Work in Progress - I'd like to keep it

Somewhere between the frenzied trend of creating "many trips around the world" quilt blocks and finding ways to use those thousands of 3.5 inch squares I came across a photo of a quilt pattern I do not remember noticing before.  Now after 40 years of sewing and quilting you would think that such a simple concept would have crossed my sewing machine before.  But no.   It caught my eye, and my thought processes and I just had -- that should be HAD (in capital letters) to make this design.

These blocks are so fun and easy to put together but when the blocks are put together they become a bit of a puzzle.  I don't even know the name of this pattern!  It does take a bit of Math to fit the pieces properly, but all the sewing in simple squares and sashing.

There are two different blocks to make in order to create the pattern. (I didn't take a photo of the second block)

After one little false step, which is blame -able on adding and substracting skills, I got everything to fit nicely together to make the quilt top.  Still in progress, and because I plan to make another or maybe two more (which I rarely do, repeat a pattern, that is) I must really be loving the way this design pleases my eyes.

I used all the "kiddy" type squares that I could find in my stash and came up with this completed top.

Now, the dilemna is....  I REALLY like this quilt, but it is meant to be donated to my guilds charitable quilts program.   That means, I am FORCED (yeah, really who needs to be forced to make a quilt?) to make a second one that will be ALL MINE!  (and bigger)

Also, since I have already spent the time figuring out the Math -- I will post a bit of tutorial for those who might like to give this pattern a whirl, and will include the mathematical variations for at least two size, and maybe three block dimensions, so you can make various size quilts...  Check back (or even sign up on my email list so that you get notified when I do that post).

Now, another work in progress that I have has nothing to do with sewing or crochet or crafty stuff...

Each year, near Christmas a small group of my cousins gather for a end of year dinner and talk fest...  For the past three years we have been attempting to keep journals of our daily lives.  This year we gave our journals a theme.  To write about the things we are THANKFUL for.

The cover of the journals (they are all the same) is a bit deceptive, but inside that cover are my writings of things that I am trying to express my thankfulness for.  I do not write in this little book everyday, but as the need arises and when I find something to write down my thankfulness for.  For the month of February I am starting my thoughts with this quote.  (Because sometimes I get critical and abhor that I pick at little things and don't just let these little things float over my head to be forgotten and forgiven)

So my personal thankfulness for this month is...

" Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who help our souls to blossom"  -- Marcel Proust

Work in Progress -- Last Week and This Week!

The projects have been progressing well, very well, in fact -- it was just figuring out the uploading and downloading of photographs, but like I said a couple days ago, I think I have that little challenge well in hand.

I am working on another PILE of 3.5 inch square -- two shoe boxes full of them and have the first top completed and done in the very trendy Scrappy Trips around the World that you can find all over the internet with a Google search.

This is my version, the first one anyway.

 Casually thrown!  The stairway from my living room to my sewing room is the only bright area of my house.  There is a skylight up there above the bathroom door and there are no 50 foot cedars blocking the light as there is on the other side of my house.

To get a bit better feel of the "TRIPS" I taped the quilt top, which measures 49 inches x 66 inches to the door and wall, with packing tape!   Now that I see the effect of the squares, I know I am in for making another batch of blocks -- probably considerably larger.  They are simple to sew, but a challenge to keep the 'value' (lights, mediums, and darks) in a sequence that will make the diamond stand out.

As I said, I have TWO shoe boxes full of these ready cut squares, so I suspect there are still a few hours of piecing ahead of me...

Another project I am working on is a granny square afghan.

I am making the granny squares in one colour and using a variety of aqua, pale blue, dark turquoise and I am considering putting a bit more blue in a middling shade.   So far I have 62 squares made and am striving for another 20 at least before I start connecting the squares...

As yet, I am not at all sure what colour I should use as the connecting sashes, although I am leaning to a creamy yellow, maybe, if I can find it.

One of the things I have noticed about colour, and it is a frustration to me, is that here in the Vancouver/Fraser Valley area, it is really difficult to find bright, clear yarn colours.   It seems like all the shops carry the colours that you see in local architecture.  All the houses are shades of brown and grey.  A blue house or a green house is quite the rarity around here.  So, the shops around here are rich in browns and greys and dark blues and very dark moody greens, if you find a red, it is usually a burgundy.   I suspect I am going to have to go online  to find those rich bright colours, cause they are very sparse in the shops around here...

