Completions

It was relaxing for me to take a time out from blogging during the month of October.  Meanwhile, all is humming nicely along here.  Baby Leo is getting bigger already, and Lorenzo and Lucci adore their little brother.  Rhiannon (and Nick and Stacey) will be coming for a visit during November -- the house will be full!

I did finish a couple of quilts during October, although I spent much more time babysitting than sewing.  Which is perfectly wonderful: it's good to be a grandma!

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Oak Grove

Here's a UFO that hasn't seen the light of day for 2 1/2 years.

I finally pieced another block, at long last!  

I cut all 1500+ diamonds in 2016, so this is just about sewing now.  The blocks are large -- 18".  They use 105 diamonds each, which is a LOT of opportunity for bias stretch.

The blocks are finally adding up.  I think I'm going to assemble one more, and then use plain fabric for the setting triangles rather than the chopped pieced blocks used in the original.

This is one of my bucket list quilts,

 so it reemerged rather than disappeared .

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Oak Grove

Two more blocks done this past week, and now just two more to go for the center section.  Then I'll need to decide whether the setting triangles will be plain background fabric tris, or partial sections of pieced blocks -- which would require three more trees, each to be cut in half.  That's how the original quilt was constructed.

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A UFO for July?

I've been thinking about what to work on during July.  I'm only doing two sew-alongs right now: Hospital Sketches and Cheddarback.  I do have several possibilities for new projects, but I thought I'd take a browse through my UFO queue also. 

Among others, I came upon some Oak Grove blocks,
 a project I started in 2016:

It would be a pleasing "autumn leaves" quilt, wouldn't it?  All the zillions of scrappy diamonds are already cut, so working ahead on this UFO would require a commitment to piecing time, but not much in the way of design decision-making.  I'd like to have eight blocks I think -- when set on point,  these are VERY LARGE 26" blocks, so  I'd be at 52" x 76" before I even think about borders. 

Maybe this will be the one I focus on next?

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Oak Grove

I still haven't settled my mind on a new direction for quilting, but last week while I was cleaning I came across this dormant project.

A new oak tree grew today!  These are 18" blocks, so approximately 25" on point.

Each block takes hours of mindful sewing.  It will be a long while before I have the entire forest done. 

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Another Oak Tree

Apparently these blocks are a pretty low priority for me.  I'd planned to do three a month, and so far it's been just one a month.  This is definitely a long-term project!  But I do very much like the blocks  and intend to finish this **someday**

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Another tree

 I got another Oak Tree block done today.  These blocks are very slow going, and I definitely have to be in the mood to work on them.  Hoping to get three a month done, in order to have the quilt done by next Fall ...

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Progress report

I got a sample block worked up, and all went fairly well.  No problem with the curved piecing on the tree trunk, it's such a gradual curve. And the block does lay flat, which is sometimes a challenge with diamond piecing!  It's somewhat larger than it's supposed to be though, (like almost an extra inch), which I suppose is due to all those stretchy bias edges.  But if all the blocks turn out that way, it'll just be a larger quilt, right?  I'll see how the next block turns out size-wise and then decide about making adjustments. 

So I've gone ahead with cutting diamonds.  Slow puttering work, because I'm using bits from my scrap bags, not strip cutting.  There are nearly 1000 diamonds pinned into color groups in this pic! 

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Monday

This one's been on my Bucket List for a long time.

I decided to start cutting diamonds today, because it's autumn, and because I have LOTS of scraps.

This should only take years:

1700 diamonds, template-cut one at a time  :)

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