South Dakota blizzards

I am in Sioux Falls for a couple of days of meetings for work.  And we are having a blizzard, which would normally be fine since I’m safe and sound indoors, right?

Well - this is the snow piling up 6’ behind me in a conference room at the hotel where we have our meetings.  Snow - drifting through a gap in a door to a patio.  Crazy!!

Hourglass is complete

Hourglass was the oldest UFO that I've worked on so far and it's done.  That is cause for a celebration!  And this is one of my favorite quilts that I've finished recently. 

This 2004 Thimbleberries Club pattern was actually begun during 2004 making it 15 years old.  Yikes!!  It's made from leftovers of the other projects from that year.  I had 6 of the blocks done, and then it was set aside for some crazy reason. Luckily the pattern and all of the fabrics were in one place with those blocks just waiting for me to finish. 

I love the way those hourglass blocks are surrounded by the flying geese blocks to make a sawtooth type of border.  The original pattern didn't have the outer border pieced, but I didn't have quite enough of any one fabric.  So I pieced it and think it doesn't detract from the design at all.  It's queen sized, so it's large enough for my bed.  

Crackerjack is done

Crackerjack was our November project for our Kim Diehl club, and I'm happy to say this one is finished.  It kind of kicked my butt.  The center didn't want to lay flat, and those borders just caused me problems that needed to be ripped out and fixed.  The finished size is about 35" square and it was a kit.  Interesting note: the plaids are all flannels, and are used with the wrong side up. I think the stretchy qualities of flannel has contributed to my problems with getting this one right.

I really love the 4 blocks in the center of this one, and also how the sashing is done with small churn dash blocks in the corners.  I just don't like the border very well.  The quilting has helped the whole thing lay flatter.  So overall it's a good finish.  

Cats, cats, cats

The REAL cat in my house spent 7 hours yesterday sleeping on top of the quilt I was trying to bind.  I got to a point - halfway down the last side - where I couldn't move the quilt enough to stitch the binding without making His Royal Highness move. This is the look I got whenever I disturbed him.  And of course I didn't have the heart to just push him off the quilt, so that last side of binding still needs to be finished. Oh well - it's a UFO that I started in 2004 so a couple more days won't matter.  I bound a table topper instead.  

This cat is one of my RSC19 (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) blocks for this year- red blocks for January.  This week I'll be making a yellow one for February.   This is the 12" version of Barn Cat from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage blocks.  It was an extra download to go with the book.  It will make a fun kid quilt with a rainbow of cats. 

It's still a mystery

I still have no idea how these pieces will go together.  And that is the purpose of a good mystery quilt isn't it?   

There are plenty of triangles left, and some of the units match the length or width of that pieced unit in the middle. But then nothing else lines up. The mystery continues, and the next clue will be released to us next Saturday. Can't wait to see what's next. 

UFO progress & goals

Being gone in January for 2 weeks has definitely slowed down my UFO progress, but hasn't stopped it completely.  My January list of 3 UFOs has progress made on all of them. 

I've cut the sashing for the RSC18 quilt and sewed sashing strips to one side of all 30 blocks. Both of the other projects are quilted and I'm working on binding them.  So I'm feeling very positive about that progress. 

My February list already has a start because I picked up the Saturday Sampler quilt from my quilter the day before I left.  It will wait for binding until after the ones I'm currently working on. And it's another big quilt so it will take me awhile as I'm slow at binding.

I hope to finish the blocks for the OBW this month and maybe begin to lay it out.  As for the door hanging, I am toying with adding some words to it before finishing it.  So we'll see what happens with that one. 

So - my goals for February are simple:

1 - keep up with current Saturday Sampler

2 - catch up with RSC color blocks (red and yellow)

3 - finish binding Hourglass UFO

4 - finish binding Crackerjack UFO

5 - finish sashing RSC18 blocks

6 - finish OBW blocks

7 - finish Lukas’ pillow top

And I'm challenging myself to NOT start any new projects unless I finish at least 2 of my goals first.

Caribelle Batik

On the island of St Kitts, our whole quilt retreat group went on a shore excursion to Caribelle Batik, a "factory" and shop where hand-stamped batiks are created.  We got a tour, had some fun creating our own batik, and got to shop.  I didn't buy any yardage as it wasn't available there, but did purchase some smaller pieces to take home.  

Our tour guide took us through the process they use.  Large and small stamps are dipped in wax, and then hand-stamped onto the fabrics.  Then they were soaked in containers with dye.  The next step was rinsing the excess dye out and then boiling them in big pots to get the wax out of the fabric.  And finally they were hung to dry. We also saw an interesting piece that was being drawn in wax over simple pencil lines for a detailed landscape. 

They let us choose our stamps: such as flowers and turtles.  I stamped several flowers onto my fabric.  They wrapped us in batik sarongs to protect our clothing. 

Then we took our fabric to the dye baths and chose between blue or orange.  The wet pieces were put into double baggies for transport home.  Mine is rinsed now and dry, but will need to be boiled for 30 minutes to remove the wax.  Once that is done I'll decide what to do with my personal piece of batik. 

The last thing many of us did at Caribelle Batik (after shopping) was stop at the snack bar and buy a Ting with a Sting. Ting is a local grapefruit soft drink, and the sting was coconut rum added to it. It was by far the best local rum drink I had on the whole trip.  I may try making it now that I'm home.