Arduous

Well, that'll teach me!

I have managed to wait until the last minute to perform the arduous (and boring) task of rinsing out the material for the borders and backing! Why? I don't know. With all of the down time on crap weather days, and the evenings (oh, the wasted evening hours), I could have (and should have) had the material rinsed and been certain of it's colorfastness by now!

In my own defense, however (and yes, I know, I'm arguing with myself), I hadn't been able to rinse out the lovely Robert Kaufman brown until now because I needed to find a sufficient quantity to purchase for the border, but that's no excuse for the rest of it....and there is a good amount to have to get through. Normally, I simply rinse and check it for bleeding once I bring it home, that way the deed is already done when I want to begin using it.

I guess I wasn't feeling 'normal.'

Well, shame on me, and nyah-nyah. [wagging finger at self] I broke rule #10, and I have to make up for it today.

The drill sargeant in my head is now yelling: "Step it up, woman! You're burnin' daylight! Hupp-two! Hupp-two!"

Guess I best get to it, this is going to be a long day with little to show for it except yards and YARDS of ironed material.

Wahoo!

Just four series of rows to join together and then on to the borders!!

[cheering, high fives, confetti]

When I sat down at the machine this morning, I still had a lot of triangle points to pin together (and sweat over) - and I wasn't looking forward to it. But now I can see the end of this particular tunnel, and I am jazzed again.

With a long time-out (in order to drive Bud to work), I am once again approaching the massive pile of pins and awaiting iron. While on the road, I took a few minutes to do some 'rithmetic and found that in just the major rows/seams alone, there were 184 points to match and pin! This does not include all of the incidental matching to get the smaller components of each block of triangles (within the hexes) to match.

I am now ever so glad I decided to make the Ocean Waves portion smaller and put a rather decadent set of border rows on instead. With any luck - and few interruptions - I should be able to piece together the border bits and hopefully get started adding them to the whole configuration before having to drive back to Fenton to gather Brian and get him back home.

Yup, I have made a good dent. Once the individual rows were together I still had 23 intersections (triangle joints) to match and pin for each pair of rows....eight times over! So, as I said, I am jazzed to be this far...........finally.

Wahoo, indeed!

Moving along

Three and one-half rows to assemble, then the borders!

OK, maybe not exactly. That's sort of wishful thinking, I guess.Maybe it's more like: Assemble the three and one-half rows, sew the rows together, then the borders....THEN the backing (assembling and stretching), and then I can sandwich, baste, and begin the quilting.

Wahoo!

But, in all honesty, because of the poor lighting (the sun and clouds are not cooperating), I am growing weary of pinning all of these dadblamed triangle points!

The things we miss

It's funny, isn't it, the things we miss when we're not at home (and the stuff we take for granted when we are).

Currently I am at my Grandmother's for a spell, and even though I brought things to work on, I am still sort of lost and wanting.

Humans are never truly satisfied, are we?

I am rinsing out and testing for colorfastness the purples and turquoises for a commissioned piece; my hope is to have this task completed shortly, and to get some of the cutting accomplished (if not all of it) so that I can begin to assemble it once I return home. Well....

I will be ready enough to begin it, anyway. I still need to get the XXX quilt top completely together, with its borders and then stretched. I finished the hexes the evening before I left, and have all but two of the half squares for the vertical sides cut and in place! That felt good to see it to that point - I feel it's taken entirely too long! As I said in an earlier post, I really wanted to have it stretched and basted so that I could have it with me to work on - turning the edges over to protect them while quilting and to get it marked, BUT it didn't quite get done. So, phooey!

Now I have itchy palms and want to be working on it, but it will have to wait. [sigh] I have grown so used to being able to sew a little almost every day - even if for a few minutes. Oh, how I miss it.

I did, however, manage to locate and purchase the last of the necessary material for the project - and I did that on the way to Grandma's house! Found myself a beautiful little shop on 12 Mile Road in Berkley, MI, called Guildcrafters Quilt Shop. It's deceptively tiny but gloriously stocked, and I've decided I must go back to look through the shelves I didn't get to in my rush to Gram's.

They do have a frequent buyers card with a great offer if you can/or do (but shouldn't) frequently buy quilting fabric. There's a two month time limit on the card for a free $40-worth of merchandise IF you accomplish getting it completely punched within two months of your initial purchase (a $20 freebie is yours if you can't get that much material purchased in such a small time frame).

Did that make sense?

