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%

 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 7

There are a couple of interesting dates coming up. 2-20-22 and 2-22-22. I am not interested in numerology but I do think it would be nice to finish a quilt on one of those dates. I was hoping to finish Lansing Leaves by one of those dates, but since I am working, I am not sure I will be able to finish piecing the back, sandwich, quilt and bind by either of those dates.

Those new quilts do tend to push in and disrupt plans. I spent more time this week with Jazzy Blues and did not work on Lansing Leaves.

 

I have a quilt that is closer to completion - not only is the backing done, it is already sandwiched and the quilting has already started. It is a big quilt though so it won't be a quick finish. It is really old so getting it done would be a great relief. So old that there is no mention of it on this blog. My spreadsheet lists it as started in 2007, but there are a few other quilts with the same date and I know that it was before the spreadsheet was started so it is an educated guess.  It gave me trouble in quilting because it has a lot of bulky seams but that might have been before I got a flat bed extension. I have it out and will examine it to plan the next steps. I will simplify the quilting plan.

I call it Olympics Twist so finishing it on the last day of the Olympics, 2-20-22 would add meaning to that date.

It was not a good week for walking. First, Zeus sprained his leg so he couldn't walk much. Then the snow melted and refroze and was very icy and slippery. Even on the grass, he isn't heavy enough to crush through the layer of ice so he just slides on top of it. He is doing better now but we are still skipping a lot of walks. 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 7

If you recall, I am sewing along the Aunt Daisy quiltalong but I am calling my quilt Jazzy Blues. I worked this week so I didn't have much time for quilting. Still though, I finished a Postage Stamp block while I sewed the flying geese of the Jazzy Blues quilt.

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 44 out of 44 days

Success rate  = 100%

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

 

 

2022: More Finishes Than Starts

Looks the same as last week.

 

 

 

 

The Jelly Roll Club has a really cute applique sew along called Gnome of the Month. Besides free patterns, there are free videos that show every step of different methods of applique. It is a versatile pattern and you can customize it as you go.

Filling the Work in Process Drawers

There are five drawers in my new WIP cabinet and I am trying to figure out what to put in them. In no particular order, but numbered for clarity, here is how they will be filled:

Drawer One will be for the current Work in Progress. Right now, it is the Postage Stamp quilt.

Drawer Two will be for the current Leader / Ender. Right now, it is the Dots and Dashes quilt. Even though this is the current Leader / Ender, I am using Postage Stamp quilt as a Leader / Ender while working on my mini quilt.

Drawer Three will be for the Current Mini of the Month. I rarely work on more than one of these at a time, and when I do, I think there is room in the drawer for more than one. This drawer will probably be empty most of the time, since the work will probably be on the table, but I have to leave it empty for when I have to clean up my space. The current Mini is Pink and Other Colors.

 

Drawer Four will be for the Beautiful World project. I haven't worked on it since March.  Is this the UFO drawer or the handwork drawer, I'm not sure. It will identify itself in time.

While it is tempting to find another project for Drawer Five, I am opting to leave it empty. It will help make sure I can truly convert my sewing room back into a living room without having to put anything out of sight and out of mind.

Quilt Progress

 

I finished another Postage Stamp block as a Leader / Ender while I was working on the Representation Quilt. In case you missed it, I drew names and our family is sharing art that represents the gift recipient..

We decided to hold our family gathering virtually because of schedules and the virus. This means that we have to give some time to mail our representation gifts. I will let you know what fun ideas everyone had after we distribute them and hold our gathering.

I finished my Representation Quilt and sent it off. I will show that one to you later as well.

2021:  Week 52 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

I might have mixed up my weekly count since I am on week 52 and there are 52 weeks in a year. This is the next to last post for the year.

I've made quilting progress. I finished the Representation Portrait Quilt I showed you in my last post. Since it is a gift, and it is in the mail for the receiver, I will wait to show you the finished project.

While I was attaching the borders and working on that quilt, I sewed the rows for the red Postage Stamp block as  a Leader and Ender.

I also worked on the Halloween quilt while I was procrastinating working on the Representation Portrait quilt.

 

There are 52 weeks in a year and I am already on week 52. My date mix-up probably means that my stats are better than reported.  There was a week where I didn't remember what I had done and gave myself a  0 for the week. The auditor is on holiday and not willing to figure out the discrepancy. I am pretty sure it means I am at 100%  now.

