Circles and a Brand New Project

 

 

I had a productive week working on three quilts. I sewed the latest batch of circles with the last batch(es).

 I had a question about the order I put the circles. It is chronological, but very loosely. I try to put the big circles in a way that will balance with the other big circles in the quilt. That is why the big circle that was not made in this batch but is on the right. The circles on the left were made in previous batch(es) and the ones in the middle were the latest batch. I don't try to make them chronological in each batch. I am allowed to change the circles around if I want to separate certain colors, shapes, etc. 

Generally, I would be making one row at a time, but because of the big circle, I decided to make them by columns. I want to be able to sew these together so that the circles don't get lost. I do have a box to put them in, but putting them together as I go along keeps them in somewhat chronological order.

This is only half a row. I will add more circles as I make more batches before I attach to the mother ship.

 I pressed the Jazzy Blues triangles. I still need to trim them. I will count them after I trim them. I want to make sure that I keep making progress on this quilt.

I've been invited to join the Dust Off an Old Quilt Book Blog Hop which is coming up in March. You can join too. 

I have decided I should get started so I can be ready by my blog hop day. Last time I showed a finished quilt top but it wasn't quilted. I thought about quilting the same project because having that deadline will make progress on it, but I decided that the blog hop readers deserved a new quilt. Hopefully using a jelly roll will make it a quick finish.

2023: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 6

I had seen these little buttons that you record words so that your dog can communicate with you and I got them about the time I got Zoey. I want better communication with my dog. I have been pushing them and getting her to push them but she hadn't made the connection that she can communicate with me using them.

 

After my post last week, Zoey pushed the "Love You" button. It might have been an accident, but I gave her attention, scratched her ears and gave her a treat. She went back and pushed it again, and she got the same treatment. I think she made the connection, and she ran to test the "Go outside" button. So I let her out. She has been pushing the "Go outside" button all week and she definitely understands what the buttons mean. The "Love you" button got pushed under some furniture so she didn't use it during the week. I am so proud of her. I have more buttons I can use, but I wanted to make sure I didn't rush it.

I worked on three quilts this week!

 

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 42 out of 42 days

Success rate  = 100%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch

Progress During Week off Project Quilting

 Project Quilting releases their challenge every other week. This means that last week was my week off from that challenge. I focused on catching up on household work and prepping ahead for the challenge week. Laundry done. Grocery shopping done. Cooking ahead, mostly done.

2023: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 4

I had free time this week to choose my own project. It was very difficult to stay focused. I kept wanting to work on other projects - new ones, and other older ones. I decided to make more triangles for Jazzy Blues to at least finish up that part of the project (piecing the units). I sewed up all of the triangles that I had cut. I think this means I am finished with them. I will press them, trim them, and then count them to be sure. 

I also spent some time cleaning the Cave and thinking about what to do with my scraps.

I also added some hand quilting stitches to Sonder. It just looked like it needed more stitches in the center.

 

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 28 out of 28 days

Success rate  = 100%

 

Linked with: 15 Minutes to Stitch

Progress on Jazzy Blues

When I finish making a small quilt, I usually add it to my bulletin board. Sometimes I just remove a quilt that is approximately the same size to make room, and other times, I switch other quilts too to form a cohesive theme. It keeps the decor fresh and revolving.

Several people asked me questions this week so I thought I would show you.

I have given a few small quilts away, but most of the time, I just add them to my small quilt collection. I have fun curating the bulletin board.

I have a bunch of animal quilts now, and the ones in this picture are just a few of them. I just grabbed them without digging them all out.

I do make bigger quilts too, mostly lap quilts, and a smattering of bed size quilts. Aunt Daisy is going to be one of those really big, bed size quilts. Big quilts take a long time to make, and are difficult to go through my domestic sewing machine for quilting. And I would have a hard time finding uses for big quilts since there are only so many beds in the house and they take up a lot of storage space in the summer and for rotation. Although the big may seem to be more practical, they are actually less useful to me. Small quilts are fun to make, don't take up a lot of time to make or a lot of space to store. They let me play and try out different techniques, and let me have finishes even when I can't devote large amounts of time quilting. 

