Moving Enchanted Forward

Macnas series no. 9 - Enchanted - has been waiting in the wings long enough (these pairs were sewn leader-ender style back in July).

Next step in the process was to sort all of the pairs into stacks by the darker color.

I ran out of room on the narrow black table so the others were stacked on my sewing table.

There are 31 different "darks" and at least that many different black and white prints.

I then sorted the stacks, one right after the next, onto 18 plates (one for each row in the quilt top).

I'll need 13 pairs per row and there are 14 pairs on each plate.  The ones leftover will go into the project box destined for the three bonus quilts that will come out of this series sometime next year.

The owl fabric will be used to back Enchanted when the time comes.

* * *

I've come to grips with the fact that my self-imposed goal to have the 12 quilt series completed by year end is NOT going to happen.

  

Four are finished, the fifth is pin basted, three more are at quilt top stage, Enchanted is number 9, and the remaining three plus the bonus quilts will simply have to happen when they happen (likely next year).

It's all good.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Expectations are resentments under construction."

Anne Lamott

Ready for the Die Cutter

I decided to do something about this box of low volume fabrics.  

What if I make an all-low-volume tumbler quilt?

So I spent a few hours cutting squares for my 4" tumbler die.

This is roughly half of the 350+ squares.

And this is the other half.

And as I was cutting, I remembered the stash of gifted low volume squares left after making Spoondrift so I added those into the mix - better to use them than continue to store them.  

(note - both of the quilt tops/backs in the linked post are still waiting to be quilted . . . hopefully before yet another year goes by)

I think I'll name this project REPOSE (noun - a disposition free from stress).

Quiltdivajulie

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"Art is the soul of the whisper of the cloud on the horizon."

Peter William Brown

Blame the Squirrels

All I can say is THE SQUIRRELS MADE ME DO IT.

(I've added photos of my studio squirrels Chase, Hunter, Mischief, and Flash in the blog's sidebar)

I have been harvesting words for the longest time to use in my journals so I guess it was inevitable that I would eventually cut those words into individual letters . . . 

I'm using glassine envelopes to contain the cut out letters.  

I cut a bunch then sort them into their respective envelopes.  

It's a good evening project when my brain is tired or there's too much chaos to focus on fabric.

I chose a 5" x 8" mixed media paper blank journal and fancied up the front cover with this page from a recent magazine (not sure which one, sorry).

The large ABC came from a printer test page.

Another magazine page graces the inside front cover.

I've left a few blank pages at the beginning so I can go back and create a ransom letter title page once the journal itself is closer to being "done."

The two-page spread with "A" is  filled - this is page 1.

And this is the second of the two pages.

Page 1 for the letter "B" and . . . 

page two.  Clearly I still need to fill in the open spaces after more harvesting and cutting.

The letter "O" - page 1.

Letter "O" - page 2.  

I've created the beginnings of the two-page spreads through the letter "Q" meaning there are only a few more two-page spreads to get started.

I'm still debating how to handle the letters "X-Y-Z."   

So far the plan is to combine them into one spread but time will tell.

Another magazine page covers the inside back cover's blank cardboard.

And this magazine page serves perfectly as the back cover.

* * *

So where am I finding the eclectic mix of letters for this journal?

Magazines, brochures, catalogs, assorted forms of junk mail, packaging of all sorts, and my thrifted stash of sheet music and pre-school books.  Like Lynne's post the other day, letters are everywhere if we just pay attention.

Like squirrels burying nuts, there's no specific deadline for this project.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

Twyla Tharp

Checking In

I've been busy all week but I don't have any photographic evidence to share.

Quite a bit of time went into our 2023 tax prep.  My part is done now and the papers are in the hands of our CPA (fingers crossed for a better result than we had last year).

More time went into the clean up that followed.  That darn paper tiger does not rest, even when I'm busy.

With the passing of St. Patrick's Day and the so-short two-week window of time before Easter, our seasonal decor jumped from leprechauns and shamrocks to "spring" sans bunnies and eggs.   

And then there have been several outings with younger son and/or DH to do this or that.  

As far as sewing - zip, zero, zilch.  

I did find a couple of hours two evenings to work on my Yellow-Orange ROYGBIV journal (glue book).  The pages are now prepped - ready and waiting for me to add the fun stuff.

I also made up my mind how to move forward with the second Rolodex which meant sorting and filing/tossing the bits and pieces from my original plan to make two-color cards.  

