Sew Something Else

I need to take a break from making clothes. The last couple of projects have been unqualified disasters and now I’m just getting frustrated. Clearly, the universe thinks I should be working on something else. I pulled some lovely dark emerald green waxed canvas from the stash for a possible Ravenwood bag. (No fitting required.) I also pressed the backing for the Sunbonnet Sue. Wrangling a 108” x 108” square of fabric over the ironing board takes some doing. That one is ready to baste, hopefully today. I got a bit distracted by the Churn Dash top. I did four more blocks yesterday afternoon. At this rate, I may just keep going until I’m done.

I did matchstick grid quilting in one block:

Some tiny wave quilting in the one next to it—this was supposed to be clamshells but I didn’t position the ruler correctly. I’ll try clamshells in another block:

Spiral echoes, which I really liked and rather wished I had done in every block, but where would be the fun in that?

Besides, I also love this one:

I drew these in with air-disappearing marker, lest you think I am some kind of free-motion genius.

This makes five patterns, and there are 25 blocks. I have two or three more ideas I want to try, but I’ll repeat some of these in additional blocks. Coming up with 25 unique quilting designs might be a bit much for my brain. This is starting to remind me of the 88 Blocks art project we did when I was a freshman in high school. We had to draw a grid of 88 two-inch blocks on a large piece of paper. Each block had to be filled in with a different design and painted, and we were limited to two complimentary colors—I did orange and blue—and tints and shades of those two colors, created by mixing with black or white. We had to come up with a unique design for each block. I actually have a quilt project started that is supposed to be similar to 88 Squares, although it will be much bigger as I am using 2-1/2” squares.

********************

The chickens have been outside every day lately. They were stuck in the coop for several weeks and hated it. Dave crows constantly when he’s in the chicken yard. I had to remind him yesterday that everyone was awake. He takes his job so seriously.

I picked up the chick schedule from the farm store. The husband and I talked about it a bit last night because I think we might want to get chicks a bit earlier—if they don’t sell out—because of my schedule this spring. I’m thinking Brown Leghorns. We haven’t done those in a while. The problem is that we have quite a mix of breeds out there at the moment. I need to get back on the routine of buying a different breed each spring so we know which ones are the oldest.

Seeds are supposed to arrive today. I also need to start another tray of lettuce in the grow system. Spring is coming.