More Little Geese

I did lots more Wild & Goosey blocks over the weekend, and after I counted them up and realized I had about 160, I decided that was enough for now and maybe I can take a break. I also started running out of tiny little scraps, which is great!

My next project will be to remove the papers from the backs of these, best accomplished with a tweezers because of all the little pieces.

This is a great type of project to do while watching something good on TV - there are SO MANY shows to watch right now, I'm a little paralyzed. Stranger Things? Succession? The Affair? The Great British Baking Show? Unbelievable? Fleabag? The Politician? Carnival Row?

These are ALL on my list to watch, and lots more coming down the pipeline that also look good. This is the best type of problem to have, and one of the very few things that makes me actually look forward to colder weather coming!

Wild and Goosey

These tiny little paper-pieced blocks have been in progress for awhile now, and for some reason my interest in them really took off over the week. I didn't want to stop sewing tiny pieces of fabric scraps to tiny pieces of paper!

Paper-piecing has a rhythm to it that becomes a little hypnotic over time - sew, press, trim, repeat. I like to work on these assembly line style and 12 blocks takes me about an hour, give or take. It helps if I can organize my scraps ahead of time into piles so I can just grab the next color off the top, sew it on, and move to the next one.

Eventually, these will get sewn into blocks of four with maybe some sashing strips in between. I have about 60 of these made, which is enough for only 15 blocks, so I have a ways to go.

Goodbye Summer

We're having a summer last hurrah here in MN the past few days with temps in the 80's and lots of humidity. I went walking/hiking over the weekend at one of my favorite spots. This is part of an area sacred to Lakota indigenous tribes, and is one of a few spaces I feel called to visit every now and then. I like to leave a tobacco offering out of respect for the sacred traditions still practiced here, sit in stillness at the medicine wheel and then plonk myself in the fields of bee balm and other healing plants and just breathe for awhile.

It's interesting to sense the change in seasons. Even in the heat there's an undercurrent to the air that you can FEEL...winter is coming! And with that comes an energy shift that for me usually means moving inward and a more intense focus on creative pursuits. This is good news for quilting, and you can expect to see more frequent updates in this space as I delve into new projects and tackle old ones with renewed energy.

Finishing Things

In my last post I wrote about going through my half-finished projects. These might languish for a variety of reasons, but mostly it's just boredom. Sometimes I lose interest in projects and set them aside till they pique my interest again. I don't like to slog through stuff - this is my hobby and it should be fun! So, I start things, I set them aside, I may or may not finish them. That's my prerogative.

When I was going through my stash of unfinished projects, I pulled out a few that made me excited again to see, and the rest I threw out. Yes, into the garbage. Yes, I wasted fabric but I'm OK with that - there always seems to be plenty more.

Way back when - maybe 2014? I took some of my Tula Pink scraps and made tiny little dresden plates from them. I thought they were SO CUTE, but making tiny things take time, and after I made a few I got bored and started something else shiny and new.

Now, at least five years later I have a lot more Tula Pink scraps, so I pulled them all out and went to business cutting out more of these little three inch blades and sewing them into 12-point plates. I have enough for 20 blocks, and my plan is to sew them unto a background fabric and maybe border each block with something...I have some ideas percolating and we'll see what happens. 

Friday Finish: Courthouse Steps

A couple years back, I started a spur-of-the-moment scrap project using my excess fabric strips and making them in to Courthouse Steps blocks. These are similar to Log Cabin blocks in that you just work your way around a square. They're nice, because accuracy isn't very important, you just trim things up as you go and keep going until you end up with the size you want.

I enjoyed working on these for a few days, but lost interest after awhile and set them aside. I recently went through all my half-started projects and got rid of most of them, but I like these blocks! So instead of throwing the whole business out, I just decided to sew them up into a little baby quilt.

I quilted it in a simple diagonal cross-hatch that took all of 30 minutes and here it is - My first quilt finish in forever! The backing is a few random fat-quarters that look pretty wild sewn together, and the binding is from some yardage that I had - there are some strips of it in the blocks also, so it seemed appropriate.

This will go to my mother, who seems to know lots of people who have babies and is always pestering me for quilts to give them. Here you go Mom!