June ~ Quilt Update and other Frivolity

Hi! Another soft fluffy [means windy and humid, but not too hot] early summer day.

I have no quilt prepped to work on out on the deck, so I'm very glad I have my FG fabric collage to work on.

 Even though it seems a bit, well, pointless, as the stitching really doesn't show at all.

I had a severe hip pain flare up, woke up Sunday barely able to walk or stand. That means I probably overdid with machine sewing and standing to press and iron . I am also not sleeping well, plague dreams again, so scary and real, plus the very short nights--it is light here by 4 AM, barely dark at 10 PM. All  a warning to me to sit down and rest.

Penny has sent me a wonderful idea for a heat pillow. I bet we all could use one sometimes. She uses hers not only to soothe aches and pains but to keep warm when cold winds blow from her Cape down there at the chilly tip of Africa. Wheatbbags  instructions in their sidebar on the right

What did I accomplish before my sad weary body gave out? I sewed as far as possible on Baby Pineapples. This is a tryout done by the recipient, for size and color. The grey that's ''wrong'' is lower right corner. If I wasn't also waiting for the paisley backing [ordered wrong one last winter!] I'd probably use this grey. Not as ''off'' as I first thought.

Next I pieced the main body of Year in the Country [this project needs a better name! Help!? No ''country'' here...] I'm tempted just to call it The Year [of the Virus]. I decided extra sashing would add nothing. Eliminated that step. I do think it is so fun and so cute. (EDIT: Julie is right, no ''virus" words or names on quilts. I'll just stick to its real name, A Year in the Country.)

All along I've been planning to add asymmetric borders---wide on the left, medium wide at the bottom, and narrow at the right and top. [8" 4" 2"] I want it to be squarer. My idea was that running up the left side would be a panel of pieced homespuns, with a folky floral applique.

I've been collecting ideas for two years now. My name, date, title? to be appliqued along the bottom, fairly largely.

I had my heart set on hollyhocks for awhile. I have a wonderful  Linda Brannock book with hollyhocks for inspiration.

Or sunflowers. But then I thought the main 12 blocks don't need a distracting piece off to the side there. I chose a brown apron print and a green one instead, no applique.

Thought for a few days. I don't really like wide floral borders with no internal reference in the main design. Hmmmm.

Decided yesterday that I really do want the left panel and that this original inspiration, is perfect. I have the pattern somewhere, . by Lynda Hall. here

I'm going to make the panel and if I don't love it on The Year, I'll save it for this ''someday'' project, yes, more Baskets.

My favorite block. 

But I love them all. 

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This seems to be a Baskets and Pineapples year or even two or three. Since I quit doing sewalongs I have more time to explore motifs I love, many from old books I missed during the years when I didn't sew and now find on used book sites for very tiny prices.

But, well.

One of my FB groups offered these Tiny Baskets as a small sewalong! I did ! I made mine, a reward for finishing Blue Baskets.

The designer, Julie Porter, is quite creative. She stitches her pieced blocks to linens sometimes, adds embroidery and or appliques.

Here I'm auditioning my Tiny Baskets on a beautiful linen towel with handmade lace, from QB. A maybe?

The Baskets are meant to hold metaphorical wishes: be kind, have hope, peace, freedom, whatever we chose to imagine. A sweet thought.

The little Baskets are only 3/ 3 1/2" finished/ unsewed. Precious.

I also treated myself to the fun of using very special fabrics from my Most Loved basket that its on my desk but is rarely used. All/ most gifts from friends.

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And last: I am in love with this fabric!

It's brilliant cheddar yellow, more orange than schoolbus yellow. It's---um---yes, it's modern, it's whimsical. The motifs are paper boats like I relearned how to fold a few winters ago, for loading tiny cargo of my own wishes, dreams, and love to those now gone, to be set sail from my beach. [yes, litter police, I picked them up afterward.]

This fabric designer makes the most interesting darling fabrics, like Man in the Moons--pink moons, chocolate sky!--- and honey jars shaped like bears [we all have them, right?], so  delightful."Far Far Away2" by Windham Fabrics

Dare I use this print for It's Yellow? It's wildly inappropriate (but I love it, she whined).  Better order it anyway for something, someday.

