Another Day Another Iron . . . . . .

The other day, when I walked into my sewing room, I noticed my dependable Rowenta iron had wet herself.......there she was, all embarrassed, sitting in the middle of a gigantic wet spot that took up half my ironing board. I know I got lucky that's all she wet on, I've heard the horror stories of steam irons ruining quilt tops, but luckily that wasn't the case this time. As long as I choose to use steam, I know that's a risk just floating out there in the future.

So I went to look for a replacement for my iron, but I guess they no longer produce my old model, so I was forced to upgrade. The nose on this iron has a great elongated tip and there are three times as many steam holes that are a third of the size of the ones on my old iron. So far we are getting along great. In a moment of weakness or boredom, I read the owner's manual. Did you know you're to empty the water well in the iron each time you're finished with it? That was news to me. I use my iron almost everyday, but since reading that tip I've been emptying out the water at the end of the day. I'm hoping this new little routine will make my iron last longer and just maybe prevent a water stain issue down the road.

I've sewed all the inner blocks for State of Chaos together, the process was relatively easy. I had a few points that did not match exactly but overall I would rate this pattern as pretty forgiving. The pattern called to sew each 6 inch block into rows, then sew together the ten rows.

I chose to sew 4 blocks together to create this block, then sewed these 12 inch blocks together to finish it up. I did this so I could pay attention to the corners making up the center pinwheel, plus it gave me another chance to square things up. Whenever I can, I take the opportunity to square blocks up! So now I'm waiting for my containment border fabric that I ordered online. Once I have it I'll be able to finish this quilt. It's staying on the design wall until it's done.

On to the next project...

I saw a Hunters Star project on Allyson/Fat Cat Quilts blog. I loved its color way, beige, navy and black. I dropped her a note saying how much I liked that color combination and was thinking of going with those colors for my next project. She was nice enough to let me know that the project was really all blacks, no blues, just poor photography. That's just like me, to pick a color pattern for my next project off a bad picture. But it didn't stop me!

So I'm taking these blacks and blues ........

And these lights.....

and making 80 of these. This block has several names, Jacobs Ladder, Road to California, Off to San Francisco and Gone to Chicago. But whatever it's called, this is what I'm going to be working on the rest of this month. No fabric drama, just cutting and sewing.

I really like navy, and in the summer, I don't think there's anything sharper than a navy blue and white outfit. I don't really have any navy in my house but I think adding the black will make it fit in and be a nice change of pace.

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The Weekend's Over ? ? ?

Wow, this weekend just flew by.........

Even though it's March, and folks in warmer climates are blogging about flowers and green grass, the pond out back of our house is still frozen.

I took this picture Saturday!

We did get a little break in the weather over the weekend. I was able to get the first coat of winter off my car ( I think it will take a couple more washes to get it all off) and was able to grill out for the first time this year!!

So even though it doesn't really feel like spring, I got in a spring mood.

I leave a few snowman decorations out after Christmas, like this set.....

this cookie jar,

and we drink out of snowman glasses. But even though it's still cold outside, I packed them all up.

I did leave this guy out, with those colors, I think he looks like a springtime snowman.

I also got in a organizing mood over the weekend, mainly due to the fact that I need to do our income taxes soon, but can't start until I get my filing up to date. For some reason I started about 5 different projects and finished none. My house is a mess this morning. I went to bed cranky, I like to have the house in order and laundry washed, folded and put up by the end of the day on Sunday. I think it's a holdover habit from working the first 28 years of my married life.

I think I was also crabby because I didn't get to sew at all this weekend, or have the house in order so I could get in my sewing room today. I did accomplish one thing....

Remember this?

It's now this!!

No I didn't break down and order another jellyroll for my Shangri La purse, these are the strips I have left over!! I decided not to go with the pattern's instructions of using the scrappy lights for the containment border (shocking I know, me not following directions!) which left several leftover strips.

So I rolled this bundle myself! I didn't think I stood a chance of getting them rolled evenly or small enough to fit back into the purse, but I did! I think it's because I had fewer strips than the original roll. Although Linda F left a great suggestion about filling the purse with Hershey Kisses which I was seriously considering.

Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments on how to piece State of Chaos. It's really close between Choice 1 and Choice 2. Which is why I came up with Choice 3, because I couldn't decide between 1 and 2! I'm leaning towards #2. That design wall is a mixed blessing, I probably spend more time rearranging my blocks than what it takes to sew all the blocks together. I guess I can't make a bad choice, since it's so close, and the fabric is lovely either way.

I'm hoping to have S of C all done this week, which would mean maybe I can squeeze in two projects this month, I bet that would get me out of my cranky mood, my husband hopes!!

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State of Chaos . . . .

I'm renaming this quilt, right now I'm leaning towards State of Chaos instead of State of Grace, but it's still open to debate.

So as soon as I got some strips made I threw them up on the design wall. The pattern calls for a totally scrappy design. I immediately started having the same problems with this design that I did with Toulouse......I thought it looked messy, sloppy, not me. "No place for the eye to rest" someone said last time...so true!

If I could talk to a fabric designer, I would be curious to know if when they create these families of fabrics, do they really expect all the fabrics to be used in one project? Because if it were up to me, I would pick some of the fabrics for a top, but never all of them. In the past I just figured the designers had different color ways in the same pattern to please everyone, the browns for the fall folks, the reds for me, the blues and greens for the pastel folks. But all in one quilt, really, that's what they had in mind?

So this is what the design looks like all scrappy.....uhm I don't think so. This family of fabrics is heavy on the greens and light on the reds. So if I went with this design not only would it look messy, it would have a strong green presence.