Difficulty

So, there has been something wacky about loading photos onto my blog.  I have not had anything to say unless I had the pictures to go along with it...  This morning I got up at just a bit before 5am determined to try to figure this thing out.   And finally, I have!   I have had to download Google Chome in order to bring photos from my computer to this blog...  I suspect that because Blogger, and Google and Google Chrome are all one big entity, they want you to use only their product, so they make things difficult if you use Internet Explorer.  Oh well, as long as it doesn't cost me time or money, I am adaptable.  Tho it did cost me about 4 hours in figuring out this thing and because the Chrome is a fair bit different, I will still use Explorer as my main browser...

Anyway, here is Walter, getting in the way while my hubby is working at changing lightbulbs...  Some cats like to be under blankets and in corners or under beds, but this cat finds the highest places and must feel like he is the king of the house when looking down upon us lowly humans...

Trending...

I am interrupting all regularly scheduled projects to be part of a trend...

People "catch a wave" and more and more pile on.  I am not much different.  Currently there seems to be a real trend to making "Many Trips Around the World" Quilts.  These are easy blocks to make up and you can easily find the instructions online.   Bonnie Hunter on Quiltville has a version that uses strips (check this link, http://quiltville.com/scrappytrips.shtml ) for those instructions and alot of photos of examples of this block done in scrappy versions.

I STILL have a shoebox full of squares cut at 3.5 inches and I was also give a second shoebox full of 3.5 inch squares by Harriet, who is the coordinator for my guild's charitable quilts society, which we call We Care.  The "Many Scrappy Trips Around the World" seems to be a good choice to make use of all those 3.5 inch squares!

 

Now, because my scraps are already cut into squares, I am not using Bonnie Hunter's system.  I am chain piecing the squares and sort of following my own 'map' of organizing the squares.  For this first project, my only real RULE is that the centre diagonal is always a dark blue.

 

 

The first 4 blocks, which are 25 patch or 5 x 5 blocks are on the design wall and I think that blue really does emphasize the "trips".

 

Chain piecing is the trick with these, working in rows down and leaving the pieced squares connected by the threads, then sewing the rows without having to resort the columns...  If you don't know what I mean, I'm not even sure I know what I mean...  It looks like this...

 

 

then this

 

 

I don't press at all until everything is sewn together.  As I sew the rows, I alternate the seam allowance, so the top row has the seam allowance going left, and the second row has the seam allowance going right -- they snug in very nicely that way, then the third row the seam allowances go left again.   After all are sewn they press quite nicely and all the intersections fit together beautifully.

 

Now, to get 12 of these blocks done, quilted, and bound and I can take a completed quilt back to Harriet for our February meeting to put into our We Care Quilts...

 

Work in Progress - Get Back in the Groove

The initial facination with the ipad is beginning to wear off - just slightly though - just enough to work on things I left thrown in corners...

Walter loves it when I pile things up in a corner.  The other day, I caught him pulling granny squares out of my "in progress" corner.  He was actually picking them up, one at a time in his mouth and carrying them half way across the room, dropping them and going back for another...

 

Does that little furry face look like he thinks he is getting away with something?

 

 

Obviously no worries that anybody is going to try to stop him from his mission!

 

As you might be able to tell, I am working on a granny square afghan, the granny squares are each a single colour, all light and in the blue/green/turquoise family.   I have not yet decided on a joining colour and it is fairly slow progress - I seem to be doing two or three squares a day and realized that they fit quite nicely into emptied tissue boxes with the top cut off.  The little boxes keep the squares nice and orderly - unless the Black and White troublemaker discovers them!   I don't think he knows that the ipad is also a camera so he doesn't scoot away like when I aim the real camera at him!  Do you think cats might learn the difference?

 

Well, the granny square afghan is a long time, yet, from completion and once done will go into my gift closet for the next baby or birthday or wedding...

 

Also on the in-progress calender is the "somebody elses" Scraps quilt project.

