August ~ And July Project Show and Tell

Hi everyone! Welcome August! High summer....

The angle of the sun has changed, did you notice that?  The light is more golden. Days are now uniformly hot, blue, and breezy. Sunset comes a little sooner each day. I have graduated to floating in the pool with a Styrofoam ''noodle'' each afternoon. NO swimming, but just to float and relax is a joy.
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I was surprised when I gathered the pix for this post, I did more than I realized! But doesn't Fourth of July seem like it was just eons ago? A long but short/ fast July~
Here is what Mo and I worked on during July.
The ever present Summertime, only six more rosettes to go. OMG, the hours spent on this project, yeesh. I will be thrilled when this is done and folded away in the closet, yay!

In my bin of blue fabrics I found a perfect backing for Sand Pails and Starfish.

I was going for use a Beacon [looks like a lighthouse] feedsack but decided this is too perfect to pass up. It will get miniature Baptist Fan quilting.

 I finished the last of Fall Festival's applique blocks. This is  the banner that goes across the top of the quilt.

I have to make 40-50 Flying Geese and set them into the sashing, sew the whole thing together, add borders---maybe in January unless we get a rainy Fall.

I made some changes as always. A white crow. Oak leaves.

I wish my Jack o'Lantern was smiling, have to figure out what's wrong with his smile!He looks appalled.

Beginning Bitty. [Bitty's Quilt, from Minick and Simpson]. My friend Sue is making Bitty also.. Here is her background, very  pretty
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And mine, rumpled as always.

This is the big blown up full size pattern.

 I don't have a light box so I had to use my window. It wasn't easy to do, standing there trying to trace and mark the designs. But something to experiment with.

This very simple design has a lot of things ''tucked under'' or layered. My hope was that tracing the design would make that work easier/ better. We shall see.

For the beach, I prepped the applique squares of Jan Patek's Midnight Clear.

I'll need a day to sew some of the white star blocks so that I can work out how to put only the bottom fifth of the quilt together, borders and all!, so I can continue the applique.

And my other Patek quilt, Pumpkins and Pinwheels.

I'm not happy with this at all. I think the big issue is that the entire project is very mingy and small? Looks like a full sized quilt in its photo but is only 49" square. I almost feel like Patek's original was bigger and the directions are for a reduced wall hanging version or throw.

Here are the little Pumpkin blocks also sewed at the beach, fine. BUT the pinwheel blocks come out bigger than the  little pumpkin blocks, which I stupidly cut to exact size. The little pumpkins are very wishy-washy small ovals, no bigger than my Dotty circles. And the stems should be green.

Look at the awful left side of this poor Pumpkin! The wind was howling. I picked out the stitches when I saw what I had done,lol.

So a complete do over? Or a set aside? Probably I will recut the Pumpkin squares larger, and redraw them so they're cuter. I am grateful and slightly in awe of the Half square triangle method Patek describes in the directions though. Two squares, face to face. Sew around the perimeter, then cut on both diagonals, and. voila`! ---you have four perfect equal half square triangles to form your Pinwheels. Easy peasy, and wonderful. The edges are then on the bias but they butt up to straight grain spacer blocks so may be will be okay.

I hate to just discard this project. I love the white pumpkins; I love the fabrics I have gathered for the quilt [yes, same palette as Fall Festival, but different fabrics], and Pinwheels is one of my very fave traditional blocks. Quandary. My feeling is to enlarge the design, to 150%, that would make it a 75" square quilt. 7.5 or 8" blocks instead of 5" blocks? Even 6" blocks would be an improvement, I think.
I'll work on Bitty for awhile and think about that. What do you guys think?

Mo says Hi!

love

lizzy  

gone to the beach....

PS oooh, I forgot to say I knitted half a mitten too! Mo lets me knit now, he only ''ate'' one ball of yarn.

Summer Solstice

Hello, friends! Yesterday, June 21st was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Such days seem special to me always, days that mark beginnings and ending, days that will never come again.
What will this summer bring? I'm afraid to hope, but hope anyway.
Mo and I will spend our afternoons on the deck.

Ship watching is always fun. Last week I could see a beautiful huge white cruise ship, out among the tankers and cargo ships.
I look the boats up on Shipfinder. It's the blue icon off New Jersey. The black icon above it is a cargo ship.

It was this ship. It looked a lot bigger in person! And brilliant glowing white.

