WOW --- what great stories of coincidences!!!! And, amazingly, our brain makes these connections! It's an amazing tool, and we need to use it or listen to it a lot more than we do!!
Good progress was made at the retreat house. I moved another bag of finished projects to the car last night, leaving one bag of projects and my knitting bag! We are here until Sunday, so I should be able to touch most of the stuff I brought. Well, let's see, since some of them are small, but still -- despite my panic packing at the end, I think I did pretty well. ONE bag of projects to take to the car —even if I don't get to them all—that's all that remains!!!!
Let's start with those half-square triangles. I managed to finish this entire grouping. Yeah!!! There were two dark triangles left without a matching light, so I'll add them to my tray of triangles when I get home. One of the things I love is getting home, unpacking the bags, and prepping for the next retreat!! Lots of satisfaction in that task.
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| Another grouping of HSTs done! |
So it was time to unpack the next grouping of half-square triangles. I've started working on this group, which I didn't even realize was in the retreat bag. That leaves one bag that needs trimming; I might save it and do it at home, or I'll work on it here. And there is one large bag with HSTs in various states of completion. Once these three groups are done, I think I'll be caught up. What a relief that will be!! I'll keep the two bags of HSTs to sew in the retreat bag as they are good enders and leaders.
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| The next batch of enders/leaders |
Speaking of enders and leaders, I went to sew another quilt top together and realized when I opened the bag that I need to finish making the blocks! I had cut all the pieces needed, but I had forgotten that the blocks were not finished. So that will go back into the retreat bag, as it's a great ender-and-leader project for the retreat.
Here are the partially completed blocks.
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| Partially completed blocks |
And here are the pieces that need to be assembled. This is one project I brought, but I won't be touching it, nor the other two bags of HSTs. I'll continue to bring them until they are done, as they are good to have at a retreat. Once those are done, I know I have a couple of other projects that will work for enders/leaders.
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| The pieces to complete the blocks are ready to be sewn. |
I'm happy to report that I finished the other quilt top, but what an ordeal!!! The fabrics in it are very busy, and even though I had it laid out on the design wall, I managed to join the same fabrics together, not once, not twice, but THREE times!!!! I decided to leave it that way. I was not ripping it out. Did I mention that I had four blocks left over?
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| The scrappy quilt top |
But when I hung it up on the wall to take a picture, I wasn't happy, not because of the fabrics touching, but the ratio. It was too narrow for its length, and that will drive me insane. So I took the bottom row off and added it to one of the sides. I needed a few extra blocks to make that happen. This was probably my original intention, but of course, I did NOT leave myself a note. That would be too easy!!!!
And this is what it looks like now. There is one block leftover, and I'm OK with that, as I have another bag of blue flannel scraps with me, and that block will go in that bag. It's a decent-sized quilt top and made of MANY scraps, but together, it looks just fine!
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| The correct orientation of the quilt top |
Now here's a wild coincidence. I had picked up this small package at some US quilt show eons ago. There was a sheet of sewing lines (Moda Recipe paper #2) and two 10" squares of fabric. You could try out the papers and make two smaller blocks. It has been in the retreat bag for MANY retreats. I decided last night that if I wasn't going to make the blocks, I should NOT bring that back.
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| A kit to make two quilt blocks |
So I decided to sew the two blocks together. Here was the "recipe" that came with the kit. The sewing and cutting lines are marked on the paper, and you have this diagram to show how to assemble the block. The idea is that you pin that paper to fabric from a layer cake (10" pieces of fabric).
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| The block instructions AKA Cake Mix Recipe |
And here are the two blocks.
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| My two blocks |
What will I do with them? They can go in my orphan block box, and I'll need to tackle them during our upcoming scrap class starting in the fall.
So there was nothing unusual about that, except that I finally tackled that little project in my retreat bag.
Well, imagine my surprise when one of the ladies had similar sheets. When I looked closer, she was making HSTs from the Mode Recipe sheet #2!!!!! What are the chances of that?
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| Someone else is working on Moda Recipe #2 |
Would I use them again? Well, it was kind of nice to have everything preset, and in particular because I was using the two 10" layer cake pieces of fabric. But to just make HSTs? I don't think so. But it's done!!!
And yes, I remembered to remove five more raindrops from the Cherrywood Challenge. Slow and steady. The five I removed yesterday were the big ones, which are easy! It's going to take me five days to remove all of them on the left side and a couple of weeks to remove them from the other side. It doesn't matter - it's just important to keep at this so I can get it finished!! I need to leave that beside the computer, and it would be a great thing to do at Virtual Retreat, Monday sewing, or watching a YouTube video.
