from the 2.5" wide strip. 

now i have all the pieces i need for 3 mini crossroads blocks in each setting for my 6 block set.

i still have fabric left! let's make usable scraps

i always begin cutting from strips at the cut end vs. the folded edge. this way i have one continuous piece of fabric left at the end instead of two identical smaller pieces. i just find the longer piece to be more versatile than two short ones (unless they're going to be exactly a useful size). once i'm done with all the needed cutting, i unfold and press open the leftovers at the end.

i had about 3" left of the 1" wide piece, which went straight into the 1" colored print scrap drawer.

there was approximately 10.5" remaining of the 2.5" wide strip.

from that i cut 2 - 2.5"x4.5" pieces of both fabrics for my scrappy "bonnie lass" project. i opened up what was left at the end, which i trimmed a smidge to a 2.5" square of each fabric.

these are my cuts from the 2.5" and 1" wide wof strips:

• 3 sets of background pieces for mini crossroads blocks
• 3 sets of "road" pieces for mini crossroads blocks
• 1 each ~3"x1" scrap
• 2 each 2.5"x4.5" bonnie lass pieces

the pieces for the large "bonnie lass" blocks go in that project's basket, conveniently sitting next to my cutting table.

the 2.5" squares go in the 2.5" colored prints scrap drawer, also conveniently next to my cutting table.

that's my cutting wrapped! time to get some blocks pieced now. i already cut several dozen blocks' worth of the pink center squares and the limeade pieces for mini crossroads blocks, so as soon as i cut new printed fabrics, i am able to sit down and get sewing.

i keep all the cut pieces next to the machine with the grey thread on it and if i'm not piecing this project specifically, i use them for leaders-and-enders on my other projects. 

since i like having multiple projects on the go at once, and i like scrap quilts, all this cutting with bonus scraps and pre-prepped pieces for block construction or leaders-and-enders fits right into my preferred mode of operation, which is to have lots of options for whatever whim i get when it's my sewing time. 

one stitch at a time all these pieces will become quilts.