Field of Dreams Progress

 

This is the diagram I am using to keep track of how many blocks there are in the green Field of Dreams quilt. I told my son and DIL that I would mark this diagram and send them a photo so they would know my progress on their quilt.

These are the blocks on my design wall. It isn't big enough to lay out the real blocks the same way as my diagram, but these are the blocks I have made so far, and you can see where this quilt is going.

Sorry the lighting is terrible, I've packed away the lights I use to illuminate the design wall. It's getting there, and it won't take long.

I did it!

 I started cleaning the studio a week ago, on Saturday June 6. I worked my way around the room and left the bins for last. This photo was taken on Wednesday June 10. I was done everything else, and the bins were left.

On Thursday I started with the bin for Light fabrics. I had already made several quilts with fabrics from this bin and I felt it was pretty well picked over. I was ruthless, applying the rules I listed in yesterday's post to determine what I kept and what I tossed.

By the end of the day on Thursday this is what I had left. I put the "Maybe" stuff or things I knew I wanted to keep in the bin on the far left.

By Friday morning I had got the fabrics I would keep down to one large bin. A friend had come by to take the quilt batting and the bag of notions and trims. I had packed some orphan blocks to send to Julie.

I had set aside some things to donate. so Friday morning I loaded up the car and did errands, dropping the donated items to Savers. I had a lot of errands to run, so I did them all, and then paid all the bills and did the usual housework.

I had two other smaller, sweater box sized bins that stored orphaned blocks and extra pieces that I didn't use in quilts. Not shown here are dozens of purple HST's from the Amethyst quilt and blue long rectangles from Needle in a Haystack as well as leftover blocks from Pizzazz. 

Orphaned blocks were everywhere, not just in the Orphan bin. Getting them out of that bin required a lot of hard thinking. WHY was I keeping them? If I was willing to discard fabric I knew I would never use why was I keeping tumbler blocks from the Easter Basket quilt I made in 2017?

In the end I applied the same rules to the orphan blocks as I did to the fabric bits. But some seemed so basic I bagged them and will bring them to my class next week and as if there are any takers. If not, they'll go in the trash or to the recycling center that accepts craft supplies.

It took all day to sort through the very last big bin, and I pressed and put fabrics in the stash, the little bins and the medium bins, sorting all by color and size. What I had left is shown above, one deep sweater bin, and it's in this bin because I simply couldn't jam any more fabric into the other bins.

So this is the way that side of the studio looks now, and remember, the bookshelves and the bottom two shelves of the stash have been blocked by the giant bins for the last four years, so you can imagine my delight that the task is done.

The UPS guy brought this on Friday. It's the backing for the Field of Dreams quilt. I have three weeks before they come to replace the floor in the studio, and that's plenty of time for me to complete this quilt

So that's a really big job done. I will have to remember to "complete the task" when I finish a quilt, and put the excess fabrics away instead of throwing them in a pile to be dealt with "later." I have learned that

"For Now" becomes "Forever," and like the dishes, they are much easier to do if I do them right after dinner than if I let them sit until the next day.

The Bins

 

I don't know how long these big bins have been taking up prime real estate in my studio, but I know it's at least a couple of years. As I am cleaning the room with an eye to the floor install (now scheduled to start on July 6), I knew I wanted to clear these out. I've been digging through several of them and made a few quilts already (Nonchalant, Big Red, Yellow and Pastel Macnas, a couple of Scrap Slab Triangle quilts among others) and I'm sick of looking at the bins.

I knew I was going to have to get ruthless.

Ruthless I did get. The smaller bin now has all the leftover Macnas blocks and the larger one has bits of stuff I think I want to keep. That bin does need to be sorted, but I have time to do that.

How did I go through the bins and decide if something stayed or not? I had a series of questions.

1. Is the piece of a useable size? Yes, keep; No, toss.

2. Do I like it? Yes, keep; No, toss.

3. Do I have more of it in yardage? Yes, toss; No, keep.

4. Is it easy to work with? Yes, keep; No, toss.

5. Have I had it forever? Yes, toss; No, keep.

6. Have I got six thousand pieces of this already? Yes, toss; No, keep.

7. Am I likely to use this in the future? Yes, keep; No, toss.

8. Is this fabric in several quilts? In other words, has it paid for itself already? Yes, toss; No, keep.

I filled two garbage bags full of bits and threw them away. I filled another bag full of reasonably sized pieces and donated it.

