The third week of the New Year

... in which Ringo Lake seems to have frozen over.  Aw heck.

Wondering how many ways I can say "I finished more blocks" and showing the same blocks - without becoming a bore!  I'll keep sewing together the pieces and parts I need to make the units, then join those wherever they need to go to make the magic happen.

You'll probably not hear any more about the On Ringo Lake mystery til you see the finished top laid out, possibly mid- to late-summer.

Or maybe you will ...

I've also done a few more of my little churn dash blocks, love em!  These do keep me interested because I never really know exactly how a block will look til it's sewn together, and that's part of the fun/mystery in making these little blocks.

I really like using black on white fabrics for the background, and even though I have a pretty good variety of those fabrics, I still find myself looking at them whenever I go fabric shopping (which isn't often, thank goodness).

Making a "potato chip bag" from some very pretty Alexander Henry fabric I found in my stash.  The pieces are all cut out with fusible added on the back, the strap is made, I just need to sew the bag together.

Because my bee doesn't meet in December, we always have our Christmas gift exchange at the January meeting.  This year we're each making one gift, wrapped, to be chosen by a fellow member by drawing a number from a bag.  It's
always fun seeing all the gifts and wondering what you'll get - just like Christmas!

That's it for now, today is our first Guild meeting of the year; it's supposed to be a nice day for it.  It'll be nice to see everyone again, after a whole month!  Sew forth and sew on til later ...

The second week of the New Year

... in which Linda is still wading into Ringo Lake!

Among other things.

I can't believe how long it's taken me to get set up with my Verizon Fios tv, for pete's sake!  Sunday they installed my boxes - and let me pause here to say the tech arrived a full 45 minutes BEFORE the promised time, history in the making!  Monday I discovered I didn't get the DVR feature as I was sure I ordered, but maybe there was a communication breakdown.  Tuesday I took one of my boxes to the Verizon store and traded for a DVR box, then discovered I'm not satisfied with the package I ordered.  Having to upgrade from "Custom" to "Preferred".  At this point I'm still waiting for the upgrade to kick in *sigh.*

Whatever.

Oh yes, sailing On Ringo Lake.

I'm still putting together the units I need to make the blocks.

At this point I haven't started on the last step, which I think is making the sashing units.

Managed to make six blocks so far though, these is them!

Still cutting the shapes I need from 3-1/2" strips, using my Easy Angle ruler.

I love the coral/peachy fabrics I have but I look forward to putting them aside, I'll add lots of scraps to my abundance. 

I like this pokie-dottie piece though!

Meanwhile, I've been neglecting my wee churn dash blocks, waah!  I'll be glad to get back to them, I'm so close to finishing all the blocks I need.

But I want to finish sailing on Ringo Lake first, lest it become a *whispering* UFO. 

That's it for now, I hope you enjoy reading my post, I got up at 0 dark :30 to make it - that's 6:30 for normal, unretired people!  Sew forth and sew on til later ...

Two hundred geese

... with all the trimmings!

Yesterday's On Ringo Lake clue looks like the easiest one yet, we just have to cut some HST's and combine them with the units we made in the last part.

I pushed out the last few flying geese last night, leaving a virtual bird's nest of  trimmed slivers.

But before I reached that point there was a lot of this ...

Chain piecing, building up a log-jam of 2-for-1 goslings!

... pressing and pressing, we got it done! 


With working on the ORL units, I haven't kept up with other things I want to work on, so I'm taking a few non-mystery days to play catch up.

I need to make at least one item before our January Bee, as a Christmas exchange.

Quilt blocks are being requested for the five or six Veterans who are members of our guild.  As a guild we make and donate so many quilts for Veterans that we don't even know, our own Vets should have a quilt too!

This Christmas quilt top from a Bee block exchange was completed back in February 2016, and it's been laying around since then.  I'd like to quilt it before our next Bee, I blogged about it here.  That exchange was in 2015, oh my how time flies!

The little wonky churn dash blocks that were gently nudged aside in favor of the ORL units are waiting in the wings, need to get a few more of those done.  Looks like my work is cut out for me! 

That's it for now have a great Saturday; sew forth and sew on ...

Ringo assembly line

Is that a big omelet, or what? 

And two biscuits?

Whatever ...


Yesterday reminded me yet again that it's winter time, brrrrr!  There were a few snow flakes that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been outside.

I bought a lot of sweet potatoes while they were on sale for 2 lbs/$1, and I put some in the oven while I worked on the flying geese for Part 5 of the On Ringo Lake mystery.  After peeling, I'll bag some of them and put them in the freezer (the potatoes, not the geese!)

I also put a beef stew in the crock pot, since it could cook while I worked.  I don't do anything special to my stew, I just coat the beef with McCormick's crock pot beef stew seasoning and flour, brown it in hot oil and toss it in the pot with water mixed with some of the leftover flour.  About an hour before it finishes cooking I add frozen veggies and sliced onions.