For now, the second Rolodex project is being called In the Mailbox.

My thoughts are to collage the blank white cards front and back with things like postage stamps, printed postmarks, zip code stickers, words and images cut from our junk mail, coupons from the weekly flyers, insides of security envelopes, bits of handwritten letters, sections of greeting cards, USPS logos, "do not bend" labels, scraps from happy mail, and so on.  Time will tell if my thoughts become reality that can be photographed and shared.

Young Man will be spending most of this weekend with us so I hope to have some fun photos to share on Monday (probably not anything fabric or paper related though).

Be back next week . . . 

Quiltdivajulie

Looking Ahead after Looking Around

January is a time when I pretty much stop what I'm doing in order to take time to clear my head, clean up, reorganize my priorities,  and re-evaluate my work in progress projects.

This blog post from Elizabeth of OP Quilts landed in my email inbox a few days ago and its timing couldn't have been more perfect.

I adore the idea of a "chuck it" list (click here for the full article).

She also linked off to this article on why you should swap your "bucket" list for a "chuck it" list.

So . . . much . . . food . . . for . . . thought!

After already having done considerable pondering on my own and then taking time to digest those articles, I've been busy in the studio.

Four waiting projects have been scuttled in order to focus on the others that mean more to me.  

Plans for several fabric pulls have been updated to reflect the way I want to work now - more about color stories with less pfaffing about over design.  

Two other projects are being donated to Linda's comfort quilt effort (seventy 2.5" already-cut strips plus several yards of backing fabrics).

I've gone through the bloated paper stash/supplies now that I'm much more comfortable with what I want to make vs. what I see others making online.

I used the money earned from last night's Zoom presentation to improve the filing/storage system for my newly-culled paper stash.

And I'm deleting the oh-so-alluring QAL and online course offerings and meant-to-be-enticing sale notices from my Inbox.

* * *

I've also decided my overarching goal for 2024 is to focus on my four words - colorful, scrappy, eclectic, and liberated.   I'm hoping they will help me do a better job of being ME.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up."

A. A. Milne

Works in Progress

I'm still playing with the leftover polka dot rectangles (2.5 x 4.5). 

Here you can see my "test" for the second baby/toddler quilt with a layout inspired by a vintage utility quilt.  The bottom group shows four rectangles sewn together.  The middle group shows trimmed 2.5" segments and the upper group shows trimmed 1.5" segments.

Time will tell if I stick to the inspiration quilt's layout that uses only 2.5" segments (resulting in a baby/toddler size) or whether I incorporate both the 2.5" and 1.5" which would yield a slightly larger quilt. 

The rest of the leftover rectangles (in the shoebox) are paired and pinned ready to be stitched together and then paired a second time to create the 4-rectangle sets.  

Originally I planned to use these as leader-enders but now I'm thinking I will just go ahead and get them sewn together and laid out (once a design wall is clear).

Either way, I have named this quilt Ohana (meaning family).

Once Ohana becomes a quilt top, I'll pull out the project box holding the extra polka dot HSTs from the making of Gone Dotty.  These are ready to be laid out and sewn into a quilt top that I'm calling Spots and Dots.

I really want to get all of the polka dot projects to flimsy stage now instead of putting them into the closet for "someday." 

These HSTs for Flaneur have been my leader-ender effort for the past few weeks.  They're all sewn now and I've pressed the first few . . .

But as you can see, there are a lot more that still need to be pressed open since there are nearly 400 HSTs in the layout.

As I was clearing off the top of my sewing table I took the time to stitch up three strip sets for Raconteur, a low volume scrappy trips quilt.  One set is shown here on the cutting table and the remaining strips are grouped and stacked in the shoebox.

I went ahead and made two test blocks to convince myself that the low volume prints would work.  (I've seen lots of photos of LV scrappy trips but I wanted to see blocks using my fabrics before proceeding.)

Raconteur will become one of our January quiet quilts but I'm hopeful it will be finished long before then.

* * *

Little Man will be here this weekend for a sleepover. 

Last Sunday during our weekly family dinner he happily told me that he'd like to make another quilt while he was here.  I had to explain that making a quilt is too big for a weekend so we are going to make a placemat "from scraps" that he can take home and use at his house.

Something tells me he will also want to make two more - one for Mommy and one for Daddy.  Good thing I have lots of scraps.