When I was talking about getting rid of some stuff to the gals in my swim class, one lady came over and told me about her daughter who makes "stuff." A couple of days later I gave her my business card (kind of tricky when you're already in a swimming pool.) A day or so after that the daughter came over and happily took all the leftover batting pieces and the big bag of notions and trimmings. I was SO happy.

I have two smaller bins that need sorting. One of "orphaned" blocks and another of things I once thought I would take the time to cut up to reuse. That probably won't happen (the cutting up and re-using; not the sorting.)

Lastly will be the stash itself. Mostly it just needs refolding and restocking, but since I will have to remove all fabric from the bookshelf (because the work will be dusty and I want to keep the fabric clean), I will do that only when putting the studio back together after the new floor is installed.

The guys are replacing floors in three rooms, my studio, my office and the master bathroom, so it's going to be a logistical challenge moving things OUT of one room and then putting them back IN and then emptying our the next room and doing it all over again. We'll see how it goes. We think we have a plan.

What Else....

 I've told you all that I'm working on a quilt for my son and DIL, but as I will be having the floor in the studio replaced in the next few weeks, I'm also going through everything in the studio to determine whether I want to keep it or not, and clean everything that's left.

This is the top of one of the small bookcases, Notice the dust!

I cleaned everything, the mugs, the items in them, and put it all back. Notice I put all the buttons I found as I cleaned into one of the jars I had kept.

I cleaned these two taborets and sorted through everything in them. I got rid of a big bag of sewing notions: zippers, findings, ribbons, trims, buttons and other stuff, then resorted the stuff I had stored in them, and labelled everything. (Ergo buttons in a new jar.)

I figured cleaning out this bookcase would be easy, but it wasn't. I have quilting books from when I first started making quilts, over 50 years ago. Th ere were a lot of memories in those books.

Sorting through them was tough, and I didn't keep all of them. I more or less sorted them into "historical" and "how-to" and put the ones I look at most often together. I also moved printed copies of my tutorials to this bookshelf, as they seemed to belong there.

Anyway, I've got all the stuff clean. Now I have to sort through the fabric in the bins and decide if I want to keep it. 

I've been alternating between working ON the studio and IN the studio. 

I have all the strip pairs sewn together for the Field of Dreams quilt. So that's moving along as well.

Field of Dreams

 

My son and DIL have decided the name of the Green quilt should be "Field of Dreams." 

I finished sewing all the strip pairs.

I'm starting to subcut the strips into chunks. That should take me a couple of days.

Here's a sample block, so you can all see where this is going.

I think it's going to be beautiful.

Work Begins

 

Work on my son's "No Batting Quilt" begins. I will call it NBQ until I find another more suitable name.

I started cutting strips, and then did some math. The quilt will be quite large by my standards, but hey, it's for my son so naturally that isn't an issue. I just need to make a lot more blocks, so I needed a lot of fabric. This is the first batch of strips that I cut.

This is almost all the strips that I cut. After I took this photo I added about five or six lighter greens to the mix and cut them into strips.

I matched the strips into pairs and then sewed a few together.

These are some of the pairs I sewed together before I called it a night.

This quilt is a Nightingale quilt in all but color. It is made in exactly the same way. It is very easy. You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

We Interrupt...

 We all have special people in our lives who, when they ask, "Hey Ma (or Memere, Grammy, Auntie, Sis, or whatever), can you make me a quilt..." the answer is always YES!

My son texted me yesterday afternoon, "Are you making no-batting quilts now? Like my old one that you made for me when I went to college? [My wife] and I love those. Can you make us a sage green one?"

"Yes," I texted back, "I made one for my bed.  Of course I will make one for you two."

"Can you put some dark greens in too?" he asked, "Foresty. We have a Queen bed. We love my old one. DW wants light green and I want dark green."

"OF COURSE, I will make you whatever colors you want.

I sent this picture to them, telling them this was my entire green stash.

DIL texts back that she likes that green with the pink, and can I incorporate that fabric? Well my dear, your wish is my command, so I pulled more greens with pink.

Here are some more sage-y greens.

I kept pulling fabrics. Here are greens with pinks and other colors.

And here are some more. I'll need at least 35-40 fabrics and I think I have that number here.

Here are all of them together. Obviously if I need more darks or lights I'll add them, but this is enough to get me going.

