Hoping everyone had a terrific Independence Day. As the hot weather has taken hold, I find it
harder and harder to motivate. On the
night of the 4th, we had a short spurt of good hard rain, but it
just wasn’t enough. I feel like a giant
slug – getting bigger and bigger – as the sweat pours off of me. You would think I would lose at least some
water weight. Just doesn’t seem to be
happening. Then I read other blogs where
people are having beautiful weather that doesn’t go over 90º. I’m so jealous!
Despite
my misery (LOL), things are moving along, even though at a slower rate than I
like. Layla and I started making Harry’s
disappearing nine patch quilt, which is an I Spy quilt. I chose a few fabrics that were either solid
or looked solid from a distance –
And
then we started putting them together with fabrics that had been fussy cut to
show things to, well, spy! Here is the
first block before Layla sewed it together –
(Aren’t
those pretty darn cute kids?)
After
Layla got it together, and we pressed it, I cut it into quarters –
(My
design wall is not dirty – it just has a lot of fuzzy stuff all over it and
those are shadows.
However, the wall
around the light switch probably is a real mess!
Who has time to clean when there is quilting
to be done??!!)
Layla
did a really good job putting half of the big squares together, and I did the
other half. After they were all like
this in quarters, we laid them out on the wall and sewed the vertical rows
together –
There
are all kinds of cute stuff to look at, including rubber duckies – I had gotten
a small remnant of duckies that Harry has bugged me about since he first saw it
last year - I promised him we would put it in there! He is really loving how it is looking. I started putting the rows together, and I have
found a slight problem – Layla was working on my Singer Athena and I have been
using a Singer Quantum Stylist - we both had quarter inch feet on the machines,
but they were different kinds of quarter inch feet. I am finding some of the seams are not
matching up as I put the rows together, but it’s okay – it doesn't affect how Harry feels about it.
In
between working on that, I decided it was time to work with my first jelly roll. It is called Electric Feathers and
I got it from Missouri Star Quilt Company one day when it was the quilter’s daily deal –
I
am a freak for bright and bold colors, and this was right up my alley! I laid them all out to see what was what –
Aren’t
they gorgeous? They just seem to
glow. I have always wanted to make an
Around the World quilt and I thought they would be beautiful for that. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking ahead.
There
were 2 strips of each color and I cut each one in half so I wasn’t working the
entire selvage to selvage length. This
was my big mistake. I had 4 piles of strips that I sewed into
tubes and cut into new strips to make 2 pieces that each looked like this -
It’s fabulous, but
can you anticipate what the final 2 pieces will look like together? I wish I had –
I
had not considered all the variations throughout the fabric strips! If I had left them long instead of cutting
them apart, the color changes would not have been so obvious, and the center
would not have come out so weirdly compressed.
And it’s long – almost 6’, but only about 30” wide. It will be a wall hanging so size is really
no problem, and it is even interesting hanging horizontally. I don’t think I am crazy about the greens
that ended up at the top and bottom, so I may trim it off to look more like
this –
I
think it looks better this way – it looks closer to an Around the World quilt. I still like it, and I still love all the
colors, so it’s not a big issue. And I
learned something in the process, which is always a good thing.
And
that’s it for now. Trying to decide what
to do after Harry’s quilt is together.
Lots of options, just have to narrow it down.
Keep
cool! Thanks for stopping by!
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