Second Thoughts on Scrappy Celebrations, Emma Louise Muslin Background for Stonefields + New Specs for Rebecca

Good morning, Quilty Peeps!  How is it Wednesday already?!  And how is it nearly the end of May when it was just February the other day?!!  Time doesn't just march on at a steady pace.  Time is picking up speed, taking shortcuts, and leaving me in the lurch.  All of which warrants a new practice for me: Reevaluating whether or not to keep working on a project all the way to the bloody end, just because I started it!

Here's your last glimpse of my inspired-by-Scrappy-Celebrations project on the design wall before I take it down and put it into a crypt prison project box from which it may or may not ever emerge:

I Celebrate Abandoning This Project Today!

This project has been tried and found guilty of Failing to Sufficiently Challenge and Engage My Brain, Wasting My Time, and Wasting My Tilda Precuts!  That last charge was the most serious, and I'm afraid I was an accomplice in this crime against my creative energy.  

Two things initially appealed to me about the Scrappy Celebrations quilt when I first saw it: The quilt "breaks the rules" about combining 4-patch and 9-patch blocks in the same quilt, but it works because only squares and rectangles are used in all the blocks.  I still find that interesting, but as I've been making the blocks I've been thinking ahead and dreading what a pain in the tush it will be to sew them together with all these seam allowances going different directions.  So I had already been toying with the idea of adding scrappy sashing strips between my blocks, but sashing increases the size of a quilt so I'd have fewer blocks (and less variety in my quilt) if I did that:

54 x 64.5 Tilda Celebration With Scrappy Sashing

In the EQ8 rendering above, I've arranged the 21 9" blocks that I've already sewn along with 9 more block mockups and "painted" my sashing randomly with prints from the Tilda Sunday Brunch collection to get an idea of what that would look like.  Meh.  I don't hate it, but I wish I hadn't made so many blocks using the same fabrics!  

Because here's the other thing that really appealed to me about the Scrappy Celebration quilt: on closer inspection of the original quilt photo, I liked how the pattern designer incorporated so many different fabric scraps in her quilt but controlled carefully for both color and value placement to ensure a cohesive and restful look to the finished composition.  See below:

Lissa Alexander's 63 1/2 x 72 1/2 Scrappy Celebration Quilt, Photo Courtesy APQS

As some of you may recall, I started this project when I was in the middle of an interstate move and I had access to my Bernina 475QE travel sewing machine and my AccuQuilt cutting dies, but all of my fabric, rulers, and rotary cutting tools were hostages in inaccessible boxes in between leaving our old home and awaiting the closing date for the new home.  I was under a lot of stress, so simple "mindless" sewing was appealing and, without access to any of my stash yardage or my actual fabric scraps, I grabbed a few packs of pretty coordinating Tilda precuts -- and THAT'S a major reason why this project isn't working for me.  In Lissa's quilt, what at first appears to be three identical red, white and green blocks turns out to use scraps from similar but different fabrics for each block.  A repeated block that is all yellow and white turns out to contain lots of different yellow fabric prints, not just from one block to another but within the same block.  My coordinating precut fabric packs are looking way too matchy-matchy.  Also, and this is the real nail-in-the-coffin, smoking gun, ultimate conviction: In trying to select fabrics for the next blocks in this quilt, I realized that I was having trouble not because I couldn't find fabrics that would look good together, but because deep down I was resisting "wasting" the fabrics I liked best by using them in this quilt!  

Don't Wanna Waste Good Fabric On This Boring Block!

If I feel like this prpoject is a waste of good fabric, then why am I allowing it to waste my precious TIME?  These are still fairly current fabrics and I could easily get more of them, but I can never get back the time I spend working on this project.  Therefore, the blocks have been torn down from the design wall and incarcerated in a project box prison where these ill-fated quilt blocks will serve a capricious sentence of indeterminate length.  There will be no due process or habeas corpus for my quilting UFOs!

Stonefields, A Project Worth Using My Good Fabric

So you may recall that I ordered this new-to-me Emma Louise Premium Cotton Muslin fabric from a quilt shop in Australia for my Stonefields background fabric.  This is the photo of the fabric on the bolt, from the web site where I ordered my fabric.  The color I selected is called European Linen:

Emma Louise Premium Cotton Muslin in 706 European Linen

I found lots of Australian quilt shops offering this fabric for sale, and zero United States shops carrying it, and I ordered it out of curiosity and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out!).  When the fabric arrived, I was relieved to see that the color was exactly what I was expecting, very close to the color of an unbleached 100% linen fabric.  What surprised me was how lightweight, soft, and drapable the fabric is.  Totally different hand from what I expected, given that Susan Smith indicates in her pattern that she likes this fabric's "ability to support the weight of appliqué."  I expected something more substantial, like a Kona solid.  See how this fabric is not even completely opaque in the photo below?  You can just barely see my fingers through the fabric.  (Please ignore my nasty grown-out manicure.)

Emma Louise Cotton is Lighter Weight Than I Expected

My first impression was that this fabric could be used for a dress shirt, blouse, or bed sheets (if it was wider -- it's about 44" wide).  Interesting!  I can also see why several of the Australian quilt shops stocking this fabric advise that it pairs well with Liberty lawn fabrics.

