End of June: Yardage Tracking, and Books Read

It's always interesting, at least to me, to tally-up a month of fabric purchases and usage. No fabric came in during June, and almost four yards was used. 

The quantity used is low because I spent much of June domestic machine quilting to finish two quilts. Fabric used was only for binding those two quilts; making a zipper pouch; hand-piecing only two Inner City blocks...

...and piecing nine Posh Penelope blocks. I made my first PP block in April 2023. Now I've set myself a goal of making eight blocks a month. At this time, I have ten blocks made and need 42 for this quilt. The block at top left is one I'm questioning for use in the quilt front. It's too mushy, so it might end up in the pieced back. 

Fabric use is low and slow. 

Two other crafts distracted me from sewing. First was round loom knitting, and needle-knitting. For donations, I made three round loom knitted caps, a newborn cocoon, and used knitting needles to knit three face cloths.

Second has been (finally) starting a large diamond painting canvas. I ordered it from Diamond Painting Pro, thinking I was getting a product shipped in the US. Turns out not all of the company's kits come from the US. The "Ocean" kit I ordered took 22 days to get to me from China, arriving the same morning Diamond Painting Club meets in the afternoon. 

I quickly opened plastic bags of 40 different colors of square drills (four are AB drills - Aurora Borealis, meaning they're iridescent), labeled and filled screw-top plastic bottles, and packed-up everything for several hours of diamond painting with new friends I'm making in Diamond Painting Club.

This is the 20" X 20" canvas I'm creating.

"Ocean" diamond painting canvas

Gosh! Another craft to be hooked on!

Very much like counted cross-stitch drill color placement is identified by symbols. I started positioning drills at the top left, and as recommended, I'm working in a grid pattern. 

The left side is done; the right is "unpainted."

Two more kits, ordered from a US Etsy shop are due to arrive this week.  Oh boy!

Book Recommendations

In June I listened to 11 audiobooks (listening and diamond painting go well together), and gave all of them a score of 4.0 or higher (out of 5.0). It's unusual for me to listen to a streak of so many good books!

These are the titles, authors, and scores, as sorted in my Numbers document.

My thoughts about some of these titles... 

I absolutely admire any book written by Charles Martin, so I was delighted to see/read his relatively new release, number four in the Murphy Shepherd series - The Keeper. If you haven't read this series, begin with The Water Keeper. Perhaps I appreciate these books a little more because they first take place in Florida. But no matter where Mr. Martin takes his readers, he writes with a beautiful underlying theme. He's a top-notch author who happens to live in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm a fan.

The Housemaid, by Frieda McFadden, is #1 in The Housemaid series. I enjoyed this one enough that I'll be looking for the second book called The Housemaid's Secret. 

The English Masterpiece was a good foray into the art world. The protagonist works at The Tate in London, England. I found myself pausing the book to look up the art pieces talked about in the story. It was a good read with a twist I didn't see coming.

Lisa Wingate's Drenched in Light was a good story about a young woman who thought she'd be a professional ballerina, and instead is the new guidance counselor at a private high school in Kansas City, that she herself attended. I appreciated the deeper message addressing an underlying problem among middle- and high-school kids.

The German Daughter... excellent! This is a post WWII story about two children born into the WWII program, Lebensborn - the Nazi plan to increase the birth rate of Aryan children. As adults, they're wondering who their parents are. This story is about an eye-opening piece of history.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson is getting lots of attention as one of the top ten books to read this year. It's historical fiction, but based on the real life of Martha Ballard, a Maine midwife in 1789. Much of the story is about the prevailing practice of women who have become pregnant of out wedlock being required to publicly name the father of their child.

The Woman in the Cabin started idyllically, in picturesque rural Scotland near a loch. Then the too-perfect story turned emotional - fear, pain, anger and resignation. It is an intense story that had me listening non-stop, as I kept reassuring myself that this could never happen in real life!

The Names is quilter Florence Knapp's @florenceknapp_ first work of fiction. She's a well-known UK EPPer- Flossie Teacakes Guide to English Paper Piecing - and quilt maker. The Names is an intriguing story. What happens when a baby boy is given a particular name? Bear, Julian, or Gordon? One child; three different sets of family dynamics; three lives lived.

Take a screen shot, if you wish! 

