4.11.16

MONDAY MANTRA
Do What You Can. Then, QuiltyFriend adds, "And then just do a little more than you think you can." Sometimes I CAN!

From Sunday:
Three shirts, wool socks, heavy winter jacket, lined leather gloves, ready to take the dog out.

Supposed to have been a peach-salmon
color. Lovely, none-the-less

The day started blue and gold and green and beautiful at 32 degrees. 

I had cut some of my tulips to bring in, left a few, which looked okay this morning. 

The wild Blue Flag I transplanted last year looks like it is sending up new shoots all over the walkway garden. The hyacinths look like they are finished for this year, and as usual, most of my daffodils did not do anything except use up nutrients looking leafy and green. 

Peach-salmon? Deep black-violet?
Looks like red and dark red to me.

I should dig them up, separate them, replant maybe not so deep. I will keep that on my list. I need a garden kneeling pad. There are a lot of daffs to separate, as well as day lilies that never bloom. Those tufts need some separation, too

This week in Temecula Quilt Company Circa 2016, Birds in the Air. Simple enough? Accompanied by the message that we will need 120 HSTs (squares made up of 2 fabrics, seamed diagonally) that measure 2". Luckily for me, I spent some hours going through my scraps and cutting for some kind of scrappy quilt in the future. I cut some 5", some 3.5", lots of 3", TONS of 2.5" and 1.5". While cutting those last ones--the 1.5s, I kept thinking, "What in the hell am I ever going to do with squares this small?"  But, I couldn't bear to toss a clump of fabric into the dog-bed pile if there was still a usable space left. I decided dark/light four patch. I'm going to keep baskets of them near my machine like famous Bonnie Hunter does when she has tons of scraps. I'm not sure she keeps 1.5", but one day I will have lots of 2.5" four patch--with seams pressed open, you can be sure of that.

Block 16 in Splendid Sampler--Pieces of Friendship designed by Lindsay Mayland at AllPeopleQuilt.com. It was fun to make but I have to confess that I should have pressed all my seams open instead of going for the pinwheel on the last two seams. If you quilt, you know most quilters press seam allowances to one side or the other and talk about how the lumps nestle nicely when seaming two lumps together. 

Despite careful pinning and more than 20 years experience, I have never found this to be the case for me. I almost ALWAYS have to rip out a "nestled nicely" two lump seam because I don't have the knack. What works for me is adjusting my stitch length to quite small--1.5--and pressing open. The small stitch length allows my pins to pierce the matching seam allowances with out removing the stitches. The down side is that if I need to rip out, the stitches are very, very tiny. But I seldom need to rip out. Look at this iteration of Pieces of Friendship. I think I am going to repress those main seams so they are open, too.