Saturday, November 30, 2013

Take It Easy

Before I could poke along on the Bonnie K. Hunter mystery, Celtic Solstice, I needed to finish up cutting my 100 Half Width Of Fabric 2 1/2" Civil War strips for an upcoming swap. I had most of the 5 lights and 5 darks already cut.  I just needed one more light!


Five full width of fabric strips in Judy Rothermel's Party Of Twelve gave me just the thing. Each one gets scissor clipped in half to make ten HWOF strips that go onto the ten waiting stacks.


When the ten stacks of ten were complete and I folded them and loaded each one into a snack sized baggie.


After each baggie got an address label, it was put into a big baggie and loaded into a bubble-wrap lined priority mailer and mailed out this morning to Subee, our washed-fabric swap hostess over at Quiltville Swap. It's a great group if you like swapping with responsible folks!

Then I was able to cut out a few of the Tri Recs EZ ruler/template pieces after reviewing Bonnie's wonderful instructions at Quiltville's Quips & Snips.
Although I've owned these ruler/templates for over a year, I never broke the package open to use them. Now that's a confidence problem!!! LOL, I was so relieved to learn that they are used just the same way that I would use the EZ angle ruler.


First you cut the strips to the correct size. Above are my neutrals in 3 1/2" swaths. I love that little red flowered Cumberland on cream background!



I stupidly began cutting at the wrong end of the strip and had some waste and some creases. So I worked smarter on the next set of neutral strips.


I cut quite a lot but didn't count how many. Then I cut a few of the mirror image blue triangles, also from 3 1/2" strips.


Again, I did quite a few but didn't count how many I'd done. That seemed like a good stopping place for the day.
Then I really got distracted by a piece of blue fabric from my fellow Stashbuster friend, Joyce in Connecticut. It was in a big bag of Civil War scraps that she'd sent me in return for some of my red plaid homespuns.
I had ironed this lovely Jacobean floral on a blue background to use it in Celtic Solstice. The more I ironed it, the more I fell in love with it!!! I just could not bring myself to cut it up into little pieces. So I took the rest of the afternoon off and made myself a scarf out of it instead, LOL!


I found a fabric that worked well for the "wrong" side of the scarf and sewed it all into a tube that was twice the crosswise width of the fabric. My strips were about 4" wide. I only had a scant running quarter of a yard of the blue. I know, I know, it's a pretty floral. I can never resist them!


I have since that last photo, pressed the scarf, but tomorrow I think that I will topstitch it too.

When I took the new scarf upstairs to try it in a mirror, I kept hearing an odd banging sound. It was quite irregular in it's rhythm.
It wasn't the furnace. It wasn't the washer. It wasn't the dryer. What the heck was it???? Finally, I tracked the sound down to the guest bedroom.

Miss Emma Lynn, what are you doing there????


Perched on the side of the guest bed, she was wagging her tail into the wooden foot-board of the bedstead, which was acting like a soundboard and amplifying the thumps! What was she watching through the window so excitedly?
Ah, there was a big red cardinal sitting in the rosebush eating rosehips. How dare he?

Miss Emma woofed away but the big puffy cardinal was cold and hungry. He wasn't leaving until he finished his dessert! As they say, "Life is uncertain; eat dessert first!"

Footnote: this quote is by Ernestine Ulmer, an American writer who lived from 1892 to 1987 and survived to be 94 on this regimen.

Happy sewing!











3 comments:

Janet O. said...

Hey, you are doing great with the new rulers, Vic. I had my Tri Recs for about 5 years before I broke open the package. And I still haven't finished the quilt. I am a case!!
Oh, Miss Emma is cute! : )

cityquilter grace said...

my guess is more than one person has goofed up with those rulers, i know i did...and thanks for reminding me...i am also in that swap...gotta get cutting!

Feathers in my Nest said...

Hi Vic, I'm loving the Tri Rec rulers..I cut way too many pieces yesterday, so I will be making the King size. Ha. My Neutrals are all sewn, now I will work on the Oranges tomorrow...Miss Emma has a beautiful coat of fur..so sweet sitting there on the bed..My 4 patch X quilt is coming along, just need to add the 2 borders & she's done..Kisses all around, xxxooo...

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