* * *

Has anyone else encountered the apparently random "sign in with Google" issue when attempting to leave a comment on someone else's blog post?  I have tried several times to "log in" (despite already being logged into Blogger/Google) without success.  So to those who are not receiving comments from me - it isn't that I haven't tried!

Quiltdivajulie

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“We are mosaics – pieces of light, love, history, and stars all glued together with magic and music and words.”

Anita Krizzan

Gone Dotty - Revised

So this is where we left things at the end of last week. 

And just as a reminder, this is the vintage inspiration quilt.

Friday evening I did a bit of rearranging and this is where things are now.

I like the calm vibe and consistent diagonals of the first layout but it also feels a bit predictable.

I love the energy is the revised layout but I want to do a bit more tinkering and pondering before I sew the HST strips together.

Perhaps this will be a good week for some FMQ while Gone Dotty rests on the design wall.  Or maybe I'll take a few days off from the blog and do some cleaning out and editing of the resource and crumb boxes (they're getting very messy and overcrowded).

There was no sewing over the weekend, in fact I never even made it up the stairs to the studio.  Puzzles and lego building, coloring and so much reading, lots and lots of time outdoors, and a couple of Disney movies completely filled the days.  It was awesome.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

C.S. Lewis

Introducing Gone Dotty

June, 2021 - I pulled as many different polka dot fabrics as possible from my stash (yardage and resource boxes).  This is what I came up with.

The original plan doesn't even matter any more because there have been so many changes in direction between then and now.

But over the past few weeks, using this array of polka dot fabrics, I've been cutting 2.5 x 4.5" rectangles for a baby quilt named Dot to Dot and pairs of 4.5" x 9" rectangles for die cutting 3" (fin.) HSTs to make a lap quilt named Gone Dotty.  

Here are the first few sets of HSTs for Gone Dotty.

There will be 64 different polka dot fabrics paired with a limited number of black and white polka dots and others that read like a polka dot -- eight different color groups each with eight different polka dots. 

Cathy L. shared this vintage beauty last year and I knew instantly that at some point I would make my own version.  Gone Dotty is that project.

Cathy is making sets of 5 HSTs from her scraps and tossing those sets into a box.  I just know that her super-scrappy version (scroll to the end of the linked post to see photos) is going to be amazing.

This is what my design wall currently looks like but this will not be the eventual layout.

Process note:  In order to get five HSTS using a die that cuts four from each 4.5" x 9" rectangle, I used two rectangles giving me eight HSTs from each of the 64 fabrics.  I'm making all of them but only five of each fabric will be in this quilt.  

The other 192 leftover HSTs  (3 each x 64 fabrics) will be used to make a second baby quilt tentatively named Spots and Dots.

But for now, Gone Dotty is my focus.  Stay tuned . . . 

Quiltdivajulie

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“There is a magic about you that is all your own.”

D.M. Dellinger

Agglomeration's Progression

Last November, like hundreds (thousands?) of other quilt makers around the world, I was drawn in by the colors for Bonnie Hunter's 2021 mystery quilt named Rhododendron Trail.

I knew I wouldn't make her mystery quilt design but I pulled colors from my stash to see what I might make instead.  2021's initial plan was to make a string quilt with broken grid (you can re-read that post HERE and see my other NOT a Mystery results HERE.)

Because I prefer scrappy, I also pulled smaller pieces from the resource boxes, but then the project stalled and the boxes sat.

At some point I cut WOF strips from the previously-pulled yardage so I could die cut HSTs for a second NOT a Mystery quilt project named FLANEUR  before putting the yardage back in the stash (I wanted/needed the piles off my cutting table).

And as usual, my plans changed again (and again) for both Agglomeration and Flaneur. 

Ultimately, I decided to make a set of spring/summer placemats with the WOF strip remains (shown above) instead of making a quilt named Agglomeration. 

Over the weekend I sewed rectangles from those WOF strips into scrappy back slabs for six placemats, substituting oranges in place of the yellows (which are now in their resource box).

 

I cut the reversible side for the placemats from Agglomeration's planned backing fabric.  

Once sandwiched with batting excess from larger quilts, these will have their turn with Max before being trimmed to 14" tall x 20" long and bound with my favorite black and white stripe.  

* * *

During this four-month journey, I've realized I don't want to make any more NOT a Mystery quilts because I spend far too much time dithering about how to use my mystery-inspired fabric pull instead of actually making what I want to make.  

