Blue Macnas Flimsy Done

 

I've sewn the Blue Macnas flimsy together. 

After I sewed all the blocks into rows, and then chunks, I added the white border.

Here it is on the design wall. The quilt will have a blue binding.

All Over the Place

I'm still wrestling with Sciatica in my hip and while that's getting better, if I sit too long it's really painful, so I do small amounts of each task and then stand up and walk a bit.

I've been doing a bit of this and a bit of that. I've sewn the blocks in the leftmost column above. 

I've been cutting up the neutrals I bought in New York into Macnas blocks and the side triangles for the Scrap Slab Triangle quilts.

I've also been sewing the binding on the Green Deco quilt.

That's just the sewing. I also made a beef stew and homemade bread this weekend. And I watched the new Masterpiece Theatre shows, Gold, and Maigret. And I finished one book and started another.

Assembling the Blue Macnas

 

When I have a long row of blocks to sew together, I break it up into smaller chunks. 

I've been sewing the Blue Macnas quilt together and you can see what I have sewn together at the left.

It's pretty funny. I've already chosen the border for this quilt (the white) and the binding (the blue.) I don;t usually do that before I have completely assembled the top.

And I've even chosen and ordered the backing for it! 

This is going to be a table quilt, and I'll put it on the table when I have the Needle in a Haystack quilt on the couch. I guess this means I am going to have to get some blue pillows....

oh my!

Blue Macnas Blocks

I matched the blue and light pairs and sewed them up.

Then I pressed all the pairs.

 

Afterwards I put the rest of the blocks on the design wall and then did a little bit of rearranging. I'm content with this and will likely be the way I sew it up. 

Blue Macnas

 

Since I am giving the Blue Ribbon quilt to a friend, I decided I had to make another blue and white quilt for my table. So I gathered up some blue fabrics from the scrap and leftover bins.

I wanted clear blues that didn't lean towards blue-green (teal) or purple. For the lights I wanted white with blue and a very few whites have small amounts of other colors.

After I pressed all my fabrics, I cut stacks of each fabric.

After I cut all the blocks, I arranged them all so I could see stacks of each fabric. Next I will pair light fabrics with dark ones, trying to distribute them so each of the dark fabrics is paired with each of the light ones.

Here is the first batch of paired blocks. It has the feeling I like, so I think is going to work nicely.

New Blue Table Quilt

 

This is my interpretation of the Happy Stripes quilt. I made some strip sets then decided where the snowball triangles should go.

After that I decided to custom make each block, so here is how I decided how to make the blocks.

Then I used a leftover HST to figure out where the white HST would go, and took a picture so I would know how to sew it together.

This has eight rows, and I need nine, and I wasn't thrilled.

I tried rearranging the blocks, but this didn't exactly thrill me either. I needed nine rows and this left a row of what looked like half blocks that looked weird. 

So I put it all back the way it was, and started sewing it all together.

Last month I sewed rows in a quilt the wrong way - TWICE - so I worked out a way to make sure I got the rows in the right place:

I used safety pins attached to the left edge of the quilt. For rows one to five, I attached that number of safety pins to the edge. For rows six through nine I put one safety pin in the bottom half of the block, representing FIVE, and then in the top half the number of safety pins that plus five would add up to the row number. In the photo above you can see rows six and seven.

Hey, whatever works!

The quilt needs a name. it's blue and white. Got any suggestions?

A New Table Quilt

I love blue and white serving dishes and have been collecting them over the years. I got this small tray recently and realized I should make a blue and white quilt for my table.

 I have a lot of blue and white dishes and serving dishes that I've been collecting over the years and I thought I should make a blue and white table quilt.

I cut a lot of medium, dark and light blue strips and sewed them together into squares, then I added a snowball corner of a WOW.

I have to make 63 blocks, because I calculated I would need nine rows of seven blocks for the table quilt. It's looking nice.

On Sunday I'll be speaking to the Schoolhouse Quilt Guild in Shrewsbury MA about my letter quilts. I've got my speech ready and I've packed my quilts. I'll let you know how it goes.