week twenty six

I really got on a roll last week with the Halloween decor. We have plenty of festive decor already but I LOVE fall, so what’s the harm in a few more pillow covers? In the same vein as the piece I already completed, I took some more inspiration from quilting magazines for many of these blocks. It was really fun to try out some new to me blocks. I especially enjoyed making the pinwheel in the bottom row. 

Four of these blocks were intended to make just one more large pillow cover: the leaf, the pinwheel, the churn dash, and one of the blocks with the orange corner stones that is in the large gray four patch. I wanted it to be scrappy looking but when I put all of them together it just didn’t look right. So I pulled out the two “less Halloween” looking patches and made another couple of blocks - the two with the crow and skull fabrics. Turned out the gray spider ones didn’t look as good with the black bordered ones, so I played around with just some big scraps and the rest of my gray spider fabric to end up with the improvised blocks in the big gray four patch. It was fun! And look how these things multiply! I’ve decided to make the pinwheel and churn dash into covers for smaller pillows I’ve got lying around - they’ll be good throughout fall I think and not just Halloween. 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the other two blocks. I thought about pillows, but I might just keep them around to think on a bit longer. The black frame was a nice way to showcase that big crow and skull print, but I just love this leaf block. Originally I was going to use the purple background as the leaf but I’m glad I changed my mind and used the cats instead. So cute. 

week twenty five

It has been unbearably hot. Like I’m crabby about it hot. It was so hot today (and the air wasn’t all that great either) we just stayed inside. I’m bummed for Dave that a three day weekend couldn’t be spent out doing fun things, but that’s just California right now. Hot and smoky.

To pass some of the time I pulled out my Halloween fabrics and started playing around. I have a ton of quilts and things saved on Pinterest as inspiration, but this time I pulled out some of the quilting magazines I have on the shelf and started browsing. This pattern came from a quilt in peaches and aquas that I thought would look pretty fun in these festive colors instead. And I didn’t have at all enough to make a whole quilt, so I decided to just try a few blocks. This combination has turned out the perfect size for a pillow cover for one of the gigantic pillows I covered for Independence Day. Serendipity! 

week twenty four

This afternoon I started on some improvisational fabric play. I pulled out my bag of “precuts” that I made out of my scrap jars and went to town. I mostly made a mess at first until I landed on a set of 2.5” squares that I liked together. These are some of my favorite colors all pulled together into that Amy Butler floral print. It pairs very nicely with polka dots and penguins!

I saw a block online a few weeks back that I really liked. I decided to try to recreate what I saw using the pieces I had, no final size in mind. It turns out that you can definitely make a square in a square block using a 2.5” center piece as well as 2.5” squares cut in half for the edges. I read around a bit to see what different tutorials suggested and most had very specific, different sizes to use for the center vs the edge pieces. But I’m lazy. In the end just tried it out to see what would happen. All I had to do was trim a little bit when they were finished. It worked great. They were just a little over 3.25” and when everything was sewn together the block ended up being just shy of 9 inches square. The seams are crisp, the points match up, and it looks fantastic. I’m not sure this would work as well with bigger squares, there might be way more waste. I potentially landed on just the right size starting squares to make it work out ok. Dunno. 

I really liked how the first block turned out, so I decided more were in order. As I worked on my penguins and florals I noticed that the colors were slant rhyme complementary (red/green) and so I decided I would do a couple more blocks in the other complementary pairs. This block below is also from all 2.5” squares and is fashioned after a picture of a pillow I had saved in my Pinterest inspiration boards. I don’t like it as much as I like the first one, but for now I’m going to keep it around. I think I want less of the lighter colors if I’m going to use them together. Between the white and the peach print it feels a bit washed out when sitting with my first block. It is about a half inch smaller in dimension, too, so will be more difficult to put together into the same piece. Still, I stuck with my initial plan of not worrying about finished size to keep the freedom of playing intact. 

This last one turned out super cool. I actually was on the phone with a friend as I played around with squares and colors and layout for this one. I even sewed it while we talked. I started with some simple four patches from 2.5” squares and then from there made the other two blocks starting with large HSTs made from some 5” squares. I wanted more interest, so I started snowballing corners and using waste HSTs from that to do the same to the other side and ended up with two awesome looking blocks. They look hard, but totally weren’t - remember I was on the phone and randomly making decisions while doing this! When I sewed the four together I trimmed up the four patches to match the size of my improvised diagonals and that makes them look less symmetrical. I totally lucked out that the magenta triangles match up well with the two inner squares to make a cohesive shape. And I love it. It surprisingly turned out 9 inches square, the same as my first block. I think I may be making a different orange and blue one... 

