April's First Makes

Didn't April start nicely? It was wonderful to celebrate Easter, and if I do say so myself, our choir sounded good! We sang "He is Risen" (Martin Hambyl) at two services. The link is NOT to our choir! :-)

Now that PBStudio's Mad for Solids competition is over - Did you see that my friend Elizabeth Eastmond @opquilt won?! I'm so happy for her! - I'm able to return to projects as desired. For my part in the Mad for Solids competition, though my Tiffany Lights color bundle didn't win I'm using it to make a wedge quilt.

The nine-degree wedge sections are sewn together, and I inserted a pieced center.... pieced with two different grays because I didn't have either gray in a single large piece! I'm calling this quilt Spin Art because it reminds me of the fun and result of pouring different paint colors over a spinning board.

This is also the quilt top that forced me to order fabric - on March 30 - in spite of my 2018 goal to not buy fabric!

But I'm sort of not counting it against myself. The 10-yard bolt of Painter's Palette Solid white that's coming from PineappleFabrics.com will allow me to finish the outside/background of this quilt top, as well as have enough white to continue sewing from stash. I will just continue to work around my limited stash of grays.

With grandchildren in mind, I made two more "Shell Shelters" (by Java House Quilts) soft turtles for two grandsons in Texas. Each turtle's shell is Elizabeth Haugh's Rhoda Ruth fabric.

I still think this is a good gift for kids, because of the zippered "treasure storage" area in the belly.

Blocks for Leila's "Year of Scrappy Triangles," which she releases every Tuesday on her blog (SewnbyLeila), were piling up, so I took care of that. I print each block onto Carol Doak foundation paper, and save them for a few hours of sewing. I'm now caught up to week 26, which should be about half-way through all the blocks. These are the latest six blocks.

I like that I can work strictly from my scrap bins to come up with what's needed for each one. Of course, my anything-goes approach to colors and prints is apparent!

I've also tackled a long-time need... a new cover for my ironing board. My ironing board is quite literally that - a 30" X 48" oak board. It's covered with a piece of quilted ironing board fabric, with an outer covering of plain white duck. It's the plain white that I'm replacing, even to the point of reusing the white bias binding into which will go new elastic.

I like having a plain white ironing surface because it's a nice, oftenly-used background for photos.

Today finds me prepping to sandwich and baste a quilt - the circular wedges quilt top I showed here. (It needs a name!) The first step for me meant making, this morning, another batch of homemade basting spray. It sprays nicely from a re-used Mary Ellen's Best Pressed spray bottle, with a little leftover. 

All pictures I've shown (above) in this post were taken with my new iPhone 8, which is a late (March) birthday present from Dan.

You see, on Monday I turned in my iPhone 5 which held up well to three years and eight months of continuous use and abuse. It was literally worn out as the volume buttons didn't work (without "twisting" the phone), and a screen message would occasionally pop up "Are you sure you want to shut down?" Ha. I don't think that iPhone 5 would have lasted many more days. 

Besides the fact that the iPhone 8 takes better photos, I appreciate that it holds a longer battery charge, and seemingly has better connectivity with our home wireless. I can now read Instagram from bed!

And check out this glittery "waterfall" cell phone cover for my 8. It's like a lava lamp with sparkles!

I'm a happy (un)birthday girl. Linda