steps away

getting four or five extra days to prep handwork projects really put me in a spin. i'd put my head down and knock one out, then decide i had time for one more. it actually wore me out on quilting for the moment. that'll be short-lived, i'm sure. 

when i started prepping all these projects, i thought, "wouldn't it be lovely if i could have the courthouse steps tops ready to go?' i'd love to have them complete and these liberty + chambray projects are some of my favorite to handquilt. but i didn't think i'd actually get them done. they needed a few more rounds and borders, plus backing and basting, if i was going to have them ready. 

so when i got some extra time, i opted to go for the quick one, the christmas log cabin, instead. i got that done and still had time, so i powered through "citrus season," which was tougher and longer than i expected but that got done, too, so i thought i'd at least try for one courthouse completion. and i did it! it's the 11th hour before i leave, but i got it done.

round nine is "meadow" in a red & yellow colorway (bottom right) and nancy ann in some pretty brights (top left). i bought a large piece of that meadow print a long time ago and didn't fancy it when it arrived. it's been so long i have no idea when or from where or why i might have gotten it. i decided to give it a go mixing it in here with all these other prints. as soon as i cut the pieces i already liked it better. and it does play nice with the other prints

these are the strips for the ninth and tenth rounds: a navy & fall colored floral i can't identify (for tamsen's), capel in navy (for mine), meadow, libby, and nancy ann. 

i've made the quilts nearly identical, but in round two i used two different saturated blue prints: sea blossoms for tamsen and ros for me. i decided it was okay to do that again on the last round.i chose complimentary prints to the ones already used in each quilt.

next up was adding a border. for one, i don't like square quilts. second, this is a small lap quilt and it needed some more length. i considered a couple of different ways to add length or width while maintaining the central block with 21 fabrics (representative of our 21 years as neighbors and friends). i didn't like most of them. in the end, i sorted through my other liberty + chambray quilts to see if this was going to be too small with just an additional 12" on the sides. "betsy scrappy trip" is only 48" wide and this will be 42". i decided it was good enough.

the piano key borders on the ends are 6.5" cut, 6" finished. i decided to mix up the order of the prints rather than carry them through from the courthouse block. this way they look more like a border and not a continuation of the same strips. and as i didn't have properly sized scraps of all the prints, i mixed in some new ones. i guess i broke my own rule of 21 fabrics for 21 years, but that holds true in the block, so it's fine. and i accidentally used "libby" twice in one of the borders. shh. don't tell!  it's not very noticable.

i am quitting at this one. the second one (for me) can wait til later. i'm worn out prepping and need to finish packing other things. there are seven projects ready to go with me, which i'm now thinking is more than i'll ever get done even if i am working on in it every day.

pinning is winning

these log cabin strips were looking very pretty in my sewing room where i had them hanging on blanket hangers, but i had a little more time to finish things and this was the fastest finish in the room. so i took them down, finished unpicking the misaligned strips, and got a flimsy put together.

remember how i always turn log cabin blocks the wrong way and mess them up but figured out how to work around that? well, these are all perfect and in sync. except one. just one. but that's real progress for me! i'll take it.

i didn't pin my strips the first time around, which did not work at all. the horizontal sashings didn't match up. not even close. so i decided to get my pins out and do it the longer, more tedious was. which was the correct choice.

my sashings now match across the vertical bars. yay! i was thinking as i slogged through all of this that the case for cornerstone pieces is strong. not only are the a nice design feature, they must make aligning sashings a lot more simple. but i like the look of no cornerstones on this quilt, so pinning was the right answer.

next up was the backing. i had two large pieces of wiltshire in red and strawberry thief in a deep green. i didn't use the strawberry thief on the front because it would have blended in with the dark green sashing. i have a lighter green version on the front. i think the dark looks good on the back. i included what was left of a maroon betsy and the christmas-y adelajda prints. i'm not likely to use them elsewhere and i wanted to keep some of the other two prints, so this gives me the wiggle room to have leftovers from them instead.

i had to look high and low for the strawberry thief, including going through every box in the liberty shelf that i just organized. i was certain i had a large piece in the dark green, but it was hiding. finally i remembered i started a project box for the liberty christmas quilt and found it in there. whew! that was a project. maybe i'm a tad too organized these days? or just need to adjust to being organized a little more.

