Caught Up with Adrinka Blocks

I sewed the second round of triangles around my square. I decided to make this round the same as I did the last round, cut slightly bigger than I needed and then trim to size.  I cut the squares the same size as the outside square. In this photo, you can see the shiny gold on both of the African fabrics.

I've always liked the look of square in a square blocks . In fact, my very first quilt had them.  And I realized from the beginning that while I like the look, I don't really like making them. These weren't too painful though since they were cut big and there weren't many to make.

I then trimmed the squares to size. The resulting block shows less of that busy triangle fabric, which hopefully will let the applique stand out more. I know that the blue and the purple don't really match, but do they look okay together?


I stacked them all neatly. I realized that I had caught up with all of the Adrinka blocks, and since I had done all I could do on this BOM, I actually had a Finish for the month.

While I was trying to decide what to Finish next, I went to Debby's website and saw that she had released the August block.  I realize I have all month to make that one.

I am linking up to AHIQ sponsored by Kaja's Sew Slowly and Ann's Fret Not Yourself. In case you are wondering what is improv about this quilt, I have improvised the alternating blocks that started out as economy blocks.

July's Best Photos

Hello and welcome back to another month's worth of photos.  I look in my July folder and choose my favorite pics and share them with you.  I'm happy with this month's selection, and I hope you are too.  Tomorrow's photos will either be a separate post or may wind up being considered with the August batch

A little trip to the countryside.

Zeus explains the dangers of fireworks.

A mimosa tree. We found a little mimosa sapling in my backyard, so I may have one of these beauties of my own. I have to move it to a better location though.

A sculpture of children playing.

A view from a glass elevator.

Zeus finds a big pile of mulch.

A playground collage. This playground is the destination of all that mulch.

Linked to:
Wandering Camera - August

Adrinka Progress

In my last post, I showed you that I had caught up with this BOM. Instead of calling it finished (for  now) and moving on to another project, I decided to honor the Finish goal for this  year, and make the alternating blocks.

I checked several websites for the proper sizing of economy blocks.  I have a sheet that provides sizes but I have misplaced it.  There were several different sizes provided on the websites and I didn't know which one was correct, but I finally found one that provided the exact measurements and showed how she had rounded up. I decided to go with the rounded up measurements to be safe.  I counted the number of alternating blocks, thirteen, and started with the center square. All the websites were consistent about the center square.  I fussy cut the widths, but decided that I didn't have enough fabric to fussy cut the lengths too.

I was hoping to show you excitement in this post about how quickly these blocks go, since they can be chain pieced, assembly line. But I cut out the first set of triangles - 13 X 4 = 52. That's a lot of triangles for someone who hasn't made repeating blocks in a long while. I sewed them on.  I have to say that I really don't like using oversize pieces.  There is some laxness, since a lot of it can be trimmed off but then you do have to be careful at the part that will not be trimmed off.  Also those long triangle points tend to bunched up in the machine.

That was when I realized that I hadn't sized the original blocks. I had cut all the squares when making the first block, and I assumed they were 7 inch finished, but they aren't. They are smaller.  So now, instead of standard economy blocks, I will trim the corners of the yellow off and have a different kind of block. And I will have to do the math myself to figure it out. I don't want to waste my African fabric by making it too big and trimming it down.

I think it will still look pretty good that way though.

And no, I'm not going to take the tag off Schweetheart the Orangutan. One day, that Teenie Beanie Baby is going to be worth a fortune!  Besides, how would I know her name if I took the tag off?

Linked to Oh Scrap!

Adrinka Progress

I caught up with the Adrinka BOM.

All of these pieces have been appliqued down and are ready to put into a quilt.

I have been tempted by more new projects, but have kept busy working on moving the current projects along. This one is all caught up now, waiting for new blocks to be released once a month.  I did think I could start sewing the alternating blocks, though so I am not sure I am ready to call this set finished for the month.

Linked to:
Moving It Forward

June's Best Photos

It's time yet again for Wandering Camera, where we choose the best photographs from the month of June.  This month, I put the top 10 together into two collages.

 I offer you the usual sky shots, with a twist.  I generally tend to avoid wires in my sky pictures, and this time I decided to deliberately include wires.  I missed having a camera with me on the best cloud day - yes it was the best because my niece even took a picture of the clouds and put them on her Facebook page - but I did enjoy it thoroughly. I thought my neighbor's flag peeking through was appropriate for the patriotic holidays, and the clematis was a good representation of the flowers blooming in the yard.

This collage is mainly the grand reopening of the main public library.  They remodeled it. The picture in the upper left is a part of a photo lesson. The instructions were to take pictures at various segments to practice the rule of thirds, and to do closeups. If I am going to use a random object to take a lot of pictures, I figured I would use an interesting one!

Linked to Wandering Camera.

15 Seconds at a Time

For years, I have been telling people that they can make a quilt with just fifteen minutes at a time. Build up enough of these fifteen minute sessions, and your quilt is made!

Well, today I am here to tell you that this also works with just fifteen seconds at a time.  Truly, some of these blocks were made just fifteen seconds at a time.  I did manage to sneak in more time and eek out a whole fifteen minutes some days.

I decided to spare you and not blog about each fifteen seconds of activity, mostly because it would take quilting time away to photograph and blog about it, but I do have some results to show you now.  I am much happier with these blocks than the last batch I showed you.

Block 162

This one uses leftovers from an 1857 block.

Block 163

When I met with June, she gave me a baggie full of scraps for me to use in my circle project.  All of the fabrics in this block are from that baggie, and I am sure you will see quite a few more blocks using her fabric. Thanks June!

Block 164

This is also from June's fabric.  This was already pieced, so all I had to do was cut it into a circle. So easy!

Block 165

This is the one that makes me the most proud.  It truly was made 15 seconds at a time. Every time I walked by it, I felt compelled to do something else to it, and over time it switched from being an abstract oval into a little chick. All the fabrics are from the 1857 quilt. I still need to sew down the applique on this one and the next two.

Block 166

This one was inspired by a book that cut fabric like a paper snowflake and appliqued it onto a background.  Mine looks like nothing like that, but hey, there are circles in there! It looks vaguely like a face to me.

Block 167

This one is a leftover from the Adrinka block I made.  I decided to leave the shape as it was, and in case the circles in the fabric wasn't enough, I cut a couple more circles out. This one looks like a face to me too.

Adrinka Blocks

I have caught up with the Adrinka blocks.  If you notice, all of these have been sewn down. The center of the top left was block 167 of the circle quilt.

Garden

Here's a picture from my garden.  It may be shabby but I have planted some flowers and the rabbit came to inspect the changes I've made to his home. The dirt bed behind him is filled with flower seeds. I am looking forward to seeing more blooms.

My Favorite May Photos

This photo was taken the day I went to see Material Pulses and went through Bicentennial Park.  This is a memorial I passed along the way.

See the brick in the background? This is a historic area, and the streets are made out of brick.

The two photos above were taken the day June came to see me.  She was in Ohio and drove up to have lunch with me in German Village. It was a lot of fun to meet a fellow quilter.

I didn't think you would be able to recognize my blog without some gratuitous sky pictures. I took a short working trip to Chicago. I brought even more work for me to do now that I am back.