Building Blocks: Rail Fence, Basic Building Block, Cheaters Drunkard's Path

I've sewed and quilted the Leah Day Building Blocks Lesson Pattern blocks for March, April and May.

It has been a long time since I have worked on this project.  The initial cutting for all the blocks was done in January, so it's pretty easy to pull the material and quilting designs out of the envelopes and then sew, mark and piece.

My seams for the rail fence were a little off, so I had to adapt the marking a little.  I did the marking before watching the videos and realized that I wasn't looking at the big design for each section, I missed seeing that some of the designs flow from the different sections.
Piecing Rails - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/03/9-piece-rail-fence-block.html
Lines - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/03/10-quilt-rail-fence-with-straight-lines.html
Wiggles and Teeth - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/03/11-quilt-rail-fence-with-wiggles-teeth.html
Cursive words - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/03/12-quilt-rail-fence-with-cursive-words.html
Circles and Stairs - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/03/13-quilt-rail-fence-with-circles-stairs.html

The building block design is genius!  I didn't appreciate the block or the design or the lesson until watching the videos. Leah was very smart to have us do three designs in 4 different scales.  This was the best lesson/exercise ever.  We did micro stippling in 2012 with the whole cloth experiment, but I wasn't really sure if I was doing it at the correct scale or not.  Once I uncover that piece it will be interesting to check.
Piecing Building Block - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/04/14-piece-modern-building-block.html
Stippling - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/04/15-quilt-building-block-with-stippling.html
Gridlines - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/04/16-quilt-building-block-with-gridlines.html
Circuit Board - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/04/17-quilt-circuit-board-over-building.html

Building Block - front

Building Block - back

The cheater's drunkard's path was interesting.  I had not made a block this way - sewing and then cutting back to have piece appear. The raw edge will fluff up I guess once the piece is washed.
Piecing - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/05/18-piece-cheater-drunkards-path-block.html
Lines and Grids - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/05/19-lines-grids-in-drunkards-path.html
Wiggly Lines - http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/05/20-quilt-wiggly-lines-in-drunkards-path.html
Spirals - http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2014/05/21-spirals-and-echoes-in-drunkards-path.html

Cheater's drunkards - front

Cheater's drunkards - back

I'm getting more confident with the machine again.  Relearning to listen to the sounds as I sew and adjusting accordingly.  I have not broken one needle, and have gone thru two and a half bobbins so far.

I am doing most of the blocks with out rotating - the skills are coming back after this long break from sewing!

Leah has finished the quilt now (there are no anchors on this page so scroll down to see her standing with the project) and it looks really nice, much nicer than I thought it would actually.  I am not going to change my thread color at this stage in the game, but I have discovered again that I really like seeing the thread on the fabric.  My choices for this project have the thread blending in the fabric for part of every block and all the backs.  I should have used black thread to really show off the wonderful designs! and I should have used much lighter colors for the other fabric. It's very hard to mark the designs using the fabric I picked.

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The mug rug I made husband needs to be washed, so I made up a new little coaster for him at the computer - see the cursive Bernie at the top?

20140227 Building Blocks and Cleaning Cupboards/Closet

Quilting Progress
I did manage to get up to date again with the Building Blocks project with Leah Day.  The blocks require marking, which so far is the most difficult part of the process.

Building Blocks - 2.2

Block 2.2 was my first time doing circles. Except for two places they went very well. Leah did without marking, but I thought I'd better mark just to be sure to get circles!

Block 2.3 has some stitching that can't be seen really in my example as my thread is so close to the color in the material. She calls it a Wiggly Pasta design.  It was pretty fun to do.

Watching her video of how she did the design in the 9-patch helped with the order of the stitching.  The outside of the block I marked, but didn't really follow with the thread as I had the block oriented so I only had the border to hold on to.  I should have turned it so the border was at the front of piece as it goes thru the machine.  The marking will disappear once it's washed, I think it will look okay in the final piece.

Building Blocks - 2.3

Next Monday we will sew the next three or four blocks in the Building Blocks project, then each week in March will be guided thru the free motion quilting.

I'm hoping in March to be finished with taxes so I can start my going thru boxes in ernest so I can find the quilting projects I was working on when we left for Boston.  I know I could start yet another new project, but it will be more satisfying to finish some quilts first!

Click to see my previous Building Blocks posts. 

I'm linking up to A Quilting Reader's Garden and to the 350 Blocks Project (so far I just have 6 blocks for February but there are a few more days to sew!)

Personal Status
I'm starting to feel better, but not completely tip top yet. This cold/sore throat and now pain in gums keep popping up and going away.  On several days I have forgotten to brush my teeth in the morning so I do in the afternoon and then after flossing it gets irritated, so I need to be sure to only floss in front of the mirror to double check this.

It sprinkled this morning so would have been a perfect day I think to weed as the ground would be soft and the weeds would come up easily but then I could feel that throat and was afraid I'd make it worst with outside work.

Reading
Mrs Lincoln's Dressmaker.  I'm actually listening to the book.  Sometimes they say things related to dates, if I was reading I could flip back to verify if what I was thinking was correct.  It's an interesting concept for a story, but full of fake stuff so I'm not sure about it.

House Cleaning
So instead I continued on my cleaning cupboard/closet project.  Earlier I cleaned and reorganized where I have food in the kitchen, and the containers that hold my whisks and grabber devices.

Today I emptied the hard to organize closet under the stairs.  Should have taken a photo of the resulting piles!  I had things all over the den and counter - what a mess.  I knew the way I had put the shelves in before didn't work so thought how to rearrange things.  I think the new way will work.

