Log Cabin Lunacy

The total count of little four inch log cabin blocks is now at 208.  The target is 320. Only a few more to go!

Sewing along with other log cabin loonies at JulieKQuilts. 

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Boho Roosters Revisited

Bohemian Roosters

80 x 80

hand quilted

Sunburst pattern is from the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. 

The rooster fussy cut centers were cut from a fabric in my stash  - Bohemian Rooster Click by Susan Winget. 

I then found enough stash fabrics that I thought were boho-ish  enough to coordinate with the centers.  All sunburst points are yellows from stash. 

The quilt was started in November 2017 and finished April 2018. 

Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Pumpkin Peels Revisited

Pumpkin Peels

78 x 78

made with small scraps in autumn colors

peels are appliqued to the background

pieced backing

hand quilted

templates and quilt instructions from:

Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts  - Patterns Inspired by Antique Quilts 

by Mary Elizabeth Kinch and Biz Storms

Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side

From the 1.5 Inch Scrap Bin

 This month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color is dark blue/dark neutrals. This week I dug into the 1.5 inch scrap bin and made some blocks I call Whatchamacallits. They are a version of Coins. The pieces are 1.5 x 2.5.  This is the second year of making them. 

 I've been making little Rails for two years also from 1.5 x 3.5 inch scraps. 

 I made a lot of them this month from what was in the scrap bin. 

After I use the scraps in the 1.5 inch scrap bin to make the two different blocks...

...I've been putting them in a shoe box with some Spider Webs. 

I'm not sure why the 1.5 inch scrap bin isn't empty yet. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

A Flimsy and A Smiley Face!

Fractured Rainbows

96 x 96

It's a flimsy!

This quilt was released as a free FreeSpirit pattern called Garden Mosaic.  I used just rainbow colors so changed the name to suit my quilt. 

This quilt has also lovingly been referred to as Totally Demented by Sally who previously finished a quilt top maybe because she used bat wings and eye of newt, and Gayle , the original temptress who sent us a link with photo of the quilt and who still has a work in process.  Thanks, Gayle!

 The Totally Demented Garden Mosaic with Fractured Rainbows consists of 2048 two inch unfinished HSTs. 

 At the beginning of the process I didn't really have many 2 inch scraps ready to use. That's not a size I usually save in a bin because I have made very few quilts that use that size of pieces. So I went through my scrap chunks to find scraps to use.  I think that took me longer to sort and cut scraps than to actually make all the HSTs.   I used an Easy Angle ruler to cut pieces for my HSTs.   I used muslin as the neutral. I was going to use scrappy neutrals but when I skimmed the instructions I saw that it required 7.5 yards (if I remember correctly) of background fabric I decided I didn't want to use my quickly dwindling supply of neutrals on such small pieces so I used muslin that I had on hand instead. 

My OMG (One Monthly Goal) for September was to finish up sewing together the rows on eight 24 inch blocks.  I mentioned in that post that I'd give myself a smiley face bonus if I completed the top. 

😊😊😊😊😊

I really wasn't sure I could make this one! 

Ticky Tacky Town Additions

Schools, colleges and libraries were added to Ticky Tacky Town this week.  

Schools and Colleges

Grades 1- 8 I went to Catholic School.  I actually did walk a mile to school every day rain or shine, sleet or snow. Our school didn't have school buses.  Funny thing is that there were two Catholic church and schools a couple of blocks away from each other. When they were originally built one (St. Joseph's) was for the German folks and the other (St. Mary's) was for the Irish.  I went to St. Mary's. 

I couldn't wait to go to school. I loved learning. (Still do). 

The classes were small so one teacher, usually a nun, taught two grades that occupied one classroom.  My favorite subjects were Math and English, Composition, Spelling, Reading...well maybe I should just list my least favorite classes - history and geography.  History seemed like it was all about studying wars and memorizing dates and I have to admit I am still geographically challenged. I really loved diagramming sentences but not many others did.  I think those exercises helped me learn a few new languages later in life. I don't think they teach that anymore. I got a puzzled look when I asked my grandkids about that. 

 I couldn't wait to learn cursive writing. We used fountain pens with cartridges that sometimes leaked all over the place. We had to use blue ink, not black.  Not sure why.  I remember practicing loops and curves on lined paper. (Kind of a bit like practicing for FMQ, don't you think?)  I'm not sure that they teach cursive writing anymore either. Now they learn keyboarding at an early age. I wonder if future generations will be able to decipher any cursive writing.  And speaking of writing...I also loved to write stories that made the class laugh when I read them out loud.  I loved writing research papers too.  That was before you could quickly research any subject at a computer.  Research involved libraries and card catalogs and writing things out in cursive.   

They didn't have keyboarding back when I was in school...they called it typewriting and I didn't have a class in that until high school.  It was recommended if we were going to go to college that we take a typing class. So I did.  We learned to type on manual typewriters and for one week we all got to use the newfangled electric typewriter. When I went to college I bought a manual typewriter from the Pawn Shop and the hard case had someone else's initials painted on it.  It is still up in the attic somewhere and I still wonder about the story behind that pawned typewriter.  When I took my first computer science courses in college I keypunched my programs on to cards that a teacher's assistant would insert into the computer mainframe.  Hardly anyone had a computer at home. 

It took me forever to get through college. I couldn't decide what I wanted to be when I grew up so changed my major many times- education, Spanish, psychology, computer science. I did have a couple of scholarships and tested out of a few classes but otherwise I paid as I went because I didn't want to go into debt. Sometimes that meant I would not take classes for a couple of years, took correspondence courses (remember there were no online classes) or night classes so I could continue to work at a paying job - usually at minimum wage which was an incentive for me to carry on and some day finish college.   In those days except for cars and houses we saved up for things before we bought them.  We didn't have credit cards; we had bank savings passbooks and visited the bank each week to make a deposit. 

Libraries

If I wanted to go to the library I took a bus downtown.  If I remember right it cost a dime to ride the bus and the buses were always full of people. I was always afraid I would not pull the cord at the right time so I could get off in the right spot.   Later the library bookmobile stopped on Saturdays about a block away. I read every Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew book they had and wondered when I would be lucky enough to have a mystery to solve in my neighborhood. Now I'm glad I was never that "lucky".  I still love mysteries but read them on an old version Kindle now. 

I'm not exactly following the free pattern instructions but the houses do finish at 3 inches. 

Log Cabin Lunacy

Here's this week's batch of little four inch (finished) log cabin blocks.  I now have 154 toward my goal of 320.  And I'm sewing along with other Log Cabin Loonies at JulieKQuilts.