September Monthly Recap

September was a month filled with pondering, planning, stash shopping, and stitching.

Studio Squirrels Exhibit A  - the quilt top and scrappy pieced backing for Ludiosis were started and finished, neither of which were seriously on the radar until after the first of the year.

The long-planned set of twelve new pillows achieved a major milestone with the top slabs stitched and the batting and backing for those slabs cut.  Next month I'll get them sandwiched, quilted, and trimmed to size before cutting any of the pillow envelope backing pieces.   The goal is to have them in use by early November.

The vacuum sealed pillow forms were released from their packages and are expanding while the rest of the process proceeds.

Exhibit B for the studio squirrels is Candy Corn - a gift project that saw a quilt top and a finished quilt started/completed during the second half of September.

Exhibit B-Part 2 is the long runner made using the three extra columns from Candy Corn.  

On the intentional side of things, Rastro (the second bonus quilt from the Macnas series) became a finished quilt.

Githerments, the third bonus quilt from the Macnas series, was pin basted and is ready for quilting/binding in October with thread chosen and bobbins wound.

Motley, the fourth bonus quilt top from the Macnas series, was donated to Many Hands and Many Hearts along with yardage I had planned to use for binding.

September saw plans come together and significant prep work for several sets of seasonal utility mats and placemats.  

The squares cut for December's set of reversible utility mats (posted here) have now been sorted into groups for 5 top slabs and 5 back slabs ready for piecing.  Batting and binding strips were also cut.

(Above) Six 

tops (gray print), six backs (spotted black), and six pieces of batting were cut this month with lots of binding made for a second 

set of January placemats.  

I pulled this gathering of pieces from the resource boxes to make a companion set of five utility mats for January.

The scrappy tops will be pieced using these fabrics and the backs will be cut from companionable yardage (pulled but not shown).

I finished this pair of gift pillowcases on the 29th making them the last project of September.

Finally - squirrel Exhibit C - introducing Dug.

* * *

Stay tuned for lots more stitching/quilting/binding during October. 

Quiltdivajulie

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"Little by little, one travels far."

J.R.R. Tolkien

Candy Corn - the Quilt

The gift quilt for Young Man's house is done and it even has a tiny label.

Quilted with Glide thread in Raven (supersize to see the purple stitching) using my liberated all-over nested spiral fans.

Candy Corn measures 51" x 70" for the month of October on their living room ottoman.

(details on design and fabrics are here)

The binding is a Paula Nadlestern print with tiny dots and scattered stars in green and shades of orange.  It plays well with the colors in the quilt and adds a bit of sparkle around the edges.

I found the high contrast colors had not always been true in some of my photos so here is the quilt against our backyard grass which is still green but will start moving towards khaki before long.

Backed with spiderwebs on soft black that pre-washed with no bleeding at all.

To be gifted sometime this week. 

* * *

Candy Corn was a mid-September squirrel project that was, amazingly enough, completed three days before the end of September.

Next up is a pair of pillowcases for younger son's bed.  They're cut out and ready for me to sit and sew.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos."

Saul Bellow

Welcome to the Studio

Welcome to the studio, Dug.

Given that he's the one who uttered "Squirrel!" in the movie UP, it seemed only fitting that he join up with my studio squirrels.

(birthday present from younger son who gets my squirrel-y sense of humor)

I used the three extra columns from Candy Corn and turned them into a 15" x 70" runner for our dining room buffet as part of our October seasonal decor.  

Quilted with Glide thread in Raven (deep purple) using closely spaced uneven wavy lines.

Candy Corn is now pin basted and the bobbins for Max are wound.

The goal is to get this one quilted and finished so it can be gifted during Sunday's family dinner. 

* * *

This was my "big" birthday present from DH . . . I haven't even begun to figure out all the things it can do but I have managed to customize the screen photos using several of my own pictures.  

One step at a time.

Quiltdivajulie

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"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things."

Henry Ward Beecher

Rastrophiliopustrocity aka Rastro - the Quilt

This is Rastro crumpled on the sewing table just after I finished sewing down the binding.

I can't tell you how much I ADORE everything about this quilt!

Rastro (for short) is the second of the Macnas series bonus quilts designed to use up more leftover rectangles from earlier quilts in the series.

(Rastrophiliopustrocity - noun meaning a spontaneous combustion of creative spark followed by action in order to manifest and bring into existence)

In case you didn't notice them in the photo above, do supersize these photos and check out the amazing early morning clouds in that beautiful light blue sky.

(I took quite a few more photos of those clouds to save for drearier days)

I couldn't resist this shot with the flamingo picnic tablecloth clip and the flamingo fabric beneath it.

(and yes, I did sew the binding on using hot pink thread)

I am thrilled with how the Philip Jacobs Peony and Chrysanthemum backing originally intended for Motley suits Rastro.

(Motley's top was donated to Many Hands and Many Hearts)

Quilted using Glide thread in Graphite and my liberated free motion nested spirals.

51" x 71" 

* * *

After Sunday's family dinner, as he was lighting the candles on my birthday cake, Young Man asked how old I was. 

"MeeMah!  The two numbers in your age equal my ten!"  

Gotta love how he looks at things.

Quiltdivajulie

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"The artist is the one who recaptures that child-like fascination with the world."

Rick Rubin

Candy Corn - the Flimsy

The Luminescent Leaves print (Ann Lauer for Benartex) used in the backing for Ludiosis was released in multiple color ways.  

Tuesday morning as I put away the remaining fabrics from making Ludiosis, I realized that this purple, green, orange, and black version of that print would be perfect for an October/Halloween ottoman quilt for Young Man's Family (a wish quietly thought out loud by elder son back when Ruska was gifted).

The purple (Alluring Butterflies, also by Ann Lauer) and orange (Button Mosaic, Kaffe Fassett Collective) yardage have been stashed for too long.  The too-perfect binding was already made having been abandoned from some previous project.

So YES, this quilt NEEDED WANTED to be made NOW.

By Thursday afternoon the top was sewn, pressed, and pinned on the design wall.

I used the 3-Hour Baby Gingham Quilt free download from Fat Quarter Shop and altered the tutorial's approach to suit the size I needed (55" x 70").

Straightforward cutting, lots of paired strip sets pressed to the dark, 14 very long sub-cuts, followed by ten long nested seams.

(I previously used this tutorial when making Merry and Bright)

This on-sale backing is on order and due here early week so there's a pretty good chance I will have Candy Corn quilted and ready to gift by the end of September.  

Candy Corn (named by younger son) most definitely qualifies as a total squirrel project.  

Plus there are three extra long vertical columns to play with - yet another seasonal squirrel waiting in the wings.

Rastro has been pin basted and is about to be quilted.  The pin basting pool noodles are empty and ready for Candy Corn as soon as the spiderweb backing arrives.

And slowly, a few at a time, I've been fusing these smallish pieces of sari silk onto tricot interfacing so they're ready for action when their time eventually comes.  The wide backing the un-fused silks are resting on is a 2025 print by Alison Glass for Andover.   

I've named this project Silfira (noun meaning "silent fire - an inner, quiet confidence that doesn't need to be loud to be powerful").

 

* * * 

Looking back over this post I realize once again how true the opening words from my profile in the sidebar really are:   "Liberated. Eclectic. Colorful. Scrappy. These four words encompass who I am as a quilt maker."

Quiltdivajulie 

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"Creative people don't relax. We just change projects."

Jaya Lakshmi

Ludiosis - the Flimsy

In this photo, the top for Ludiosis is sewn, partially pressed, and hanging over the upstairs balcony alongside its scrappy backing.

I am SO happy to see how well the two sides suit each other.  I thought they would but we all know how doubt creeps in around the edges.

(LUDIOSIS - noun meaning the sense that you're just making it up as you go along)

As seen from the downstairs perspective in the late afternoon light.  

I don't usually press all seams open but I did for these blocks since they would end up being rotated as needed during layout.  

This is what the back side of the top looked like after its final pressing.

This is the front of the top after pressing.  

The finished flimsy on the design wall - 52" x 72"  

There were well over 100 different fabrics used during the making of these 4" blocks.  All of them came from the resource boxes (fabrics less than 1/4 yard), leftover binding strips, excess cutting from previous projects, and unused blocks from other quilt tops (including some gifted by Lynne).  The narrowest strings were cut at 3/4" and the widest pieces 3"

I calculated at one point that if all 234 4.5" pieced blocks had been laid end to end, the total measurement would be have been 1,053 inches (equal to 29.25 yards) long.  That's a lot of happy scrappy goodness.

The first photo (and the top 2-3 rows in this photo) show the most accurate colors.  I can't wait to get Ludiosis quilted and outdoors in natural light for more true-to-real-life photos.

Quiltdivajulie

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"No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere."

Sheryl Crow

Studio Squirrels At Work

In the last post, I mentioned my dilemma for backing Rastro.  

The large scale floral in this photo was intended to back Motley (the fourth Macnas series bonus quilt).  After weeks of dithering, I finally decided that Motley, the top, will be donated to Many Hands and Many Hearts so it can become a comfort quilt.  

That decision left the floral yardage available and, truth be told, I like it better for Rastro than either of the other scrappy pieced backing options.

There wasn't enough yardage to match the design along the center seam so I inserted a strip of Kaffe Fassett 's 2021 Moss Flower.  

And now there are two freshly pressed backings hanging on the balcony - Rastro's on the left and the one for Ludiosis on the right.  (both are approximately 62" x 84").

And speaking of Ludiosis, despite my earlier statements about setting the blocks aside for later, this has become a full-on project (thank you, studio squirrels).  

I simply had to put some of the blocks up on the design wall to reassure myself that my plan would work.  Happily, there's definitely enough potential to keep going.  As of Thursday evening, I need only another 30-40 blocks before I can take these off the wall and start on the real layout.  

I'm very glad I did not follow the tutorial's suggestion to sew everything into one massively long strip before pressing and trimming individual blocks.  I've had so much fun adding the narrow cut off edges into the fabric mix and trimming the 4.5" blocks a little along.

* * *

With another ten days with temperatures in the high 90s predicted, I'm hopeful this run of available studio time continues.

Quiltdivajulie

Moving Ahead

I will need an empty design wall in the coming days meaning I needed to deal with the scrappy backing fabrics for Ludiosis.  Some of these vertical seams are sewn with others waiting to be stitched.  

(thanks again Lynne for the HSTs)

Ludiosis will need a back 62-64 inches wide by 84" long, so I'll quickly be able to tell how much I need to add to each side.  I've already realized there isn't enough of the single fabric I had hoped to use but that just means I get to go shopping in the stash.

I did finish leader-ender stitching the first seams for the blocks of Scrumdifferous and am well into making scrappy blocks for Ludiosis.  That 4.5" block count is somewhere between 50-60 now of the nearly 300 needed.  This has become my evening play-time stitching project.

All twelve pillow slabs have been pieced and pressed.  Batting has been cut for each of them along with an assortment of backing squares from the stash.  

Getting to this point really feels like a milestone for the project.  I know there's still quilting, making envelope-style flaps, assembly, and binding the completed covers - but somehow those don't seem nearly as daunting as what's already been done.

When I ordered the new 16" pillow forms, I was surprised to find they now come vacuum packed (the bottom five layers = 10 forms).  

I opened one package upon arrival (the two normal-looking inserts on top) and now it is time to open up the rest of them.

I mentioned needing an empty design wall soon and this box of fabrics left from previous backings is why.  I had thought that they would become the pieced backing for Rastro (one of the Macnas bonus quilts) which I hope to quilt and finish by the end of September.

But then I looked back through my photos for the project and saw this one. There are some of those fabrics I used up but there are others I still have.  

Hmmmmm . . . now I need to pull out the remaining pieces from that second photo and ponder how I want to proceed.  And given my history, most of you can guess where this is going :-)

As Dory would say, "Just keep swimming stitching!"

Quiltdivajulie

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"And the dandelion does not stop growing because it is told it is a weed.  The dandelion does not care what others see.  It says, "One day, they'll be making wishes upon me."

B. Atkinson

More Pillow Slabs and Squirrels

There are only two more pillow top slabs to piece before I press all twelve and square them so they're ready to pin baste.

However - the studio squirrels have been busy distracting me.

Backstory - I've been stashing leftovers and gifted pieces and parts for the past year or so and sorted them into several potential projects over the past six weeks.  

This particular group was set aside to become the scrappy backing for a quilt project I named LUDIOSIS (noun - "the sense that you're just making it up as you go along").

(includes backing fabrics from Kefi, Xanadu, and Fandango plus HSTs gifted by Lynne during her new-flooring-induced studio clean out)

Now the HSTs are sewn into columns (shown here folded in half), and the also-folded-in-half leftover backing strips are pinned to the design wall.  

The water lily print from Repose may or may not make the 'Final Cut' and the same is true for the floral backing from Kefi.  Very much in the still-thinking-about-it phase. 

The overall plan is to get this scrappy backing sewn together and hung in the waiting to be quilted closet.  That way the back will be ready when the quilt top is done and pin basting is imminent.

This photo shows the jumbled contents of a second project box for the quilt top including leftover bindings, Macnas series rectangles, tumblers and extra blocks from Lynne, and strips from a number of  previous projects.

And now I have this - a tall stack of cafeteria trays containing those random leftovers cut into uniform 4.5" widths by an array of lengths.

The tray on top holds stacks of newly-sewn strip sets with the next addition pinned so I can use these as leader enders once the last 10-15 Scrumdiffereous pairs are sewn.  

My inspiration came from the 2023 Scrap Happy Quilt tutorial by Gigi's Thimble.  That said, I am not going to sew all of my 4.5" pieces into a massively long strip like she did (been there, done that with the Dumpster Diving quilts).  Instead, I am sewing groups of pieces together, trimming out 4.5" blocks, then adding any usable cut offs to the trays of available segments.

This green basket on top of the stacked trays contains close to 40 finished 4.5" blocks.  I need nearly 300 for my 54" x 72" plan, meaning there's lots more sewing, pressing seams open, and trimming ahead.

* * *

So I don't loose total control to the squirrels, once all of the blocks for Ludiosis are made I'll use Cathy's SAR (some assembly required) approach and put them back in the project box to be turned into a top after the last three Macnas bonus quilts are finished.  

Quiltdivajulie

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"It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything."

Winston Churchill