The geese are going together assembly line style: mark and sew a batch of 20, cut apart, trim, do it all again!  I like no-brainer work.

How many have I done?  Probably around 50-60, I dunno.  On the other hand I can work exclusively on this step because I finished all the Part 4 aqua/brown units!

I reached a point where I realized I was using the same dozen or so neutral fabrics over and over and over again, so I pulled a few more from the neutral bin to add more variety. 

I'll cut these today, then I'll be back at it until it's finished: mark and sew a batch of 20, cut apart, trim, do it all again!

Have a great Thursday, stay warm, sew forth and sew on ...

The geese are flying over Ringo Lake!

Are we at part 5 of the ORL mystery already?!

It seems we just started; the clues are coming in fast, just like Christmas did!

All the units for parts 1 thru 3 are finished, and I made 120 of the 218 units we need for part 4.

And then I made 4 of the flying geese for part 5 just to get my beak in, so to speak.

Whew!

I'm definitely using the Deb Tucker wing clipper for these geese, they fly along so much faster.

While we were working on the coral-and-neutral geese for part 2, I ordered a 4-1/2" Accuquilt die from Amazon.  It came too late for then, but I have it for now and boy am I glad I ordered it!

The die made cutting the 50 4-1/2" squares I need to make 200 flying geese a breeze!

Paired with my 2-1/2" die for the wings and I'm on a roll!

I'll join the Part 5 linky party over at Quiltville, so you can see what the dozens of other quilters are sharing.

Have a great Tuesday, sew forth and sew on

Spirit of creativity

This bell is a wonderful symbol of the spirit of Christmas - as am I.  Just remember, the true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart.
-- Santa Claus, The Polar Express

They say a quilter's messy work space is the sign of creativity.  In that case, I'm feeling very very creative lately!

But, it's actually organized chaos.  I can tell at a glance that I have two more mirror image sets to make for the rectangles, I have 4 sets of 10 wing sets ready to sew, with 5 sets needing the brown wings cut.

Organized chaos!

Meanwhile I'm done cutting the neutral and coral strips and I can put them away ... perhaps until tomorrow??


That's it for now; my post is a bit late today because I'm writing it after getting up at the wee hour of 8 a.m.!

Gotta get breffus now, sew forth and sew on...

Some of this one ... some of that one...

As the Grinch took the tree, as he started to shove, he heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.  He turned around fast, and he saw a small Who.  Little Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two.  She stared at the Grinch and said...
"Santie Claus, why?  Why are you taking our Christmas tree?  Why?"
-- Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Thank goodness the pieced triangle units in part 4 of On Ringo Lake are relatively easy, because I haven't finished all of the rectangle units in part 3 yet!

Still plugging away, but I have a plan:  I'll make 20 from part 3, then 10 from part 4, back and forth til I get all caught up.

To avoid confusion and keep count I've been clipping the rectangles together in sets of 10 mirror image pairs, need a total of 12 sets. Eight down, 4 more to go!

I got the idea of marking my sets with a cut up calendar from Wanda over at Exuberant Color;  clever, eh?

I think I like the combination of brown and aqua, and I especially like being able to move out some of those ugly brown fabrics that have been
hiding out in my stash!

The units go together easily, I've only had to pull out Jack the Ripper a couple times.

I'm linking up with the On Ringo Lake Mystery linkup so you can see what everybody else has done.


Have a great Tuesday, get that baking done, sew forth and sew on...

Wreaths and mysteries

I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.
-- Linus Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas

Today is my guild's last meeting of the year, and our Christmas party.

I wanted to make some marshmallow Christmas wreaths ... well, it was a good idea in theory.  This is the kind of project that definitely needs a minimum of two people to pull it off!

See those little lumpy piles?  Well, they're supposed to be shaped like wreaths.  The mixture was cooling too fast and the shape just wouldn't cooperate!

See the one at the far left, second from the bottom?  That's how they all should have looked.

Nevertheless, I made two batches of em - 4-1/2 dozen!

Oh well, if eaten with the eyes closed, who's to know?

Here's my progress on part 4 of On Ringo Lake!



Have a great Saturday, stay safe, sew forth and sew on ...

The hurried-er I go ...

Oh, Christmas isn't just a day, it's a frame of mind... and that's what's been changing. That's why I'm glad I'm here, maybe I can do something about it.
-- Kris Kringle, Miracle on 34th Street

I'm at the emergency room again!??  This is definitely not a good way to end what started out to be a good day. I decided to go horseback riding earlier, something I hadn’t done in a really long time. With the threat of snow, but no actual snowfall yet, I figured it would be one of my last chances to ride this year. Well, it turned out to be a big mistake! I got on the horse and we started out slowly, but then we went a little faster and before I knew it, we were going as fast as the darned horse could possibly go. I couldn't take the pace and fell off. I caught my foot in the stirrup with the horse dragging me.  No matter how much I screamed, it wouldn't stop. Thank goodness the manager at Toys-R-Us came out and unplugged the machine. He even had the nerve to take the rest of my quarters so I wouldn't attempt to ride the elephant! 