Off topic, a little hint. Many quilters seem to struggle with color and fabric choices. One trick is to choose an inspiration fabric and use the color registration dots for a guide in choosing other fabrics.  I for one, never have that problem, hahaha, but I always look closely at this tiny useful bit of info. This also works for home decor choices, even for clothes.

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Yesterday was Mo's adoption day party. Okay it was a tiny party, but he had fun.

"Did you say Ice Cream, mommy?!" @@

Six years ago Mo arrived here from California, the bravest tiny mite ever.

My little best friend. Thank you, Mo! I love you!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

More Songbirds and Beach Babies

Good evening, friends! It's a glorious finally! summer evening here at the beach.

 A thunderstorm rolled through earlier, just as Mo and I got set up for some late afternoon sewing and no-bark! training on the deck.  It's a bit, well, a lot, windy but the air has that soft summer feel. Delightful. I wore shorts! Though I suppose I'll have to wear my winter parka for Mo's bedtime walk in a few minutes.

I'm a bit behind leaving blog comments and answering comments and emails here  on my blog. Been putting in a few days of concentrated sewing. More on what I accomplished next week and I promise to write later or tomorrow.All comments and messages are much appreciated, thank you!

Birds....bird watching. I love to observe wildlife and birds, have done so all my life. I still have my first bird book, an adult field guide given to me, age 5. But here at the beach we rarely see songbirds, the edge of the ocean is too harsh for woodland birds. But in this plague year, a strange thing has happened, a rare joyful thing---we are seeing many more songbirds than usual.

I have Mr Mockingbird who sings in the tree outside my window as I write and there is a pair of cardinals who nest in a volunteer apple tree in the marsh each year, but that's about all.

One day last week a pair of cardinals spent the whole day investigating Mr Mockingbird's tree. I was so hoping they'd nest here but I haven't seen them since. Mr Mockingbiiird is away for the summer, he pairs up and nests in the bayberry shrub on the high dune. So the tree was vacant. But, no---so far.

One day Mo and I saw a catbird too, on a grey fence.

And I've seen robins! Not just passing through in February, eating berries. These seem to be staying, maybe nesting.

We are even seeing robins on the beach. That never happens.

My friend's house and yard, even more secluded than my own beach area, seems to attract even more birds. He said he saw a ''whole family of blue birds!" who wouldn't let him photograph them. Bluebirds? Buntings?

The flock of blue bids was seen here in the dunes.

Then he has scarlet tanagers nesting in his yard.

I have never seen a tanager this far east, to me they are quite rare and so beautiful.

I don't know what has caused this influx of beautiful colorful birds. Some articles mention the increase in wildlife visitations due to the quieter world we have been living in. Yet to me the area is not at all quieter, with everyone home from school and work. So it's a mystery.

On the beach the oystercatchers have chickies!

The babies began hatching last week. The parents are vigilant and will defend the bchicks who are usually shooed up into the dunes for safety not long after they hatch.

Piping plover. Have not seen any chicks yet.

More oystercatchers , a blog  post from Lee by the Sea  Wonderful


Tonight is the June Full Moon. The Strawberry moon. Beautiful.

  Our sewing feature tonight is from blog friend Penny.

She makes the adorable exquisite tiny bonbons of pincushions, using hexagons. Aren't they just darling! If she didn't live on the other side of the world I'd be wanting a bowlful of my own, and I wish I could feature them in my etsy shop. Love them and so admire her pristine sewing skills.

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Enjoy the weekend~ If you are venturing out please be careful, the virus is still claiming 1000 lives each day here in the US. Just because the media have new issues to exploit, it doesn't mean the plague is gone.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach.......


early morning beach walk, from Nicky in South Africa:

Blue Baskets Cheddar Handles ~ A finish

Hi everyone. Hard to imagine but it is now June. Week 14 of isolation. This past weekend was mild and sunny and I was so thrilled to put the last stitch in my Blue Baskets quilt.