I hope you find this list and brief review helpful. I'd love to know which titles you choose to read, and what you think of them! Linda

Messy Making, and Confetti Pouches

Since finishing two Diagonal Scrap Quilts (pictures coming soon), I've dug into a new, must-do quilt project.

In January, Central Florida MQG announced the Pick-a-Decade Challenge, due in November. We're to choose a decade - any from 1900 to 2000 - to make a quilt inspired by that decade's color palette and design aesthetic. I've procrastinated about getting started.

The decade I selected is the 1950s because: 1) it's the decade I was born; and, 2) I like the designs popular during that era - starbursts, boomerangs, and atomic-looking shapes.

So off I go, trying to use a few of these colors and the above designs to make a big quilt.

 

Attempting to create the upper right design - a large circle surrounded by spokes with 12 smaller circles. I started by making ¼"-wide bias tape to appliqué around a small circle. What a fail! After consulting with a Central Florida MQG friend about alternate methods for achieving the look I want, I got down to work. What a mess.

The method I'm going with uses white interfacing to back, sew, and "pillowcase" a pink circle (turn it right side out), then fade and machine appliqué the pink circle to a black background. The process is repeated using black interfacing to back, sew, and pillowcase a second circle (turn it right side out) that's then machine appliquéd to the oyster-colored (Painter's Palette) background. It worked!

However, when it was time to appliqué the black circle, I was frustrated to discover I was out of black thread! I appliquéd with charcoal-colored thread instead, and itt doesn't look good.

Today I picked up two spools of black cotton thread from two different local shops. One is Wonderfil Konfetti (50-weight), and the other is Wonderfil Efina 60-weight. Good grief thread is expensive! I paid a little more than $21 for these two spools!

Anyway, I'm ready to make progress on this I-don't-know-where-it's-going, Pick a Decade Challenge.

At Big Cypress Quilters this week, those who participated two weeks ago in making confetti fabric, and turning their 11" X 14" piece into a zipper pouch, were asked to bring their finished pieces for a group photo.

It's great to see what everyone sewed using different pouch patterns.

Cindy couldn't join us, so sent a picture. I know for a fact that Cindy did a little "dumpster diving" at retreat to come up with the black and white piano keyboard print snippets.

Betty covered her confetti with tulle, rather than mesh. It look good too!

If you'd like to make confetti fabric, go here to my blog post to learn how to create it. Then follow one of these three patterns to turn it into a zipper pouch:

1) Simple, envelope-style Zipper Pouch tutorial by MellySews

2) Open Wide Zipper Pouch tutorial by Noodlehead

3) Zipper Pouch with Flat Bottom tutorial by Polkadotchair

On my June 13 blog post, Kara Kwilts suggested using BLACK mesh rather than white mesh on top of fabric snippets, I tried it. And I like it!

Did you note that I used twined fabric to make the zipper pull?

Everyone who saw the black mesh version of the pouch liked it. We all agreed that the mesh color choice may also depend on colors of your fabric snippets. Red mesh on Christmas scraps would be great! In any case, thanks Kara for your suggestion. We like black mesh too!

I finished the black mesh confetti fabric into a Wide Open Zipper Pouch by Noodlehead. 

Oh, and this week I made another round loom knitted cap. I can't help myself! 

This one was knitted on a 41-peg loom, following the Seersucker pattern, here on YouTube.

I hope you've had a productive week! Linda

Knitting, Posh, and Quilt of Valor

It's been a slow week. I didn't accomplish as much as I hoped, due to having shoulder and neck pain, first on my left side, then my right. I don't know what prompted this, but it made me take Tylenol and pause to recover. Pain has lessened enough to do housework. Ha! 

This week saw me start and finish two projects to be donated at Boomer Loomers,

On the left is a newborn-sized cocoon, and on the right is a cotton facecloth knitted in the moss stitch. 

As much as I desire I can learn to knit new things because I have all sizes of knitting needles! Back in the 1970s Mother made this vinyl knitting needle roll. It's 15" long.

Inside pockets are made from flannel and contain all the needles she used over the years. It's a creative storage piece, isn't it? If I didn't have it for size 6 needles, I wouldn't have been able to knit the facecloth. 

This week also saw me resurrecting a UFO started in April 2023 - Posh Penelope. The pattern is by Sew Kind of Wonderful, and uses the Quick Curve Ruler.

I made two blocks back then.

