What with having the design wall in the living room and the sewing machine down the hall in the sewing room I have gotten a process down for working yesterday and today. I find that my little sand paper board that I use for my Dear Jane pieces works well for this too.
I bring my 12 inch square in the living room and put 9 blocks on it to sew together to make a 9 1/2 block. This helps me keep them in order.
after I sew the blocks together I immediately take it over to the cutting table where I cut and press. Here is the block pressed. Then I remove the pressing mat and my cutting mat is underneath.
square it up with my 9 1/2 inch ruler. Immediately take it back to the design wall and press it in place and start over again.
this is what I have gotten done with so far yesterday and today.
close up of the blocks - this will indeed be a colorful scrappy quilt.
Now we all know that I’m not happy unless I am working on several things at once. I have to have some hand work handy and I am taking a couple days (weeks?) off of my second Dear Jane “Insanity Revisited” and I was itching to get started on the applique quilts I intend on starting this year. So last night I bit the bullet and got a Little Brown Bird block prepped and got started while I was watching TV and finished with the patches for the evening – I don’t like to use the sewing machine while the TV is on – I can’t concentrate that way.
here is the first Little Brown Bird block that I am working on. This first part is reverse applique. Maybe you can see the design traced on? It is in light gray chalk. Scattered over the wreath will be three or four flowers. I'm not sure what colors I will have them, they all have some embroider on them I believe. I got started on this one last night.
It has been very nice outside since Sunday or maybe it was a couple days before that even? We took a walk on Sunday and the turtles were out it — was so nice. Today was even nicer! 68 degrees of course we are supposed to maybe have storms tonight and tomorrow in the 50’s – oh well, nice while it lasted.
Turtles on the log
I'm not sure what these berries are that were growing on the side of the trails, but they are pretty. These two outside photos were taken at the nature trail near by.
Here I am having a give away (ends Friday) and I keep entering into other peoples give away’s and I won two of them in the past 2 weeks. Both arrived today. I won the package of six fat quarters and the most darling scissors I have seen from Christine at Aunties Quaint Quilts in Tasmania Australia and I won a book and 5 fat quarters from Colletta at Collettas Kitchen Sink in Pennsylvania. Here are photos of my wins — thanks to both you for the nice gifts.
From Christine at Auntie's Quaint Quilts
a close up of the scissors - aren't they unique!
my other win from Pennsylvania, I haven't tried this author so looking forward to the new read.
I have no where in this house for a design wall so after much thought I decided to order a portable wall. It goes up when you need it down when you don’t. This works out well for me as with all the hand work that I do I really don’t need a wall all the time. Right now it is being put to use with the circles and four patches. It is time to sew them together so I have some of them on the design wall and go back and forth to the sewing machine with them. I don’t mind going back and forth as it keeps me from getting stiff and also gives me some exercise 
I can go ahead and leave this up in the living room all week while I sew as it is pretty much just myself around most of the time as Mike is working long hours and isn’t home much this week.
what the wall looks like from the front with some of the patchwork on it.
this is what it looks like from the back - fairly easy to put together except the side clamps - I have to have my husband press those in place as my hands aren't strong and I can't seem to press hard enough - I will have come up with some method as he isn't always available when I might need to put it together. When not in use everything folds up including the poles and all goes in a drawstring tote bag. (as you can see from the walls in this room all those shelves and books, it is like that in a large amount of the house so no empty walls for a design wall.)
Don’t forget the give away ends on Friday.
I worked off and on all day on my stars for the January BOM assignment and managed to get done with them!! Off and on all day in between working on stars and doing laundry I also worked on my circles and I have quite a little stack of circles prepped and ready for applique. By this time next week I just might have all of my circles finished!! That means I will then have time to start on the Red and Green Traditional Applique of the 1800’s. I was tempted to get started on it this week but really needed to get some of these projects under control
The January assignment for the Star Crazy BOM from the Quilt Show website. All of these half square triangles on the right hand side are to be put away until needed.
I got a little quilting done this morning on the Christmas Baltimore Album quilt but progress is moving slow as I have been spending so much time working on the stars and circles that I haven’t devoted much time to quilting.
Our weather has gone from the Arctic temperatures of the beginning of January to almost early spring like temperatures. It was in the 40’s and raining today and the week outlook is in the 50’s!! I sure can deal with that and I won’t even brag about it.
Overall a very busy day! I felt like I was running around in circles though! I got a very easy Dear Jane “Insanity Revisited” block done this morning. A start on row 10.
Dear Jane, Row 10, Block 1, woops I forgot to press this one before I took a photo.
