Weekly update: project updates, OMG, and more

 

Our first forest preserve outings of the year -- Spring Bluff on Saturday and Van Patten Woods on Sunday.  

Enough people had walked along the trails to pack down the snow so I didn't flounder.

Left collage: red-wing blackbird nest, a gravity defying limb, horsetails.  

Right collage: gull tracks in the sand. 

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I've collected/accumulated household textiles for many years. In 2019 I sold nearly all of the aprons in a yard sale. In 2020 I cut up vintage tablecloths to make tote bags (see them here).   This year I'm assessing the dish towels.  I will keep those signed by designers (Tammis Keefe, Lois Lang) and others that have artistic potential (some day) but I am going to deploy others as actual everyday dishtowels.  Those they replace will become rags.

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Here's Clue 6 of the Grassy Creek mystery.  I sewed 1.5" strips together without foundation papers and thus I didn't have to pick out all that paper. 

I made two CW reproduction flimsies.  The nine-patch is adapted from a pattern by Connie Etherington and Mary Tesene.   

The  Jewel Box blocks just kind of happened.  I tried a variety of colors but blue and white won out.   I considered light chain or dark chain, triangles in or out. I considered a straight setting with or without sashing and a ring-shaped setting.  Then I put them on point. What a difference!  I tried pink for the setting squares but the one print I had enough of was way too intense.  I searched further and found a homespun check for the setting squares and a non-repro stripe for the setting triangles.  The outer border is a mid-1990's repro (Smithsonian Little Sister Quilt by RJR). 

This brings this chapter of the great CW Repro Stash Reduction Project to a close.  I used up just shy of 50 yards on the 12 flimsies. Don't worry!  There are more to come. 

 

But now it's time to declare my January One Monthly Goal.  I signed up for the Modern Quilt Guild mini-swap.  I've corresponded with my assigned partner who told me she likes bright batiks.  I have a few baskets of those.  I've switched gears from CW traditional blocks to modern designs.  I have an idea and I even managed to chart it out on EQ8. 
Here's the initial fabric pull.

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Fiona Davis writes novels about New York -- specifically, about iconic New York buildings.  The Masterpiece (2018) is about Grand Central Terminal (the technical name, as the reader learns early on). The story is set in the late 1920's when the Grand Central School of Art operated on the upper floors, and in 1974 when Grand Central was dilapidated, dangerous (muggers, etc.), and threatened with destruction.  Who was the pseudonymous artist whose work is discovered in the abandoned classroom? Why is it purloined before it can be authenticated?   There's a mix of historical education and some real suspense.

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Linking up with One Monthly Goal     Oh Scrap!    Monday Making

 Design Wall Monday

P.S.  I bought this at Salvation Army this week.  It's a beautifully appliqued batik flower.  The professional framing is great but the setting is dull.   I plan to un-frame it and set the block in a more interesting way.  It's signed at the bottom corner: J K Coon, 2011.