90 Blocks for 90 Years Revisited...

It took longer than I anticipated, but Dad's 90th birthday quilt is done.

It finished 61" x 55"-ish, pretty good for napping with a bratty cat. As Dad loves to nap, I think it will get a lot of use.

The back is one of the softest flannels I've ever found, a great tone-on-tone tealy-blue.

I used leftovers from the homespun fat quarters for the binding. Love it!

And here's a gratuitous shot of Archie, who missed the quilt photo shoot because he'd found the only sliver of sunlight in the condo.

Happy weekend, all!

Meanwhile...

I don't think I ever posted this quilt, my foray into "Patchwork Sassaman Style."

"Kate's Paradise Lost" (Jane Sassaman's Paradise Garden fabrics + Kona Orange)

I love Jane's fabrics, and I love what she does with them. What I do with them, not so much. I'm chalking this one up to an experiment with a few lessons learned along the way.

Initially, I was just playing with the blue blocks, then made the black ones, then wasn't sure what to do with them. They hung around for a few months until I just wanted them out of the way, so I put the top together fairly quickly. With more careful fabric positioning it would have been more successful --  fussy-cutting the black outer panels would have made it more symetrical, and kaleidescoping the inner black blocks would have unified the center. As it is, it kind of makes me dizzy with all that's going on. I redeemed it by using a piece of the blue floral fabric for the backing, which is really pretty with the Kona orange binding.

Even though I'm not 100% happy with it, it's a UFO off my guilt list, and actually a perfect "rally quilt" for an elderly friend who was knocked back a bit by an illness last fall and is suddenly feeling her 91 years. She has been a little reluctant in her efforts to bounce back, and I'm hoping this can give her a much-needed boost.

And if she's not crazy about the top, she can always turn it over.

Molasses in February...

Oh my, I'm a slow quilter.

I love piecing, all that slicing and sewing back together, and the look of a finished top all freshly ironed.

Then there's the quilting part. For some reason, that's my least favorite, which would explain all the flimsies in my Duffle Bag of Doom. Maybe because I'm just not very fast at it...I don't know.

Or maybe it's because I chose to take three passes at every row.

It's taking me forever, but I'm getting there.

Snow day/sew day...

Well, that was fun!

Turns out we had the fifth largest snowfall in Chicago history on Sunday, though those of us near the lakefront got a few bonus inches beyond the records, which are recorded at the airports a few miles inland. 21+ inches of snow fell on us continuously for 33 hours straight -- it was gorgeous, and heavy, and my back is still complaining that I didn't work out more over the summer. Or ever.

The next day we were greeted by the most glorious cloudless azure sky. Temps were only in the mid-teens, but with the sun out, I was clearing snow (again) without a coat.

My neighbor's roof. I wonder how long that drift is going to hang there?

In between trips out to shovel, I finished piecing my snowball top together.

Snowing inside AND out!

I did a couple things different with this top:  first, I did all the piecing with my walking foot. I read (or heard, can't remember where) something about that being more accurate, but I'm still on the fence about it -- not so sure the results were any better or worse than usual. I'm much more comfortable doing scant seams with the quarter-inch foot, using the edge as a guide. Not having that edge with the walking foot laid me open to some wandering; the quarter-inch foot offers much better visibility.

Secondly, I put the blocks together in six chunks of 15. I've always been a row-sewer, and this was much less tedious than sewing long rows of nine or ten blocks together. I'm definitely going to take this approach in the future.

Overall, my flippy-corner stitching leaves something to be desired. I bisected my 2" squares with a pencil line before stitching them down, and, for the most part, did a good job of sewing just a hair beside it, but there are a few places where I was so far off even a little coaxing wouldn't get those points to match. Reminding myself that Dad isn't going to be scrutinizing my seams while napping under it, I relaxed a little and most of them fall wherever they wanted.

Still thinking about adding a border to make it a little bigger and nap-friendly. Depends on this week's workload -- and the weather. More snow is in the forecast!

Progress!

It took a while, but I finished trimming all those flippy corners, and will start piecing the blocks together today.

Taking time out, of  course, to do a little shoveling -- Mother Nature has decided to start off February with a bang here in the Midwest. She's taken it a little easy on us so far, so we kind of deserve this.

Blizzard warnings kick in around two o'clock this afternoon, which makes me wonder how much worse it's going to get -- by 10am we'd had 10" of heavy, wet snow already. I'm having a hard time lifting my coffee cup after two hours of shoveling, so I'm hoping the neighbors will pitch in for the next round and do some pre- and post-game calorie burning. I have sewing to do!

Happy New Year?

Yes, I realize it's the end of January, but things have been a little busy, and sewing has unfortunately taken a back seat. Again.

I began the year reorganizing my stash -- getting all my WIPs and UFOs in the same place, sorting scraps, and taking apart some of those gorgeous little fat quarter bundles that together I realized would probably never become a quilt but separately -- well, if they were in the right bins, they might actually get used. I came to the conclusion that I have a shameful amount of fabric, and an even more shameful amount of unfinished projects, and therefore vowed that 2015 was going to be The Year of Finishing Things.

We'll see how long that lasts.

During my digging I found two bundles of plaid flannel handwovens, purchased probably five years ago and (again, shamefully) forgotten. Since Dad is turning 90 next month and basically lives in plaid all year round, these flannels are perfect. So another "90 Blocks for 90 Years" is in the works.

I knew I wanted to do a basic 9x10 block pattern, nothing too fancy or modern (he still watches Lawrence Welk reruns, for cryin' out loud), and nothing too big that I couldn't get it done in a month. I've never done a snowball quilt, so I figured why not now?

So Step 1:  Cut 6" squares and find a nice arrangement on the kitchen floor while the cat is napping.

(I threw in some Kona solids for a good measure)

Step 2:  Sew on dozens upon dozens of flippy corners. Take a picture and wish you'd considered a plus pattern instead because this looks kind of nice with your glasses off.

 Step 3:  Trim those little corners. Keep trimming.  And trimming.  And trimming.

This is where I'm hovering at the moment -- trimming whenever I have a few spare minutes, corners that never seem to end. But it's coming along!

Dad decided this past weekend to wait to celebrate until the weather is better for travel -- last year my sister's plans to come in from North Carolina were waylaid when she got snowed in and couldn't get out of the driveway, let alone to the airport (where's that ONE snowplow when you need it?) -- so my deadline isn't as crucial as originally thought. That gives me a little breathing room, but I'd like to move it along so I can get on to the next.

Because 2015 is, after all, The Year of Finishing Things.

The best laid plans...

This is what I get for washing the bathroom floor -- a broken toe snagged on the door jamb, ten days with my foot up, and everybody gets circle cowls for Christmas.

There wasn't much sewing this December, as it was the little toe on my pedal foot, so I dug into my chunky yarn stash, fired up Netflix, and went to town. And apparently couldn't stop.

The foot is finally feeling good in hard shoes, just in time to make the trek over the river and across I-94 into Michigan to my parents' house. I haven't been home since this summer, so I'm looking forward to the visit. Archie, however, isn't too crazy about hanging out with Sugar, who rules the roost and doesn't take kindly to interlopers, even if it's temporary.

Sugar showed up three summers ago and started following my father around the garden. She belonged two blocks over, to a family with four cats. At the bottom of the hierarchy and picked on quite a bit, she had had enough and was scouting for a better life. She found two elderly folks in obvious need of her company, darted through the side door when the weather turned cold, and wouldn't leave. Her people tooke her home but she was back the next day, and the next, and the next, until they stopped coming to retrieve her and forwarded her vet records. She is the Queen of the House, the apple of my father's eye (not so sure how I feel about being overthrown from my seat as Dad's favorite), and my mother's "Sweet, Sweet Sugar." She glowers at me and ambushes poor Archie at every possible opportunity. He retaliates by using her litter box, but spends most of his time locked upstairs -- or hiding in the basement.

So that's what we have to look forward to this week. I need to find boxes and wrap all these scarves, and hit the road before the snow moves in.

Happy Holidays to all, and Happy Quilting in the New Year!