Saturday, January 18, 2020

Sewing Like the Wind

More snow here this week. And that was great because it gave me a chance to stay indoors most of the week and SEW. And I sewed like the wind!

Let’s talk green. Light and bright greens are the colors this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I’m linking up to Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday. There is so much color and inspiration there from all the participants.

First up for me this week were the string blocks. I had a lot of green strings and ended up with 16 blocks measuring 6.5”.  I sewed these on my back-up machine over last weekend.

On Monday I got a call from the service department that my regular machine, my Bernina, was ready to come home from her annual checkup and tuneup. So we went to pick it up. The service notes told us how they cleaned the inside, adjusted the presser foot tension and reset the internal stitch counter. There were 2.5 MILLION stitches put on the machine in 2019. Holy moley! All Bruce could say was “No wonder there are so many threads all over the house!"

Here are six International Sisters blocks. I’m still sewing these from Preeti’s pattern. Two of them will be for me and the other four will go into wall hangings I’m making for Harambe Humanitarian, a Kenyan non-profit organization that I became involved with when I went to Africa in 2018. The jungle fabric was a gift from my friend Sally.


We interrupt this blog post for an Impurrtant Announcement from Darla. She would like to remind you that any house decoration done with stray sewing threads is vastly inferior to all the beautiful furs she (and brother Alfie) bestow upon us on a daily basis. This concludes our public service announcement.


Ha! What Darla didn’t mention is how she and Alfie happened to notice that I had not totally sealed a ziplock bag with some balls of embroidery thread inside the other day. In a matter of mere minutes, there were two balls of perle cotton missing.  I noticed it when I went to rethread my needle to finish embroidering the cord on this Farm Girl hand mixer block.


You’ll notice that the cord is embroidered with different colored threads. It wasn’t until I’d finished stitching the block that we found the missing thread balls strung all over several rooms. Darla and Alfie looked totally baffled and innocent (but come to think of it, they always look totally baffled and innocent...)

Getting back to green fabric sewing, it was time to tackle some tiny scraps and crumbs. I’ve been wanting to make some of Angela’s scrappy baskets (tutorial HERE) for awhile now, and this is the year that it’s happening. Her tutorial is very thorough and the process came together very easily.  I love it! Thanks, Angela!


Now my green scraps have been liberated from their plastic drawer and henceforth will reside in style in their own little bin. Isn’t it cute? I just quilted it with a simple serpentine stitch. The remaining scraps (no, I didn’t use them all) have lots of room.


And the picture below shows the basket in situ. As I use up fabrics and downsize a bit, there will be room to put the scrap baskets on the shelves with the folded fabric by color. At least, that’s my theory. Im hoping that by the end of the year I can use the emptied set of plastic drawers to stow the sewing supplies that are currently in a big, heavy desk that I want to get rid of.


So, I’ll be making these scrap baskets every month for awhile!

Once those projects were done, I began playing with green orphan blocks and green scraps from the Parts Department. With the bazillion half-square triangles (HST’s) I had, I made several pinwheel blocks. I pulled in 8 green cracker blocks, the 8 selvage log cabin blocks from last week, 10 of the 16 string blocks and various other parts. The goal is to get some sort of cohesive quilt out of this mess. The color will help tie it together, but so far the only part that’s actually sewn are the 8 central cracker blocks with the little checkerboard trim between them and the white strips along the side. Everything else is just pinned.


This block play will get some attention this week, but I know one thing for certain. Somewhere in there I have to add a pop of a different, unexpected color. I don’t know what that color will be - red? purple? orange? blue? We’ll see as this moves along.

I have a lot more to share, but I’m going to cut this post off here. I’ll be back in a couple days to show you more sewing stuff, not the least of which is a couple quilt finishes. Have a great weekend!

18 comments:

  1. All of your greens are so lovely. Those strippy blocks look amazing!

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  2. So much pretty green! I love the scrap basket. I think I might have to finally get around to making myself some of those. I love the parts department quilt, too! I suggest electric blue sashing for the pop of color.

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  3. My goodness, the parts department is overflowing with green goodness. So bright and cheery on the wall.

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  4. Oh you're putting them all together too? Neat--Love that center panel especially..and of course Ojos are one of my very favorites...hugs, Julierose

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  5. You never cease to amaze me with your productivity!! I really like where you are going with the Orphan Block quilt. I'm quite certain that it is going to turn out SEW cute!

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  6. Your green projects are all so pretty, Cathy! Love the string blocks with their bits of turquoise here and there, and your scrap basket is so fun! I love things that you can use scraps for, but are also useful. I'm not surprised your machine sewed that many stitches - glad it is ready for another year!

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  7. I do like your idea of making scrap baskets, your green one looks great! Gemma, our Birman, does a great job of decorating too, lots of white fur artfully arranged all over the carpet!

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  8. Wow, you have been busy! I love your green string blocks and the scrap bin. Your orphan blocks/parts quilt is looking terrific. I think I would add orange.

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  9. Your little green bucket is so cute! It's so fun catching up on your posts of selvages, scraps and kitties. Darla looks completely innocent, but I think she and my Luna have traded tips about thread... just saying. LOL

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  10. Wow I guess big data brother is keeping track of our stitching too! And Darla is definitely a cutie so I understand why you are so lenient with feline criminality. And as always I’m amazed at your productivity. My big accomplishment is figuring out how to keep my comments from disappearing.

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  11. The green strings are like a well laid out garden!

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  12. You have a LOT of green! I am not a green lover unless it has a bit of blue. I LOVE the Kona Color of the Year. Love the blocks you are doing. Cats are not the only thieves. I always think my Max is so perfect. Boy does he like tomato pincushions. No shelf is too high for him to negotiate.
    xx, Carol

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  13. I love the scrappy basket! Great idea, and making one a month will mean you will have a full set in no time!

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  14. Your orphans are looking good together! I can see a thin border of pop color around the cracker and string blocks. Then binding in the same color for two rings of POW! :)

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  15. Molly wants to know where Darla buys her specialty contact lens.

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  16. Be careful with Darla and Alfie... my sis in law had to take her kitty to the vet for expensive surgery when Ting swallowed a threaded needle attached to thread. X-rays showed the evidence inside which they keep a copy of.

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  17. So many neat things, including Darla. I really like the hand mixer block and the fabric basket.

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  18. Seeing this post makes me think of spring - all those pretty greens. I'm sure the thread absconder-er couldn't possibly have been Darla....just look at that wonderfully innocent face!

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