the latest projects

With the start of a new month, you all know that means starting new project assignments!  I got busy this week while trying to decide on a colorway for my "quilt using acrylic templates" stick.

First up, I made masks using the fabrics I showed you last week.  Technically those aren't a stick assignment, but with changing seasons, who wouldn't want a few new masks?

The zebra mask was first because I was most excited about it!

I didn't fussy cut the zebras at all, so they're not perfectly centered, but since they are essentially random all over the fabric, that would have been an ugly effort.  So I just cut and sewed and was fine with it.  I don't have to look at it all day long anyways, so it will just bother everyone else!

Freddie, elusive little stinker that he is, decided he needed to help about this time...

...and is helping show off the zebra mask while guarding ties made for the other two that will stay with me.  Oh, and the elastic pieces over there in the corner as well.  He was content until I removed some of the ties and he got angry and stomped off.  Apparently he was in a mood to be gazed at in awe, but not share.  He is such a little punk.  (I love him so much.)

Moving onward, I finished up six more - two more for me and four to share with coworkers.

I worked with both the recipients on Friday and both were wearing the watermelon masks.  If I had known, we could ALL have coordinated!  Sadly, the chance will never come again, as one of the coworkers took a promotion and will be an assistant manager at another store.  I'm happy for her, but sad to see her go.  She was a lot of fun.  (She was also the one who was told "nice melons" regarding her mask...you get all sorts of flirty old guys in a farm store, but generally they are harmless and just want a smile.  We roll with it.)

When those were done, I decided to tackle the amigurumi (which apparently I was spelling wrong before?) and watched a few videos and learned a few things.  I'll have to watch it again to make anything more, but I did manage to make something!

A ball!  It's a little bigger than a golf ball, but it gave me a lot of opportunity to figure out how I needed to arrange the yarn for my hands to work properly and get better at making my stitches an even size.  By no means perfect, but I'm thrilled to have accomplished this!  

You can see the tiny skein of yarn there next to it - I have seven more colors that came in a package with this one...I think there is a strawberry pattern in my book...I have either pink or red...hmmm...

This made my hands ache, though.  Some of it was the odd, new position I had my hands in.  More of it was the focus and tension needed to learn something new.  Not to mention in such a small format!  I'm excited to say I learned it, though, and this was much less crazy than the needle felting mostly-failure and way less involved than the socks that are still only a few inches tall...with no heels or toes yet!  (I'll get back to those eventually...I think...)

From here I went on to the "acrylic templates" quilt.  I had more or less decided it was going to be Steam Punk when I wrote the list.  And again/still when I pulled the stick this month.  But I pulled out the other pattern just to ponder my options.  Where I got hung up was color selection.  Most of the quilts I've seen using this pattern are done scrappy.  Like really scrappy.  Kitchen sink scrappy differentiating only darker for the design and off-white/lighter for the background.  

Do I want to go super scrappy, fussy cut some, and use my funky print stash?  Or do I want to do purples and greys?  Using the funky prints would help diminish that disaster stash, but the more I looked at quilts made by others, the less I liked the idea.  Not only would it just seem like one in a sea of many, super scrappy is not really my thing.  It was likely to become a quilt I disliked, if I even finished it.

Purple and grey it is!

With that decision made, things got easier.  While my stash of purples isn't much, any lessening of the stash is a win, so onward!

Other than the background being (hopefully!) all the same (if I run out, plan B will have to be devised), I plan to make these blocks all different.  Which means cutting one at a time is likely.

This was my first one.  It went together surprisingly well.  It does still need to be trimmed (another blogger making this quilt suggested those corner pieces be cut oversize from the template on those edges to allow squaring up after sewing what could be a bit wonky parts) and the center will be a circle applique, but it is mostly done.

(For now, I'm pinning a piece of center fabric to each block.)

I plan to do all the circle appliques at the end.  (I might kick myself for that - stay tuned!)  And then trim out the fabric behind it - not my usual routine, but there are a LOT of seams meeting up there in the center and this will make quilting it much easier.

(Bonus of that center circle?  It covers any mismatched points, though most of mine are coming out fairly nicely.)

Now that I know the templates are going to be okay (if they weren't, I should have known, since my mom loaned them to me!) and I am going to be okay, onward!

A few more blocks and I'm feeling pretty confident.  As I pull fabrics from my stash I'm adding the leftovers to a bin.  I'm not sure if I will repeat purples (time will tell), but the dark greys-black will likely repeat.  I do have a fair amount of the darker greys, but I'm not sure how different I want those to be.

Today I sewed a few more blocks and I'm up to nine now - the pattern calls for 41, but I'm not sure if I want to set it on point like the original...  As of right now, photographed all in the same lighting, here are my blocks!

Purple is such a funny color.  There are so many shades ranging from more red to more grey to more blue.  I'm hoping that by using them all, this quilt will have more interest and not just look like a kitchen sink quilt after all.

(And yes, you may note that some of the fabrics are repeated, but not in the same positions.  Not yet.)

No photos of Gabby this week (though she is still hanging out with me in the sewing room), instead we have Finn conquering the cooler as it dries.

After use, it needs to dry, and with four unruly beasties, we know better than to just prop it open upright.  This is the solution and it amuses me that there are mountains molded into the side, as Finn is climbing it as such.  (And please pardon our messy backroom recycling area - we all need a back room for stuff like this, right?)

Ah yes, Toby is supervising.  This is his first cooler drying event, so he isn't sure what is going on.  By mid-September, when he hits his one year mark in his forever home with us, I'm sure he'll have all the oddities worked out.  Or at least be more comfortable that we throw the occasional curveball his way!

Time to get back to the blocks!

Happy Mother's Day to all you human and cat and dog and furbaby moms out there!  I suppose if your pet is aquatic or reptilian, you'd be a scalybaby mom?

Happy quilting!

Katie