And I've Been Sewing Too!

The day of the beautiful sunset was the day I finished sewing the half square triangles together into six inch blocks. Yesterday I cleared the design wall, consulted my chart, and started putting up blocks. It didn't take long to run out of room. What you see below is nearly my whole wall but only the center of what will be the quilt top.


I do want/need to be careful to distribute my neutral backgrounds evenly across the quilt. The purples and greens pretty much took care of themselves. In the end I decided to just sew up the central portion of the quilt and hope for the best from there.

Once I had that column constructed I was able to shift it over to make room for the left side of the quilt top.

As of this writing I have this end partially assembled. Once I finish that I'll be able to shift everything to the left to get the right end of the quilt organized. I have my fingers crossed that the blocks that are leftover will all play together nicely. It won't be fun to try to rearrange the placement of blocks at this point! (In fact, it might be easier to just go out and buy more of whatever neutral I need and make new blocks!)

Don't forget, any comments left between now and Valentine's Day will get you entered into a drawing for my beaded Love Token. :- )

Spectacular Color

These are a few shots from our back deck the other night. The colors were breathtaking. All my favorites were in the sky: pink and orange and yellow...


Topped off by purple streaked with pink.



My photography does not do it justice but it's better than nothing.


I hated to see the show come to an end.

Two Projects

I don't remember whether I showed Janet's Intuition block. I've had it on my design wall for probably close to a week (or maybe even longer) but haven't really given it a lot of attention. The oranges are really popping in the photograph. They aren't quite that bright in person.


She left some bits untrimmed to give me freedom to do whatever felt appropriate. It just so happened that I still had an intuitive block of my own on the wall. Just for kicks I tried it next to Janet's block:

It's amazing to me how well they blend together. so then I tried it another way:

I quite like that too! At this point I have no idea whether I'll go with either of these or whether I'll do something else altogether. I have another screaming headache this morning (when will this ever end????!) so I expect to do nothing more strenuous than sewing half square triangles together. This is the plan for Son-In-Law's quilt:

After I cut a pile of light and dark triangles I thought it might be wise to at least sketch out the quilt plan to see whether I had enough or too much of either of the colors. I have enough; how the distribution of prints falls out remains to be seen. I'll probably stick to the green and purple bands as I have them colored in the drawing.

Another irony is that this is precisely the type of quilt I avoided making in my early days of quiltmaking. The patches are huge by my standards (the half square triangle blocks will finish at six inches) and the piecing will border on boring. Fortunately I need boring right now. And even if my head weren't such an issue it would be easier to pay attention to what's going on in Egypt and the rest of the world while sewing and not be concerned about making a stupid mistake.

New Beginnings

I feel as though I've been in kind of a fog lately. I think it's lifting.

Looking back it would seem that I have been in serious need of inspiration. The kind you get from a trip out of town or by taking a class. DD and I took the twins to a Build A Bear Workshop for their first birthday - not that they had a clue what it was all about but DD and I sure enjoyed ourselves. I hadn't realized how hungry I was for visual stimulation until later that day when we made a brief visit to a Target as well. So much color! So many new things! The best part was that while I did suffer for the excursion it could have been so much worse.

I have been reading fiction and looking at digital versions of magazines that feature the work of doll makers and mixed media artists. I can see now that I have been refilling my well. Evidence that it is working manifests as a plan for a quilt for my SIL's birthday. There's no way I can get it finished and in his hands by his birthday but the fact that I finally have a plan is heartening. I'm hoping that I'll be able to use a good many of the batiks I already own in his quilt but I did have to go out to get some lights:

This will be an easy, mindless project. (She says, thereby inviting trouble.) At least in the beginning. In fact, I will probably use the half square triangle units as leaders and enders while I work on Janet's Intuition Quilt. Before that can happen I have to do a good bit of tedious cutting. Ah, but tomorrow there's a whole line up of radio programs to listen to while I work!

Merry February

I sort of went on a reading retreat over the last few days. I've read my Nook into the red zone at least twice. But I did finish embellishing my piece for January's "white" challenge. Then I backed it and turned it:

Talk about a challenge! In fact, I had to stop midway and make myself take a few deep breaths. Mostly it turned okay but there were a few beads that loosened up during the process. That was discouraging. I tightened up the ones I could.

Still, I think it turned out fairly well. It looks really nice against Janet's intuitive block. :- )

What I'd like to do is offer up this love token to one of my readers in a give away. Leave me a (nice!) comment on this post or on any other post I make between now and February 14. On that day I will put everyone's name in a drawing once for each comment you've left. You don't need to have a blog to enter, you just need to have a valid email address so I can contact you for a mailing address when you win. ;- )