Though Posh Penelope has been on my to-do list, until I saw Elizabeth Occasional Piece Quilt blogging about making four blocks a month, I hadn't thought about working on it.

Now I'm on-board.

Last weekend I cut fabric for the remaining 40 blocks - a total of 1,344 pieces. 

Two years ago, I learned that making each block requires undistracted attention! There's piecing, then cutting, then piecing, and cutting. It's certainly not a suitable project for a quilt retreat.

In fact, between Elizabeth, and her friend who's also making blocks each month, it's been highly recommended I make blocks assembly-line style - better to repeat a step than change steps for Every. Single. Block. Following their suggestions, I'm making eight blocks at a time... and don't have yet have a block to show for it.

In other news, on Thursday I reconnected with a long-time quilt-y friend in Kansas City: Carla. If you've been reading blogs or blogging as long as I have (16½ years; 1,378 blog posts) you may remember her blog: Lollyquiltz. She and I met in person because we followed one another's blogs. Though she stopped blogging in 2018, she's still quiltmaking. Find her on Instagram at @lollyquiltz.

Anyway... 

On Thursday, Carla went to my dad's assisted living community in the Kansas City area. She was present when Dad, a 95 year-young veteran of the Marine Corp, and 50 other residents received a Quilts of Valor quilt - all pieced by Penny Moyer, and all quilted by one longarm quilter (I was unable to get her name.) 

Unfortunately, none of us three children knew this was happening, and therefore didn't attend. My heart overflows with gratefulness to Carla for taking time to meet Dad, and share in his presentation. Thank you friend! Linda

Making Confetti

More free motion quilting is happening, this time on my second version of the Diagonal Scrap Quilt. Because the piecing is so busy, I'm using a favorite all over design, "Swirl Hook," to quilt it. Swirl Hook is a quilting design created and shared by Angela Walters. Esther Frenzel @ipatchandquilt shows how to do it too. 

I'm sure you can't see it at all, but believe me when I say the quilting is coming along fairly quickly; I'm about half way finished. Threads are YLI 40-weight cotton variegated yellow on top, and Aurifil 50-weight yellow on the bottom, since the pieced backing has quite a bit of yellow. 

Round loom knitting this week was spent making these "Comfort Dolls," as shared in a YouTube tutorial by Denise @loomahat.

Since I didn't have any fiberfill stuffing on hand, I chopped up batting scraps to fill them. It's interesting that the first fella, on the left, seems shorter, probably because I chopped the batting and stuffed him more fully. The second, taller one is less stuffed, with diced batting. 

It's a great pattern for using yarn scraps, and "futzing" to add features, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

My other make this week was completing my first diamond painting. It was easy and fun to do especially after my new carrying case (with 60 bottles for drills) and rechargeable vacuum pen arrived. 

Boy though, this is difficult to photograph! I tried, without success, multiple iPhone settings, trying to capture the way the diamonds glisten. Suffice it to say that every place where you see a grain of white... that's light refraction. A finished diamond painting shimmers and is very pretty. I will shop for a 6" X 6" frame at Hobby Lobby, so I can hang it. 

On Tuesday, I shared with some members of Big Cypress Quilters, how to create confetti "fabric" that can be made into a zipper pouch. It's fun to see the different colors and combos of snippets each maker chooses to use. 

This is a close-up of the piece above. See the fish in the middle?

These are Christmas snippets. 

This one is triangle-shaped snippets only!

This maker was being very intentional about where each snippet was positioned. I asked her, "Where's the fun in that?!"

These are scraps from a quilt that was made predominantly with purple and yellow, and a bit of green.

This was my fabric! I put it out last month on the "I don't want it; you can have it" table. She cut it into snippets!

The day was fun for everyone, especially me who had the pleasure of sharing it with one of my 4-H friends. She came to our meeting to talk a little bit about the 4-H Club, show the quilt she'd made for our Quilting Guild of The Villages "Showcase of Quilts," in January, and also show and talk about the crocheting she does.

I brought along my sewing machine and notions, along with purple-colored snippets, so she could make her own confetti fabric to sew into a zipper pouch. She enjoyed using a rotary pinking blade to chop-up purple scraps.

As always, she's proven herself to be a whiz at the sewing machine. I'm happy to tell everyone, "She's my adopted granddaughter!" 

If you're interested in making your own confetti fabric, here's my blog post about it. It's easy peasy! Linda