Just a little funny I found on Facebook.  ;o)

After doing a few of the Part 3 units in one direction and then doing another random bunch, I've found that probably the most efficient way
is to do 10 at a time of each direction then pin them into a matched set. 

Does that make sense?

It seems to be working; at a glance I can more easily see what I've finished. 

So far there are seven matched sets - two completely ready to use, five to be trimmed. 

Progress!

I wonder what Bonnie has for us today ...

I got an email notification from Verizon saying they've added a new "Spam Alerts" feature to my home phone's Caller ID to help me easily identify unwanted phone calls.  Well, I can do that already!  It's supposed to take effect on Monday - we'll see if it's any good to me.  Sew forth and sew on...

Fun on The Lake

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small
-- Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

I thought I had the answer, I could swear I had it nailed!  The Simple Folded Corners ruler was definitely the answer to making perfect units for On Ringo Lake, Part 3.

And it would have been if not for a matter of 1/8" that just kept disappearing from the width of the unit.

Back to the drawing board...

Long story short, I went to the cut-the-square and draw-the-line method.  This method always left me with wonky seams because, I swanee, I just can't sew right next to that drawn line!  I wobble back and forth - next to the line, back on the line.

Then I had a bright idea:  instead of drawing the  diagonal line corner to corner and sewing next to it ... why not draw the line just a scant away from the corner, and sew directly on the line!??

Then I sewed with the "fat" part of the square (the part that will fold up) to the left of the needle and it worked, accurate units every time.

Mind you, I'm not rewriting the instructions - just saying what worked for me!

Something else to add to my ah-hah file.

Twenty-six diamond in a rectangle units nicely finished, 13 of each!  We'll get there.


I've linked up with On Ringo Lake mystery Monday over at Quiltville.

Have a great Monday, sew forth and sew on...

Clipping those wings

You see, George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?
-- Clarence the angel, It's a Wonderful Life

Don't you just love it when you have an "ah-hah!" moment? 

I was having a hit-or-miss experience with those flying geese units; I've made flying geese before, so I shouldn't have had so many duds.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I found my Deb Tucker Wing Clipper that I bought a few years ago tucked in a drawer, and I started using it to trim my Easy/Companion angle geese.  Using the clipper was easier than the Easy Square Junior, but I still had some bad units.

So I switched to the 4-at-a-time method using that ruler, and I couldn't believe how much more accurate my geese were! 

Since yesterday, using the ruler, I made over 30 more geese - and not one flop!  I'm now past the halfway point of the 200 units needed; at this rate I should be finished by the time Part 3 comes out on Friday.

One positive thing about making mistakes or going the wrong way around is that you learn not to make that particular mistake again.

Have a great Wednesday, it's the mid-point of the week.  Sew forth and sew on...

Geese, with all the trimmings

Charlie Brown: I just don't understand Christmas, I guess.  I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy.  I always end up feeling depressed.
Linus Van Pelt: Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. ... Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest.
-- A Charlie Brown Christmas

I've been herding my geese right along, I just wish I had time to sit and sew all day!

So far I've completed 70 "good" ones; unfortunately there were 10 that fell to earth.

Do these trimmings make me look busy??


I discovered another helper in a drawer that I didn't remember I had!  A couple years ago I bought a Deb Tucker Wing Clipper at the Hampton Quilt Show.  Up to now I was trimming the geese with my Easy Square Junior, but the Deb Tucker works better, with the unit sizes already marked.

We do what we do to get along ... sew forth and sew on til later.

Winging from the bottom

Ralphie: "I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"
Santa Claus: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
-- The Christmas Story

Flying geese!?  I've made 30 of em so far, don't they make nice beach houses?

Although sometimes I felt like my geese were walking, strolling, waddling along!

I wanted to say "hey, hurry up, we gotta fly!"  But nope, somehow they're giving me a bit of trouble this time.

As for making a nearly perfect goose, I realized my weak area was that sharp point that goes through the needle at the end of the seam.  So, I did a no-no!  I tried sewing with the wing on the bottom, rather than on the top, feeding the pointy end through first.  And it worked much better.

When I line up the wing with the nose, I place the iron on it for a few seconds, to help them stick together.

This is my unit before trimming - as I said, nearly perfect!

That extra step of "fusing" the pieces with the iron before sewing will add extra time, but so what.  As Bonnie has said over and over, it's not a race!

So, okay geese ... if you want to waddle and stroll, I won't fuss!


I will be linking up with the On Ringo Lake linky over at Quiltville.

Sew forth and sew on