One thing seems to lead to another around here when it comes to scraps. I had a lot of these petal shaped pieces left from cutting out drunkard's path shapes for Hemispheres. I just pushed them all to the side of the cutting table, or as I like to call it, the creativity zone.
I already had gotten a bonus quilt from some of these scraps with the recent Drunken Monkeys baby quilt (yes, I did just call it that). That quilt may have a home soon if Norm finds out whether his coworker had a baby girl. She had a baby; that's all he knows so far. Guys are funny. We ladies might not only know the birth date and gender but also the first, middle, and last names, weight and length, how long of a labor, and whether it was induced, natural, or Cesarean, among other things.
Back to the scrap story, I played around with the petal shapes and soon I had this kind of thing going on. It reminded me of a Pyrex design, which only made me want to sew it together more, one way or another.
Here it is pinned to a background and I'm auditioning other fabrics to incorporate, thinking this could be a small table runner. After all, something cute should be underneath the vintage Pyrex.
Another thing in the pile creativity zone on the cutting table was the EZ Dresden ruler, which was handy for the borders.
I decided not to fuse the petals down but instead just sew along the raw edges and down the centers to anchor them. I may go back and zigzag the edges (or not) before I quilt it.
Just a reminder, I am having a SALE on the Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt pattern, at 33% off the regular price now through Wednesday, December 4. Click the pattern link on the top right sidebar. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I made five wild ducks (and two duck breasts) in the crock pots, and I bet if you made a turkey, your house smelled way better than mine. Nevertheless, they tasted very good and were appreciated by the whole crew, especially the hunters in the family. Linking to Whoop-Whoop Friday at Sarah's place!
If monkey wrench blocks count, we've got five of those little guys on this quilt, along with some pinwheel drunkard's path blocks. Hey, there's a quilt name in there somewhere:
Drunkard Monkeys? Drunken Monkeys? Well, okay. Maybe not appropriate for a baby quilt, but it makes me giggle, though this quilt was made in a teetotaling state.
Pretty sweet for something that started from leftovers, if I do say. Norm likes it too. He has nothing against pink in the right setting, apparently. Speaking of pink, I picked up a vintage pink blossom milk glass square casserole at Goodwill a couple weekends ago (that may be a personal record for adjective-to-noun ratio in a sentence...you word geeks are counting them now, aren't you? I gave up trying to figure out where or whether to put commas).
I was going to give it to my sister, but forgot she only collects the fruit motif. These pieces are often known as Gay Fad, which was the name of the studio founded in 1945 by Fran Taylor that hand decorated blanks by various glass makers such as Anchor Hocking, Hazel Atlas, and others. I believe this one is Fire King. Sometimes this design is known as peach blossom or dogwood. It has been really cold lately with highs in the teens, and I was in a warm coat, scarf, gloves, and hat when I took the quilt pictures yesterday. Today the ground is covered in a layer of white. And so it begins.
These shorter, colder days are not very conducive to quilt photography, at least indoors with my little point and shoot dealie (that's official camera speak, don't ya know) anytime past mid-afternoon.
Nevertheless, here is my Hemispheres Quilt-Along flimsy.
My walls are not yellowish green (they're off-white), but the colors of the quilt are fairly accurate. Now, it's not exactly like I laid it out, two posts back. I did sew it together that way initially, but when I showed Norm, he did not like the pink floral bits at all. I had to admit I agreed with him.
His exact words were, "You didn't ask me about putting that pink in there." I had to laugh. I do ask for his opinion a lot, but he was right; this time I hadn't even thought to. It's not like I feel I need his approval, but what he was saying, in effect, was that he felt the pink part was a mistake he could have helped me avoid. Funny guy. So after a little unsewing, it is now the way you see it above. I actually have a plan for how I intend to quilt it, if you can believe it. And I think I can do (most of) it with a walking foot, even though the quilting will follow the curves in the blocks, and then some. We'll see.
Meanwhile, those pink print bits have not gone to waste. I rejiggered them a little and made some monkey wrench/churn dash (same thing, right?) blocks. This will probably end up to be a little baby quilt, either for donation or to hang onto for a future occasion.
Linking to Whoop-Whoop Friday at Sarah's. But before I go, I want to wish my brother Darrell a happy birthday. We just had a phone conversation about, among other things, the music we're listening to, and he steered me to this band. Sister P. likes!