Last year, I showed a whole post with my statistics, so here is an update. The number of quilt finishes increased, but the spread between starts and finishes didn't move last year. I am hoping that this year I can narrow the gap. Because I make small quilts, sometimes ugly ones I finish in a week, the number of finishes isn't that impressive.

Last year, I tried to only start quilts I was committed to finish, so I had fewer starts. I did have one more start than finish because I chose to make a big quilt that I knew I couldn't finish quickly: the Aunt Daisy quilt pattern that I am calling Jazzy Blues.

2023: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 2

Since the Project Quilting challenges are every other week, I had free time this week to choose my own project. I decided to make more triangles for Jazzy Blues. There are more of these triangles than any other block in this quilt. I made two batches, and will need to make more. I also need to press and trim them.

 

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 14 out of 14 days

Success rate  = 100%

 

Linked with: 15 Minutes to Stitch

Rearranging

 I didn't realize its been so long. It's been a month since I last posted, but I have been thinking about you the whole time. This picture is supposed to be the original Aunt Daisy design, but I think I have the quarter square triangles turned in the wrong direction to match the original quilt..

 

I did some rearranging. I rearranged my sewing space. I have always sewn in the first floor of the house, and set up a station in my living room where I could sew.  Last week, I decided that I was at a place where I could stop using my family room as a family room and convert it to the sewing room. This means the living room can actually be used as a living room and my sewing mess can be out of view for the most part. There is better lighting in the new sewing room and I am really going to like it.

 

Even though I didn't sew a lot during this month, I spent a lot of time rearranging the Aunt Daisy blocks to see what layout I want to use. This is probably the last time I am going to have this combination of blocks and I want to take advantage of making lots of virtual quilts. 

 

The result is a kaleidoscope of quilts, where each picture looks slightly different than the previous one. There are actually about three blocks that I have switched around to make the changes - the half square triangles, the quarter square triangles have been kept in the same place but turned in a different direction. The tri recs and flying geese have been switched in the edges of the block.. I also alternated the direction of the tri recs.

They make a pretty kaleidoscope of patterns, but I have to decide on a layout in order to make a finished quilt. 

The photos make it hard to compare because the lighting keeps changing and I wasn't as successful of keeping the blocks properly lined up, getting a proper photo and cropping well. I am doing my best to compare the layouts and mentally correcting the issues.

 

 

Another person who made this quilt saw that it could make stars.

 

I am trying to decide what main block I want - a star, a diamond, etc. All the blocks above have a different block.

Then make changes in the edge to see what kind of alternate block and overall design it makes at the end.

 

I took the photos in three batches. In the first batch, I hadn't changed all the blocks on all four sides in the same layout so I had to delete most of them.

 I didn't realize until it was dark so some of the ones below are taken in indoor lighting, and my shadow got in them.

I took the third batch of pictures during daylight, but the light changed so all those don't look the same either.

I guess this means that some of the layouts may be repeated in these pictures.

I still have more triangles to make before I have to start putting them together so I have some time.

These also remind me of tiles.

I kept the pictures small so that you could see the overall design easier.

 And not use all of your bandwidth. I hope it lets you look at a closer picture if you want to see it bigger.

A lot of the alternate block photos have the star in the center, mostly because I wanted to look at the alternate block without focusing on the star, but the overall quilt looks different based on which combination is used.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Weeks 43, 44, 45, 46, 47

 

I worked on Jazzy Blues layouts and switched out the sewing room. I have been working, training Zoey and still working on my massive Konmari project which requires me to touch every single thing in the house. I did a small bit of sewing but for the most part, I haven't had much time to sew.

15 minute days these weeks --14 out of 35

15 minute days this year -- 229 out of 331 days

Success rate  = 69%

 

Linked with Life in Pieces: Stitching Stuff

Jazzy Blues Progress

 

After a long lull without sewing, I have been making progress on the Jazzy Blues quilt. This quilt is a part of a quilt along, named Aunt Daisy. All the blocks have been released and many people have already finished their quilts. There are a lot of beautiful colorways showing up on my Facebook feed, and only a couple with alternate layouts.

