My quilt has overpowered my design wall

 I've now got all four quadrants of Totally Demented put together and up on the design wall.

With ...umm ...parts of it draped artistically over the design floor.  And also flapping casually in the breeze off to the right.

This puppy is big.

As I finished each quadrant, I hung it up on the wall and tried to ignore the theme from Jaws that was now playing in the back of my head.  And getting louder.

Each quarter of the quilt is 48x48", and it's going to finish up at 96x96".

The thought of trying to wrestle that bulk through the harp of my sewing machine made me realize that I really would be totally demented by the finish.

Also bald.  From ripping my hair out as I cursed into the sky.

I calmed down considerably when it dawned on me that I can just quilt each quad separately and sew them all together afterward.

Aha!  I have a plan!

What could possibly go wrong?

(Shhh!  Don't tell me!)

Phew! One extra!

I diligently sewed all those blocks together and ended up with one left over!  (Usually if I'm off, it goes the other way for me.)

I turned 256 of those blocks into 64 of these -

and then grouped those blocks by fours  -

and then kept going

and going

until I ran out of design wall when I'd hung up 9 out of the 16 big blocks.

Now I'm sewing those together by fours.

Luckily I only need four of these megablocks.  Almost there!

My RSC blocks came in handy for leader/enders during all that HST madness.

Two cake stands in red -

and a postage stamp block.

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all our scrappy goodness!

Purple's last hurrah

 Well, here we are at the end of August, which has been purple month for the RSC.

I made another cake stand -

and another postage stamp block for PSP20.

I'll miss you, purple!

And Demented marches on.  This stack has enough blocks to form the second quadrant, which means I'm past the halfway point of this stage.

I kept going and have another stack of blocks growing, but I haven't counted them to see if quadrant three is good to go.

The twosies are really piling up -

and here's what's left of the 256, waiting to be paired up.

Out of curiosity, I counted that little stack and - horrors! - came up with an odd number.

Since I'm sewing them together in pairs, this is Not Good News.

Possibilities:

1) I miscounted the blocks.

2) I made 1 too many blocks.

3) Or I made 3 too many blocks.

4) I made 1 too few blocks.

5) Or I made 3 too few.

I'm pretty sure I can throw out  #3 and #5, but the others are entirely possible.

I can go through and count everything again, or I can just leave it as a problem for Future Gayle and carry on sewing.

I'm going with the second option.  

After all, sometimes surprises are good, right?

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come enjoy the last of the purple!

Rolling along in my own Totally Demented way

 Cue the confetti!  Totally Demented is in the final stretch!

I finally hit my target of 256 blocks for this mammoth of a quilt!  

(Unless I've miscounted)  (I'm sure I haven't miscounted)  (Well, pretty sure)  (I'm pretending I haven't miscounted)  (La la la)

Part of the process - which was necessary but slowed me down considerably - was twirling all those little seams as I went along.  It's going to make the final assembly easier, but oh my - what a pain in the butt at the beginning!

However, I am NOT continuing this twirly mayhem as I start making the small blocks into larger blocks.  If my thinking is correct (but remember what I've named this quilt), when I combine these bigger blocks into even bigger blocks, the seams will still nest.

My process so far has been to sew blocks together into pairs until I'm thoroughly bored, then sew pairs into foursies until I get sick of that.

Back and forth between twosies and foursies, twosies and foursies...

Fairly quickly I had enough to put up on my hastily cleared design wall.

I got so excited that I put together four more.

And then since it was going so well, I just kept rolling!

And that's enough for one fourth of the quilt!

I've got a stack of twosies still by the machine, and lots more blocks to sew together, but the quilt is starting to look real!

Every time I look at it, I make a little 'woohoo' noise - which makes me think I might actually finish it at some not-too-distant point.  

Woohoo!

Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  (I didn't get any RSC sewing done AT ALL this week, unfortunately, so I'm skipping my usual other link.  Next week for sure!)

45 Blocks and an Oops. Oh, and a Cake Stand. And another Cake Stand.

 Lately I've been making a big push to get Totally Demented to the flimsy stage.  (I'm trying to be good and clear the decks first so I can start Sand Castles 2.)  (Being good is hard.) 

The other day I put my head down and my butt in my sewing chair and turned out 46 blocks.

Well, 45 of them went smoothly, but as I was ironing the last one I discovered that I'd made an oopsy block.

When I sewed the two halves together, I'd spun one of them around the wrong way.  A few minutes with the seam ripper and a quick trip under the needle and all was good.

That means I now have 224 of the 256 I need.  I'm back to churning out quarter blocks and half blocks, and am hopeful that I'll be done soon.

Then as a palate cleanser, I made a purple cake stand.

And that was so yummy that I made another.

I'll probably be able to find another purple or two in my stash so I can make a few more.  Purple is the next best thing to orange, so I do tend to accumulate them...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the scrappy fun!

And hey, it's my birthday!  Purple seems like a good color for my birthday month!

Unity is united!

And it's huge!  I had to hang it sideways because I couldn't reach high enough to put it up rightways-up.

(And you can see how my 'design wall' is really just a big chunk of flannel clamped to a metal shelving unit.  Fancy!)

The only way I can fit the whole top into one photo is to sneak up on it from the side.

With that squirrel monster project wrapped up, I'll be able to get back to my sandcastles.

