Wildflowers

It is springtime in central Texas and that means wildflowers. Now that the bluebonnets have faded, Indian blankets have taken their turn in the spotlight, filling meadows with waves of orangey red blooms.

This year I've had fun playing with a macro lens and a 100-400 mm lens to zoom in on details. If you get close you can see yellow petal tips on Indian blankets.

If you get even closer you can see who likes to nibble on those petals,

You might also find other flowers, like these tiny mountain pinks, hidden in their midst.

By getting close you can really appreciate how saturated wildflower colors are. This bloom is from a six-foot tall cactus.

There is also a surprising variety of lavender and purple flowers, such as Texas skeleton plant,

horse mint,

American basket flower,

prairie verbena,

and Venus' looking glass.

I've had my share of color in the sewing room too. I stitched up a wall hanging with the blocks I received last year though Barb Vedder's broken dishes block swap. The colors are every bit as varied and saturated as spring-time wildflowers.

I added a sawtooth border,

and quilted it with a simple geometric pattern on the long arm machine. If I were to do it over again I would use red thread on the top rather than white.

Still, I'm pleased with how it turned out and it certainly brightens up my sewing room.

Wishing you a happy spring!

Bow Ties and Butterflies and Broken Dishes

I am finally back with a few quilting tidbits. The first is the quilt I made with bow tie blocks from last year's swap organized by Barb Vedder over at Fun With Barb.

I'm glad I chose the modern version for the swap as the cheery colors will nicely brighten my basement sewing room. While making the swap blocks I was also sewing scraps into broken dishes blocks. At the time it didn't occur to me that I might use them together, but the bow ties ended up being perfect for the border. Since it's a busy quilt I kept the quilting to a simple zig zag pattern, not unlike what you might see on the big quilts movers use to wrap furniture, but on a bigger scale.

As I was scrolling through my photos for this post it occurred to me that my arrangement of bow ties makes then look a little like butterflies. Or maybe it was just the power of suggestion since a bunch of recent photos of butterflies popped up too. My favorite fall wildflower, Liatris, commonly known as gayfeather, has been growing profusely this year. It is clearly also favored by butterflies. Happy butterfly season!

Pipevine swallowtail on gayfeather

Southern dogface on gayfeather

Back to quilting. Now that bow tie quilt is about done, I am ready to receive this year's batch of swap blocks (in the broken dishes pattern!), which Barb promises are now in the mail. Here are my blocks just before I mailed them off to Barb. I'm eager to see what I get in return.

Finally, here is where I have gotten to on my little hand-pieced scrap quilt which I have been hand quilting in spare moments while at home.

I'm still not sure what I will put in the solid squares, but I'm leaning towards some sort of floral motif from my summer travels in China.

Building Blocks

In reviewing some of my 2015 photos I came across this one of the glass entrance pyramid at the Louvre. It makes me think of quilts made with a grid of blocks, as opposed to say whole cloth quilts or medallion quilts. 

At the moment I have four sets of blocks, all of which I made in 2015. By the end of 2016 I hope to have built them into four complete quilts.

I made the pile on the top left entirely on the go. I carry in my purse a little zippered bag with needle, thread, scissors and a stack of two inch square scraps. Whenever I have a few minutes of spare time I pull it out and stitch up a few seams. And voila!

A few more blocks and I will have enough to make a twin size quilt, assuming I set them with a sashing or alternating blocks of different fabrics, rather than just stitching them all together.

I made this set, in a pattern called "broken dishes," to use up scraps while I was working on another quilt. I never sit down at the sewing machine to sew just one thing. When I prepare something for my "main project" I always grab one or two extra items to sew together. I figure so much sewing time is actually taken up by switching between tasks, that the more I can cram into a session at the sewing machine or cutting table or ironing board, the more total work I can accomplish. Plus, it keeps things interesting.

I have lots of options for how to arrange these, but have at least decided against combining them into larger blocks since that just makes a larger star and loses the broken dishes pattern. The remaining decisions are whether the blocks should be placed randomly or by hue and intensity, and what color and pattern the alternating blocks should be.

The bow tie blocks are from Barb Vedder's block swap last fall. I made eighty blocks, shipped them off to Barb, and got in return a new set of 80 blocks. All these bright colors will be a real treat to sew together.

My last pile of blocks, which are probably more aptly called strings, also grew out of my scrap bag. I used many of these kinds of pieces in a medallion quilt, now nearly complete,

and find that I now have a substantial stack of leftovers. Maybe I will combine them in an entirely different way. I could turn them into a sort of super log cabin block and have almost a Gee's Bend style quilt,

or, for a more orderly and controlled look, I could put them into individual large blocks separated by sashing.

I hope your 2016 is starting off as creatively as mine and that you will share your ideas for building with these blocks in the comments section.

What Happened to October?

How is it that October has come and gone and I have yet to write a single post?  I think it must be because I haven't made significant visible progress on any big projects.  Nothing really jumped out as being worthy of a post.

Instead I have been gathering ideas, planning new quilts, experimenting on new things, and working on lots of bits and pieces. The highlight of the month though was a trip to New England to visit the girls.  In addition to catching up on their activities of the last six weeks, we watched them play volleyball, met teachers, and enjoyed brilliant fall colors and crisp air.

The bits and pieces include a pile of "broken dishes" blocks made with scraps. Assuming I alternate them with solid squares, I am halfway to a twin-sized quilt.

Broken dishes

I made lots of pieces for a string quilt, ultimate design still to be determined.  Right now they are of so many different sizes that I suspect they will turn into multiple quilts.

"Strings"

For a quilt with a more precise and traditional design I began a set of Ohio Star blocks.

Ohio Star

I also began a portable knitting project, Rowan's "Peggy" pattern with Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply 100% Merino wool, which I work on in spare moments. The front, shown here, looks oddly small, but it is very stretchy due to the ribbing.  I guess I'll know if it is stretchy enough when I join it to the back and try it on.  The directions aren't much help because the gauge is described as "28 sts and 36 rows to 10 cm measured over rib when slightly stretched using 3 1/4 mm needles." What does "slightly stretched" mean?

"Peggy" by Rowan

New England in mid-October was certainly a feast for the eyes.

Looking east from the NMH campus

Eva took us for a carriage ride around campus.

Memorial Chapel

I must say that an open carriage is a wonderful way to take in the colors.  I hope that I can match nature's exuberance in my quilts.

Eva and Kara