Last week, I spent a fifteen minute session making a trial equilateral triangle block. I have a acrylic template set to help me make them, but don't have directions. I figured it was probably already taking the seam allowance into consideration, but I decided to make it big and trim if I needed. It worked out perfectly (except for the trimming I didn't need).

 

 

So this week, I made a whole bunch of triangle blocks. I didn't make the number required because I wanted to try out different layouts and decide before making these blocks.

I need to make more of these, and also some in the contrasting colorway. Then I played with some choices. I don't think I will ever have this many different blocks available so it is fun to play around and see what kinds of designs they can make.

Did you notice that my design choices have 25 components?

That number doesn't include all the blocks that I made. The actually block has more components.

This is more like the actual layout, except I haven't made the alternate colorway for the equilateral triangle blocks yet. Can I just say that I am so impressed with the original designer of this block? There are 49 pieces and so many different types of components.

Plus, this block is so big that I don't really have a good place to lay it out. I put it on top of the crate, but then it isn't easy to photograph it or look at the layout. For some reason, my desktop isn't tiling the background picture so I will have to figure out a different way to see how this will look in a quilt.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Weeks 40, 41, 42

 

 

I worked on Jazzy Blues this week, although I did take a look at the Olympics quilt. I am not going to meet my goal of finishing more quilts than I start if I don't finish two quilts this year. I might finish another couple of quilt tops in the flimsy closet instead, but the Olympics quilt is closest to being done.

15 minute days these weeks --8 out of 21

15 minute days this year -- 215 out of 296 days

Success rate  = 77%

 

Linked with Life in Pieces: Stitching Stuff

 

Week 30

 I hope you aren't getting tired of seeing these coloring pages. I have been trying to change things, one block at a time to make sure that I want to make the blocks the way the pattern designer chose. In this drawing, you can see that some of the equilateral triangles, the tri-rec bloks, have light triangles while some of them have dark triangles. My original drawings had them all with the dark triangles. 

I like them both ways, but the change is really subtle so I am going to go along with the original plan and make them both ways. I really like the colors in this drawing, but mine are all going to be mostly blue and black with hints of other colors.

I am not going to sew the together into blocks until I try out different settings. Most of the changes are so subtle though that I will probably go with the original layout.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 30

 

This week, I sewed all of the square in a square blocks for the Jazzy Blues quilt. I need to cut off the dog ears and do some minor trimming them up to size. I found a template for the equilateral triangles that will be used for the rest of the blocks. They will be made in different colorways.

I chose the constant color for the next set of postage stamp blocks.

I also made a plan for the mini quilt I will be making from the trimmings I showed you last week.

15 minute days these two weeks --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 160 out of 205 days

Success rate  = 78%

 

Summer Progress

 Bloglovin has been down a great deal this summer, which means that I do not get informed when one of my blogger friends publishes a post. I don't keep a separate list so I have to find them from people who have commented on my post or posts written by more popular bloggers.

We have been getting a lot of summer thunder storms. The electricity has gone out several times but it comes back after a short time.

 

This gives me more time to do more quilting. I have been getting better every day after my surgery and today I feel like I can go about life as normal. I will be going back to work on Monday, so I want to catch up on the chores that has been slacking. I kept up with the daily work, but there is much to be done.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 29

 

Quilting wise, this week I was able to finish trimming the half square triangles of the Jazzy Blues quilt. The trimmings are half an inch wide. A sane quilter would think that is the perfect size to throw away. After all, if you sew them together, the entire piece will be hidden in the seam allowance. But if you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you will know that I have a hard time throwing out fabric like that. I have been making myself throw away the fabric trash in the kitchen trash can to avoid my pulling it out of the trash can but these trimmings aren't going to go any trash can until at least after I make a mini quilt out of these pieces.

