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.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Weeks 20, 21, and 22

 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Weeks 20, 21, and 22

 

I haven't found time for quilting the last few weeks, so here is another sorry report. I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten you. We still have lots of available overtime and lots of work that makes us feel obligated to do the overtime. There is more yard work.

15 minute days these three weeks --0 out of 21

15 minute days this year -- 108 out of 149 days

Success rate  = 72%

 

I think this is a record low since I joined the challenge, and things do not look very promising for the next month, but I am getting better at balancing my time so there will be some positive numbers for this coming weekend. The Memorial Day holiday helped. There was a graduation and a memorial day picnic. We planted a tree in my back yard and put Zeus' ashes underneath it. I planted a few vegetables, and added watering them to my calendar to give me a better chance of having a good harvest this year.

Quilt Reveal: Be YOUnique

 This quilt was inspired by a quilt I saw in Quilts for Kids Nepal. It isn't affiliated with the U.S. version of Quilts for Kids. I wanted to make a folk art peacock quilt.

 

I won't show you that first progress picture, because you have seen it twice already. I started with a background that feels Indian to me, and I added a green strip to add some interest in the background. I love that they both echo the shapes even though the mood of each fabric is very different from each other. 

The original quilt had piecing in the border. While I liked the idea of adding piecing to my quilt, I wanted to do something that would get me to a finish faster, knowing that I have only small bits of time to quilt this month. I am also working on a full size quilt which should remain my main quilting work.

 

I cut out the peacock freely with scissors. I noticed that the thick legs looked like the chicken or duck that I had seen in a folk art quilt and decided to let them remain thick. It would be easier to sew it down and it retains the folk art aspect of the quilt..

I cut yardage to cut out the triangles for the tail, to avoid going through the rabbit trail that is the scrap fabric boxes. Plus, I am trying to use the good stuff.

I added some applique around the peacock because I can't keep things simple. 

I echo quilted it. I knew that I wanted to add some bling to the quilt, but decided to bind it first to keep the bling from getting in the way. I have bling so I have to use it.

 It was scary to do since the quilt looked fine as it was, especially since it had a binding, but I like the crown. I put sequins on the wing and there are some on the tail feathers too. When I was looking for quotes for a peacock, the only thing that I saw was about being unique.The sequins on the tail certainly make it unique.

 

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 18 and 19

 

I haven't found time for quilting the last couple of weeks. We have been offered overtime. Normally they say unlimited, and this year there is much more work to do, but this year, we have to ask for each little bit at a time.

15 minute days these two week --0 out of 14

15 minute days this year -- 108 out of 128 days

Success rate  = 84%

 

I have a silver dollars plant that decided to have purple flowers this year. They are normally white. So pretty.