Snowball Blossom

The Border Dilemma

I love making the main part of the quilt, but I always struggle with borders. When I mention this to other quilters, they look at me quizzically like it has never been a bump in their road to a finished quilt. But here I am with a center flimsy, or maybe it's not a flimsy when it is a quilt-as-you-go, maybe it's a stiffy, or a stuffy. Anyway, here I am with the center stuffy, trying to find a border from my stash. I originally thought white on white so it didn't compete with the center, but I don't have any more true white on white. It could be the white on off-white I have will look less off-white when it is unfolded to a single layer of fabric. Of all the other fabrics I tried out, only the yellow and purple on the left are possibilities. What do you think?

My Janome voted to just bind it as is. It doesn't like QAYG, at least not the sashing method.

What are you working on this week? Join me at these linkups:
Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese
Whoop! Whoop! at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Wednesday Wait Loss at Inquiring Quilter
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

End of the Week Progress and Week 3 Goals

Yesterday, the morning started with lead-gray skies. I was out of thread and needed to run over to the next town, and that's when the wind kicked up to thirty miles per hour and I felt like I was being pushed around the road. By the time I left the store, it was 73 degrees. It would have been the perfect day if it weren't for the wind and humidity. By the time I got home, dark clouds were building and after dinner, the rain began. Or should I say the rain pounded. It was deafening and lasted for several hours. Of course the tv weather people were in their element and the 6:00 news ran through the evening programs. There were tornado warnings in the counties north of us as the storm raged through, and then finally, it was quiet again. We woke up to ice on the windsheilds, but the counties north of us had an inch or two of snow. 73 to 29 in eight hours. Only in Texas.

But hey, I got my thread and could continue working on my quilt. It's all about priorities.

This week I finished quilting blocks on four more rows and joined three rows. I was hoping to get some quilting done Saturday, but I was in the kitchen most of the afternoon cooking for today's lunch. Hopefully, I'll have some quilting time this afternoon. This is where I am right now. I'm hoping for a finish by next weekend.

I was happy to get in 15 minutes or more every day on this quilt, and hope my streak continues. It was also nice to get to the backing so the stash report shows a nice loss for a change.

Home Sewn by Us has a To Do party that starts on Tuesday. But my OCD makes me crazy, or crazier, if I start it in the middle of the week, so I'm running Sunday through Saturday.

My first To Do list in 2020 is for Week 3 of 2020 and is a little ambitious, at least for me.

1. Finish the center of Snowball Blossom.

2. Find a fabric for the borders, both front and back. I'm afraid this will might require a fabric purchase as I am sure I want a white on white fabric.

3. Take down my design wall and finish the wall behind it. This is a tall order as I haven't really decided what I want to do here.

To see what other people have on their design board and on their sewing reports, join me at these linkups:
15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Sunday Stash at QuiltPaintCreate
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
To Do Tuesday at Home Sewn by Us
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
Tuesday Colour at Clever Chameleon Quilting

15 Minute Challenge Week 1 of 2020

Off to a good start this year and I spent New Year's Day making the remaining blocks for the Snowball Blossom Quilt started as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge by soscrappy in 2018. For most quilters, these blocks are very easy, but I cannot seem to get the corners straight doing them the usual way and have have to make them oversized and then cut them down which makes for a lot of extra work. I managed to get in 15 minutes for the next three days and quilted several blocks. I am going to make this a quilt as you go quilt.

I was going to take another full day of quilting yesterday, but my simple project of replacing the grease in my Kitchenaid mixer took nearly all day. I was lucky to get 15 minutes. It's early in the year and I know my numbers will fall off when summer arrives, but for now, my sewing success rate is 100%. I'm not setting a success rate goal until we are finished with all the building and everything related to life on the farm.

Linking up to Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch at Life in Pieces.

A Bright, Red, Scrappy Saturday

This week I finished the red Pond Lily block (which I am not going to continue as a RSC, another True Lovers Knot block, and a Snowball Blossom block. The more Snowball Blossom blocks I make, the more I remember why I quit making them last year, but I'm determined to finish that quilt this year.




Here is my revised plan for the Snowball Blossom blocks. I need twenty-five blocks which means I'll be making two or three of each color I use.  It will be a good size for a baby quilt or throw, so I'll probably aim for the brighter colors.

And this is my plan for the True Lovers Knot block. I am enjoying this block so far but have discovered that it needs a scant 1/4 inch seam.

Linking to:
ScrapHappy Saturday #2 at soscrappy
Main Crush Monday at Cooking up Quilts
Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Week 1

My goal this week was to make one Snowball Blossom, one True Lovers Knot, and one Pond Lily.