Besides the trimming, I also finished sewing this postage stamp / checkerboard block. This is my leader ender project while I make the Jazzy Blues blocks. I now have eight of these blocks.

I also cut the squares for the square in a square block for Jazzy Blues. I made a couple of sample blocks since I am going to try to make them with little or no trimming.

15 minute days these two weeks --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 153 out of 198 days

Success rate  = 77%

 

Holiday Getaway

 

 My project at work was ending, and my co-workers were contacting their managers to see if they could get some work on other projects that are going on and coming down the pipeline. It was a busy year and I too asked for more work, but before I got an answer, I went on a getaway. I went away for a couple of days and got a much slower change of pace. I was on the tenth floor so I was able to get a great view of all the neighborhood holiday fireworks.

In case you want to know, I wouldn't recommend getting gallbladder surgery, or any type of surgery actually, as a getaway. The change of pace and the view may be nice, but there may be some drawbacks.

 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 27, 28

 

 

 

 Before the surgery I made the HSTs for the Jazzy Blues quilt. I used two different half yard fabrics because they are in opposite corners and are part of two different designs in the quilt. I had already started trimming them to size, and after the surgery, I have continued trimming them a few at a time. I don't like the trimming step and thought about starting the next block, but decided I should spend the time thinking about the next fabrics to use for the next block. I have the fabrics selected, but I am deciding which fabric to use for the next block as I go along.

 

15 minute days these two weeks --10 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 146 out of 191 days

Success rate  = 76%

 

Jazzy Blues Blocks

 

I've been cutting, sewing, pressing, counting, cutting, sewing and pressing the last three weeks even though I haven't been posting. I am close to being done with three months worth of blocks in the Aunt Daisy quiltalong. The most time-consuming are the double flying geese, and I just have a few more to make. I don't have enough fabric to make four at a time, but I do have enough to make one at a time ones, and I only need two or three. I have enough quarter square blocks. I haven't counted the four patch, but I cut the number of strips I was told to cut, and sewed them all up, so there may be some extras. The next batch will be HSTs so they will go pretty quickly.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 22, 25, 26

 

15 minute days these three weeks --21 out of 21

15 minute days this year -- 136 out of 177 days

Success rate  = 77%

 

These three weeks helped increase the rate and hopefully I will be able to increase it even more this summer.

Park of Roses

 

I took some weekend time off from work and went to the Park of Roses with my family. It was a lovely day and many roses were in full bloom. These tiny roses made a very nice hedge.

These Flower Girl roses were bundled quite nicely for a wedding.

This is a Dawn Redwood. It is the tree I chose with just a picture of a young tree and a couple of reviews. It has really soft leaves. This is a really old tree. I don't think my backyard tree will get this big in my lifetime.

 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 23

 

I made time to work with fabric this week. Since I only had little bits of time, I simply continued with the trimming of the flying geese I did before the lull. All the geese have been trimmed now and I did sew a few into pairs. We won't mention that the flying geese were the month one block, and we are now several months into the blocks. I am not worried about it. I knew when I chose to join this BOM that I would not be able to keep up, and chose to make a big quilt anyway because I think that is the best way to showcase this block combination.

15 minute days these three weeks --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 115 out of 156 days

Success rate  = 74%

 

During the lull, I bought some fabric. I didn't have the same number of pieces of fabric as there are blocks in the quilt. Although I know that I can use the leftover fabric for the remaining blocks, I really wanted to make sure I had the flexibility of using a separate fabric for the remaining blocks, so I found some on sale. It was a big relief. I know that the quilt will be fine with whatever solution I worked out, but having extra fabric gave me extra options of making this big quilt the best I could make.

I also some backing fabric for the Sunshine in Winter quilt and a few extra pieces because they were on sale.

Unfortunately, the package never made it. I got an email that it was delivered, but when I went out to look for it, it was not there. I don't know if the post office didn't deliver it or if a porch pirate got to it first, but several of my neighbors were out and nobody saw a delivery or a porch pirate. Since they were sale fabrics, they were out of stock when I tried to repurchase them.