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 295 out of 360 days

Success rate  = 82%

 

Last year had a Leap year Day, so we also had 53 weeks, and the first week of this year only had 4 days.

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

Interesting finds this week:

While I was procrastinating working on the Representation Portrait Quilt, I found a YouTube Channel by Mary Fons. She is the daughter of Marianne Fons of Fons and Porter. The show is actually on Twitch platform, but you can watch on YouTube. She hosts regular casual chat sessions where she shares lots of different quilts and quilty topics. Like Bonnie Hunter, it is a mostly a live show where she interacts with the audience and then tells you some things that makes it worth the visit.

There is no time limit for each episode, but it was difficult to work while watching this, because there are interesting things that require your eyeballs on the show, although there are parts where she is talking where you can work on other things. It is called Quilt Nerd, and she is working on fine-tuning the show.

This quilt is in Issue 80 of Today's Quilter. It is made by Maria Lizano using quilt blocks from the Jane Stickle quilt. I have a whole bunch of blocks left done, more than 100 if I remember correctly.

 

2021: Week 47 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

2021:  Week 47 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

It's been busy at work while we gear up to meet with the customers. I am hosting the Thanksgiving gathering this year, so I have been spending time getting ready for them. This means that there hasn't been a lot of sewing, but I did have all those loose pieces I needed to press for the October house mini quilt. I decided that it would be better for me to go ahead and lay them out and press them down instead of leaving all these little fused pieces all loose. 

It took two sessions to put it together, and now I will put it away until after the gathering.

15 minute days this week --2 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 272 out of 325 days

Success rate  = 84%

 

 

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

 

 

 

I took the photos when it was dark outside, but I wanted to keep a record of my progress.

2021: Weeks 45 and 46 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

We had a nice extended colorful leaf season. It has been wonderful to see all the different hues of autumn and see the colors fall in the breeze.

The cold season has begun.  First we had frosted tips on the leaves.

It's getting colder now and we had snow showers yesterday and big puffy snowflakes this morning.

Let the animals eat the Halloween decorations.

2021:  Week 45 and 46 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

I didn't get around to posting my status last week, but I did a lot of quilting. Besides making the red postage stamp block, I also added more to my dots and dashes quilt and started a Halloween mini and a scrap mini quilt. I will take photos of all those soon to show you.

This week, I only did some quilting today, so my progress last week helps cushion the blow from this week.

15 minute days this week --8 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 270 out of 318 days

Success rate  = 85%

 

 

This week dropped the success rate but I can take heart in the fact that I was at 83% last year.

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

 

2021: Week 44 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

I continued taking lots of photographs this week, and have gone through my October folder to see if there were any other photos to show you. 

 

Most of these photos are taken with an iphone. Since I am taking so many photos, I thought I would try to submit some to Shutterstock. 

 

They rejected all of the ones I submitted, mostly due to compression and focus. It's okay. I am not upset. I figured that if they were usable, I should try. If they aren't, I can share them on my blog without worrying about it. 

 

I think I need to take photos with a better camera, but these are fun photos that happen when I am walking my dog, taking advantage of the situation.  

 I tend to take the photos pretty quickly, with the  leash in one hand and the camera in the other.

 

After I decided which photos to include in this post, I loaded more photos from my phone, so I will share those with you later.

 

I really liked the clearing in the clouds after the rain.

2021:  Week 44 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

Did you see the eye in the clearing clouds photo above this heading? 

This week, I finished the purple postage stamp block, pressed it, and started the red one. I got sidetracked a little bit with thinking about ideas for a mini quilt, but in the end, I decided I was more interested in making progress on my current projects.

I'm still enjoying my work and trying to get back to the habit of sewing every day. I managed to do it this week.

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 262 out of 304 days

Success rate  = 86%

 

 

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

 

2021: Week 43 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

 

With the shorter days and cooler weather, I have been focusing on getting my house ready for the winter. Even though I have been spending most of my time at home anyway, I feel the need to be ready to continue to do that for the winter.

I am also working full time, doing my favorite part of the project.

Most of the photos in this post were taken while I was looking for closeup photos.

2021:  Week 43 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

Another wimpy report. I started the purple postage stamp block. I have the rows done, just need to sew them into a block. I have also chosen the next color. Just like the photo of some gravel looks like a rocky beach, the tiny squares in the postage stamp block gets special attention.

15 minute days this week --3 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 255 out of 297 days

Success rate  = 86%

 

 

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch