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

-----------------------------------------------

"Little by little, one travels far."

J.R.R. Tolkien

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

-----------------------------------------------

"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

-----------------------------------------------

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

Winston Churchill

Pending Projects Moving Forward

This is the first of twelve scrappy low volume slabs measuring roughly 20" x 20" (or will be after being squared).

Lots and lots of smaller pieces from the stash were cut into 2.5" strips before being sub-cut into multiple shorter pieces that were then sorted into twelve piles.

In 2018 made a lot of low volume pillows in multiple sizes/shapes for our living room and sunroom.  Now, after countless trips through the washer/dryer, they're looking a bit worn and I am so over having to figure out which cover belongs on which form.

My new all-the-same-size pillow forms are 16" - my goal is to trim the quilted tops to an 18" square.  I'll make one pillow start to finish to be sure that plan is workable before moving ahead with the others.

Above are the first four finger pressed slabs waiting to be properly pressed.

I pulled out the pinned pairs for Scrumdifferous and have been using them as leader enders as the slabs are pieced.  At this point, all of the pinks and all of the aquas have been sewn.  

That leaves the blues, greens, and purples . . . pretty sure all of those (or nearly all) will be sewn by the time the remaining eight slabs are pieced.

One seam at a time.

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------

"Little by little one travels far."

J.R.R. Tolkien

Repurposing

Long ago I made a liberated log cabin quilt named Waste Not, Want Not.  Sadly, many of the batiks faded terribly and I used much of the quilt to make placemats plus the long section with my name into a runner.  The placemats have continued to fade but I have repurposed the one last survivor (shown here turned to the reverse side) into a utility mat for one of my Raskog cart trays.  

Another well-used placemat from younger son's apartment days was turned into a utility mat for his Raskog cart.  He uses this in the cart next to his meditation table to remind him to watch out for "squirrel brain" also known as "monkey mind."

This was a runner from his apartment.  The runner's length allowed me to make two utility mats. 

Both of us like the reverse side better especially since it is far less faded and visually more interesting.

When I played along with Lori from Humble Quilts' Quilts Madder sew-along I made a small quilt that didn't follow her directions much at all.  That little quilt, which no longer had a place to hang, has been trimmed down and is now a utility mat.  

When Vicki hosted her Drunkard's Path challenge in 2014, I made a runner that has been used on our cedar chest.  With the new seasonal mats, this one no longer had a purpose so it, too, has become a set of   two utility mats.

Two different bindings, but both mats came from that same runner.

This is the reverse side, which is also a fun look in the studio.

A few years back, I made a series of pillow covers for Autumn.  The tree covers have been donated to a good cause.  I turned two of the square-patch covers into utility mats.  The others were too small to make cart mats so they have been cut into two sets of mats to be used on younger son's bathroom vanity under his mug, soap bottle, mouthwash bottle, etc.  (the binding still needs to be finished on those sets).

The runner to cover my computer keyboard has been replaced with a runner made long ago by a friend that fits the situation better.  So this reversible runner has been repurposed into two utility mats.

In November 2019, the GREEN 2020 challenge was issued for the 2020 Davies Manor Quilt and Fiber Arts Show.  I made two 24" square quilts but the show was cancelled due to COVID.  The quilts had no other purpose so . . . 

Both of them have been cut down to yield four utility mats.  Now they have a purpose in life.

The off cuts from the two GREEN quilts were turned into a third set of small mats for younger son's bathroom.

And lastly, a "fall-ish" runner for the cedar chest (click here - near the end of the post) that no longer has a purpose so it was cut down into two utility mats.  This is one side . . . 

And this is the reverse side.

* * *

Yes, I made a lot of mats but I have several Raskog carts in the studio plus we have three in other parts of the house.  Not all of them have mats in their trays but the ones that needed a mat now have one.  Plus all those random unused quilted items are no longer taking up storage space.  Another benefit - I used up a LOT of leftover binding (no new binding was created for this project).  

This has been a win-win on every level.

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------

“That’s the thing about magic; you’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.”

Charles de Lint

Pillow Party

Three low volume pillows for my recliner

with liberated fans, wavy lines,

and woodgrain quilting designs.

Three pillows for one end of the couch

quilted with random swirls, pebbles in the stream,

and another style of liberated fans.

Three pillows for the other end of the couch

with woodgrain, crazy loose weave,

and a modified fan quilting design.

The first nine pillows were all backed with this

Eclectic Elements print from several years ago.

It was originally purchased to back a quilt

but had been passed over time and again

so using it for these pillows felt very good.

The gingham binding falls into that same category -

purchased long ago and finally used.

The final four pillows are for DH's recliner.

They were quilted with a liberated S-curve meander,

liberated fans and flowers, crazy loose weave,

and what was supposed to be waves and whitecaps

but mostly looks like wiggly lines and swirls.

And if you look closely at that last photo,

you can see the shadows of these upside-down

tomato cages that are protecting 

our newly sprouted daffodil shoots.

They won't bloom for a long time but seeing them return

is such a welcome and reassuring sight.

(. . . and the next time I mention 

whipping out a new set of pillow covers,

please remind me just HOW long it takes to

prep and sandwich the tops, quilt them, 

make the envelope backs, assemble, and bind them!)

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------
“The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent'.”
Alfred Brendel

Autumn Splendor - The Pillow Party

When all was said and done,

I made thirteen autumnal pillows.

Each top was pieced and quilted.

I cut more leftover fabric from the resource boxes

to serve as the pillow backs -

envelope style.

Each pillow was then bound with leftover binding

and when I ran out of suitable leftovers,

I made another nine WOF strips into binding

for the final five pillows.

Thirteen pillows times four corners each

equals fifty-two mitered corners.

That's a lot of binding!

This particular pillow is my "favorite' of the group.

I love the backing, the background behind the tree,

the binding, and the way the tree floats above its setting.

These three pillows are in the sunroom recliner

where DH likes to sit and listen to his audio books

or watch streaming videos on his tablet.

(the quilt on the back of the chair is Topsy Turvy,

with its back folded out)

These four reside on the right-hand end of our couch,

while these four live on the left-hand end.

(the quilt on the back of the couch is Cherie's Churn Dashes)

And the final two pillows are in my recliner.

(the quilt on the back of my chair is Plaidmania -

and on the quilt rack behind my chair 

you can see Metamorphosis, Breathtaking,

Retired, and Sixteen by Sixteen)

* * * 

And now, I am calling 

this particular pillow project 

D-O-N-E.

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------
"There's no pillow as soft as a clear conscience."

Glen Campbell