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| More raindrops are removed. |
WAIT --- there's more!!! I woke up at my usual time when I'm home, and since I had had a great sleep, I was revved up and ready to sew. That's when I discovered that the black-and-white blocks weren't ready to be sewn together.
But I grabbed the next bag of scraps to assemble into blocks and realized I only had a few blocks left to make. It's from the leftovers of making the eight dog quilts for the staff of our retired vet last year.
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| Making scrappy dog fabric blocks |
I had enough scraps to make ten blocks, and the rest was already made into blocks. The leftovers from this exercise are the two pieces at the top. Those got put into the other bag of dog fabric that is random colors. I will leave that for the next retreat. In addition to the ender/leaders, I like to bring a bag of scraps to make blocks. I still have a bag of Oh Canada fabric, the dog fabric, and some blue flannel bits.
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| Blocks for another dog quilt |
The plan with these particular blocks is to make a couple of borders around this dog-themed panel I couldn't resist last year. But I need to trim the panel, and I need a coping strip to go around it so I can add the 6" blocks. I just realized I could design it in EQ8 here, and when I get home, I can trim and add the coping strip. I might dig it out and do that. I may or may not sew it at home. It would be good NOT to bring it back, so I might put it on the priority sewing list when I'm home.
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| The dog panel to go with the blocks |
And then, before I left the house, I threw in some scraps so I could work on the appliqué for the sledding block for the winter quilts. I got that all prepped last night and just need to fuse the shapes to the fabric, cut them out, and stick them down. I will get that done today. And now I'm working on the poinsettia pieced blocks.
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| The appliqué is ready to fuse and cut. |
And that was all I accomplished since yesterday's blog! OH WAIT --- one of the other ladies and I walked into town because I needed bananas, and while we were there, we went to our respective coffee shops because they were right there. No bug bites, which was good because I still have a lump on the back of my head, although it's much smaller now.
And then one of the other attendees and I went back to Creekbank. Don't ask, but I picked up a couple of spools of thread! You'll see more of that when it's time.
Remember that I talked about the low-tech of putting a jigsaw puzzle? I mean, no technology is required, so it should be easy for me to handle. Well, not so much. The puzzle I brought to the retreat was brand new, and I needed to open the seal. Well, that was a job and a half.
I had trouble using a knife to slit open the tape and ended up sawing through the bottom of the box!!!!
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| Oops - a bit too aggressive in opening the box |
All I really needed to do was to pull that tape off!!!! Oh FARCE!!!!!!
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| It was as easy as pulling the tape off! |
The good news is that the puzzle is done!!!!
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| The puzzle is done! |
And the good news is that many hands make short work of any puzzle. Of the six of us here, four actively attacked the puzzle. I think we all did it at different times. One person would leave, and then someone would sit down!
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| Many hands! |
I have worked on jigsaw puzzles at other retreats and was never joined by anyone. They just left me in my corner, and I worked away. This time, it became a community puzzle even though the intention was for it to be a personal diversion, just like at previous retreats. But you know what? Who cares—if the others had fun putting it together, I'm happy to let them work on the puzzle. I have the setup, the puzzles, and the time to work on them at home by myself. And I'll do this one at home by myself at some point. I think the expectation is that I bring a puzzle to future retreats!
One of the ladies has actually been to the location of this puzzle - Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.
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| The puzzle!!!! |
This is an older puzzle because it has a photograph on it. Many of the puzzles today are no longer photographs but are designed by graphic designers. And there is a BIG deal about them NOT being designed by AI. This is a lucrative business: designs created by people, for people. I would NEVER buy a puzzle generated by AI. OK - I said NEVER again, but seriously --- these designers need to be employed, and AI could not generate all the details required for a puzzle, without making a mistake.
Besides, there are some amazing Canadian artists and some amazing Canadian-based puzzle companies. We need to support them!!!!!
I got a chuckle from two people here. This small piece is not a scrap -- this is the size of a finished piece that goes into a block from the Quilted Diamond Quilt by Linda Franz. She is hand-piecing this quilt, and, well, sewing this into a block could be a challenge!!!!
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| Now that's a small piece. |
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| That's a lot of threads. |
It's been a bit chilly here, and while I'm sitting in shorts at the moment, I might have to put pants on to go for a walk.
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