Change of Plans

I've been at it until it was done. I am so pleased with it. 

The original plan was to add some appliques on the border. I find the border pretty "naked" at the moment.

The mitered corners are almost perfect. Only one is off-centered. For a first try, I think this is excellent.

 

I had cut the fabric 7.5 inches, thinking I will have enough to add a diamond unit at intervals on the border. I didn't know the hexies were to eat 2 inches of that border.

A replica of the diamond will never fit "nicely" on this narrow border. So ideas for plan B are churning. 

Photo 1 for top and bottom

Photo 2 for top and bottom

Photo 3 appliques on the sides 

Photo 4

Photo 5

Which idea would you go for? Or if there other treatments you think of, please let me know.  There's always the possibility to quilt the border so that it makes its own design. Thinking ...  

 

Personally: 

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, I had a very fun week. NOT! I started my vacation on Monday, August 31. During the weekend before that, I was suffering from stabbing pain in my head and I could barely touch my skin, it was that painful. Saw the doctor on Monday who said I might be suffering from "Giant Cell Arteritis". It's an infection in the cell tissues of the arteries. So, got a prescription, order a blood test, and a biopsy. The next day, went for the blood test. Back home, DH said the hospital called for the biopsy. It is scheduled for tomorrow. I'm like "wow this is going so fast. It must be really bad". The next day, (Wednesday) at the hospital, told the doctor I only been taking the pills for two days. (The pill did work instantly on the searing pain, btw.) She didn't seem concerned and proceeded with the double biopsy. Yes, one on each side of the head. She removed about an inch for the artery above the temple. Needless to say, I have a different kind of headache now. Lol. 

The swelling is coming down real nice. Still waiting for the result of this test. So, sewing hasn't been on my mind lately. 

How about we finish this post on a happy note? Care for some reds? 

A dear friend gave me a big bag of scraps right before my vacation. Perfect timing. There were also magazines in the bag and I spotted this quilt. 

Dreaming in Dutch. If I could I would start that one right now. Instead, I tried to work on a crumb block. 

Here's my humble beginning with the colour red. 

Have a great long weekend everyone. 

;^)

Joining 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique for Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Kathy at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching

Whatever Wednesday Hexies Edition

The closer I get to finishing a flimsy, the more the quilt pushes back the finishing line. It never misses. Remember Jacob quilt's borders ordeal? (See this post.) (Also this post.)

The Quilt of the Century has its own little mischief in store for me.

It first started with, Oh! What the Flinging Burgers is this?? 

A stain! Yes! In the middle of my border. Why didn't I catch that when I was pinning the border to the quilt? Because this is MY life. It's not all pink and rosy Barbie's life. That's why! 

Well, now, that won't do. So I unpinned the border. You can see the wet spot where I tried to wash it off. 

Cut the stained fabric out and pinned it back to the quilt. Make sure it is at a 90 degree angle with the side border. Looks good. 

Sat down and sewed the pieces together by hand. Turned the quilt around to admire my great job and 

"The fabric IS backward, ladies and gentlemen. Yeesss, it has been sewn down with the wrong side up. What a DREADful deception this must be for Chantal." says the narrator of my life as I just sit there, eyes wide open, while the desire of stabbing this quilt to death overwhelmed me. (Can't wait to quilt this one now!)  

Unpinned the border from the quilt once more, armed with my faithful seam ripper we slashed this seam wide open, flipped the darn fabric over, kept a quarter inch seam allowance,  

and pinned it back to the quilt! Now! Made sure the fabric is on the right side. Measured everything twice. Made sure it is at a 90 degree angle. Made sure the border does not wave in any directions. Now. Can. I. Sew. The. Darn. Thing. On. Yes. Or. No? 

Nah! Too tired! I'm going to bed. Tomorrow's another day. 

;^)

Working with the new Blogger. 

Not that I think I am any better than anyone else, (cause I'm not) but because this is what I do and I thought it might help others have a more pleasant experience with the new Blogger. It might help with those photos that don't always behave well ... and it might not help. 

When I start a new post, I type a few lines and then I remove the hidden formatting. To do this, you have to click on the three dots at the end of the tool bar. (which is under the title of your post)

A little tool box will appear. Now, highlight all your text written so far in your post, (you can hold control (CTRL) with the A together to achieve this) then click on the crossed T in the tool box (clear formatting). 

You will notice your text change a little bit. If you had paragraphs, the distance between them will be different. It is do to the cancelling of the multi-spacing. I do this because I like to decide how many spaces I want between my paragraphs or photos. It is MY post. (I hope this is not too hard understand.)

Anywho! You do as you wish. It is yours to have fun with.  

As always, enjoy! ;^)

Joined 

Denise for Put Your Foot Down 

Kelly for Needle and Thread Thursday

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Kathy at Kathy's Quilt 

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

What am I Doing?

 Lots being happening in my life but not much in the sewing room, so I skipped blogging for awhile to spare you the boring part of my life. 

Ever so slowly, the Quilt of the Century is progressing. 

The left side border went on so nicely (it still had the pieces of paper in the hexagons) that I had a mind to restart the right one. Because on the right border (the hexagons didn't have the pieces of paper as a support), I find the line of the border not as straight as the left side. I'll see how much it bothers me when I get the top and bottom borders on. 

As I was removing the paper pieces, I was wondering "do I have to remove the basting threads too?"  Would love to have your feedback on this one, please. 

I did another pajama for DS3 in flannel while I finish assembling his flannel quilt. This is only the center of the top. 

Also did a placemat top, finally. Just one! Like I said not much went down in the sewing room. :^D

I manage to get the purples out. Need to cut the second purple block (selvage on top of picture). I should have went with a scrappy background for this project as it is getting hard to find pieces of neutral fabric big enough to cut the 8.5" pieces. 

