Today is??

Friday, I think. All week Husband and I have been asking each other what day is it?

We did our regularly planned shopping on a different day and have been kind of lost since then.

I have gotten all the A Blocks for Border 4 of Designer star pieced. There are 2 each of 6 colors.

I have been working on the banners for my brother.

 

I am not having fun. This fabric is much different from quilting cotton. Very slippery and frays horribly while sewing. The seams are fine once they are finished. I am sewing French seams 

and topstitching for durability. 

It makes me not regret sewing and altering prom/bridesmaid/wedding/evening dresses.

I got lucky with the bobbin thread! This project is using a LOT of thread.

Around my yard - 

Hollyhocks hiding behind the sunflowers.

The Japanese beetles are everywhere.

Day lilies.

The group on the left is almost finished blooming. The group on the right is just getting started.

Zucchini!

There is a tiny zucchini under all those huge leaves!

Mini cukes!

Two tiny mini cucumbers.

I threw a handful of wildflower seeds in one of the raised beds just to see what would happen.

They are slowly growing and 

there are a few flower buds.

Milkweeds!

The Monarch butterflies are happy with all the milkweeds. They were too fast for me to get a photo, though. These smell so good!

Darn Japanese beetles!

Just some photos of random 

flowers around the yard.

 

I got a call yesterday that the library where my quilt group holds our monthly exchange meetings is opening to the public, with safety restrictions, of course.

We can hold our meeting on the 25th. They are making a space available to us that allows us to social distance better than our usual room. Masks will be required. They are practicing strict sanitizing procedures. 

The plan is to show the blocks from each bag, just like we always do. There will be Show & Tell, just like always. I'm excited to see my friends (and all the Show & Tells) but a little apprehensive at the same time. It seems in this area that most people are not taking this virus seriously. People are out and about without masks. They are poo-pooing the notion that masks are effective. When Husband has had to go to various places to conduct business (mostly farm related) the employees are meeting the customers outside, but not wearing masks. 

Our friend who contracted the virus from his family the week of July 4th was sent home from the hospital to recover and told to quarantine at home for at least 10 days. Husband has called him to make sure he is doing ok. He sounded pretty good the last couple of days. Husband has to deal with the business where he works. When he went in to conduct business yesterday he was wearing a mask. They all laughed at him thinking he was making a joke concerning the sick friend. When Husband talked to our friend today he was feeling much worse and was preparing to go back to the hospital. 

We are wearing masks everywhere we go and trying to practice social distancing. I feel like people think I am overreacting. I would rather overreact than be sick.

Stay safe and well.

Cutting and Sewing

Cutting 

and sewing

and more cutting

and more sewing

and more cutting

The drawers in  my handy dandy cabinet work great
to hold long lengths of fabric while I cut.

and more sewing

and more cutting 

To get this...

all the pieces cut for Designer Star.

And, this lovely top!

Husband saw the fabric in a Facebook post and said 'get it', so I did. I didn't have a pattern, just an idea. So I did a search to find the fabric and ordered it. Then I got a message that the border fabric was on back order. Then I got another message that the border fabric was no longer available. By this time I had received all the other fabrics and had a plan. So I searched some more for the border fabric. I was fortunate to find it. My plan worked and I found I had bought enough of the border fabric that I was able to miter the corners. 

It is 70 x 90, a decent size.

I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

Because I forgot

When I started cutting Designer Star I had planned to cut a bit, sew a bit because I knew I would get tired of cutting. There is a lot of cutting - hundreds of pieces - 512 - 1 3/4" black squares, 108 - 2 1/2" white squares, 256 - 1 3/4" white squares, 256 - 1 3/4" x 3" white rectangles. 

And that is only the first two fabrics. 

Except for the diamonds these are for the outer border. There are 64 stars.

The remaining fabrics will have fewer pieces to cut, but by this time I was tired of cutting. I forgot that I needed to cut more pieces for Jack in the Box so I didn't have anything to sew.

I decided to switch gears. I needed to do some thinking, planning, calculating. I needed to make a sample block to make sure it was going to work. It did. 

I was so pleased that I kept sewing. 

Until they were all sewn together. 

Can you guess what project this is for?

So I still don't have anything to sew. I need to do more cutting - for ALL THREE projects that I am working on.

Did you notice the pile of elastic in the photos? I ordered elastic on April 7th from a US Etsy shop thinking it would be safer than from China and would arrive more quickly. It shipped on April 9th. I had been tracking it and it seemed to be stuck in transit between facilities. I contacted USPS and received a response that basically said they were sorry, but don't worry, the package was showing movement daily. What? Not according to the tracking info I was seeing. Anyway the package was delivered yesterday. My lovely mail carrier apologized, even though it was not her fault, and explained that the enveloped used was an Express Mail envelope, but had a 1st Class label on it. We are pretty sure the label was printed by the Etsy shipper but she said the first post office involved should have caught that and taken care of it on that end. Anyway, I now have lots of elastic. I  hope it isn't needed.

I hope you all are staying 

safe and healthy.

This is why

I have UFOs.

Before I get started you can see what other quilters are up to at 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I have been working on Jack in the Box using scraps. I started in 2015 and had decided to make eight blocks

each of eight colors.

I had cut most of the fabrics for each color- blue, turquoise/aqua, pink, red, purple, green, yellow, orange.

 

I have pieced the blocks for blue, pink, turquoise/aqua, red and purple.

I started piecing the green blocks this weekend. 

I don't know what happened when I was cutting. Maybe I thought I would combine bright greens with dark greens, or maybe I didn't have enough scraps of those colors. 

And then I discovered that there isn't enough variety which means that some of the same fabrics would end up in one block. I really didn't want to do that. And there is a green block that is not bright green but not quite dark green either. It doesn't look so bad in the photo, but in real life it doesn't go. 

 

Then I decided I don't like some of the bright green prints I chose. 

I decided I would need to cut more fabrics to get the look I want. 

At that point I decided to switch over to piecing yellows. They are all cut which is good. 

Then I ran out of the white squares. 

And, I still need to cut orange fabrics. 

At this point I was frustrated. I did cut some more white squares, but then I packed it all up and put it away.

I looked around my mess of a sewing room, put a few things away and got a little better organized, then I saw my project box. Mid-March I had started packing up my project box for the next Sew Day that would be coming up in a couple of days. Only it didn't happen because the schools had been closed - we meet in the conference room of a community library at a school. Then it was being suggested that people stay at home, and then came the stay at home order. No Sew Days. I miss my group. 

In that project box was this kit - Designer Star from Anthology Fabrics. 

It is a free pattern on their site. I got it as a kit from Keepsake Quilting, but I can't find it on their site.

 I decided to start on it. I got the black pieces cut for the center Lone Star. 

I think I will work away at getting this project cut today. It may take a day or two. 

My plan was to show this in our county fair which is held mid-July. As of today the fair has not been cancelled. But, depending on how things are going by then I may or may not risk going to the fair this year. I am an assistant in the Fine Arts building which means I help get the building cleaned and set up for the displays and I get to help judging day. I help with accepting the exhibits, getting the items in front of the judges, putting items in the display cases, and getting them back out and to their owners at the end of the fair. 

Anyway, being an assistant also means that I come into contact with many people, people I don't know. So we will see how things are going at that point. Hopefully, it will all be much better and we will be starting to get back to normal.

Be safe, stay healthy.