Where's Mary???

Yes, I'm still here!  Several of you have e-mailed me to be sure of it and I appreciate that -- nice to be missed!!  But it was May and as a lifelong birder, May is about birds.  Birds returning for the summer or passing through on their way north -- they must all be seen!!

I'm not a good bird photographer but this hooded warbler was doing his best "bird-of'-paradise" imitation back and forth across this fallen tree, running to one end and singing his heart out, then running back to the other end and singing again.  It was hard to get a bad photo!!

And I was amused to stumble across this pileated woodpecker (size of a chicken if you aren't familiar with this one) taking a "dust" bath at the base of a fallen tree.

This green heron is a summer resident in our area, stands about 14" tall and is an expert frog hunter.  Several days before, my daughter and I watched this bird eat a good size frog, swallowed it whole!!

I had a half vacation, half teaching trip to western Virginia in late April where it was already spring!

Insects and flowers were abundant which was a welcome sight as spring was cold, wet, and slow here in Northeast Ohio.  This is wild blue phlox.

And wild columbine. 

How about this beetle?

And if the creeping charlie that surges through my lawn and gardens attracted zebra swallowtails (I'm too far north), I'd tolerate it happily! 

I've been sewing everyday just not writing about it.  As I get older (and wiser?), I realized that my time is finite so some thing has to give when some thing else soars. 

I've been machine quilting some ancient UFO's as part of my drive to find them better forever homes than a shelf in my studio!  This one is a "garden I Spy" quilt for a friend's retirement from teaching!!

I stayed caught up with my temperature quilt to celebrate the beginning of the next decade of my life!

I've cranked out my #fussycuttingsewalong hexie flowers every week and come up with a plan for a quilt that will use all of them plus most of the blocks from last year's Morris Hexathon stitch along -- love it when I can pull off a consolidation like that!! 

I'm getting my Bernina ZenChic blocks set together -- it's subtle color palette makes it a challenge to stay engaged but I'm very close -- 3 more rows to stitch and then set the top half together!! 

I even made time to be totally distracted by this cute cat face block that Elizabeth Hartman did for Janome -- the quilt will be donated to a project and it will be hard to let it go!  Guess I'll just have to make another one?!?

I had a few days away at Chautauqua, New York for a stitching retreat -- just me and my needle and a thousand hexagons!  I'll share more of my progress and strategy later this week!

Now I'm focused . . . sort of . . . . on getting the gardens and outdoor living spaces organized for the summer.  Lots of plants to manage!

But I'm taking the time to enjoy the results of past years efforts -- my special vintage rose as a backdrop for that iris -- have you ever seen such a deep rich purple?

Just stumbled across this new book -- think it was an Instagram ad? 

A quick flip through when it arrived -- promises to be a good read this summer!

I invested in some new quilting inspiration this month!!  Not sure I'll make any of the specific projects but sure the inspiration from reading these three books will be stimulating.

So thanks for coming back to read about my May inspiration break -- lots of new memories and images in my head to fill my summer with happy stitching possibilities.

Could there be another lichen quilt in my future?

I hope the month of May has been a good one for you and you are eager to stitch your way through this summer (or if you are a Southern hemisphere reader, winter)!!

NOTE:  Blogger isn't currently forwarding comments to me (their glitch) so please excuse me if I don't respond with a personal e-mail.  I'll post replies on this post but that means you'll need to come back for another visit to read it.  Sorry if that is an inconvenience and thanks for reading today's post! 

Mary

A Scrappy Pineapple Quilt!

I just finished quilting this scrappy pineapple lap size quilt -- doesn't it look great.

It began life as a demonstration/teaching sample for Marti Michell's 1" Pineapple Set*** and I recently finished the piecing and decided to gift it to one of my nephews.

This is the third pineapple quilt I've made using Marti's templates -- the best part is once the pieces are cut, there is no trimming, no paper to remove, and the blocks are consistent in size!

I was feeling intimidated about the "how" of quilting it, but I'm pretty happy with the design that evolved.  It's hard to photograph clearly but I used a series of simple edge-to-edge lines so I'm going to try to share that process here (partly, so I'll remember how I did it!!).

The first set of lines started at the outer edge of the quilt and worked through the dark areas of each block.  I'm pointing to the spot where I entered each block.

Using a straight guiding ruler, I stitched across the dark pieces to the corner of the center square. 

Then "in the ditch" along one edge of the square. 

And from there, back along the "points" to the next block. 

By repeating that pathway up and down and across the quilt, until all the blocks were stitched, I created these 4-pointed star like shapes and there were no threads to bury since every line went edge-to-edge on the quilt. 

After finishing this step, there was too much open space so after several days of contemplation, I stitched a second set of lines through the light areas of the blocks.  These lines went across the "ditch" along the outer edge of the first round of triangles -- from the needle to my finger in this picture.

From that point, I stitched over into the light sections going along the ends of the points (from the needle on the right to my finger on the left). 

Then continuing from that stopping point across to my finger -- this part of the line ends at the adjacent blocks center,  

but I ignored that for the moment and traveled back to the right. 

Follow the finger -- back to the beginning of that section. 

To move down to the next area, I stitched "in the ditch" to the next corner of the center of the block. 

Marti includes a line drawing in the instruction booklet which I copied out and drew colored lines to help me recall this stitching plan in the future.

The first set of lines are green in my diagram and I stitched them up and down, left and right across the entire quilt.

The next set of lines I stitched are red -- these only need to be done up and down.  

The first line zigs over to the left as I moved down the quilt and catches the horizontal light sections.  

Then a second line (not draw out in the diagram) just moved down the quilt vertically because the third line (a repeat of the red line drawn) will zig to the left and catch all the remaining light areas of that row of blocks.

I was still not satisfied with the density of the quilting, so after more contemplation and a couple false starts, I echoed each 4 point star 1/2" inside the first lines (blue lines above).

Each of these were stitched separately and were the only threads that needed tied off!!

Now it's all washed and ready to go!!

It's five by seven blocks (50" by 70") and used lots of reproduction prints.  I did lots of the piecing as "leaders and enders" while working on other projects! 

The quilting is simple and was easy for me to manage with my APQS George -- all straight lines!!

This is my first finish for the second quarter Finish Along 2018 -- yea!!

Another UFO out the door!!

Have a great week!

Mary

***EDIT April 2025

Marti Michel closed her business in late in 2024 and while some shops may still have a stock of her templates, you can also find them on Ebay and Etsy.  

Fussy Cutting Challenge

Most of you have done some fussy cutting at least once I imagine.

Early in December, I shared a group of hexie flowers here that I pieced along with Naomi's #fussycuttingsewalong for the Christmas season.

She started a year long group in January with changing monthly themes and each week, we have the opportunity to stash dive and create another hexie flower.

I really wondered about the "why" of  the "pattern matching" exercises but I'm to the point now where it's pretty easy.  I think it's easier for me since I'm machine piecing (another opportunity to show off the Set-In Piecing Simplified technique) than it would be to do traditional English paper piecing -- if one doesn't get it basted just right, matching the hexies back together with the pattern of the print aligning perfectly would be a real challenge.

I've made myself an auditioning window the finished size of a hexie flower.  I move it around until I find a motif I like then I check to see how many complete motifs I have on the fabric.

One needs three complete motifs to cut up to make one hexie flower.

I liked this one, but only had one repeat of it.

Happily I did have three of this simpler motif -- and there is a bird in it!! 

Step one is to cut out the center hexagon (thereby rendering that complete motif useless) -- I'm using the 1" template from Marti Michell's Set G. 

Then I center that cut out hexagon onto the wrong side of the fabric aligning it as perfectly as possible with the second complete motif.

Once I'm satisfied with the alignment, I put the template on top of it and trace around the outside with a pencil.

I lift away the template and the first hexagon, then recenter the template and mark all six of the dots (pencil through the holes at each corner) onto the fabric.

You can see the dot in the upper right corner the easiest in the picture below. 

The purpose of the dots is so I can line up the template as I cut three hexagons from that motif.

One has been cut and I've moved the template to the top of the hexagon outline and lined up the dots.

This guarantees that I will have the correct amount of seam allowance and simplifies the matching.

Two cut out and the third lined up. 

Nothing here except holes!! 

The center hexagon and the first three hexagons. 

I repeat the process and cut the remaining three hexagons needed from a third motif of the fabric.

Then it's off to the sewing machine!

I do all the cutting on the wrong side and keep the hexagons laid out that way to avoid putting them in the wrong place. 

Naomi has given us a "pattern matching" assignment every month -- so here are my four so far!

If you are curious about the group, it's all on Instagram.

Naomi's name is @naomialicec or search for the #fussycuttingsewalong hashtag.

It's only one hexie flower a week, you can choose your own size and fabric style and most of the gals are doing it English paper piecing style.

Back to the sewing machine!!

Mary

Second Quarter Finish Along Goals!

Spring here in Northeast Ohio is always full of outdoor distractions for me -- I don't want to miss any of the "firsts" -- first blooms, first toads singing, first sightings of birds as they migrate through or return to this region!

 A couple of horned grebes enjoying a feeding stopover at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania a couple days ago were a delight to find as I traveled home on Tuesday!!

And yesterday, I hung laundry outside to dry for the first time this year and as I walked back up through my garden, this freshly emerged Eastern comma butterfly was enjoying the sunshine and taking advantage of the fully open crocus! 

So I'm going to keep my list for the second quarter short!

First up is a rollover from the first quarter -- I made a good start on the quilting but need another week's work to finish it!

I want to finish this scrappy tumbling block lap quilt as a retirement gift so there is a specific deadline!!  That is always a great motivator for me!!

The top is ready for borders and once I organize a backing, the quilting can commence.

Plus it's one of my borderline ancient UFO's -- good to get it out of the stacks!!

Finally, this may not get finished, finished -- but I want to at least get it assembled.   It's my version of Zen Chic's Bernina Triangle QAL.  It's taken several days to organize this on the design wall -- so if I want to use the design wall for anything, this needs to be assembled!  I don't want to take down over 200 triangles and have to start again!  It's very subdued and I'm trying to use up all of the Down By the River collection by Lewis and Irene that I bought last fall!

It's a springy looking quilt so I hope that keeps me engaged!!

It will be a challenge for sure with new birds arriving everyday.

This kingfisher has already claimed her summer territory!

How about you?  Do you set spring sewing goals?

Hope you enjoy the change of seasons this weekend!

Mary