June Schnibbles Parade

Be sure to check Saturday's posts on Sherri's and Sinta's blogs to see the June Schnibbles Parade.  So many wonderful Gentle Art quilts!

June's vintage pattern is Dulcinea, which I'm thrilled about!  I bought this pattern four years ago, along with fabric.  It's been stashed in a drawer since then.  It is time to bring it into the light and turn it into a quilt!

Death Penalty

3-1:  Death Penalty

Another very interesting block.  I've gotten much faster at piecing these, because I'm cutting out all the pieces before I start sewing.  This one took awhile but wasn't difficult, until I got to the last seams.  There is a great deal of bulk at those four points where the striped triangles touch each other.  Between lots of steam and a good blocking I've managed to conquer that bulk at last.

I made five blocks from this row in 2008, and this makes six, so I have only five more blocks to make before finishing row three.  They will have to wait until tomorrow evening, because I'm focusing on shoo fly blocks tomorrow for Scrap Basket Sunday.

Two rows

Top two rows

I changed some settings on my camera and this picture seems much better than those I've posted lately.  If you click to enlarge this you can really see the details. 

Edited to add:

I just discovered that this is my 1000th post.  Wow!  I've always been chatty, so I guess that shouldn't surprise me.  I don't have a give away to go with this milestone - I'll come up with another reason for a give away later in the year.

Civil War Diary - Row 2

 

Foragers

2-11:  Foragers

An interesting block.  Looking at it, you'd think it would be an easy block to make with straight piecing, as it consists of half - and quarter-square triangles and nothing else.  Here's the catch.  The hypotenuse (long side) of each triangle measures 2" finished.  That means the two shorter sides finish at 1.41" - certainly not a measurement we find on our rulers.  That means paper piecing, which means this took a long time.  Eight sections!  That makes it very difficult to press it nice and flat during construction, so this block most definitely needed blocking.  Here you see it pinned inside the 6 1/2" square I've drawn on my ironing surface.  I didn't even try to press his as it is held with so many pins.  I just spritzed it well with water and am letting it dry on its own.

Somehow I managed to reverse the lights and darks compared to how the block looks in the book.  Not sure how that happened, but it is OK as far as I'm concerned.  I'm certainly not doing this one again!

Our grandson has a 5:00 t-ball game so I'll be away from the machine for awhile.  I won't have to worry about dinner - Subway sandwiches go easily to the game.  This evening I'll sew the second row together.  Now it is time I need to make a decision about the cornerstones. 

I love the poison green fabric I used in this block.  I've had this piece a LONG time, and all I've left is a fat 1/8 yard.  I have lots of other greens in my stash, but next to nothing that is this fabulous poison green.  Even fabrics that were called "poison green" when they came out.  I need to start scouting for this color again, as I want to use it a lot more.  In the meantime I've been hoarding this piece, cutting a few pieces from it now and then but no quilt getting more that a little. 

If any of you know of a line currently available that includes one or more prints this color please let me know. 

News

2-10: News

Ten of the eleven blocks in row two are finished.  The last one is a doozy - many, many little triangles - so I'm saving it for tomorrow.  That's OK - I'm satisfied.  All but one block in the row by the end of the month when I didn't think I'd have any.

Finally! Victuals

Victuals

This block would have been finished three hours ago if I hadn't made a couple of horrendous mistakes.  I cut the seam allowance off the side of one basket, and made one basket with a red handle and black bottom.  I guess I must have been rushing more than I realized - I didn't feel like I was rushing.

Two more blocks in this row.

Harassment

2-6:  Harassment

Three down, four to go

I'm hoping to finish the blocks for the second row of Civil War Diary today.  Yesterday and this morning I finished these three blocks.  Since the last four are fairly complicated paper piecing I probably won't finish today, but I'm going to try.

2-3:  Feeding the Rebels

2-4:  Draft Threat (sounds like the 1960's to me!)

2-5:  Southern Notes

Yesterday I did some reading about my "early history" with this quilt (blogs are GREAT for doing that!).  While working on this again, I've been wondering why I'd skipped around the book so much.  And why I'd made blocks from both this book and "Civil War Love Letters" at the same time.  Skipping around is particularly not like me - it goes against my "organizational gene".

The answer was very interesting!  Apparently Kathie suggested we work on these together, and see who else in Blogland would be interested in joining us.  We were going to make one quilt, combining blocks from both books.  Apparently there were several bloggers who joined us - enough that we even created a "blog ring" for the project.  Our goal was a block a day, and those participating took turns choosing the blocks to be done each week.  We did a mix of easy and difficult blocks to start with, but soon started choosing easier blocks so those who were behind could catch up.

The ring is long gone, and the list of participants is gone too.  I wonder if any of them ever finished their quilt?  I wonder if some of them are even quilting and blogging any more?  I know Darlene was participating, but I've no idea if she reads my blog anymore.  (I lost so many readers when I stopped blogging for awhile - my fault!) When I need a break I think I'll go back to the comments left on those old posts and do some sleuthing.  In the meantime, I need to get back to the machine to work on the next block!

It's ba..a..ck!

One-third of the next block of Civil War Diary.

I am so happy!  Maybe I can come close to finishing a row before midnight tomorrow!

I can't believe I've not worked on this project since March!