Our Place

It’s been a three-sew-day week with my quilting friends at the location we now refer to as “Our Place.”  This is the site we rented when our local quilt shop closed its brick and mortar business and we lost the space where we gathered for years.  The quilt shop owner, gave us a long-term loan of many items including chairs, tables and an ironing station.  A member of our group provided a cutting table, and we've been off and running from the get go.

Since I will be making few overnight trips to the ranch until the temperatures moderate and the grassburs thin out (they’re really hard on the dogs), I decided to relocate my Singer 301 to “Our Place” rather than tote a machine back and forth each visit.  It’s a fun machine to use and is great for paper piecing those Jane Stickle blocks. 

Our temperature highs are hitting triple digits regularly; and as I write this my computer weather gadget says it is 105 degrees.  

Willow Weave Progress

Except for adding the narrow accent pieces to row 3 and stitching that row together, I’m pretty much caught up with the Willow Weave sew along hosted by  Doreen.  My design board is barely big enough for this stage of the project, but here is what my very scrappy version looks like at the moment.  

I may tweak the block arrangement a little more, but I think I’m getting close.

Here are the narrow accent pieces for addition to row 3.

Two Deadlines Met

Whew!  I am officially caught up with Doreen’s Willow Weave sew-along.  Most participants are using pre-cut collections;  mine, however, is certainly going to be a scrappy version.  We will receive our next step tomorrow, and I'm linking this page with her Week #2 post.

While sewing with my Tuesday group today, I also completed these five anti-ouch pouches bringing me to a total of 10 for the month.  They will go with me to quilt club tomorrow.  

Scrap Bin Diving

I've been on a cutting marathon this weekend.  

My stash of batik scraps has totally gotten out of control, and when Doreen at Aunt Reen's Place announced she is sponsoring a sew along for a pattern that could use units as small as 2 ½ x 4 ½ inches, I was game.  To make it even move appealing, she says the pattern, which she has named Willow Weave, has one easy block with no matching seams.  The sew along is really designed for jelly rolls, but is supposed to work just as well with scraps.

I don’t need another project, but it will be fun to tame the stash and have something to work on that’s not quite as fussy as my Jane Stickle blocks.  Now that I’ve finished all my slicing and dicing, I can stow away the cutting table and do some much needed housework tomorrow.

Sit 'N Sew Day

Yesterday was Sit ‘N Sew Day with my quilting friends.  I missed last week and it felt like I had been gone forever.  It was a fun day and I spent it working on anti-ouch pouches for breast cancer patients.  

Five pouches came home with me, ready for stuffing and distribution.  I have another kit of five waiting for construction prior to the next Quilt Club meeting.

This a picture of one of our sago palms.  It has put on multiple heads causing this bloom to have a really unusual shape.  I think it’s kind of interesting.

Jane Stickle Block Update

Here are the Jane Stickle blocks completed in April and May (I failed to log my progress last month).  I went back and reevaluated some of the blocks planned to redo.  I was unhappy with most of them because they had the background fabric I originally intended to use all the way through the quilt.  I now think they are okay to use because of the variety of background fabrics surrounding them.  So, I have 151 of 169 center blocks completed.  There are lots of triangle border blocks yet to be done, but the end is in sight for the center blocks. 

These are the knitted dishcloths completed this month.  Bob and I have been re-watching a lot of old movie series during the evenings, and I use that time to knit them when I’m not doing hand applique on Jane Stickle blocks.  The process is relaxing and they will be an addition to my badly depleted gift drawer.

Thank you to all who responded to my last post with sympathy and good wishes for my ailing dog, Chloe.  Your comments are very comforting.