I know I said my next quilt would be the second Student bird quilt, but hey, family takes precedence. My DIL is getting to the age where she has hot flashes at night and a quilt like this will help keep her more comfortable at night, especially as summer approaches.

Julie would say SQUIRREL!!!

I can't wait to get started.

Party Animal at Work

 Before

 After:

Yup, It's hidden. I told you.

In other news, in a few weeks I'm having the carpet removed from the studio and having laminate flooring installed. Since I'll have to empty the studio for the work, I figured I better start giving the room a heavy duty clean and get rid of stuff I don't need. These bags on the table contain the excess quilt batting from the quilts I have had quilted over the years. I don't use the stuff and sure as hell don't need it occupying space in my studio, so it will go. Not quite sure where, but I have heard there are places that take donations of art supplies, so I will look into that before I throw these in the trash.

Party Animal

I was going to name the White Nightingale quilt "Mourning Dove" but I was talking to my friend  Susan and she said the quilt was way too happy and cheerful. "It's a party," she said. "It's a party animal."

I liked that idea, so the quilt is now named Party Animal.

I've told you that I plan to make this quilt the way my grandmother made us quilts, and that means no batting and no quilting. I will tie the quilt with white crochet cotton.

I used a needle with a big eye, and tied the quilt in the corners of each block. 

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It's a square knot. I thread the quilt in the corners, working from one block to the next, then I cut the ties in the middle, then tie the knots, gathering the excess to one side and move to the next knot. When I've got them all tied, I go back and trim the excess threads.

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There is no binding.I trim the backing to four inches wide, fold it to the edge of the quilt, and then fold it again. up to a predetermined width, then pin it in place.

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I mitered the corners.

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Then I machine sewed it in place. After that, I ironed the quilt. (What a concept!)

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Here is the finished quilt. Later I will run it through the washer and dryer. Since the ties are 100% cotton, they will shrink, making the knots permanent.

Later this weekend, when I change the sheets on my bed, I will put this quilt on the bed, on top of the top sheet and underneath the summer blanket, and the only person who will ever see it is me.

When I was growing up, we brought these quilts to the beach, to the lake, to the fireworks. They were great at the beach because they were so cool (literally) to lie upon. They were utilitarian quilts, and they were made from scraps. We never considered them fussy. If we spilled drinks or food on them nobody got upset. The quilt would just get tossed in the wash when we got home. 

So the Party Animal is going to live a pretty quiet life, in spite of the name. It will NOT be going to the beach, or to the lake or to the fireworks.

Blitzen is Finished

I finished sewing the binding on the Blitzen quilt. I was streaming some tv cooking competition while I sewed.

Here it is on the couch. 

When I brought it to Janet-Lee to be quilted I said, "This is a very simple quilt." She gave me THE LOOK. "What," I asked? "Lynne, this is NOT a simple quilt. It is a very elegant and sophisticated quilt."

So I said the only thing I could say. I said "Oh-kay."

I love it. I love that it's a Christmas quilt that doesn't hit you over the head with it being a Christmas quilt.

Got a Jar?

What can I say? I love containers of all kinds. Boxes, jars, bins. I'm a sucker for that stuff. Since I make my own salad dressings, and often things like barbecue sauce, chili crisp and the like, I keep jars. I keep them in the bottom part of my dry sink. Lately though, I don't have any room for more. I remembered reading something from Martha Stewart some time ago. She said you don't need to keep saving jars. 

And I thought, well, I should go through mine to get rid of some. Then I thought I had better get them all out to see just how many I had. The photo above doesn't even show all of them. I found two small bins filled with jars.

Turns our WAY TOO MANY! I'd like to say I was surprised, but when I thought about it, I wasn't. I reuse some sizes more often than others. 

So I sorted through them, choosing the ones I used most often, and then checked they were all clean, had good clean tops and set them aside. I got a trash bag and practically filled it with all the others and brought them outside and put them in the recycle bin.

The remainder now fit perfectly in my small hutch. And henceforth, whenever I empty a jar of anything, I can just throw it away. 

On quilting news I am now hand sewing the binding of the Blitzen quilt and will start on the student bird quilt later this week.

Binding Blitzen

 

For the Blitzen quilt, I am alternating holiday fabrics in gold and silver.

I’ve sewn it all around the four sides of the quilt, now I just have to fold it over to the front and pin it all round.