Now back to sewing. Whatever shall we work on? I have two ongoing projects to finish: all the fussy binding, beading and sewing on of 68 yoyo buds, onto Summertime. [and actually I need at least 20 more yos! Sue? Did we make extras? I must count the ones Sue made for me.] And I have the top border/ banner of Fall Festival to complete though I won't then sew the top together until winter, unless if we have some long rainy summer days. Summer is too beautiful, to rare, to spend the hours indoors, behind a clattering machine.
But the advent of summer cries out for a new project or two. or three! Two mostly pieced quilts from Jan Patek. I'll do the hand applique of the moons, stars, pumpkins over the summer, then again do the piecing during indoor time, next winter.

Yes, it's the border vine from FF, sigh. I decided to make this before Lori announced the FF sewalong. At least it's cool, with acorns and bittersweet. It will be made with thrifted pale greeny white plaid shirts, and red and black calico.

I thought this so-cute fabric might be fun for labels on Fall quilts? Not sure how yet.

I love this mostly blue and white winter quilt by Jan P. The simple patchwork Stars in blue and white are something I can actually use in my house. I love the snow scene at the bottom, even don't mind the Patek Saltbox house with Kitty and Doggy. They're used differently here, I like them. The Stars should go fast [hahaha, yeah, right] as they're really made with Flying Geese blocks, which I learned to make fast this past winter.

I planned to use many random dark blues, but --what do you think?--I am thinking the white stars should be this so adorable Snowman print!? Or some of the Stars?



And this is a little project, sheer indulgence in something sweet, a small prim quilt by Minick and Simpson, called Bitty's Quilt.

Sometimes I like to make small quilts/ crib quilts for ''someday''. Who knows when the right baby might come along.

I pulled out stash fabrics.

But also gave myself the treat of some new soft simple fabrics from Fat Quarter Shop.[not all are successful--- the problem with ordering online. But all are very pretty.]

My friend Sue is making Bitty also. It's not a project to divide into segments for a sewalong, but we'll both probably show off our progress as the summer slowly slips by. I plan to do needle turn hand applique, as does Sue, I think. I may cheat and machine sew the stem because it would make it sturdier in case it is someday an actual baby quilt.

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Mo and I are doing well with our walks, though I find them exhausting. Soon it will be too hot for Mo and I am thinking hard about his schedule for hot summer days' exercise. We stop in our friends' garden during our long noon walk, for a cool drink and a five minute rest. This is not us being lazy! Pugs cannot tolerate hot weather; Mo likes a long walk but needs a break halfway.

Remember Mr Mockingbird, who sings outside my computer window, in the ugly locust tree? Well he has found a Mrs Mockingbird this year! And apparently they have a nest with eggs or babies. Every afternoon when Mo and I go out for our walk we are dive-bombed by chittering, terrified Mockingbird parents! I have no idea where the nest is. When we come inside and I look out my window, the birds are gone again, only to appear the next time we walk. I have to say my feelings are hurt! I wear a hat and cringe and think, Ha! So ungrateful, Mr Mockingbird? Did I not set out cranberries and blueberries for you, winter after winter, all these years? I'd never hurt your children, you should know that! But of course he does not know that. I can't wait to see the babies learn to fly!
Mo has NO interested in birds whatsoever.

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And something for the weekend, an idea from Mel a few years ago, quite easy and tasty. Zatarain's Dirty Rice.

Yes it's a mix or kit, but who cares? It calls for ground beef (or chicken/turkey?). I also saute onions and garlic, add sweet peppers, and though I forgot this week, I think  fire roasted chopped tomatoes are a nice addition. The mix is a bit too spicy so I'll add plain brown rice to make it blander and healthier. It's not ''summery'' but I find it so useful to have a casserole in the fridge for those, "Ma, I'm starving?!?" moments. Or if we have torrential rains from H Cindy remnants, as predicted. LOL, how embarrassing for Mother Nature:Hurricane CINDY? Yeesh.
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Years ago I had a neighbor who followed olde traditions and every Summer Solstice she and her women friends would don long floaty robes [aka beach cover ups and caftans], and they'd perform an elaborate spiral walk/ dance out on the beach. Drums gently drumming, almost unheard over the crash of the waves.The spiral was always large, maybe thirty feet in diameter? More? No one bothered the celebration, or commented; they never invited us outsiders  to perform. I'd have liked to walk in that circle, it looked so peaceful and joyous.

Have a great weekend.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...