I had gotten this far in the webbing process when Unity grabbed my attention.  (There was some mask-sewing going on, too.) (And procrastinating.  Don't forget the procrastinating!)

I've done webbing on small quilts and quilt blocks, so I thought I'd give it a try for this quilt.  Final verdict?  I'm not too keen on it.  I can see the logic of the process, but my sewing machine workspace is small and trying to heft around a whole quilts-worth of quilt blocks over and over again in order to sew the top together is more work than I want to tackle.  I'm gonna stick to sewing a row at a time, even if it means hopping up and down a bunch of times to grab the next batch of blocks.  (It's not good to sit for too long anyway, right?)

In other news, I sewed another doodad - this one is either green for May or pink for June.  Or both.  Why not both?

Then, since my pink postage stamp block for the month is already made, I figured I'd better go back and catch up the months I missed with the late start.

(Of course I picked orange to start with.  Is anyone surprised?)

And here are the three postage stamp blocks  I've made so far:

I think it's going to be fun!

Now, back to the Sand Castles.  And Totally Demented has been waving at me every time I walk by.  Might have to do something about that, too...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come share in the scrappy rainbow fun!

Still digging for aqua

I found enough aqua to make another Sand Castle

and I even made another Centennial star.

(I keep telling myself I'm done making these star blocks because I probably have plenty, but I keep ignoring myself and making more.)  (It may never end...)  (I may end up with an Extremely Large Quilt.)  (Or two.)

I added the Sand Castle to the design wall where it joined the three other aquas I've made this month.  I've got pieces cut for one more in this color which I plan to get to next week.  At that point I'll sit back and wait for May's color.  (Purple?  Purple would be nice.)  (Or orange.  I like orange)

You can also see my April Goosey Temps column in this picture.  We've still only had one day above 70 degrees, so there's just that one lonely yellow goose.  I'm crossing my fingers that there'll be more warm in the near future!

I'm still plugging along with my demented bits,

though I'm going to have to stop and make some more triangles soon.  That bottomless bag of HSTs is starting to near bottom after all.

Though there's a new distraction.  I've got strips piled next to my machine, just waiting to be assembled into nine-patches.

You know, just in case I ever decide I want to make a Jack's Chain.

Never hurts to be prepared, right?


Linking with Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come join the fun!

Nothing but puttering this week

Putter putter putter.  Luckily I have lots of stuff to putter with.
(I should be trying to get Sea of Tranquility pin-basted, but I seem to be procrastinating there.  I'm looking forward to the quilting part, but the basting is always such a pain in the butt...)

I got one Sand Castle block done in aqua for the RSC.  I've found another scrap of turquoise big enough to make the next block, but I'm going to have to do some serious digging for any others.  Definitely low on aqua/turquiose.

I'm still herding my flying geese in my temperature quilt.  On Monday, yellow made its first appearance as the temp went up to 72 degrees, but it's back to normal now with temps in the 40's to 60's.

I'm looking forward to when yellow is the norm, with orange for the 80's making an occasional appearance.  Hopefully we won't see too much red - that means the temp would be over 90.  Not a fan of weather that hot, I must say.

And with avoidance extra time on my hands, I pulled out the Demented bin and made a few more blocks.

I'm up to 174 - yay!  I only need 256, so I feel like the end is in sight.  It's kind of off in the distance, but it's definitely in sight.

I'll keep assembling the little bits and making bigger bits, until all the blocks are ready to go.

Piece of cake, right?

And I found myself making these the other day.  No reason.  Really.

Just because I've been drooling over Cathy's Jack's Chains quilts is no reason to jump to conclusions.
Really.  A person can just have a sudden urge to make nine-patches.  Out-of-the-blue like.
Perfectly normal.
Yep.



Linking with Soscrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see the scrappy fun!

Scrappy Fortunes

One of the best things about Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt is that it gives me something to show at this time of year.  I'm up to my armpits in super secret gifty bits, but at least I have some pictures to share as I putter along with Good Fortune.

First, though, here's some greens I couldn't resist when my sister-in-law and I visited our favorite quilt shop for their semi-annual big sale.

(Zucchini!  Who could pass up fabric with zucchini?!?)

So, I got a start on Clue #3 for Good Fortune.  These chevron units seem to be a favorite of Bonnie's - she includes them in a lot of her quilts.

And into the bin they go.

I'm continuing to make all three units, squeezed in between my other projects.

Though there have been some boo-boos.
I took a closer look at this HST I'd made.  Something wasn't right.

Flipping it over, I found that I'd sewn the light triangle in backwards.  So I grabbed the seam ripper, separated the triangles, and re-sewed them.

 And damned if I didn't make the same mistake again...

At that point I gave up and just left it.  It sort of looks like just a very pale print and it's not like anyone will ever notice it but me.  Scrappy is as scrappy does, right?

And bless our Bonnie for her tutorial on mass-producing triangles with the folded corners ruler.  I tested it out, making some triangles in the size I'm using for Totally Demented.

I had no idea that the ruler could be used for this - I'd gotten it for another purpose altogether.  Bonus!
I've been playing with every possible way to make HSTs, since I need so many of them.  Even after I finish Totally Demented, I have other quilts planned that need kabillions more. (Tree of Life, anyone?)

Linking with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! and with Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville for the third Good Fortune linky party.  Come see all the scrappy fun!