But, you need to ask them if they have a frequent purchase program - they don't just offer it....or think of it. I asked as I was handed my receipt if they had anything like that, and that's when my clerk took a card from a drawer and filled it out for me.

Guildcrafters also has a minimum cut of no less than one-quarter yard, so my next pixelated project will require me to shop elsewhere. For pixel quilts I usually only buy 1/8 yard pieces if I have no need for something extra in my stash (and trust me when I say I have an adequate-enough stash).

Despite these minor issues, the shop looks to be a lot of fun to explore, and I will be back in the very near future. There were bolts to play with dream over and fabric to manhandle.

For now, however, I will have to get back to the rinsing and the ironing. It's a very rainy day here and not much else to do outside, so my indoor tasks will have to keep me busy and content. I am not working with my own computer - and this sweet old Mac doesn't like my thumb drive - so I cannot load the latest pictures of the XXX quilt. The next photos you will see will show a very different quilt top!

Until next time, stay happy....and let me know what you are up to.

High hopes

I had high hopes of having all of the piecing finished (including those blanketty-blank-#!%@ half squares along the sides and bottom), completing the rows and getting the borders in place, with even higher hopes of having the back together this afternoon. My grand desire was to stretch and baste the thing tonight/tomorrow morning, then be able to take it with me in order to turn the extra backing over the raw edge and to the front. Once that's basted in place I can begin quilting it.

By the way

I found it necessary to make private a number of older blog entries written while assembling a contest entry. So, if you are looking for a few specific photos and/or blog articles from late last year through February/March of this year, I am sorry to say they won't be visible again until after a contest entry date has passed.

Please continue to visit, as updates and those specific entries will be available again shortly. Until then, I will continue to post about newer quilts and wall art (most often with photos), and about favorite shops - online and in my 'neighborhood.'

Thanks for stopping by!

Sometimes

Sometimes we make decisions based on nothing....ab-so-lute-ly nothing!

Nothing intelligent, nothing rational, nothing of importance used to base the outcome on. No coins tossed, no rock-paper-scissors, no eenie-meenie-miney.

You get the idea.

I have, on occasion, searched online for material (specific material) for an ongoing project - we all have. And I have, on occasion, even purchased more than I needed to at the time.

[one of those (bad) decisions I discussed earlier]

Well, I was practicing my decision-making skills two weekends ago - practicing the reigning-in of my urges - when I drifted in to one of the online fabric stores I have shopped with in the past - Contemporary Cloth. Of course, I found more than I needed.

It took me over the course of the last two weeks to weed out and decide against so many cute fabrics, until I had my selection down to a measly dozen-and-one-half items.

I had eliminated all sorts of lovely material until I had the selection down to bare necessity Kona solids (and maybe a print or two). Hey! I did really well. Really! Sometimes you have to make the tough decisions.

There was so much more I would loved to have kept in my 'basket', but I knew I hadn't the funds for it all. Truth be told, I truly shouldn't have bought what I did, but it will be used. The reason for the purchase was to fill holes in my stash from the last two projects.

In the grand scheme of things, Contemporary Cloth may not be the biggest online purveyor of material to choose from, but their customer service and material selection are worth the effort. They carry a unique selection of cottons, and a fairly good selection of clothing knits, plus a wide range of decorator materials to boot. They even stock a fun selection of quality Japanese prints!

Whenever I have had to contact them I am always met with a quick (and fantastic) response from Sondra! So what more could you ask for?

Sometimes you just gotta do what you got to do!

It's getting there

Slowly but surely, there is progress. I would have much more accomplished if I didn't let myself be so concerned with the placement of the hexes. It's supposed to be scrappy, and I am way over-orchestrating this bad boy!

My short range goals are to have the piecing and borders on the top by the end of the weekend; then get the backing done and stretched; the quilt pin-basted by the beginning of next week, and then to be able to; start quilting it before June arrives.

Lofty but doable....very doable.

Three more to piece today, then seven remaining to decide on.

It's getting there.

Quilting assistant

Everyone needs an assist once in a while - and Flop has offered to help with the ironing.Couldn't do it without her!

Some progress

Not enough, but some.

I actually managed to grit my teeth and commit to the layout, stitching together a good many of the hexagons and making it/them permanent.

16 more hexes to assemble (32 color matches to get together - some are already done, thank you Barb and Jean), and those pesky half squares and corners to cut, then it's all downhill to the border(s) and backing!

Good for me!