Friday, March 8, 2024

Just a little late

Hi all! How are you doing? I have been very busy, and very tired. It's possible I'm overworked. This makes me no different from anyone else, but I am certainly feeling it right now. Also, I went to two-- two!-- big gatherings where I interacted with many people, and my introversion kicked in big time afterward. You know how you just want to curl up sometimes by yourself and read a nice book? Just me? Well, okay, then. . .
 
There has been sewing but not posting! Part of that tiredness thing, you know? I did finally finish my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt top, and I could not be happier with it. Here he is:
 

 
Yes, this quilt is a he, but isn't he handsome?  And, as usual, he turned out to be very different from what I expected. But I'm still very happy with how it turned out!
 
The Stay at Home Round Robin is a project run by Quilting Gail and friends, and you should definitely go look at the finished quilts at the linkup! Everyone gets the same prompts but they all turn out so different. I skipped the last prompt for this project, which was 'letters and numbers,' and opted for the border instead. It worked for me!



I messed up on the almost-last round with the pinwheels. The prompt was 'four,' and pinwheels have four parts, so that worked. What didn't work is that the Accuquilt die that I used was mismarked. The half-square triangles were supposed to be 1-1/2 inch finished, which would have made 3-inch finished pinwheels. Nope, they were 1-inch finished. Adjust, adjust! A little cutting and it worked out okay. Hey, maybe I can pretend those dots are really Os and then I will have gotten the last prompt, too!



This little quilt finished at just about 50 by 54 and will eventually be quilted and donated. It's just the right size for a kid quilt and I think the ships will be captivating for some young person. And do you see what else is that picture? Daffodils are coming!

I said that I went to two people-intensive gatherings, and one of them was Quiltcon. What a show! I went with Preeti and met some lovely people (Hi Emily! Hi Michelle!) and saw a mess of really great quilts that are far beyond my abilities. I have just two pictures from Quiltcon to show, and they're not of quilts! 



This was a double rainbow from our window at the hotel. I feel lucky to have seen it, and even luckier to get a photo!
 

 
And finally, a lovely camelia. Spring is on the way! 

A great big thanks to Gail and Wendy and everyone involved with the SAHRR. It was fun and a really nice quilt came out of it. And everyone have a great weekend! I'm off to finish grading some midterms, and then it's pizza for dinner. I love it when that happens!
 
Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique, and the final SAHRR linkup at Quilting Gail.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Another round for the house

 Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday! Halfway through the week, so everything after this is heading for the weekend. It is very loud here at my house right now. They are finally fixing the floor after our roof leak and there is a lot of pounding. There are four guys here and they all have hammers or nail guns. I know it will be worth it, but I really need somewhere to hide.

I have put another round on my stay at home round robin! This is a project by Quilting Gail and friends, and I think this is its third year. It's my third year, anyway. Here is the current status of my project:



Okay, it's looking better than I thought it would! I usually have no confidence in how things will turn out when I start them, other than 'that might be pretty.' This week's prompt was 'square in a square blocks,' and you can see mine right there in the corners. I started with the ships in the center and I'm pretty happy so far with how the rounds are turning out. And I'm really happy that those ships are getting used in something! I had so many ideas for them, but none actually came to pass, so I'm happy they are being used here.



Last week's prompt was triangles, but I really thought I had enough triangles in this little quilt already. Instead I added the golden yellow spacers to the top and bottom and decided to use the star fabric for whatever the next round was. The stars were left over from another backing, so so far everything here is a leftover or scrap. The blue square in a square blocks made great cornerstones and they also go nicely with that pretty yellow. 



At this point, my little quilt measures 42 inches square. Wait, what? How did that happen? I don't know, but here we are. There are two more rounds to go, so I think I will end up with a very nice toddler quilt, perfect for donation. 

Whatever the next prompt is, I'm ready! Hope your week is going well, and I hope the hammering is done soon. Then I will have a floor again!

Sharing at Songbird Designs for the SAHRR.

Friday, February 9, 2024

Still brown, but bright

 Hello all! How was your week? We had a decent week here. The weather has been more like spring than winter, though you can see from the pictures that we still have that winter landscape. I am really starting to long for spring, even though we have not had a very harsh winter. We're starting to get longer days, though, and the extra light is making me happy. I am looking forward to some serious sunshine not so long from now.

And in this still-brown winter landscape I have a very green quilt to show off! It's a bright spot, that's for sure. Take a look:


Is that not bright and happy? And scrappy as all get out, too.


I made this quilt last year during the purple month for the rainbow scrap challenge at Angela's blog. Just about every bit of it, including the backing, is a leftover or a scrap. I started out with the plan to use up all those leftover purple 4-patches. Long ago, I started to make Bonnie Hunter's En Provence pattern and instead ended up finishing it (much later) as THIS quilt. But it's the quilt project that keeps on giving, because this is the fourth quilt that has used up the pieces that I made for that quilt. Gosh I hope all those pieces are gone now!


If you notice, the green in the current quilt is the leftovers from the backing of the main quilt. I had to stitch some bits together to get it all to work, but it did work! I love this green and I think it works so well with those purple 4 patches. The backing is the final pieces of backings left over from other projects. I did cut the binding from a half yard I had, mainly because I was feeling too lazy to piece one together from scraps. Ah, well.


This was quilted in a nice swoopy design by Alycia, who did a great job, as always. It just ties all those weird bits together in a really nice way. Her blog is really interesting, too.

See that blue tarp on my neighbor's roof? A tree fell on it and there is a ton of damage, as you can tell from the size of the tarp.

So that's my bright spot in a brown, dreary February! I love how this turned out and am happy to have used up those purple 4-patches at long last. Now I can stop feeling guilty about them! That's as good a reason as I've ever heard for making a quilt.

Hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing weekend. I hope I do, too! I'll be packing up stuff and moving furniture so that we can finally have the floors repaired after the roof leak in December. I can't wait!



Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Quilting, Patchwork, Applique.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Two rounds

 Hello all! How have you been? I'm doing okay. Classes are well underway and I'm already giving quizzes. Yeah, I'm that kind of professor. And hey-- apparently I'm in Blogger jail! I can't comment on any Blogger blogs. I just tried and it first refuses to 'sign me in' (even though I'm already signed in) and then when I try the other ways it tells me either that my comment failed or that I'm insecure. Okay, maybe the comment is insecure. It's unclear. So I'm sorry that I haven't commented on your lovely creations! Anyone know how to get out of this, or is it just a 'wait it out' kind of thing?

Anyway, all I've had time to work on for the last few days is the Stay at Home Round Robin from Quilting Gail and friends. Here's where I am after two rounds:


The first round, from Wendy, was the signature blocks, I made three sides in red and the bottom in blue. Do those blue ones not look like choppy seas? I added the green borders just to bring everything up to a 'normal' size. It was 36-1/2 by 26-1/2 after that first round.
 

 
Wondering about that odd red thing in the center of the upper red row? I couldn't make the math work for the red signature blocks to fit properly, so I made a piece a little bigger than the other blocks to fit in the middle and space everything out so it looked decent. I didn't really figure on the nice way it fits with the signature blocks, but it works!



The prompt for the second round was 'two colors' and I thought this was a great opportunity to use some leftover quarter square triangle blocks. The blues aren't as light as they look in the picture, and we can just pretend they're fog rolling in to the harbor or something. These blocks are 4 inches finished and I am so thrilled to use them up. 

So that's where this project stands! I'm hoping to stitch some things this weekend, and maybe send off another quilt top for quilting. Or maybe I'll just put my feet up and read a book until I figure out how to get to make comments again. Have a great weekend everyone!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup and Finished or Not Friday.