Did I hear "Stop!"

I'm having a design conundrum. My husband has weighed in on the decision, now let's see what the general consensus is. I'm willing to wait because I'm too tired to sew anymore today anyway!

Here's the smaller of the two quilts I started yesterday (the larger is pieced, but I haven't hung it to photograph yet). On the top/left is one border option, on the bottom/right is the other option. The question is - do I add the two other borders or call it quits? Husband votes for the second option, and it is nice that way (and complete, I might add!), but it's also small - 30" x 36". If I add the other borders it's 38" x 44", which is a more useful size for a baby quilt.

Ooh, ooh - I just had another idea - how stupid am I not to see this? What if the outer yellow border was the same width as the inner one?

--INTERMISSION--

I just changed it on the design wall. Perfect!

Quilter math: 1 + 1 + 2 = 2

One Moda Layer Cake plus one yard matching fabric plus two pieces from my stash equals two lovely donation quilts!

I picked up a Layer Cake and matching yardage of April Cornell's beautiful collection "Nature's Notebook", and found two yellow fabrics from my stash that coordinated well. Then I found this great free pattern on the Moda site. First I made the original size with 10" blocks:

And then I resized the block to 6" and made this from the scraps:

They're not sewn together yet but you get the idea where I'm going. The brick border on this one was cut from the scraps left after cutting the pieces from the first scraps. There wasn't enough left of that layer cake to cover a cake plate! You can see on the second picture where I was fiddling with the border design before I decided to add the second yellow border and the floral outer one. Both will have yellow bindings.

I'll post better pictures after I finish walking on the treadmill, which is where I'm bound right now.

I'm soooooo needy.....

Did you ever get on the scale right after you exercised, even though you know your weight will partly reflect water loss due to perspiration and be artificially low, because you needed the affirmation?

Oh, yeah.

Ok, I've tortured myself for requisite hour, time to get back to mending. Three pair of pants to hem (one of them jeans, oh joy) and darts to be added to the front of a pair of khakis so they fit better in the waist. Which leads me to one of my eternal questions. . .when did clothing manufacturers forget how to do darts? And when did they decided women were built shaped like cylinders? If I had a nickel for every pair of pants with gaping waistbands and sleeveless tops with saggy baggy armholes that I've tried on, I'd be a richer person. The bust dart went the way of the dodo a long time ago, but now I've noticed that they are not adding waistline darts either.

Not to mention the inseam length for Amazons that you find on most pants. Good thing I can sew.

Tramp tramp tramp

I'm back on my treadmill in a serious way again. Since it and I have a love-hate relationship, I neglect it for long periods of time, and then start back with a vengeance, only to burn out and quit again.

This time I have walked at least 30 minutes every morning for five weeks. This morning I did 2.2 miles. Believe me, that's exemplary behaviour on my part. I really, really, really hate walking on the treadmill.

For one thing, it's BORING. Nothing to do but stare at the distance readout slowly creeping upward. I have a radio, but even NPR can't rescue me. I try to concentrate on the news, but I find my mind is wandering. And I'm constrained to either walk between 9 and 10 in the morning (NPR Morning Edition) or 3 and 4 in the afternoon (Talk of the Nation). I can't walk and listen to music because if the tempo doesn't match my walking speed it drives me nuts. And I have to work in my walk between meals, housework, errands and such, so those two times are the only schedule I can meet that have talking on the radio to listen to.

Maybe I should pull a cable connection into the spare room so I can watch TV while I walk. Although that might not work because walking on that moving belt gives me a little touch of vertigo and staring at the screen might make it worse. Even looking too hard at the pattern on the wallpaper can make me queasy. I have found that I can't walk without having at least one hand resting lightly on the side rail, or I get dizzy. How do people run on treadmills? I'd fall on my head, guaranteed.

Itty-bitty

I've been thinking about doing a series of small quilts to hang near my eating area in the kitchen. A week ago I found a book on Amazon containing patterns for 21 small quilts, each just 16" X 20". This is the first I attempted.

Now, I know that apart from some non-matching points and corners, there are also distortion issues, so I'll just lay that out on the table first thing. I know, I know. Partly, it arose from the cutting instructions. Since this is on point and the designer had the constraint to make it exactly 16" x 20", many of the pieces were strange sizes and her instructions included a lot of squares cut twice on the diagonals to make small right triangles. Of course, when you do that, the 90 degree corner of the triangle is on the bias, which is a recipe for disaster, or at least distortion. That just about drove me crazy. Also, I almost never make half square triangle blocks by sewing two triangles together. You get much more accurate results drawing the center line on a square and sewing on either side. At least I do. All these small bias triangles were a real pill during construction.

I almost redrafted the pattern to be 20" x 25", because - really - what would it have hurt? Might have saved my sanity!

The next one I'll try is partly applique so it will be easier to put together. However, the appliqued center is surrounded by a border of scrappy hourglass blocks. That means I will have to pull out every storage box in the stash and cut maybe one square out of over 60 fabrics to make it properly scrappy!

D9P borders

This actually came to me after I had gone to bed. I had cut the strips for the border sides but couldn't decide what to do with the corners. I had already cut plain light corner blocks but they just weren't right. When I thought of doing a D9P block corner where the light strips continue out into the borders, I couldn't wait until morning to try it. I had to jump up, run in the kitchen, cut out one corner block, sew it together and attach it to the side borders. Then, I could go back to bed satisfied. You don't know what restraint it took to stop sewing at one corner!

One note - the corner D9P block is 6 inch and the quilt blocks are 7 inch. That is because there wasn't enough of the purple fabric to cut wider strips and still have enough for the binding. Glad it worked out.

D9P ready for borders

This is going to be an adorable quilt for some little girl! It's been fun to make, too. I'm designing the borders today.