If you think that the Snowball Blossom looks like the Snowball Flower blocks I made in last year's RSC, you are exactly right.  I just got tired of the name and thought I'd change it for 2019. lol  I found the pattern on Lisa Boyer's blog Dorky Homemade Quilts but there is nothing dorky about the quilt she made. Her corners all lined up perfectly too. Mine did not, so maybe I should have called mine dorky blossoms. She named her block and quilt The Puakenikeni Baby Quilt, but I am not even going to try to pronounce or spell that again, and since it looks like a flower made from snowball blocks, I named mine Snowball Flower in January 2018. Like she suggested, my large squares are 4-1/2 inches but the white and yellow squares used to make the triangles are 2 inches instead. I made them the suggested size at first and then thought they needed to be larger. I got so tired of making that block and trying to match those triangle seams, that eventually I just set it aside. When I decided to revive it for 2019, I thought it needed a fresh name too so renamed it Snowball Blossom. Maybe I'll finish it this year before I get tired of this name too.

 The Pond Lily was and is a struggle. Seems the hand-drawn pattern printed in the Denver Post isn't drawn quite right and I'm having a do-over today. I've only completed one corner of one block. And it's not really red, more of a hot pink because I couldn't find any red batik that suited me.

Other things have been going on this week and I haven't gotten much sewing done, but I hope to finish the other three corners of the pond lily today.

Linking to:
Scraphappy Saturday at soscrappy

Scrappy Saturday

This is the last pink Saturday and I still need to make one more block. I hated to buy fabric for a scrap project, but I just don't have pink scraps, or maybe they are still packed in a box somewhere. Anyway, here are my RSC 2018 blocks, minus two pink blocks. My other photo was too blurry.

I'm working on another scrappy quilt, a Disappearing Four Patch, and the more blocks I make, the less I like it. It may be the colors, but the color scheme of our trailer is mainly tans and browns and I need it to blend. I've used some blues and greens to throw some color into it. I hope it starts looking better to me as it builds.

I talked about pressing the seams of the D4P in other posts. This is how I decided it worked best for me. Some of the seams are pressed to the dark and a two are pressed to the light so they would nest with the seams. Maybe this will help someone someday.

Linking to:
Scraphappy Saturday at soscrappy
UFO Busting at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

This Week is Scrapped

And not in a good way either.

Hubby left early Wednesday morning and I had grand plans for MY vacation the rest of the week. I was going to pull the booth out of the trailer so I could replace the carpet, I was going to catch up on the RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) blocks, I was going to finish all the blocks for my trailer summer quilt, and I was going to eat what I wanted when I wanted it. The only thing on that list that actually happened was eating what I wanted when I wanted it.

Wednesday, before I even got home from the airport, my mother-in-law wanted me to take her to the emergency room. I had taken her to the doctor the previous week and nothing was wrong with her, but she didn't think the doctor knew what he was talking about so she wanted to go the ER. Instead of going home, I picked her up and took her to the ER. Once again, nothing wrong with her that a good laxative wouldn't cure. I left her apartment at 7:00, grabbed something to eat and thought I might make it home in time to mow by the road, but there wasn't enough daylight left, so I did a load of laundry, read a book, and went to bed.

Thursday morning, I mowed next to the road and by the creek - an area I call the poison ivy patch. I've never gotten a poison ivy rash and think I might be immune to it, but I don't chance it. I take a shower with Dawn as soon as I finish mowing to wash off any poison ivy oil. But when I started to take a shower, I had no hot water. In fact, I had no water at all from the hot water tap. The cold water tap was fine. Very perplexing. Long story short, a plumber came and went with no success, I bought a check valve to replace it myself and couldn't get the old one off, and I have taken cold showers this week. Some vacation. Every time Hubby goes somewhere for more than a day or two, something major breaks, usually an appliance. I think they come alive at night and conspire against me. Next time Hubby goes on a trip, I'm going somewhere too.

I started this post because I wanted a written record of my snowball quilt plan. Those are the blocks I am making for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I worked on them Tuesday before my week started going downhill and I really couldn't remember my plan so spent some time deciphering my written notes.

Angela of soscrappy names a color every month for ten months and participants make a block or blocks using that color fabrics from their scraps. I need twenty-five blocks to make five rows of five blocks which doesn't work perfectly with a ten month plan. I decided to make three blocks for seven months and two blocks for two months. I skipped April because that month's color was yellow and it didn't look great with my yellow centers and I made March a two block month because I am really short on green scraps.

May's color is pink. My goal was to have all three pink blocks done by the end of this week, but I only have one petal for one flower finished. Maybe I can work on it tomorrow while Hubby replaces the check valve. I try to stay as far from him as possible when he is doing plumbing, in fact, I usually leave home. But maybe the sewing space is far enough for this project, unless it goes south.

See what others have made with their scraps this week. I am linking to:
Scraphappy Saturday at soscrappy