SO, if I am ever tempted again, I will limit myself to a set of six placemats or maybe a runner for my sister (thank you, Little Man, once again).  

Piles of yardage can be intimidating.  

A pile of scraps on the other hand . . . 

Quiltdivajulie

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“To each his own magic.”

 Libba Bray

Progress on Inglenook

In an effort to keep my stories straight, the original version of this project featuring Marcia Derse fabrics was absolutely a squirrel project.  

Since Inglenook is a direct descendant of that recently-abandoned effort, that makes Inglenook a squirrel project as well. 

Gotta love those squirrels . . . 

These four rows will become Inglenook's 6" finished rows.  My original plan was to use a vertical layout but, as you can see, that plan didn't last long.

These rows are only partially sewn together to allow for changes as the top evolves, meaning the rows will not be as long/wide as they look here.

On the left you can see the beginnings of what will become five eight-ish inch rows.  (I had to use my 24" ruler to get that top row of strips to lay flat and stick to the design wall's flannel)

And here you can see the trimmed-to-even-height 6" rows with three of the wider but still un-trimmed rows laid out and partially sewn together.  Color placement in the taller rows is  much more deliberate what with being able to see the colors above, below, and close by; which explains the scattered strips at the top of the photo. 

Side note - Have I mentioned lately how much I love being able to pull out a project that is already prepped and ready for sit and sew?

* * *

Since I can't reach that top row the way things are now, my next step will be to finish designing/sewing four of the wider rows.  Then I'll trim each of them to their maximum possible height (8.5, 8.75, and maybe even 9").  

I'll start at the bottom and as I work my way up, I can put the rows closer together and further down on the design wall.  I'm hopeful that after all that I will be able to reach the top row so I can finish designing and sewing it together.  

I am so happy with the way this is coming together! 

Quiltdivajulie

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“Magic comes from what is inside you. It is a part of you. You can’t weave together a spell that you don’t believe in.”

Jim Butcher

Flaneur - Little Man's Influence at Work

Some of you may remember my splashy announcement last fall about making TWO more quilts for my NOT a Mystery series (color palette inspired by Rhododendron Trail, the 2021 Bonnie Hunter annual mystery quilt).  Well . . . here's an update.

These were the strips cut from the scrappy assortment of colors meant to be paired with the dotted gray to make HSTs for the second of the two quilts.  (see photo below for the inspiration quilt).

I named the second project FLANEUR (meaning deliberately aimless).

I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but the gray fabric had issues.  There was an inconsistent "fade" in the gray.  I thought at first it was the lighting or my eyes, but as I cut more and more strips, it was obviously all through the yardage.  

UGH.  I stopped and put it all away.

Fast forward into 2022 and I decided to forget about using the dotted gray and use this Laura Heine Color Fusion multi-directional text print instead.  

I made it this far pinning pairs to leader-ender.  But my heart wasn't feeling much joy about the grayed text and . . . 

. . .  my original inspiration idea was no longer interesting so I stopped once again.

And then THIS incredible quilt made by Bertha Robinson popped up in my Pinterest feed.  (Birds in Flight Variation, ca. 1950, cotton, cotton/polyester blend, and polyester, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama)

I fell in love instantly.  

I also knew in that very same heartbeat that the wishy-washy text print would have to go.

Do you remember this fabric that I used as the background in Spotty Town?   (Pinkerville Fairy Dust in Cotton Candy by Tula Pink)

I used it to make a few test blocks . . .  and oh, yes - this is SO MUCH better.  

Now I will unpin the already-paired-with-gray sets and proceed to leader-ender the soon-to-be-newly-paired HSTs over the coming weeks.   

What I'm really looking forward to is playing around with the many layout ideas Bertha R. used in her incredibly interesting quilt.

* * *

And for the record, my plan to make Agglomeration (the other of the two 2021 Not a Mystery quilts) has been completely removed from my waiting-to-be-made list.  

I've waffled and faffed about since last fall worrying about the design (after deciding I did not want to make the originally identified broken grid string quilt).  

I'm tired of trying to make something happen that clearly wasn't meant to be.  Especially since Little Man and his Camp Sefton quilts reminded me just how much fun making quilts can be.

(and please remind me come November that I have decided not to start any more NOT a Mystery quilts when the 2022 color palette is released!)

Quiltdivajulie

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“You know what the issues is with this world?  Everyone wants some magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland