Every Rose Has It's Thorns

 After making hundreds and hundreds of HSTs the last week or so- It's a top! 

I haven't actually measured it but it calculates to be 90.496 x 90.496.  (16 x 1.414 x 4)

Here's the bottom row you can't really see in the last photo. 

I started making 12 inch Rosebud blocks in solids of colors you might find in roses back in 2009. (My paper print of the pattern from Quilter's Cache tells me so).  Over the years I had made 49 blocks using rose themed fabrics in the background.  I was thinking I would just set the blocks in rows 7 x 7 and be done with it. 

But then that ugly olive green fabric with roses on it kept nagging me to be used as thorns. I had a lot of it and I normally don't have a lot of any one fabric. Thorns, huh? Okay...so if you remember a previous post you know I tried that olive green fabric paired up with some lime green fabric  and made some HSTs and they were yucky.  And yet that olive green rose themed fabric kept nagging to be used.  On and on it nagged  - a thorn in my side.   Ok...so I didn't have much of any one fabric to pair with the thorns so I used some of the pieces of neutral smaller flowered roses to make some HSTs.   The nagging stopped and sixteen inch blocks with Rosebuds and thorns were born. 

Then I decided to put blocks on point and had to decide what to do for side pieces.  For the on point setting I only needed 25 blocks and I had 49 so I decided to cut up 16 blocks for the side and corner pieces.   That was difficult for me to do since the blocks couldn't be cut exactly in half - they needed to have the extra 1/4 inch seam allowance which left me with a less than perfect half block left over.  But I just told myself the blocks weren't doing me any good just sitting around in a box for years either so cut and cut I did.   (I'll think of something to do with the leftovers). 

 Here's how the corner blocks looked after getting cut up.   Did I say that was very difficult for me to do? 

And I thought all was well and good until I went to take it down from the line and found some mutant thorns.   And so it goes. 

I have a couple of rose themed sheets I picked up long ago from the thrift store but don't remember the size of them. If one is big enough I'll use it for the backing. If not...I don't know what I'll use.  I do think I will try to quilt this on my DSM with some roses sans thorns. 

Not Everything is Coming Up Roses

I found my missing bottle of Best Press. It's been missing for a long, long time. 

I was going to work on my Rosebud quilt, a very old UFO. The box of rose themed fabrics resides under my ironing board. It never did get closed up but I have instead piled things on top of the open box. And then I piled more things on top of those things until the pile got as high as the ironing board and I could pile no more.   (Did I mention I have a small sewing space? I must insert that here now lest you think I'm a slob).  Yesterday I unpiled stuff to get into my rose themed fabrics and to my dismay there was the missing bottle of Best Press and it was empty. It has been slowly leaking for a long, long time on to my rose themed fabrics and where it has been slowly leaking there was mold or maybe it is mildew...whatever, it was gross and kind of growing on top of bunches of rose themed fabrics.  Yuck.   So, I found a new box to pack up the undamaged fabrics and went about trying to salvage the rest.  There weren't lots of big spots on anything except the top piece of fabric - just little furry spots here and there on lots of fabrics.     I gave the mildewy fabrics  a good soaking for several hours in Oxyclean.   Then I rubbed laundry detergent into the spots if I could still see them and scrubbed the backside of the spots with a toothbrush.   Then I washed the fabrics adding 1 cup of vinegar to the wash water.   Then I hung them out to dry in the sun where they still hang today.   I haven't closely inspected the fabrics yet. I think the longer they hang in the sun the better. 

In the meantime...

 A long time ago I thought maybe I'd experiment with a different layout for the 12 inch Rosebud blocks than the usual "just-sew-lots-of-blocks- together" layout.  

So this morning I made some HSTs out of a green rose fabric and another limey green tone on tone fabric I now think I don't really like.  Let's call those HSTs "thorns" for now.     One of the layouts I thought of was off setting the blocks in columns with some thorns in between columns.  No design wall here but I kind of propped some up on my old cutting mat covered with batting.  See above. 

Nope...does nothing for me. 

Let's try again without columns of roses offset. 

Nope...does nothing for me. And I'm kind of hating looking at that lime green too. 

Ok. How about set on point and surrounded by thorns? 

I really really hate that lime green now but so far like this setting best. 

Maybe if I turn the thorns around?   That lime green is really distracting. 

Maybe I should just use the usual "just-sew-lots-of-blocks- together" layout and forget about thorns...at least for now. 

I'll think on it for awhile out in the garden. 

Gone gardening...

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden But I Promised Myself One

 
 

I LOVE Roses....especially the old fashioned kind that have such a wonderful fragrance and are winter hardy in these parts...the kind of roses the deer and rabbits like to eat down to the ground...the kind that stick to your fingers, hair, clothes...yes, I LOVE the roses in my garden. 

This is one of the ways I chose to use some of the rose fabrics I've been  hoarding  collecting for years.  This is a 12 inch block called Rosebud.  With these 12 blocks I think that brings my total to 42.  I think I want 56 blocks for a 7 x 8 layout...a nice big quilt.   I have used rose themed fabrics for the background and made the rosebud part of the block out of solids in a variety of colors of roses. 

But now that I'm getting close to the number of blocks I think I need I'm not really liking how they all look together - colors and values are all over the place.  Maybe I need a garden path...or an alternate block... or some birds...Hmmm...maybe I'll just continue on and make the other fourteen blocks (fabrics are selected and partially cut) and then think about it. Maybe I'll end up with two big quilts. Maybe I'll...who knows?...combine it with the other rose themed fabric UFO that's really old? 

At any rate...It's Monday and I'm kind of moving this UFO forward so that means I should probably link up to Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag. 

OMG: Rosebuds

I just found out about OMG (One Monthly Goal) over at Red Letter Quilts.  It's time to set a goal, I guess.  By the end of April I hope to finish 28 more 12 inch Rosebud quilt blocks to add to the 28 already made for a grand total of 56 blocks. 

Playing in the Rose Garden

Rosebud Blocks

12 inch

I had hoped to get more made this weekend but played lots of board games with the grandkids instead.  We had fun. 

And now I have 20 blocks. I want 49. 

I started this quilt in March of 2014. I feel it is time to work on it again.  I wonder how many more different rose themed fabrics I have in my box of roses now. 

Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

The Closest Thing to Spring Around Here Are the Pansies and Roses on My Fabrics

I made more 6 inch blocks for my pansy quilt which has been a UFO for a while.  Looks like the last time I made any blocks was May 2013. 

I love pansies and plant plenty of them each year in pots on my deck.

I'm going to keep making these blocks ( I think the block name is Prairie Flower) until all my pansy fabric is used up.  I've been collecting pansy fabrics for years so I have a lot more blocks to go. 

Eventually I hope to make a queen-sized quilt for the bed to go with the wall border I made of vintage postcards...and to go with the pansy curtains...and the pansy lamp shades...and the pansy wall hangings...and the pansy pillowcases...and the pansy candle holders.      I think the only thing in the bedroom that isn't pansy themed is my husband and the quilts on the bed. 

I also made more 12 inch Rosebud blocks

I hope to make these blocks until I use up all my rose themed fabrics. 

I love roses too. I grow several varieties of old-fashioned roses out in the flower gardens. Unfortunately the deer and rabbits sure like to eat the rose canes during the winter so I lose a few roses every year due to their damage. Pesky varmits! Rascally rabbits!  

That's it for my "Design Wall" today. Other blog land design walls can be found at Patchwork Times today. 

So...this is as close as it gets to spring around here in eastern Iowa. It snowed again Saturday night and the temperature was 13 degrees F when I left for work this morning. I see no daffodils or tulips sprouting and no signs of crocus - the first flowers that blooms around here in the Spring.  And I need to wear garden clogs to walk around the rest of the wet and muddy property.   I usually plant my potatoes around Good Friday...but might not make it this year.  

Sophie, of Block Lotto, suggested we blog about Spring this month.   And so I have. 

NewFOs and UFOs

NewFO

For my New Fabric Object Project for February I made some 12 inch Rosebud blocks. The backgrounds are all fabrics with roses and the "rosebuds" are all going to be made in solids - the colors of roses. 

I have a box of rose themed fabrics and back in 2009 I printed off the Rosebud pattern from Quilter's Cache and threw it in the box to remind me of a possibility for the fabrics.  I guess the time is right. I love roses and am longing for some warm weather and roses blooming in the garden. Playing in rose themed fabrics might just be the next best thing. 

For NewFO ideas and inspiration visit the NewFO Challenge Linky Party at Cat Patches. 

PROGRESS ON A NewFO

I've finished four block modules for the MOD MOD QAL going on at Block Lotto and hosted by the oh-so-creative Sophie. 

The block modules are 21 inches square. 

I'm making the individual blocks that make up the modules in complementary colors. 

And I'm using up lots of scraps.

UFOs

March Goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes 2014

Last August I made some giant 24 inch crumb stars and then turned them into a 60x80 quilt top. 

My March goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes is to baste, quilt and bind my crumb stars and get it donated to Quilts of Valor.  I have a fun backing fabric for it all picked out.