At this point I still didn't have a design in my mind, but I did know that I wanted an equal number of reds, browns, greens, and blues. I like things even Steven, I'm a debits equals credits type of girl. This required more strips......this required me to raid my Shangri La purse!!

There it is, setting on my shelf, empty!! I think I'll make a round tuffet to put in there when I'm done with this project. Hopefully then the purse won't look as sad. But really, the fabric is too pretty to spend its life in a purse!

So here's the polar opposite of scrappy, each buzz saw block made up of like colors....... another no, I don't think so.

So then I decided to go half brown and half red in one buzz saw and half blue and half green in the other buzz saw, an improvement but I still think no.

This time I continued to separate the pastels from the bolds but I intermingled the red with the browns and the blues with the greens. This I liked.

So then I took it one step further. I mixed my mixes, a predominately red, brown, blue and green in every buzz saw. I think this pattern makes the buzz saws look like they are moving.

So a little mix on the left, a little more of a mix on the right. I couldn't decide which design I preferred, so I combined the above two,

into this. A pastel buzz saw, a mixed buzz saw, a bold buzz saw then another mixed buzz saw.

One thing I know for sure, the 6 inch blocks will be a mix of blue, green, blue, or red, brown, red, or green, blue, green or brown, red, brown. That I know I like, other than that I'm not so sure.

Ok, hit me with your best shot......what should it be:

Choice # 1, bold buzz saws and pastel buzz saws (second to last picture, square on the left).

Choice #2, one mixed block, of each color, in one buzz saw (second to last picture, square on the right)

Choice #3, last picture, combination of #1 and # 2.

Choice #4, can you come up with anything else?

THANKS!!

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On the road to Shangri la . . . .

It was hard taking Faceted Jewels down from the design wall. I'm usually tired of looking at a quilt by the time I finish piecing it, but I wasn't tired of Faceted Jewels. Maybe because I had cut and pieced some of it last year. But it's down and the design wall is ready for some Shangri la by Three Sister for Moda.

So I packed up the batik scraps, dusted my sewing table, oiled my machine, changed the needle, and then started on State of Grace.

I bought this kit from Lisa/Stashmaster last year. I thought the purse was so cute with that jellyroll in it that I bought another jellyroll to actually use for State of Grace, I just couldn't bear to think of that purse setting on my shelf empty.

The kit came with this fabric as the background fabric.

It reminded me of the background I used for Toulouse so I decided to use something else for a different look. I checked my stash for a nice tone on tone beige or cream and found this....

The cream tone on tone from Shangri la! What a surprise! I frequently buy reds and creams from a family of fabric because I like to collect those colors. So there it was, just waiting for this quilt!!

The original size of this pattern is 80" x 96" and is made up of 80 eight inch blocks. I wanted a smaller quilt and thought perhaps the eight inch block was a little too big for my liking.

Here's my first attempt at trying to get the pattern downsized and accurate. I wanted a six inch finished block and that meant I needed 2 inch strips.

If you follow the line I've drawn you'll see my first guesstimate was off by a quarter of an inch.

See how the top point in row two should align with the bottom point of row three?

I got it on the second try!

One of the aspects of this pattern that did not appeal to me was drawing 400 lines to piece the angled strips. I researched buzz saw blocks and found a couple of different ways to make them, but the methods required yardage, not strips. The last time I whined about drawing the lines a few of you commented about using the Angler 2.

I saw this demonstrated at a quilt show, thought it looked like a time saver, bought it, threw it in my template/ruler drawer, then forgot all about it. I had no trouble getting it on my machine, but I couldn't figure out how it worked.

I even drew a line down fabric where I was supposed to sew....still nothing. Those edges don't line up with anything and how do I sew a straight line without one drawn on the fabric?

I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to draw the lines. After it was all said and done, it only took me a couple of hours to draw all the lines, and I talked on the phone for most of that time.

Do you trim your pieces from the back before cutting off the extra fabric?

See that little smidgen of beige fabric peeking out.

I trim it off.

It gives each strip such a nice straight line. My fabric usually hangs over because I move my needle to the right one position when I sew down the line. Yours may not. I'm not sure what I would do if the fabric was too short on the front.

So here's all the strips, ready to be sewed together......

but how......

that's tomorrow's dilemma.

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Quilt Number 55 - Faceted Jewels

I finished Faceted Jewels by Glad Creations on the 26th, TWO days ahead of my irrelevant but all important in my mind deadline.

I started this quilt back in the fall then stopped to participate in the Red and White Snowball Challenge. I got it back out a couple of weeks ago, with the fabric choices and cutting all done I was able to whip this thing together in no time.

The original pattern was to finish at 80" x 104". I reduced the blocks from 12 inches to 9 inches. This quilt is 60" x 78". Originally I reduced the block size because I wanted a smaller quilt. I figured out that if I made fewer blocks, the overall pattern would be impacted. Now that it's done, I'm so glad I reduced the block size, I think the design looks great a little smaller.

The border took longer to piece than I expected but none of the piecing on this quilt was hard. I got a few comments that this pattern looked complex but it's really not. Just a few flying geese, triangle in a square blocks, four patches, and half square triangles. A total of 2,192 pieces are required for this pattern.

The instructions for this pattern were great! My only complaint, no suggestions for quilting! I"m guessing an overall pattern would work best, but I'll just have to wait and see what my quilter thinks. Any suggestions?

Here's all the leftover pieces and parts.....packed away and stored with all my other leftover pieces and parts!

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