I will leave you with this poster found on the Internet. I hope all of you are well. 

;^)

Joining:

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Kathy at Kathy's Quilts

Frédérique for Patchwork and Quilts

Nicole at The Needle and Thread Network

Awful Weather Makes Beautiful Progress

Again, we are stuck in humid, hot weather with storms basically every night. Today, it's raining. That means the sewing projects are progressing. 

Let's see what I did this week beside watching TV. Yes, I've been binge-watching Project Runway with some needle work. I'm already at season 5. 

First, I did a label for my latest finish and attached it to the quilt. It was fun playing with the EPP hexagons again, so I continued. 

Don't know if these are labels or a new project. I was just sewing rosettes out of hexagons prepped a long time ago. Then I thought about my hexie project and started to work on it. 

Tried one diamond shape for the border of the Quilt of the Century. I'm not sure about this. So instead, I attached all the pieces for the last row at both ends. 

After, I started to attached the border. It's a very soft ivory fabric.  The progress is very slow as I am sewing it on my lap. I constantly have to make sure the border isn't waving. 

I'm thinking of moving my quilting frame around so I can use it to sew the borders and be able to watch the screen at the same time. At the moment, these two are facing each other, so my back is to the screen or to the quilting frame. Not convenient. Anywho! 

I managed to play with the crumb blocks too. Played the shuffling game with the blocks and invaded my son's project. Oops! He is building me an Adirondack chair. I am so spoiled. 

Two sections of the quilt are sewn. Not exactly quadrants but that's what I always call them.  This is the top left side ... 

and the top right side. It will be an 8 X 10 layout. 

And that's all. Hope you are all well. 

Joining 

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Kathy at Kathy's Quilts

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts. 

Enjoy! 

;^)

May. Finally!

So happy to see May. I hope it will bring some warmth with it as the trees are still bare. They are now starting to show buds but usually they sport some tiny little bright green leaves at this time of year. Oh well. I'll enjoy whatever I get whenever I can.

This was last Saturday afternoon. It's was cold-ish but warm enough to play outside. I did lots of Economy blocks then. 

The total for Jacob Ladder's border is now 50 Economy blocks. I believe I have 40 more to do. Lots of blues in here.

Played with more blue crumb blocks

which wasn't easy because I have a whole lot more dark blue than lights and brights.

This poor bag is so full. I need to do something about this ... maybe this weekend.

Hey! Look who I found!

It's Jacob! Gosh! I love this quilt! All in blue and green with whatever neutral I had.  It's a pre-blog flimsy.  I will recount how many blocks I need for the border. I also have to find a fabric for the inner border that will play nicely with all the blocks.

It's nice to revisit these fabrics as some I don't have anymore, like these.

You won't believe what I found while looking for Jacob.

Yep! Another bag of blue fabric. Oh! but there's a lot of lights in this one. Okay, so I'll definitively be sewing more blue this weekend, and finish the crumb blocks properly.


Angela announced the new color for May and ...

I have a head start. Dark green is very present in the Economy blocks since Jacob has a lot of those too.

The hand sewing is coming along too. It is very slow sewing as the hexies don't have their paper backing anymore.

Still, half of the row is done, so I see it as good progress for the little bit of attention I gave it.

The other end has its paper still attached. Hopefully, it will go faster.

So, that's all I have for now.
You take care, stay home no matter what they are saying. I love how this post on Facebook explained it.

Only 3% chances of catching Corona-virus. If I give you a bowl of 100 candies and I tell you three candies are poison and you might die if you eat one. Would you still gamble and eat a handful? Because you know you will meet more than just one person out there. 


Please, stay safe as I love you all.
;^)

Joining
Angela at So Scrappy
Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Kathy at Kathy's Quilts
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Pinteresting

I find Pinterest very interesting ... maybe a little too much, okay, a lot, and yes too much time is wasted flipping through boards and videos, but I ♥ to see all the beautiful quilts. (That's one of the reasons why I'm afraid of getting an account on Instagram, lol. One addiction problem at a time, please.)

Anywho!! I saw some wonderful hexagon quilts and figure I should get mine out and finish it since I'm at home a lot lately (the understatement of the century).
Do you remember this?

Inspired by this awesome oldie made in 1875-1900

This was back in 2011. I work at it a little bit at time. I thought I was doing so well but at one point, I didn't like the half chopped diamonds so I decided to remove them. (You can see it in the first picture, at the top.)

This is the last picture of it on my blog.

You can see here how big it is even though it is missing 6 rows in this picture.


Then someone told me that it would be better if I put some half diamonds to even out the edges a bit. At the moment, if I put the border on, I would have to bring in so deep into the quilt that there's not much of a border showing.

Whaaaaaattt?????? Now that I have removed them all !!

It's a good thing I do keep everything.

I will re-attached only the full hexagons. The cut-off one will be removed.

I still have enough of that fabric to make those that are missing.

Happy dance.

Guest what I'll be doing on Slow Sunday Stitching?  It'll be fun!


While on Pinterest, I saw a Jacob's Ladder quilt with a border that I finally like. (Of course I can't find it anymore and I'm kicking myself for not saving it in the first place.) I do have a Jacob flimsy that patiently await its borders since 2013. So I started to make some blocks for the border.

I now have 15 made. A hundred more to go. :^D


It would be nice if I could locate my flimsy. Hope my measurements are right.


Enjoy!

;^)

Joining:
Denise at For the Love of Geese 
Sarah at Confession of a Fabric Addict
Angela at So Scrappy
Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Kathy at Kathy's Quilts