What to do with the fruits of my labor? Well, the photo for the first block was part of a tutorial on how to connect blocks that have already been layered and quilted. I think I’d like to that with these blocks, too. They will be fun small pieces for me to work on my quilting skills. I want to play with some shapes other than straight lines and see how I can use different shapes to enhance the block designs rather than just using an all over design like I have before. Then I’ll join them together. I think a 3 block strip for a wall hanging might look pretty nice in my studio. Then it can serve as a reminder that a little bit of unplanned sewing can be satisfying, too. 

julekulers begun

Soooo week 23 post quarantine went by in a flurry of anxiety because of the wildfires. Ick. Not much of anything except reading CalFire updates, worrying, and more worrying was happening until just a couple days ago. We finally found a little bit of comfort the last few days in both the fact that the fires are getting more under control and (for me) in knitting these little guys. 

Julekulers are definitely comfort knitting! They’re quick and fun, and I really enjoy reading the little blurbs about the different patterns. I’m not sure how many of these will get made this year, but I’ve got a good start already. I’ve been mostly browsing through the book looking for patterns I haven’t made yet. I’m finding that I enjoy the ones where there isn’t as much behind the scenes twisting of the yarns. The red and white one had short enough color runs in each row that there was NO twisting. It went much faster and I was much less frustrated by tangled yarn. I would like to try some in chunkier yarn and in leftover colors that aren’t necessarily holiday related, too. I think they would look quite pretty as well. For now I’m sticking with holiday baubles for gifting. Can’t wait until I have a bowlful. 

week twenty two

 I’ve been wanting to knit lately. That’s somewhat strange given the fact that it’s so incredibly hot outside - in the 100s! - but there it is. I should say that I also did finish a couple more hexagons for my tree skirt this week and picked out a layout, but that’s for another post when I actually have it done... sometime before Christmas. Back to yarn. Current mood: use things in the stash.

These three lovelies are from my Honey Girl Farms Outlander Yarn Club that I was in for a while. I was accumulating too many skeins without using them so I paused it. The colors are so nice and I really like the silky yarn base, so maybe someday if she’s still got it going I’ll start up again. Along comes an itch to make another large shawl and boom, three skeins will get used. It’s a somewhat unusual combination, but that is just what I was going for. This piece will have narrow stripes and panels of lace. In theory the stripes could be very contrast-y, but I am curious to see how the blue and green mottled yarns play together. I think once the fabric gets larger the stripes will become apparent. It’s reminding me of a dragon’s scales or a phoenix feather right now. Such pretty colors.

The pattern is out of a book I got down at a new-to-me shop in Monterey sometime before the pandemic - The Before Time. It’s going to be an asymmetrical sideways chevron which is a new construction for me. It should be really interesting! 

Minion Madness quilt, finished

Ta da! My version of Nordic Triangles aka Minion Madness is done! To say I’m happy with this quilt is an understatement. Not only are the colors outside my usual yet super satisfying, I feel pretty good that everything except the big yardage (i.e. background and backing) was already in my stash and I found a way to combine them to make this awesome looking quilt. 

I’ve got lots of florals and more “feminine” prints so the challenge of making a quilt for my brother out of stash was a fun one to tackle. I think the liberal use of solids was a good idea, and even the oranges mostly read as solids. The only real print involved in the front is that blue Amy Butler ikat, but that’s got all the good video game colors in it (like old school Mario Bros!) so it’s pretty perfect. I kept the quilting simple and geometric, too. The orange thread really pops with all the gray and blue. The resulting puffy stripes work really well with all the angles and remind me of those super puffy winter coats.  

This binding makes me laugh, which I suppose was the whole idea when I bought it. I’m glad it worked out despite the larger scale of the print. The little eyes peeking around the edge of the quilt are truly goofy.

And then there’s the backing fabric. Along with a nice big stripe of eyes (which, after all, had to fully shine somewhere) I used a couple yards of minions in rockets. This print was what decided me in making a quilt for my brother’s birthday in the first place. Usually the backing is the last thing I think about but in this case I started from here. It’s a nice bright, hilarious print that is soooooo brother. 

I can hear the little minions all shouting with joy as their rockets propel through the air towards whatever misadventure they’re about to get into next. I used gray thread on the back so it blends in more with the print figuring the orange would be too much. 

It turned out to be 51” x 68” which is a pretty good size. He’s a tall dude so this should be a good couch quilt for him to hang out under after all the kids are asleep. It will get to hang around until his birthday in October when it will be packed up and sent over to him, hopefully with a minimum of minion shenanigans on the way. 

week twenty one

This afternoon had me enjoying my new clips as I started binding my brother’s birthday quilt. I used these for the quilted hexagons, too, but I think where I’ve really been missing them is in applying binding. This will make it so much more pleasant to sew my way around the quilt. These are the perfect size for this task, not to big and not too small, and they hold things together with a very firm grip. 

I have to say I’ll be sorry to give this one up. This binding makes me giggle, and I’m enjoying the fact that I had enough of it to also get a good section of the backing covered in surprised minion eyes as well. And that minion flying the rocket ship just kills me. COVID is crap and I am bummed I won’t be going home for this birthday, but I am extremely pleased with the way my stand in is turning out.