FALLing into Piecing

For the past two weeks, which involved the darling granddaughter babysitting us for a week which we recovered nicely and being home this week, I have no finished quilt to post; only some new projects in the beginning stages and a hopeful solution involving fabric.

During the week we were at the Grandparent House, I started making Jen Kingwell Wensleydale blocks with foundation paper piecing after much hesitation but was finally inspired to make them thanks to my down under Quilt torMentor Sue of Patchwork and Play who is doing a wonderful job with her blocks. I won’t give too much details right now but only to mention before finishing the very first block, I was ready to call it quits and was planning an Escape from Wensleydale quilt. After much careful ripping of patches and finally making the first block which took more than three hours due to some fabric patches being too small and some distraction, I decided to do another block but this time cutting my patches larger resulting in some waste but was worth it. I originally precut my patches based on the templates in the Quilt Recipe book and adding 1/4”around. For me adding 1/2” around worked much better. I’m using several Jen Kingwell fabric lines which  include some bright colors and prints and to tone it down, I’ll be making neutral blocks to alternate with these colorful blocks.

Before I can continue with the Wensleydale blocks, I had to decide what I was going to do with the Jen Kingwell Glitter Blocks which I paper pieced last year. After making forty of these blocks, I decided to stop since I couldn’t see making a large quilt with these blocks. I came up with a plan to make a wall/door hanging for the recently vacated bedroom using  the gray/tan Radiator Cover print, designed by Amanda Nyberg purchased several years ago, for sashing with apple green cornerstones. Now that I have a plan for the Glitter blocks, this will free up the fabrics set aside and can now use it for the Wensleydale Blocks which will give them even more variety.

The October Project Number for Country Threads Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge was Five and in my group of projects for  this number was two quilts using Sandy Gervais fabrics which I am calling them FALLoween #1 and FALLoween #2. I still have a nice stash of Sandy Gervais fabrics and my favorites are the ones she designed for Fall and Halloween. This week, I’ve been busy die-cutting  HSTs and squares plus sewing 2.5” strips together which were die-cut last year. BTW, the skinny strips leftover from die-cutting the strips were used to make what I call fabric marbles seen in the top opening photo of this post. I am hoping I will have both of these finished by the end of the month.

When we were with the darling Granddaughter last week and observing the napkin war she was having with her father who thinks she shouldn’t be throwing her paper napkin on the floor after one use or not using one at all, I decided to make her some fabric napkins. I know when we eat at Olive Garden she uses the fabric napkins and doesn’t throw them on the floor and may take disposable napkins to heart by throwing them on the floor. I remember seeing a post about fabric napkins made with terry cloth so I purchased a pack of 18 for under $7. These inexpensive washcloths are the right weight to go with the fabric. I trimmed the wash cloths to 10” square since the size of each one differed which turned out to be a good idea since I could use a 10” cut x width of fat quarter to make two napkins. After top-stitching around the napkin edges, I also did diagonal stitching on the center to make sure the fabrics stayed together after washing. I have washed the napkins after sewing 18 of them and I can say they are nice and soft, not wrinkly and probably will get softer after each washing. Here’s hoping the darling Granddaughter will use them so I don’t have to hear her father say “Napkin” at least twenty times during meals. In her defense, I will say her father was a very messy eater when he was her age.

Another thing that kept me busy was the slow makeover of the recently vacated bedroom once occupied by Demando along with other rooms. My yarn stash which has been residing in the dining room and the spare bedroom will now be residing in this bedroom since the nice IKEA shelf unit was left behind. And if I didn’t have enough Jen Kingwell during the past two weeks, my Gypsy King bedroom  ensemble was finally laid out this week; the king-size quilt was finished October of last year. So far, there has been no bad dreams sleeping under the Gypsy Wife quilt.

We’re once again heading off to the Grandparent House. It’s nice to know that upon my return I’m going to have some wonderful projects to sew but then again there’s also more room/closet reorganization to do. I need a magic nose.