pining part two - the quilt samich is put together and this is going in the handwork box for my trip.

confession - i'm not loving working with christmas colors in march. it feels wrong. we're far enough past christmas that it feels very outdated and too far away from next christmas to be exciting. what will feel good is having it done by christmas, so i'm going to take it with me anyway.

clementine appeal

i find myself with a few more days before departure than expected. so i decided to see what else i could get ready for handwork to take with me. "citrus season" was partway through quilting when i last set it aside. this is my march "stella grande" and i decided i wanted to complete it this march, finally, if possible.

every citrus season that comes and goes, i wish i had this quilt done. the blossoms are out right now, perfuming the night air and looking so pretty by day. i always hope to get a finish photo at this time of year. but, no. not this year.

what i can do this march is get it quilted and ready to handbind.

which is what i did. there was a lot more quilting to complete than i anticipated. i thought i was in for an hour of quilting and an hour to trim & bind. it was more like 3 hours quilting. thank goodness it's done.

i still have a ton of threads to bury, but that's handwork and can wait. i stopped all the diagonal lines at the border rather than running them through the piano key strips on the ends. maybe this was a bad choice. it's done, regardless.

i have lots of orange solids to choose from for the binding. i didn't want to use any already in the quilt so i could add an extra layer of citrus color. i thought about green for the leaves, but that didn't seem right. the top is supposed to be bright, but not too bold, with some softness to it, so the orange needed to be right. i had one that was on the salmon spectrum, but there wasn't enough of it. there were one or two other bright oranges that i didn't have enough of for binding either. the deep orange i tried looked red next to the other colors. drat. i even looked at some monotone orange prints, but none were the right shade.

i was getting a little desperate to have the project complete or i wouldn't be able to take it with me and binding would have to wait til next spring. but i also didn't want to just make-do with a mediocre selection i wasn't happy with. this quilt had to be right or there was no use doing it.

finally i pulled out the whole orange stack and went through it one by one. i settled on this mid-tone moda bella solid called "clementine," in part because it had a citrus name. 

it works. photographing it has been tricky. if i bump up the lighting, the orange comes through more intense than in person, so it's hard to see accurately here. if the orange is right, the other colors aren't. but it's done and i think is a good pick. or at least good enough. i know, i know. i wasn't going to just settle. but i kind of did. if i really don't like it once i get working on it, i can always take it off. let's hope it grows on me and looks good in the end.

the binding is all machine attached to the quilt sandwich now. i was looking at our citrus trees out the window and wishing the handbinding was done, too. i couldn't resist taking the quilt out for a few photos with the blossoms even though it's not complete.

next year, when these blossoms are fruit, this quilt will have it's finish photos with the new fruit and blossoms.

maybe the companion quilt will be, too. i still have all the hsts i didn't use in the border for "citrus season" and the leftovers from the backing that i want to make into a different quilt. i was a good girl and separated the backing cutoffs immediately after trimming the sandwich and added them to the project box. all i need to do now is make a new top. i love that it's ready and waiting for me here in one spot.

tackling selvages

my next organizational tackle was this bowl of selvages. i save all selvages for some future undetermined selvage project because i think they are so cute. they get dropped in this bowl close to my cutting table. after organizing all the scraps from my backing trimmings i decided it would look better and be more effective for future use if i folded and sorted these selvages.

after folding, i sort the selvages by color into these piles. once they're all folded, i'll layer them back in the bowl in rainbow order. 

all future selvage cuttings can be quickly and easily incorporated into the system.

i found this cute piece today and it made me smile because malibu is where i'll be going very shortly. more on that at some future point.

i spent a while working on the selvages, but didn't get all the way through the bowl yet. it's not urgent and is something i can come back to later. but any progress like this feels great!

 the room is looking so much better.

a clean room is much more inviting for working in.

it still has a lot going on, so much visual clutter because of all the open shelving. this is good for locating what i need easily, but doesn't make for a clean, calm-looking environment. 

i'm just glad to have it and to have it getting cleaner and clearer all the time.