This project was begun in January 2019, a sewalong called  "Stringalong", for people to use up string scraps. HEREWe were supposed to finish the quilts we made by November 2019 [oops]. (For non-quilter friends, ''strings'' are long narrow cutaway pieces of fabric that many quilters like to save; I have no idea what generates these strings, not something I get when I do my cutting. But anyway...)

I am well known as a non-scraps quilter, but I had all the leftover blue plaids, thrift shop shirts, from When the Wild Geese Fly and had always meant to use the blue  plaids to make a Basket quilt with cheddar orange handles. So I joined in.

I stopped working on that project in May, because who wants to spend summer in the no ocean view sewing room; it was set aside til January 2020. Of course by then I forgot what I was doing and had to start over with Penny's lifesaving schematic of the layout, to get the top done.

I really love it.

It looks exactly like I imagined it would or could.

You can see it's a big quilt, and not a wonderful shape for a bed. I don't plan to use it on my bed so that's okay.

I  always intended for the background to be made up of many white ''shirtings", white cotton with tiny figures/ shapes.

I love how all the mish mash of prints [the best ones from Nancy!] start to blend as you step away;

..from a distance the effect is a textured white but one's eye unifies all the different patterns and just sees white, as planned..

Cheddar handles and sashing.

A mistake at the end here, the binding was supposed to be the cheddar solid, but I forgot and eked out just enough from my fave shirt. The binding isn't great, lots of bumps and squirms because of the shirt's flat felled seams and shaping. Someday I may redo it in cheddar..

Piano key border, because I was hounding blog friend Julierose to do a piano key border. She said Not on her project! , so I decided I would have one instead. I wish it was 2 " wider but its okay as is.

The fabrics are the blue shirts, mostly. There are two blocks [again, love] that are aqua/ Tiffany blue--just for interest, ''for pretty''.

And here and there I added a few not-blue-plaid fabrics again for interest and sparkle, like the brown fruit print and the Ugly Text.

I also used a black and white text that is a Dr Seuss book's words; I had used the wishes for a baby quilt. It reminds me of dear friends. And I love the idea of 100 years from now, some flea market shopper shaking her head and wondering about the silliness, the whimsy of its inclusion.

The backing is a darling tiny bluebells and daffodils floral sheet, with itty bitty red polka dots. What a find at the church flea, $2.oo; my quilter made it work. [Lori Cangemi, Quilter's Imagination]

As I've worked with Lori C for quite a few years now, I trust her ideas and judgement. I suggested the feathers and a few other patterns---this time I knew I didn't want Baptist Fans!, but let her choose what design to use and how to execute it. I think she did a glorious job, I am so pleased.

When a quilt is done, I like to wash and dry it. They crinkle and shrink a bit which I like, the freshness, the softness, the crinkle that hides all my flaws---though I forgot to measure this time. Here is that scary moment, putting the quilt into the wash--equaled only by the next scary moment, taking the washed quilt out. Yes, disasters do occur. I almost didn't wash Blue Baskets because our water can be randomly brown and it has been the ruin of many white sheets, towels, and tee shirts over the years.

But I'm glad I did!

Coincidentally I received a big envelope of more blue strings from blog friend QB that same day. Her String quilt was also blue and is exceptionally lovely. I plan to use up the rest of the my blue shirts and her blue strings to make a version of her quilt, a spiderweb design, she calls Mama Lou Sings the Blues, mine will be Two. How fun! Mama Lou by QB HERE  Video of the song is at the end of this post.

I am very satisfied with this project, I feel it looks as intended and meets my vision; it looks well-made, a goal I usually strive for and fail at. But it is, in a way, a sad or bittersweet quilt filled with memories and friendships.

I am pretty sure there will be no more church fleas, any fleas or thrift shop outings in my lifetime; no more second hand garments and linens that are safe to joyfully rediscover and repurpose. No Mexican dinners full of laughter and margaritas to celebrate a day of hunting.Those simple pleasures, yes, unimportant but I loved those outings!, are just memories now. How sadly our world has changed,  is unimaginably different.

PS Humble Quilts is giving away one of my little quilts, made with antique blocks and fabric. You can comment on her blog to try to win, if you wish. But hurry because the drawing is tomorrow.

https://humblequilts.blogspot.com/2020/05/little-quilt-giveaway.html

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...