Showing posts with label Wensleydale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wensleydale. Show all posts

Thursday, July 13, 2023

A Week Down Under

A little fun with the Post title since it doesn’t refer to traveling to Australia but to the time I spent in my sewing space which I named Studio UP (Underground Palace) which is the finished basement where most of my quilt joy happens. One of the disadvantages of sewing done under are the spiders who are not spinning me fabric but instead are annoying me with their nasty webs and sometime appearances. One of the ways I deal with these unwanted studio mates are with “Spider” Balls. After spending this past week down under,  I decided I needed to replenish my supply after I made two flimsies which you will see below. They’re quick and easy to make with the leftover skinny fabric strips made when die-cutting, which I hate to discard, and the never ending batting scraps. I fold a 2” batting square in quarters and then wrap at least a 20” x 1/4 wide strip around the batting square. I do add a spot of glue before and after wrapping to hold the strip in place and trim any fabric frays. They are not round as balls and remind me more of oyster crackers but naming them spider crackers just didn’t appeal to me. Like moth balls, my Spider Balls are repellants once I add a few drops of peppermint essential oil. I could use white cotton balls but these are way more prettier. I put the Spider Balls in glass jars, group them in lids or push one in a water bottle cap which would also make a compact pin cushion. I do have to refresh them with the peppermint essential oils every few days but I see it as exercise since they are placed all around my 20’x30’ studio and it does make my studio smell good. As you can see, my latest batch of Spider Balls  filled an empty oatmeal container and were made while watching TV upstairs. I will admit that the Spider Balls don’t deter the spiders entirely and in which case I have to use my voice activated Spider Man system which is my screaming and Hubby running down the stairs. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work when he’s not home.
The Spider Balls were made mostly from trimmings from Jen Kingwell (JK) fabrics, another reason for the reference to Down Under, used for the two flimsies finished this past week. The top quilt is the Wensleydale pattern designed by Jen Kingwell, the Down Under Quit Extraordinaire, a foundation pieced project, which I started last October and finished sewing all 60 sixty blocks in early June. The bottom quilt was made with a JK’s Fine and Sunny Jelly Roll plus some of her other fabric lines in order to make the Running Doe Quilts Mazed pattern larger which I’m definitely going to make again. Once these quilts are a finally finished I’ll do another Post. And to add to the Down Under vibe is while I was sewing these two flimsies, I was listening to one of my favorite authors, Kate Morton’s latest book Homecoming which is set in Australia.
We’re heading to the GP house where Hubby is finishing the basement and planning a studio space for me. I know when that happens I’ll definitely will make more Spider Balls which I already have the makings needed and way more courage since I still have not gone down under there still after four years. (For those who don’t know, the GP House is the Grandparent House which we purchased this 100 year old fixer-upper and is next door to the darling Granddaughter. It is our second home where we visit every other week. I have avoided the basement after Hubby found some meat hooks hanging around and I don’t like horror movies). I would rather fly to down under and I don’t like to fly despite claims from my menfolk that I fly on a broom, than go down to the GP basement.

Happy Sewing wherever you sew!

Thursday, October 6, 2022

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.