September Sweet Land of Liberty Blocks

I'm very grateful for this sew along's philosophy of "if it doesn't fit, add or subtract a strip".  Somewhere, I made a reading or assembly error so I had to add a few strips to the bottom and the top right hand edge.  Since I didn't have enough room at the bottom of the the flying geese blocks to add the date, I put that next to the stars.  The FG strip has part of a charm piece that has the Pledge of Allegiance printed on it. It's a large enough piece that the whole pledge is readable so that worked very well.  I used more of that same charm for the angel's flag.  There will be red buttons added to the oak leaf section and the bird's pot after quilting.  I'm still undecided what to add to the sideways angel but I think it needs something.

This is the last section of the quilt.  Later this week, I'll join the other bottom section and work on the borders.  I think I'll need more flying geese for that.  I keep looking at the ones I've made and thinking that they need more color.  I'm sure I'll be tinkering with this for a while.

Many thanks to Lori of Humble Quilts for this sew along.  It's been a lot of fun....now, I want to do another one!

Seventy-Five Blocks Finished

This is block 75 of the Tula Pink City Sampler sew along, which I posted this morning.  I don't have a very good record with monthly projects or sew alongs so I'm really pleased with myself.  Every block has been posted on time on my Instagram, which I started for this project.  I figured that I'd make about 50 before I started missing days or got bored with the project but that hasn't happened.  Now only 25 to go!

Here's a sideways view of most of the blocks....not in their final placements, but trying to get a sense of what colors I need to concentrate on for the final blocks.

A New Year.. A New Project

No matter what the calendar says, September seems like the beginning of a new year to me. Too many years in school, perhaps, but January has never felt like a beginning....it's the middle of the school year and the middle of winter..not a good time for energy or new projects while September is also the start of a new season.

I've seen several temperature quilts being done and thought what a fun project that would be. The last several years our weather has been changing to more extremes in our supposedly moderate climate.  I'm just south of Seattle and have had temps in the low 100's and the teen's in recent years.

 I've seen flying geese, hexies, squares and strips done.   I've decided to go with 2.5"  half square triangles with both the high and the low temp for each day in a 20x20 grid.  That will give me 400 spaces for the 365 days of the year with enough room to mark the beginning of each month and spaces for a color code at the bottom.

This is September 1-9.  The top left is the high temp for the day and the bottom right is the low.  In these nine days, I've a 40 degree difference but nothing in the 60's.  I hadn't realized that there was that much variation.

All temps are Fahrenheit
50-55 lt. pink
56-59  Bright pink
60-65 light green
66-69 med. green
70-75 lt. yellow
76-79 bright yellow
80-85 lt. orange
86-89 dark orange
90 and above will be reds...hopefully, I won't be using those for a while!  The 40's and below will be aquas, purples and blues.

I'm really hoping to get a very colorful quilt from this without long stretches of one color.  It will be interesting to see.

Design Wall for Renters

I've several projects going that really need a design wall to see how they are progressing.  In the past, I've found that things look completely different on the floor than they do on the wall.  My big problem is that my current space has very little wall space and a small window.  I had the same problem in my last apartment but it was a corner unit with two large windows.  The light was fantastic but again, no wall space.  I solved that problem by pinning a flannel back tablecloth to the bottom of the valance over one window.  As it was a 72" window, that worked really well for me.

Since I no longer had that window to work with, I noticed that the top of my bookcase on one side of my door was almost exactly level with the curtain rod on the other side.  I hemmed the edge of the cloth and put on of my leftover curtain rods through it and balanced the decorative ends of the rod on top of the bookcase and the window rod.  Perfect!  This is a 59" wide cloth and when I need to do the edges, I can fill in the space between the door and the window by pinning more flannel to the edge and the valance. 

my new design wall in use

I prefer using the flannel backed tablecloths over batting or regular flannel for several reasons.

1.   They are really cheap!  I get them on the end of season clearance sales or when the stores introduce new patterns.  I do try to get the higher quality ones as they have better flannel than the super cheap ones but I've rarely paid over $2.50 for one. 
2.   Batting is way more expensive plus difficult to store if you haven't a permanent place  to display it.  With the tablecloths, I can fold or roll them up and store behind the couch or a corner of the closet.
3.  They are thin enough that I've been able to pin to a hallway wall with regular office push pins (leaving only tiny holes) and that held an entire 60x72" quilt top.

Sweet Land of Liberty Month 8

Month 8...not sewn together with the other months as yet.  I do want to wait and see how the final month needs to be arranged with this one and the previous months.  My birds don't have legs because there is a banner that goes below them.  My new sewing machine has a small alphabet and I want to try the banner with that.  The letters look to be a little fancier than the basic block lettering so we shall see how they turn out.

Here is a portion of month seven with the lettering added.  I do plan on using buttons in the center of the flowers but it struck me that buttons are going to be very hard to quilt around and I've already got a lot in previous sections.  This whole thing may end up being hand quilted!

I'm linking this with Lori's blog, Humble Quilts, for the month 8 Linky party.

Halfway Finished!

Fifty blocks of the Tula Pink City Sampler finished and sorted by colors.  I just posted block 52 this morning so I'm more than halfway through the 100 blocks.  This is a sideways view taken on my floor....now I'm getting worried about how I'll be able to lay out the entire quilt when I'm finished.  There is a definite advantage to doing the rainbow version if you have a small space.  Another quilter is using four colors only...that should be easier to layout in section also.

I'm still really enjoying this.  It seemed overwhelming at first when I got the book but one block a day is very doable.   Everyone's blocks can be seen on Instagram at #100Days100Blocks2018


Quilt police are everywhere...my assistant, Licorice, checking out my seams!

Linking with Moving it Forward Monday and Monday Making

Sweet Land of Liberty Update

I have been working on my Sweet Land of Liberty quilt but haven't posted any updates recently.  Shown above are my months 7 and 8.  There are two blocks missing....an embroidered one and one with the head of the Statue of Liberty.  Both of those go above the flag and the head is partly sewn on the star block next to it.  I like my stars and don't want to block them!  So I'm trying to think of something to put in it's place.  I may make it a lettering block, but I'm having trouble with making  letters that show up.  I've taken most of the other letters off of the rest of the quilt top and am working on drawing a decent looking alphabet in the correct sizes.

There is still some detail work that needs to be done here...berries and the centers of the flowers and words on both that block and the fish.  I have no idea of why there is a fish on a flag pole...may be something to do with food for the revolution or a cash crop, but I made a salmon.  As usual most of these blocks are hand drawn.  I've progressed from trying to trace the design from my computer screen to just drawing it free hand.  I've only had one art class (landscape design) but on requirement was to draw for 20 minutes a day.  I t was amazing to see the differences in the drawings from week one to the last of the quarter.  I'm seeing that improvement again with this project.

Almost all of the fabrics used are from thrift shop shirts and a few other thrift acquistions.  The flag is an exception...for the stars I used a square of a Japanese themed fabric line...it looked so much like stars that I couldn't resist and the red stripes are a batik from stash.  When I started this sew along I was worried that I wouldn't have enough traditional looking fabrics to give the proper look to my quilt as most of my stash are bright colors.  My shirt stash came to the rescue along with a charm pack of Jo's Shirtings.  Overall, I'm please with how this is turning out.  Many thanks to Lori of  Humble Quilts for guiding us.

Linking with Moving it forward Monday and Monday Making