A bit of ice shove!

I've been busy making hexies.  Lots and lots of hexies.  More bags of scrap fabric was found.  OMG .... I'm drowning in scraps.  Aagh!  Not to worry, I will work on making more quilts out of those scraps.  LOL  I do have lots of EPP patterns to choose from. 

This is where I'm at with this project so far.

On the virus front .... another 20 masks were made.  Some for local use, some for in another city.  No photo was taken as they are already gone.  I'll be making more and more and more masks.  Money has been offered to pay for them.  No, no, no.  Everyone is going through hard times and safety is more precious than money to me.

Hubby and I took a walk down by the waterfront to see the ice shove.  This doesn't happen every year.  This week, the wind was blowing hard and in the right direction.  The ice was ready to break up and that started the ice to shove.

This sight greeted us before we even got out of the car in the parking lot.

 The ice hit the breakwall (protecting the marina) and rose up and toppled over it.

The backside of the breakwall.

You can see how a layer of ice is advancing over the layer in the front.  That layer will creep along until it hits the pile in front of the rocks and then pile up as more ice is shoved from behind.   There is lots of ice out there.

 The towers of ice here must be about 12' high.

 A bit of open water will soon be filled with ice being blown in to fill the gap.

 The ice towers can only get so high before toppling over.

  Beautiful to see.

Now, back to making hexies and sorting the scraps.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Sew much .... oops .... squirrel!

Sew much is getting done these days, I can't stand it!   No, I lie .... my ufo's are getting dealt with and that makes me very happy.  My sister asked me if I was bored.  I laughed.  Me bored?  Not a chance.  It is just the getting out and shopping that disturbs me but we have to do it smartly and just stay at home.

So, I work away.  In my happy place. 

My apple cores are done and inner borders are on.  Just pondering the outside borders.  The top border will have applique.

Then, a squirrel came along!  There are so many corona virus sew-alongs going on, but I didn't want to make any.  Oh, I so resisted! 

I got thinking about my scraps.  There are just too many to leave them in bins.  After pulling out my bins and bags of scraps, I decided to do something with them.  They were dumped into this huge under-the-bed tray that was bought from IKEA many years ago.  It keeps the scraps under control while rooting through them.  Why not make a hexie quilt?  Sure, why not!  LOL

There will be three panels of hexagons with applique borders between the sections.  A great way to use up those scraps.  It will be interesting to see how many scrap bins there will be after doing this quilt.  "My Corona Flowers". 

Every piece of scrap will be used, even if they have to be pieced together.  These are my odd hexagon shapes.

They fit in quite nicely and add a touch of interest.

Oh, the things we do to amuse us.  It is better to keep my hands busy, otherwise, I would be eating everything in sight.  LOL

Spring quilts have been put out for display around the house.  It is tulip time.  A couple tulip quilts.   It just feels good to make a change to our lives.  Any change is good.

We did have 1" of snow on the ground yesterday, but it didn't stay.  Tulips are starting to sprout from the ground.  It will be a while before the blooms show up.  Guess this would be a good time to put out dryer sheets around on our hill to stop the deer from munching on those tulips.  Last year was the first time we tried it and it worked.  No plants were harmed by the deer.

Cherish your day!  Cherish your life!

Been busy!

It seems that everyone that can sew are making masks these days.  I've jumped in and made 36 for our local hospital to wear over their N95 masks to keep them from getting soiled.  The community made enough that they won't have to worry about masks for a wee while.  These ones have ties.

Next up, masks for family members.

After that, masks for a local nursing home and they requested elastics. 

I will do whatever I can to help out.  We have to, no question about it!

It is so sad to watch the news and see the death toll creeping up and up and up each day.  When will it stop?  No one knows the answer to that.

When a break is needed from masks and the news, back I go to working on some of my projects.

Cassandra's Circle.  Here are my blocks so far.

 Additional pieces were added to the huge center block.  Veins for the leaves and circles.

This is the before.

After.  Big difference, eh!

 This month's block and I didn't follow the layout.  Prepped but not sewn down yet.

My apple cores are all joined together.  Borders are being appliqued onto the sides.  So much progress!  How happy am I?  LOL

It is so tempting to be swayed into doing a couple of quilt-a-longs, but, I'm staying strong and committed to working on just my ufos.  For now.  LOL

Cherish your day, cherish your life.

Apple Cores!

This project is speeding along!  Mind you, this will be a wall hanging instead of my usual huge bed quilts.

The centre core measures 43" x 43".  Fabric is being auditioned for borders and there may be a border of applique at the top.

Cherish you day!  Cherish your life!

Batting time!

How am I amusing myself during our virus shutdown?

Do you remember seeing this photo in a July 2019 post when my young great niece was visiting and after coming back from using the bathroom and the look on her face said it all?  Well, since then, more batting pieces were added and the shower stall was bulging almost to the top and bags kept falling out of the opening.  Time to deal with them!

For now, just the 80/20 cotton/poly batting pieces are being used.  The 100% poly batting pieces will be dealt with later.

Not all batting are the same.  These two batting pieces can't be used in the same quilt as the one piece on the left is a tad too thin.  So, they will be split into separate groups and the bags will be labelled accordingly.  One day they will get used up.  There are not enough batting pieces to work for this size top, so I will just cut a piece off my roll of batting and then another project will be going to the LAer.

There are enough of these pieces to make a full batting size needed for this top.  Zig zagging the pieces together is how these will be sewn.  I butt the seams together and zig zag across to close the seam sides.  When finished, the batting piece will look awful, but it will be inside the quilt and until the front or back starts to fall apart, no one will ever know.  I refuse to throw these small pieces into the garbage ..... so wasteful to me.  So, I will take the time to make a batting.

I do have a large bag of small batting scraps.  These will be used for a wall hanging or a tote bag or a table runner or placemats.  Use them all up and keep them out of the landfill!

Backings are being made also.  There are 11 tops waiting to be machine quilted and they will be dealt with.  With the recent death of my aunt, my frail cousin will follow soon and now this pandemic .... why am I holding onto tops?  Waiting for what?  Time to get them quilted so that they can be enjoyed.  Life is just too short.

These apple cores are also keeping me busy.  I'm in the process of adding the dark cores.

Viola, another row added!  Yeah!

There are so many quilt alongs happening right now .... but I will try (no squirrels allowed here) to resist and will work instead on my 34 ufo's.  That is how I ended up with so many ufo's ..... squirrels kept appearing.  LOL

During this time in history, hubby and I are staying at home.  We each have more than enough to keep us amused for a few more weeks or months, depending on the virus curve.  Hope it flattens out soon so that the world can slowly get back to normal.  A niece will be picking us some food items for us this week, thus eliminating the need to venture to a grocery store.

Crazy times ..... sad times ..... fearful times!

Cherish your day .... cherish your life!

Cassandra's Circle - Block 2

I'm keeping up with this free BOM and have block 2 done.

There was an issue with the placement for me and whatever I tried, it just didn't work for me.   This is just one layout that a photo was taken of.  Those yellow leaves just didn't work.  The fabric was reused to make circles and the leaf pattern was adjusted and reused.

So, without further ado, my version came along and viola .... block is done!

Here we have blocks 1 and 2 on my design wall.  There will be sashings to break them up.  The blue background fabric will be used for the 18" blocks.  The white is used in the center medallion and will also be used for the borders.  Different shades of cheddar and greens will be used along with my Shweshwe fabrics.

These blocks have been safely tucked away in a bin until the end of this month when the next pattern is available.

Another ufo has been pulled out to work on and that is what I'm going to be doing today.

Cherish your day!

The rebel in me!

How many of you are doing Cassandra's Circle Free BOM?  I am and my first block is done.  36" square unfinished (read more below).  My stash of indigo Shweshwe fabric will be used in the process.  It was time to use this gorgeous fabric in a project.   This fabric was purchased years ago from https://meerkatshweshwe.com/ and if I need more, I will be giving Celeste a call.

The fabric is a wee bit heavier than normal but absolutely gorgeous to work with for applique.  Especially in those curves.  The fabric doesn't fray as usual and I'm asking myself why I didn't work with this fabric before instead of sitting in a bin on my shelf.

This is where the rebel in me showed up.  The plumes were to be placed in a spiral mode, but I decided to do it differently and reversed four of the plumes to face the other four.  Love it!  As more blocks are done, this block will be revisited and more things added to it.

Now, getting back to that 36" square unfinished.  It should be 36-1/2" unfinished.  What happened to that extra 1/2"?   When I cut out the white background fabric, an extra inch was added to the measurement and the fabric was ripped across the WOF.  My grain is not straight  and after squaring it up, my piece is not the full 36-1/2" that is needed and there is not enough extra fabric to redo!  Darn, darn, darn.   So ..... this is where my creative side will have to visit and do something to make that centre piece the correct size.  I will have to stew on that idea for a wee while.

This is how my block looks on the design wall.  Big.

The other project that has been worked on over the past few weeks, is putting another label onto my quilts that have won ribbons in any quilt show that they were in.

My friend Karin did a talk about this at guild and the appraiser also told me to do that as well.  The appraiser also said to put a label on any quilt that has been appraised and the value.  So that will be the next step to do.  This will be a good way for future generations to know that their quilt has some kind of value and to treat it kindly.

Cherish your day!