All the fabrics in this little quilt, (the top is done!) were in the "given to me" bags from way back last spring that I had not managed to use in the marathon of sewing in Summer 2012.

 

I must say, I am now scraping the bottom of the boxes of the fabric scraps.  Perhaps you can tell?  The borders are all pre cut strips of 1.5 inches and 2.25 inches.  There was JUST enough of that last brown to go around the quilt, I had about 3/4 of an inch left!

I must say, I was not particularly choosy about the colours for the border because those were what was left in the box.  I really would have liked to add a light colour in there between the black and the red, but clearing the scrappy stuff was the priority here.!

 

It is a small quilt, about 45 inches by 60 inches and is possibly destined as my "invitational" contribution to the CQA in Pentiction, then to be donated to my guilds charitable quilts program.

 

Well, now, today is Quilt Guild Meeting Day, here in Abbotsford so I should get my things organized and get my body ready...

 

There are a few more works in progress, or perhaps they are ignored works in progress and I am planning to take a inventory of so that I can see what I can get finished up in the next few months...

Learning Curve

I have been "otherwise" occupied for the past week or so and have not updated or even thought much about this blog.

I did mention, that my sons gave me a ipad for my birthday.

So much to learn, so many apps, so much fun!

One of the things on my new ipad that I did not expect at all is a feature where you can TALK your emails.  Yep, don't have to know how to type (tho I still can type about 50 wpm if necessary) don't have to know how to spell, all you have to know is how to talk.  This is an amazing feature on this electronic. thingy...

 It is much like when you phone someone and you get the answering machine.  Leave a message... works much the same when you want to send an email using the ipad.  Just talk the email and send it! 

I managed to figure out an even better use for sending talking emails.   I have two other blogs that I update very irregularly because they are both only meant for a select few who have a particular interest. 

One is called John's Journal ( jrb1909.blogspot.com ) which is the actual journal that my father in law wrote from about 1929 to 1978.  My DH inherited these journals after his mother passed away and we decided that the writings, tho often boring and rather repetitive might be of interest to John's decendents so we started typing out and posting some of the journal entries.  It is a very time consuming process as translating the handwriting to the typed word then to posting to the blog was hours and hours of work.  The ipad, has made that job immensely easier, and very much faster.  Just read the hand written words, check for errors or omissions -- but you must realize that because much of it was written, many years ago, by a man who left school at age 14, spelling and grammar and composition was not a big priority, so what we do is actually correct, the correct sentence structure (that the ipad wants to implement)to the way is was written.  It is not up to us to change in any way what was originally written down.  So that is a big part of what I have been doing the past week or so.  Talking the journal entries to transfer to that blog for those in the extended family.

   There are more than 5000 hand written pages to translate and post.  Even with the 'talking email' on the ipad there is many hours of work ahead, but now it is so much more enjoyable to do!

And still with the ipad, I have added a couple of apps that are taking a bit of time to learn and use.  One is for Diabetes control.  It will track my weight, my blood glucose levels, my carb intake, my meds, and my activity levels and then create charts and graphs to tell me how well I am managing the day to day things. It actually cost $7 but is turning out to be so worth it!

I am very pleased to report that this app really makes it clear how daily attention to detail makes a difference!  No wonder my sugars would get out of control!  Now I can see instantly how a donut will affect the day or even the next days choices.  Maybe I can actually find a way to make informed and useful food choices so that I can naturally loose a bit of weight! 

Oh, iPad, how I love you!!

Now, of course a "good thing" is not all good, all the time -- even when it feels good.... My son, introduced me to a game, and it is free on the ipad (and iphone) called clash of clans -- it is a war game, sort of -- you have to build a village and defenses and armies and every now and then go and raid another village.   The anticipation is amazing and I have become addicted to the 'hunt'.  Finding ways to defend my village, to upgrade defences, to build a new hut or money making gold mine...  And it is a global game, it has a chat area, all quite facinating.  Never expected that a mature female would have so much fun playing this game!  I even wakeup in the middle of the night to check on my village and Clan! Wanna play too?  just look for Clash of Clans  (join my clan - Whichcraft!) and we can play together!

Did I say, I love you, ipad?!