Green - Focus Through the Prism

May's Focus Through the Prism block was Monkey Wrench.

Remember my Plan?  I should have had no problem knocking out a 20 inch square quilt over the Memorial Day Weekend.  But as you all know that Plan got blown out of the water.  

This was the sum total of what I got sewn in the three day weekend!

That's it. ARGH!!!!

  

Needless to say I was not able to join the May link up.  I will be finishing this quilt this month along with June's block - Friendship Star.

I'm thinking reds for this one.  I've been doodling on the graph paper.

Cherry Adventure Series, May/June 2015

I know... I just disappeared. 

Fell off the radar. 

Went quiet.

I'm here to say - THAT was NOT the PLAN!!!

Memorial Day Weekend was supposed to be about relaxing, sewing an entire 20" square quilt for the 'Focus Through the Prism' challenge and making final preparations for my planned surgery.  

That was the Plan! I even had two days after the long weekend for finishing touches. It was a great Plan!!

NOT SO MUCH!!! 

I sewed a grand total of 12 seams, the average length of which was about an inch and a half.  There are pictures of that progress somewhere - just no idea where.

My body seemed to just up and decide to make me the most miserable person on the face of the earth because I removed half of the OTC pain meds I had been giving it, in prep for surgery.  Then it decided that wasn't enough - let's give her a little something more to deal with.  That lead to me being whisked away, by ambulance, from work on Tuesday morning, the day after Memorial Day, to the hospital...then to another hospital later that same day.

While there are many, boring, somewhat gory details of the last 10 days - we will not be discussing them here - at least for the time being.  Suffice to say...

I AM HOME!!! 

I am recovering from surgery,  Drake's at my side, cats watching me and my loving DH doting on my every need and whim. What I am not doing right now is sewing, or stitching, or even designing (not on paper but a few thoughts have flitted in my head), but which means I don't have a lot to blog about right now. 

My job right now is to rest, recover, recuperate, relax and recharge.  Blog posts will be spotty at best - possibly not quilt or sewing related.  Please hang in there with me.  I'm be doing my best to get back in the groove.  Can't let the sewing machine sit idle and you can't keep a quilter down long.  

I think there's an empty envelope back in reach for some idea doodling and a stubby pencil...just there. 
Graph paper...where is my graph paper?

See you round!

Parts and Pieces

While there is still no sewing happening in the studio, there has been activity going on.

Un-Sewing!

 

You remember this, don't you?  I got all giddy with the HST units and rushed ahead, sewing the blocks together.  Resulting in a very busy, dizzy quilt top.  Something had to be done!

Small sharp scissors to the rescue!

Careful un-sewing of some of the seams and I have these parts and pieces back on the design wall.

The new planned layout (shown here in a sides-chopped-off version) has open, mostly plain space to balance out all the tiny triangle madness. 

It will increase the size of this quilt to about 76 inches square - large lap / couch nap size. The exact fabric for the open space needs to be addressed before it can be reassembled. But I will be moving forward with more sewing restraint - if I have any, that is.

2nd Entry - Bloggers Quilt Festival

Thanks to Amy's Creative Side for hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015  

This is my first time participating in the festival.

I decided my second quilt entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival will be:

Fifty-Eight Nines

I chose to enter this into the Original Design category.  This quilt was a finalist in the 2015 New Quilt from an Old Favorite: Nine Patch contest. 

It is made completely from batiks that were gradually collected over a two year period, building quite a deep stash along the way! The quilt was assembled using a quilt-as-you-go method, on my home sewing machine and measures 52"x 54".

Take some time, check out all the quilt entries in the different categories and vote for your favorites - there are wonderfully quilty bloggers showing off their work and prizes to be won! 

Thanks for visiting - I'll hope you'll stay awhile and take a look around.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015: Connections

Today I'm taking a break from my planned posts to participate in something new!

Thanks to Amy's Creative Side for hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2015  

This is my first time participating in the festival and my first entry is in the Applique category .

Connections

Based on the Traditional Double Wedding Ring pattern,  it's hand appliqued and made from Cherrywood hand dyed fabric. The arcs and corner stones were made the old fashioned way - I drafted the pattern full size on graph paper, and glued them onto cardboard to create templates.  Each piece was traced around, cut out by hand and the edges hand basted down. 

Measuring 34" x 43", Connections was quilted on my home sewing machine. The different curves on the opposite corners was done on purpose, following the layout of the 'ghost' rings. 

Take some time, check out all the quilt entries in the different categories and vote for your favorites - there are wonderfully quilty bloggers showing off their work and prizes to be won! 

Thanks for visiting - I'll hope you'll stay awhile and take a look around.

Rainbow Fabric Pull

Back to the studio!!

It's time to work on the first color of the 'Focus Through the Prism' challenge.  I chose green for the Monkey Wrench block this month and headed to the green batik drawer to pull fabric. 

And then decided - what the heck - let's pull all the batiks to go with the hand dyes for all 7 months now so they can be stored together. 

I noticed a severe lack of purples in the stash. Shopping is NOT an option.  The plan is to move some fabric out of the stash on this project.  Hmmm, a bit of a dilemma. Oh, but wait!!  When I was down in Paducah, I pick up some Bali snaps on sale.  

YES - The Kool Aid color pack should fill in any gaps in the purple range!!  

And I have the Breakers (blues), Taffy (greens) and Red Hots (yellows to reds) Bali Snaps to fill out the other colors.

All of the fabrics have been pulled and stored in one small bin ready to go each month.  I need to draw up some paper foundations for the Monkey Wrench block and start stitching!

Before Dawn Binding

FINALLY!!!  I have been sooooo bad about finishing the binding on the Chirp, Chirp quilt.

Not sure what the roadblock was but the deadline to get this done for the charity auction was looming ever closer.  I don't mind hand stitching bindings - it's actually very relaxing, so I guess it was plain old procrastination rearing it's ugly head.  I was up at 4:00 am today since I have a ton of things to do before work, and got the stitching done before I wrote this post. Glad it's done and ready to be on its way.

In the meantime, I've been chewing on the 'Focus Through the Prism' challenge of this month.  

The block is Monkey Wrench and the color I've chosen...... 

(insert drum roll please!) 

is GREEN!  

I am jumping right into the middle of this challenge.

Well, now that that huge decision is behind me, I can figure out what on earth I am going to do with this block for my quilt. Enough with the hemming and hawing - time to get a move on!  This weekend will have me pawing through the green fabric drawers.  I have more than enough fabric on hand for a 100 of these challenge quilts.  

Hope your weekend includes some fabric time!