I got a couple more circles done and I transferred all of the circles to another empty Ramen Noodle box to store them in so they won’t get wrinkled before I get started piecing.
200+ circles
I was busy on my Star Crazy quilt also. I got my half square triangles finished for this first months assignment. I hope to get busy on the stars tomorrow. I ran in to further problems and will not be making the half square triangles with the paper method — it messes up my tension in my sewing machine too much. I am not a sewing machine person as a lot of you know. Sewing machines hate me! No kidding I have never been able to adjust the tension properly on a machine, no matter what machine it is. This one (Janome Jem Platinum 720) is the best I have had and is an easier machine to work with than others I have had (cheap) but every time I have tried to use the paper piecing method I have tension trouble. Finally I decided it was easier to go without the paper and draw the lines on the light color fabric instead. It works for me.
On to the stars tomorrow. I don't want to fall behind. All stacked up and ready to go.
I have a wonderful tomato soup recipe I want to share. I don’t think I ever posted this one. This is full of flavor. Little bit of spice and thicker than the stuff you get in a can. Full of veggies too.
Hearty Tomato Soup I believe I got this recipe off of Giada, Every Day Italian I believe.
Hearty Tomato Soup
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic or a couple tablespoons from the jar of minced
1 15 oz can white navy beans, drained and rinsed
1 28 oz can crushed or diced tomatoes
3 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of rosemary
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (to your taste)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
In a large pot melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots and garlic. Cook until the veggies are tender. Add the beans, tomatoes, broth and seasoning. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat then reduce to simmer for about 30 to 45 minutes.
Puree the soup in batches in a blender. Remove the bay leaf first!! Return to the pot to heat back up. Be careful with the blender this is a hot mixture.
Very good recipe and wonderful flavor. Enjoy
I was very busy today. I made it to the fitness center – second day this week – very good workout, I am starting to build back up to what I used to do. I hope to keep it up. I forgot the grocery list though and completely forgot that I was going to go to the grocery store until I got back home so after a short time at home I hopped back into the car for the 20 minute drive back to town and the grocery store. I got all my stuff fairly quickly but was held up at the check out line. Got into a really, really slow one. I actually read part of a magazine and copied out a recipe into a notepad that I keep in my purse (only thing in the magazine I wanted ). Also read through the soap magazine and got caught up on all the soaps that I don’t watch and don’t want to!! But I would rather get interested in a magazine at the check out then get mad at standing in line so long think positive thoughts you know (but man was that checker slow!! LOL)
Been busy, busy here. I tend to feel like I am starting to go in circles and that I am a half square triangle! Don’t you just hate those things sometimes! the hst’s I mean. I am working on the Star Crazy quilt trying to not get left behind in the dust and keep up with the monthly obligation of the monthly assignment. But ran into a problem. The instructions right off the bat tell you to make sure that you have your printer settings at full size no scaling. I checked– it was right – no scaling, full size. Well something is off because I started to make my hst’s and then decided to put one star together just to see what it looked like and the hst’s were too small! Not by a lot but enough to make a difference if you know what I mean. After a lot of measuring to see what the problem was I found that the print out for the paper piecing of triangles is 1/16th of an inch off – too small.
After some playing around with it I think I have it figured out – not the printer – my patterns – I am having to make all of my seams less than 1/4 inch if I want to use the patterns and not have to cut a bunch of strips ect., to do it the other method. So by the end of the day I managed to have some of my half square triangles finished and I needed a break so quit for the rest of the evening.
my scrappy color choices for the beginning of this part of the quilt and a pile of triangles that I will get the paper off of this evening, press and then square up because now they need squaring up because I have made the seams less they are not all the same size - but they will be size they are supposed to be!!
I have been continuing to work on my other quilt that has 4 patches and appliqued circles. It is coming along nicely!
My box of 328 four patches. I only needed (I think) 317 but I went ahead and made some extra - just in case needed to swap out because of colors next to each other that you don't want next to each other
You can see that the Moda Sampler box is starting to look empty compared to the full box I started with. The two zip lock bags contain a total of 220 appliqued circles, about a hundred left to do. They are actually going rather quickly (until today that is when I devoted almost a whole day to Star Crazy)
I did take a little time off today to clean house and to meet two old friends for lunch. I used to be on a bowling team – Mike and I together – we quit bowling about 4 years ago and I’m afraid I have just about lost touch with some old friends. Time flies doesn’t it, you don’t mean to neglect friends but if you don’t have a lot in common other than one activity you tend to do so it seems. We had a good visit over Chinese Food and then I got back home to work on these hst’s!