The way I have it now the shelves are at the front right of the closet and even though they stick out a little in the doorway, since I do not plan to put anything in front of the shelves it will be easy to get to the paper plates, cups, napkins, and plastic silverware that I stacked in the shelves.  The space behind this is just for storage of table clothes, napkins, lace - mainly from my mom that I still need to go thru and decide about.  But the way things are arranged I have space to put more if I find more in my travels through other closets and spaces so that will be nice. I have to go thru everything and do a preliminary toss and organize to remind myself what we have - so then I can go thru and really cull the extras and unneeded items.

Idea: Redneck Light Box

Here is a terrific idea for a light box.

To remove the sewing machine from table - put light below that and piece of plastic over the hole.

Janet described more here:
http://threadedmoose.blogspot.com/2013/03/redneck-light-box.html

My sewing machine table has a solid bottom so her system would not work for me, but I looked around and found a plastic frame that I had gotten like 20-years ago and never used that would fit on top of the the Elfa white wire shelves.  I found a clip-on lamp not being used in DS's bedroom. It all came together quite easily actually.

I did find that I needed to double trace Leah's designs that were for the colored fabric to see the design - but that hasn't been has yucky to do as I thought it might be (at least so far).

Shows the top with the grey areas of the design traced with
a thicker felt pen, taped down ready to tape the fabric on the top.
I watched a video with directions for making a much more
fancy but complicated light box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCRzCrsnLnw
that suggested putting tissue paper to diffuse the light
(I guess) so I taped that underneath the plastic frame.
I may decide to take that off later.

Shows the lamp clipped on the side, the space where
drawers were, and the side of the plastic frame.

First four block for Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along

So the Building Blocks quilt is coming along nicely now.  This marking business took a lot of planning.  This system would not help people using black or dark fabric, as I can barely see thru the light lilac fabric that I'm using - but that is all I needed for now.

I'm using a regular mechanical pencil to do the marking.  I tested by making marked on uncut fabric and then washing it to be sure the pencil would wash out.

This is a new experience marking the quilt designs!  I'm even following Leah's suggestions and finger pressing then pressing the seams open.  I'm glad I got white batting to hide the doubled white pieces of fabric.

02092014 Sunday Up to date with Building Blocks, Making Plans for SFO, and Dinner for M

Today was a pretty filled day.

It was great that DH was feeling well.  We went to next door house that had open house garage as the house is being sold.  The lady who lived there passed away, she and her husband were not very friendly with us, so although it is sad they are gone, perhaps the new owners will be more open to saying hello and sharing  our days.

DH got a microwave at the sale.  It was run by a firm, but already she had contacted people to come and take things away.

When we got back DH finished making yogurt and then I made ricotta cheese for the first time.  We ate on English muffin with a little bit of honey.  It was nice!  So easy to make.  I'll never buy it again.
I only made a little as I only had NF milk and I wasn't sure if that would turn out okay, but it did.  The full recipe is:
Ricotta Cheese
8 c milk
2 c buttermilk
put in sauce pan and heat.  Around 175 the curds really separate so wait a bit more then remove from the heat.
Put cheese cloth on top of a strainer on top of a bowl and carefully pour the contents of the pan and let the liquid dip off.  Once that is done put the remains in a serving bowl.  Done!
(I did this first batch with 1 c milk and 1/4 c buttermilk so only got enough to very thickly cover an English muffin half.)

I finished marking the Building Blocks pattern for Block 1.2 and 1.3, then sewed the 1.3 block - it seemed easier to me.  and it was a lot easier so that was a good choice.  My thread color however doesn't show the stitches very well, so that was a bad choice.  Leah had wanted us to use plain fabric or thread that would show up, I'm bummed that this grey does not show up the way I expected it would.  Oh well.  I can (at least) see the stitching clearly on the white fabric!

Our friends from Boston rang and we decided what hotel to stay at in San Francisco.  I rang my friend in Sacramento and set it up that I would see and stay with her a few days after DH returns home.  DH will come to see where she lives and we'll go out for dinner or lunch before he leaves.  We still have to figure out how we are getting from the coast to Rockland/Sacramento but that will be doable no doubt.

Then it was time to greet DS and his friend - who was accepted to the Master's degree program in chemical engineering.  We went to Pomegranates Restaurant - http://www.pomegranatesd.com/  They have wonderful meat dishes, but also a nice selection of vegetarian ones.  We started with the salad sampler.  Yum.  Potato salad with cucumbers and peas, beat salad with walnuts, carrot salad with walnuts, eggplant salad and the final was the bean and tomato and cheese salad.  All yum!  I had borcht for dinner and we all shared a cheese boat - very nice.  Finished off with some unusual honey cake and ice cream with a strong spicy sauce that hit all parts of the tongue.  Then they came over and we played a map game.

When they left I did the quilting on the second design.  A nice looking but rather boring grid design.  At the end I had to add one more line so I went out to the margin and then came back in.  I hope that will look okay when it's put together.  My bobbin broke in a white section and I forgot I had white fabric when I hid the thread so it will show forever.  I had tied a knot before hiding the thread and discovered I could not retrieve the thread and redo it.  Oh well.

So now I'm up to date for the Building Blocks project - I think I will be able now to sew on other projects too since this project doesn't really take up that much time to finish up.

The Free Motion Quilting Project: Introduction: New Building Blocks Quilt Along

The Free Motion Quilting Project: Introduction: New Building Blocks Quilt Along

We've got the pattern!  Very clearly written.  Has a master list of all the initial cuts needed for the different blocks.  All patterns and projects should have this!

Next will be shopping my stash for fabric and getting the batting.  Leah doesn't sell the batting but recommends http://www.quiltersdreambatting.com/  I found a LQS on the list to sell the batting so will be going there to pick that up.  Added later: The LQS didn't have the batting in stock so ended up ordering via Amazon.

: )