Yellow Post Christmas Holiday

When I scheduled time off for the holidays back in October, I imagined a week of sewing projects.

Instead, I got to wear my Naughty Pirate Boots to a Christmas party.

Watched the Boise State Bowl game with my husband and mom at Jack's Man Cave Garage.

Since my brother was coming, I made plans to paint the kitchen.  He has a long standing tradition of planning home improvement projects when siblings show up at his house.  Turn about is fair play.   This is him trying to teach my husband how to make Grandma Rudolph's Eggnog.

Which coincidentally matches the color of the new kitchen.

He also made hummus...which also matches the paint.

It took 2 coats of primer to cover the dark green, so I'm quite pleased that we got this done in 3 days (with plenty of time off to eat and drink while waiting for paint to dry.)

 The yellow pillow cases that I didn't quite finish were supposed to go home with Larry.  Here they are a day late.

Inside each square is a different free motion filler design.  This includes McTavishing, Matrix, Echo Arches, Swirl, lines & pebbles and a squarish stippling.  Paisleys (my favorite to do) between in the sashing.

 The back side has some of the same patterns but every-other strip left un-quilted.

Case 2 is a continuation of the design of the other so it coordinates but is not an exact match to the other.

The band at the opening are long strips with straight line quilting.

Back side has Matrix on the right and left point, and Pebbles on the top and bottom, surrounded by a few rows of varigated yellow straight line stitching.

My intention is for the cases to hang out with this quilt, which was Di's "Bride's Quilt".  

Rumor has it, however, that she has been "saving" this quilt not using it.  Bad Girl.  This is a utilitarian quilt made to be used.  Machine wash warm and tumble dry.  If you wear it out, I promise to make you a replacement.

Quick Update

I managed to finish one corner of the quilt with the new fill.   Gave it a quick spritz to remove the marking lines as I was desperate to see what it was going to look like. The good news is that I like it a lot.  It adds a great deal of interest to the big blank areas where I was forever tempted to add more applique.  The bad news is that it's a lot of stitching and with the dark thread, every wiggle and wonky stitch is visible.  But I'm not going to worry about that since you can't really see the stitching unless you are a foot away.

This and That

Went out to breakfast and a ride through the back-roads and hills in Boise County, enjoying a light dusting of snow and Ponderosa Pine trees.  Stopped in Crouch to pick up some pretty fabrics.  My original stack was much smaller, but then I found out it was 40% off so I went back for more.

I have the straight line stitching done on what will become 2 pillow cases.  Next step is FMQ...still deciding which fills.

And after much debate and multiple patterns drawn and erased, I finally committed to a background fill for the Heart's Infatuation quilt  I opted for a Sashiko inspired diamond quilted with magenta thread on the white background.   As you might guess from all the extra lines, that was a last minute change after I had started with a triple line grid.  Hope I don't regret that later.

Talked with my mom last night and she is thinking that her next international trip (she takes 2 a year) may be to return to Australia.  I tried to convince her that I am well known down under (to certain blog reading quilters) and should go with her.  So...when should we go?  Spring or Fall?

Panel 1

One panel finished.  There are a couple places where the points don't match up perfectly, but overall I'm pretty pleased.  This piece is 20" x 28" and will be one side of a pillow case.  My current plan is to make 2 cases with this pattern on one side and a different pattern in the same fabrics on the other side.  Actually, the other panel won't be an exact match to this...I will continue the pattern from what is the bottom edge in this picture so they won't be matchy-matchy.

This is not moving as quickly as I'd like, as the head cold I am fighting is making me a little fuzzy.  A half gallon of herbal tea, a couple adult beverages and a lot of sleep seems to be holding it at bay.

But on the other hand, this error (of course it was right in the CENTER of the panel) supports the theory that I'm less than 100%.  I managed to knock about 10 blocks off the design wall while I was removing them to sew and it appears I'm not as clever as I think I am.

Teaser

I have managed a week-day off with the house to myself.  I have most of the chores done and I pulled out those HST I posted about last week.

I used some thumb tacks to put a piece of flannel up on the wall so I actually have a piece of "design wall" instead of "design floor".   It's about 4" too narrow for this project...but still...

This is a variation of the layout that I used for my Citrus Squares quilt which was in turn a variation of Jackie's at Canton Quilt Work. 

And I am still quilting away on the Hearts Infatuation.

Progress is easier to see on the back side.


Unfortunately, I feel a cold coming on.... may not have any progress to brag about this weekend.

HST

I know that I said I was working on finishing up UFOs.  But my brother is coming to my house for Christmas.  He's one of those people that you can't buy anything for because he just buys what he wants when he wants to.

I cut strips 3" wide in yellow and misc white on white fabrics.  I marked them with 3" squares and one diagonal line.

Then I sewed 1/4" on either side of the line.

My dad used to always point out that you figure out the best way to do a project just as you are finishing up.  I was pretty pleased with myself when I figured out  about a quarter of the way in that I could line up several strips at a time and sew across all of them.

I found that it worked best to work on 2 sets at a time so I didn't have any thread tails (left one set on the machine while I positioned the other).  It would probably work even better if all the strips were the same length, but I was using stash fabrics.

I know that there are people who like getting into a rhythm with piecing.  I'm not one of them.  I hate piecing.

One thing I have learned, however is how critically important pressing is.  Time spent pressing at every stage of the sewing process saves me hours of angst and disappointment later.

I am also a trimmer.  My lack of patience at the machine can be fixed with a rotary cutter.   The formula for HST is 7/8" larger than your desired finished size.  For example, if you want a 2" finished square, you would start with a strip 2 7/8".  I add 1" and make my diagonal line stitching at a scant 1/4" so I have wiggle room for trimming to 2.5".

It's a little more waste, but worth my sanity.

I'm about half way finished with the trimming.

Here's a hint about what the finished product will look like.