What a Nice Way to Start the Day

The phone rang this morning as I finished eating my breakfast.  It was Hannah - what a wonderful way to start the day.  All excited about being an aunt for the first time, she was congratulating me on my first great grandchild.  Hannah sounds wonderful - bubbly and happy with her cute little giggle.  Her next call was going to be to Norah to ooh and aah about the new little one who is doing just great.  Mommy and baby will be going home either today or tomorrow.

It's all  together now - put the last two red borders on this morning.  I started paper piecing the first border but that was going to be a slow go so I did some figuring and came up with the size to cut the little squares and fuse them on the strip.  Took a while but not as long as paper piecing.  The actual piecing the original way is not my favorite thing to do.  I will have it quilted and then have a new quilt for my bed.  It's certainly red, isn't it?  (Click to enlarge)

More of My Red Quilttop

Hope you are not getting tired of this, but that is what is keeping me occupied in the warm, muggy weather.  I have made a change in the layout and will now make 16 blocks that will be set together without sashings.   There will be a first border of the diamonds on a light print that will be approximately 4 inches wide (makes for easy figuring) and then the darker red second border.  I'll decide the width of that later - I have plenty of fabric - but it will probably be 6 to 7 inches wide.  You can get the idea from the upper right hand corner of the picture.  That will result in a quilt of 85 inches or more square - a great size to go on a double bed with a dust ruffle.  This will look so pretty on my bed with the church window headboard.  I think there is still a photo on my sideboard.

Here is the 14th block in progress.  The pieces of the flowers have been sitting with the paper still on the back  and have curled.  Pretty close to having this one done - another flower and some buds.

Next on the agenda.  I do plan to make the grapes smaller - they are pretty large and would look better being smaller and having more of them.  I love grapes and cherries in blocks! After this one, there will be one more to choose from the many books and patterns around here.  I was having trouble enlarging them on my scanner but have now figured out how to put the scanned image into my Microsoft Digital Image program and printing it from there.   You can see that the pattern of the wreath is done in four pieces.  You can even reverse print if you wish.  Such a relief to be able to enlarge or make patterns smaller again without running to Staples.  The light bulb goes on over my head eventually!!   Keep cool, quilting friends.  (Click to enlarge)

Still More Red Blocks

Ten down - two more to go.  I have spent most of the day putting these two together and have been fighting with my wonder under.  I must be doing something wrong - but am having a hard time getting the backing off the pieces.  Maybe I am not ironing it long enough.  I have had to use a pin to get it started and that is so frustrating.  It is actually some softer than Heat and Bond Lite but it is certainly taking much longer when you have such a time getting the backing off.  I have some Steam A Seam 2 Lite which is really nice but expensive.  However I'll use those Joann coupons for that. 

I have laid these out on some red fabric that I have lots of and have quickly cut some squares to see how I would like sashing like that with a solid red border.  This is not the finished sashing - just a test sample.   I don't have enough of the background fabric to do much of anything.  Kind of like the look of this and, if I go this route, I will applique the squares on the sashing instead of piecing them.   Will use something other than the wonder under for that!  If you know a secret about easy peeling of the backing, please let me know!   (Click to enlarge)

Staying in Where It's Cool

There is red fabric all over the basement - and I now have two more blocks ready to applique.  This pattern was about five inches square and I enlarged it to fit my sixteen inch blocks.  It struck me that I have done a very similar block before.............

in my quilt From There to There to There to Here in the late 90's.  The pattern was one I found in a magazine and it was larger but pretty much the same idea.   This quilt was machine appliqued and hand quilted.

The second block fused today.  And the second time I have done this one.  This is from an old Quilters Newsletter Magazine - they used to have so many great applique patterns back in the days.  I have a lot of them that I tore from the mags and have kept in files.

The last block in the middle row is my other tulip bouquet.  The first and third blocks in the first tow have both been used in other quilts.  The one with the bird is in a little white wool quilt I made sometime ago.  

I will have to make myself go outside later this evening and water my poor plants.  I can remember now how hard it was when it was so hot and humid to keep lots and lots of flower beds watered!  Would not be able to handle that anymore.   Stay in where it's air conditioned and relax and sew if you can!  This will eventually go away - soon, I hope!  (Click to enlarge)



Seeing Red Again

Hot, hot weather - not my favorite by any means - and a real downpour this afternoon with lightning, thunder and wind followed by the power going out for several hours.  It's to be really hot through Friday, at least.  There is this about Michigan - it usually isn't as humid as, say, Kansas, for instance.  Every summer I used to wish there would be no July and August and instead have three Octobers!  This old lady is a cool weather kid.

Last week I was going through fabric in the basement and came across the red blocks I started maybe two years ago.  So I have put two more of them together - the two on the left of each row.  I have decided that the bottom one will have it's middle big flower changed - it needs more contrast.  These are fun to do and actually seem to applique faster than the small ones.    These are sixteen inch blocks.

I also fused another block for the Hop to It quilt.  There will probably be a couple of changes made here, too, before I applique it.  I was going along really well when the lights went out so that was that for today.  (Click to enlarge)