Now there will be another challenge beginning in January. It didn't take long for me to click over to eBay and buy a couple of prospects. In her post today, Sophie asked what we collect. Well, I have severalpieces of vintageGeorges Briard. And now, thanks to my recent eBay spree, I have a couple of vintage Georges Briard tea towels to choose from for this challenge.
And then of course there's Pyrex, another fave collection.
As it happens, I also recently bought a fun Pyrex inspired tea towel from Etsy store Fresh Pastry Stand. I'm not sure I can bear to cut into this one. Not yet, anyway.
There's plenty of time for you to join in, too, and find yourself a tea
towel that will spark your creativity. Click the Tea Towel Challenge
2014 button above to see the details and general timetable.
I've been working on the Hemispheres Quilt Along project(s) this past week. There are two in the works. One I have put aside until I know for certain how it's going to go together. I think I have a pretty good idea but I'm waiting a bit longer before I actually commit the final assemblage to needle and thread. That is the one which uses some of the pink, dye discharged fabrics from the last post. The other Hemispheres project is this one, which is finally in the sewing it all together stage. Here it is laid out on the cutting table.
[Aside: I can't think Hemispheres without thinking of Rush's 1978 album by that name. And here is where I admit that I have just spent the last 10 minutes watching a 2011 live version of the instrumental "La Villa Strangiato" on YouTube. Want to be distracted by the shininess that is Neil Peart's drum set? Go ahead, indulge your inner prog-rocker and check it out. The real action begins at about 1:00 in. No one will mind if you air drum along.] It was a bit of a challenge to get those half circles to butt up against each other. I switched to a zipper foot and that helped, but it's still not the close shave I might have hoped for. Ah, well.
Need a reason to smile today? These babies will fix that. If not, look out; they might snap you with a rubber band. Oh, to be so easily and joyfully entertained!
I tried something new the other day. I'd bought some different pink fabrics online but they weren't exactly the pink I had in mind for a retro-mod type wall hanging. So I decided to try discharging some of the dye with a bleach and water bath. I found this website to be very helpful in learning more about it. I used 2 quarts of water mixed with 1/2 cup of chlorine bleach. From what I had read, it wasn't going to take long, so I stirred it around and watched it for probably a total of 7 minutes.
In the neutralizer bath.
Then I rinsed them in clear water and put them in a second bath of 2 quarts of water and 2 capfuls of chlorine neutralizer for aquariums that we had left over from when we had a fish tank. After that, I washed them in warm sudsy water and rinsed them thoroughly. Here are the before/after results. The original with the discharged version on top. It's subtle, but there is a perceptible difference. The lightest one is actually more of a blush pink color, not tan as it appears in the photos.
These are Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen (a print, not true linen).
They're still not exactly the shade I'd like, but close enough for rock 'n roll. I am using the discharged watermelon pink and the discharged blush pink.
* * * * * * * *
Today is my daughter's 26th birthday ~ Happy birthday Shella-Bubba! (I am notorious for inventing nicknames. She got stuck with that one, among others, but I think she's okay with it...or maybe she was okay with it until I announced it to the whole internet.) We celebrated on Sunday with her favorite dessert, mint chocolate bars. I bounced completely off the no-sugar wagon while they lasted, but they were good.
Michelle and Nick
I hope you have a great day and a wonderful year ahead, sweetie!
How's that for a silly title? Well, I'm running on empty at this hour, what can I say. I should be doing the final round of shoulder exercises before bed, but I just can't anymore tonight.
Physical therapy wasn't bad on Wednesday, but the two things the therapist added to my existing regimen seem as much aggravating to the shoulder as they may be helpful. Hoping the soreness will calm down soon. Anyway, it's been a busy day, and then I had a brewski about an hour ago and that pretty much sapped my will to check anything else off the to-do list. However, earlier today I finished a quilt top. Ta-da!
I like how it turned out, all diagonally squiggly and such in this setting. It's about 60 x 70 (-ish), which makes a nice throw or kid sized quilt.
This project started as a way to use an older fabric my sister had given me. I used an EZ Dresden ruler to cut the pieces, then switched them up into grandmother's fan type blocks.
I will not be naming this quilt Fan-o-rama. Other suggestions are welcome, however. Linking to:
