September begins....

I am starting the month with 2 finishes from August.    Oops, not quite  true.  Ok, I am starting at zero and here are two finishes from August.  I am blaming my fuzzy head to the nice weather.

    It has been a beautiful few days.  We rode up to the Mountains on Thursday and went to the apple orchard.  Justus Orchard is a great spot for that.  I love seeing the new trees loaded with apples.  And the car smelled so good on the drive back.  My labor tomorrow will be making a batch of apple bread.

 This small quilt is the  Crossroads pattern  from Connie at Freemotion by the River.  It is a simple and fun project.  I use 2'' strips in many projects.  And any leftover strips are often cut down to 3 1/2'' by 2'' pieces  and set aside.   That is how I had the variety for this project.
  I cut the larger squares at 3 1/2'' and dove into the 3 1/2'' pile to put this one together.

    I had enough of the light blue backing to piece for this.  I used a light cream thread for quilting.  Quilting motif is  a meander swirl with a hook.   Here's the diagram.




  The motif is from Quilting is my Therapy....but the link is broken which means I can't give you a direct link to it.  My quilting is similar...not exactly like it, but it was my inspiration.   Size is 36'' by 54''.   Binding scrappy style with 4 different fabrics used.

    This one was pulled out of the closet...or the lost top vault!  I do not even remember when I pieced it.  Some wonky stars blocks were mixed together with odd spacing.  My squares are 3'' finished, and almost all of them fall into the dark value category.  I think that is why it has or was hidden away.  Just a mixed up hodge podge of fabrics. 








  Simple meandering/stippling for the quilting .  I used a teal color Aurifil as it seemed to blend rather than stand out.   Except on the stars.....I only quilted them in the center square.  I just did a gentle curve around the center square and a curl in the center using light cream Aurifil thread. 

   Here's an edge in the corner....binding is not scrappy here.  Although it may appear to be, it is one fabric with colored stripes alternating between purple and teal.  Seemed to just fit the need.  It was a fabric that was hard to use and had been around way too long. 





   And that's the ending to August.
   I have the lattice block quilt pinned now and waiting to be quilted.  I haven't had an inspiration for the quilting motif on it yet.  So I will go back thru my motif journal and see what hits me. 
  Happy stitching. 

    I never expected to be so quiet for so long.  A month can slip away in a blink of an eye for me it seems.  The busy times of Christmas took a toll on me and I needed about 4 days to recover from than, and another couple of days to get the house set back in order.   Just when I felt better the first Arctic blast arrived and elevated my pain level beyond what I could tolerate.  Mornings of 6 degrees and days that barely got above freezing are not my friends.  I don't do pain meds, and rely on things like Tylenol to get by.   So I read a lot, and then read some more,  and just waited it out.

  This week warmer days came, the sun returned, and I spent a couple of hours each day just soaking in the warmth and Vitamin D.  I pulled out projects that had been cut and began some simple piecing.  My finger tip nerves are hindering me a bit, as I have a great deal of problem feeling the fabric.


 Just picking up pieces for pairing takes forever.  I had parts for this Crossroads pattern cut and sorted so that is where I began.  It is a forgiving block and my lack of accuracy in spots can be worked in.  It's from Connie at Freemotion by the River....here's her tutorial.  
   I have made this one several times---scrappy, floral, fall theme prints---and in different sizes.   Crossroads to printout from Connie.  




 
   It took a few days  but I got parts cut for a Boxed Square throw.  The pattern is here  at Mary Quilts.    This one is just florals---dark versus light values.  I plan on sewing these  leader/ender style as I put the rows together for the scrappy Crossroads top. 

   My two 16 patch bed throws are pinned and sitting by Hot Legs for a quilting session.   We have another blast of very cold air blowing in tomorrow, so I really should get one done.


   Sir Old Man is down for a week or so.  He thought it was a sinus infection.  I thought he had pneumonia.  We were both wrong.  He is on steroids, and an inhaler for now for allergic bronchial reaction to inhaling wood dust----so so we think.  He was at the guild sanding on a donation project and forgot his mask.  First mistake.  On donation projects they use common/lower grade/overseas import products.......between the lines read  non-native species that we have not been exposed to can cause allergic reaction.   He is no worse, and has been able to rest better now.    It was still scary for him.

  Rather than a recap from last year, I updated the quilts for 2017  page.  As for 2018.....who knows?  I have no big plans, I have a couple things to quilt, a couple things I want to make.   I'm not running a race this year.

On Summer's Wings

I got the small topper completed with borders that I shared earlier.  It was easily pinned and ready to quilt.  I originally thought I would use a basic meandering motif on this.










   Yesterday was a good day to spend at Hot Legs, just quilting away.  But....that's not meandering!  The buttery yellow that I used for the center squares just cried for something other than a meander.   So, the muscle memory took over and the plumify-- originally from LuAnn Kessi's blog--- motif emerged.  I really usually call this "butterfly wings".    It just seemed to fit.




  This motif is denser and a great all over design.  Here is a photo of part of the back that really shows how pretty it stitches up.

   Once all the quilting was finished it was time for binding.  I changed directions on that too.  I had plenty of the yellow and intended to use it for the binding.  But on a quick trip to the J store, Sir Old Man spotted this on the 50% off rack and thought I could use it to fussy cut the butterflies!  Ha!  I cut some up into 2'' squares for Monday's workshop and cut strips for binding, and rolled the rest up for later use.   This is a perfect busy print....lots of color, curved lines, light and dark areas.

 And it worked so well with the small topper.   It picked up the wonderful colors in the floral prints....purple, blues, greens, and then the yellow was a great match.   Just meant to finish off this small project.....and to give it a name.

    I named this, On Summer's Wings.
    Finished small topper is 30'' by 23''.  The pattern used is Crossroads from Connie at Freemotion by the River.     Now if the heat/humidity will hold off, we can enjoy a lunch on the patio and enjoy using the table topper!
 
Tomorrow is the workshop  on watercolor.  Got the bags packed and stuff ready to go.   My chore for today is to order a new/current/usable greeting card program for making my quilt labels.
   Windows in their infinite wisdom did a major update and now my program that I used for making my labels will not open. Grrrrrr!!!!   They deemed it ancient I think and removed whatever linking file that was needed for it to function.  My computer expert tried and tried, but to no avail.   I can not open any of the saved files.....next time I will export the saved labels in PDFs so I can have them as reference.  Technology is great, wonderful time saver and on and on.....  It is the fast forward pace that creates havoc in me.  Just when I get it figured out, the big programmer demons in the silicon valley world want to make things better, bigger, smaller, faster, harder, complicated.....   So once I get a new program, it will take a while to learn its workings.  So, labels will have to wait.
 I will stitch instead.  
Happy stitching.