Soft, Smooth, High Thread Count and Tight, Even Weave

I really didn't feel like prewashing 8 meters of fabric in my little compact washing machine, but I did it anyway because the Emma Louise fabric had a sizing treatment that rendered the surface of the fabric very smooth but also somewhat slick.  Just as well, because honestly I know better than to skip the prewashing on a major project, especially when it's an unfamiliar fabric and I don't know what to expect for shrinkage.  I should have taken it out of the dryer when the fabric was a bit more damp for better ironing results, but this will do as there will be plenty more ironing throughout the construction of this quilt:

Emma Louise Muslin After Prewashing and Hasty Ironing

Now that I've prewashed my Emma Louise background fabric, the surface has lost its slipperiness and has that slightly rough nap to it that helps fabric stick to fabric under the presser foot of the sewing machine, or in my hand as I'm stitching appliqué.  I just ran it through my laundry machine on a gentle cold water wash cycle with about a tablespoon of Retro Wash laundry powder  (affiliate link) and an extra rinse cycle just to make sure I got all of the suds out.  Then I tumble dried on low heat.

See how pretty the European Linen background fabric looks with a few of my Tilda print fabrics?  Speaking of which, more prewashing quandaries: Must I now prewash all of those fat quarter and fat eighth precuts before I use them in my quilt?  I hadn't been prewashing them when I was using them in the Scrappy Celebration blocks but that was a totally different animal from this project.  So yes, I probably have more prewashing -- and more IRONING of rumpled laundered fabric -- in my future.  I think I might try putting a few fabric pieces at a time inside those mesh lingerie bags and running the "single item" quick wash cycle in my washing machine.  It's so annoying to have only a small piece of a pretty fabric, then prewash it and lose inches to raveling on all sides of the piece.  If anyone has any tips for this, please let me know in the comments!

Emma Louise-European Linen with Tilda Print Fabrics

I will probably mix in other fabrics with my Tilda prints for Stonefields to avoid the "all-from-one-collection" look that was happening with Scrappy Celebration.

So anyway, I prewashed and ironed that background fabric, and I cut off and set aside the lengths of it that will be needed for the borders.  Reading through the Month One packet of this 10-month BOM, I see that my first blocks are 6" finished sawtooth stars and the directions tell me to hand piece them.  I intend to disobey, because I foundation paper pieced the 4" sawtooth stars blocks in my bear paw quilt and they came out so nicely.  Especially as I'm starting to have some irritating arthritis in my right hand, I'll save the hand work for tasks that can't be done as easily or as prettily by machine.  It took me less than a minute to print out foundation paper piecing patterns for 6" finished sawtooth stars onto newsprint paper from EQ8 and that is my wicked intention!  It's not even like I had to draft the block in the software, because basic quilt blocks like Sawtooth Star are included in the block library.  Keyword search, open block to block worktable, change dimensions to whatever size you want, and then click "Foundation" to print the foundation paper piecing patterns.  This works for weird size blocks that don't work out to easy math for rotary cutting, too, like when I needed to recreate a block for a vintage quilt that had been washed and shrunk to where the blocks weren't standard dimensions anymore.  I digress (as usual).

Mwahahahaha!  

But my next task for Stonefields is to cut "about 40 6 1/2" squares" from my background fabric, presumably for appliqué blocks.  I don't know how to cut "about" 40 squares, so I will be cutting EXACTLY 40 squares!  😉

And Now, An Interlude From the Garden

Look, we planted things!  This bed along the walkway at the front of our house had to be completely ripped out because the rubber tree(!!) that my FIL had planted had grown way, WAY too big for the space and never should have been planted there to begin with.  It blocked all the windows, it was endangering the roof, it obstructed the walkway so you couldn't get to the front door... you get the idea.  

I picked out three Painted Lady Hibiscus for the back row that should max out at 6' high and 4' wide, with two Purple Showers Ruellia (Petunia Mexicana) staggered in front of them that should reach 3' high and 2' wide.  Then through the center of the bed I have pretty blue flowered Plumbago that will get 24-30" tall and fill in like one bushy mass of color, with sunny orange Purslane along the front edge by the walkway, a groundcover that will only get about 10-12" tall.  All full-sun loving, draught-tolerant flowers that will summon the butterflies, and nothing that will "take over" like a jungle once the summer rains begin!  

Newly Planted Flower Bed Next to My Front Door

I also got two of these Passionfruit Lantana, trailing annuals to go in planters at either side of the front door.  I just love the mix of hot pink and sunny yellow blooms in the same flower clusters and the color ties in nicely with the Bougainvillea across the yard and the Hibiscus in the new bed.

Passionfruit Lantana

One last bit of excitement is that one of my new pairs of eyeglasses came in yesterday and I love them!  There is nothing like the thrill of taking off your old glasses, slipping on the brand new pair with the updated prescription, and having the whole world shift into crisp, clear focus again.  I have a second pair in a different style coming and I updated the lenses to my new prescription in my computer glasses (like my regular progressive lenses, but with intermediate distance reading prescription in just the right spot for reading and typing at the computer without having to raise my chin).

♪ I Can See Clearly Now the Rain My New Glasses Have Come 🎵

I've been on the Adventure of the Deteriorating Near Vision since I turned forty in 2013, which I know because I first noticed that I was straining and my eyes were tiring when I was stitching the first block of my Jingle quilt on the plane on the way to my niece's college graduation from Smith.  I'll be 52 next week and the eye doctors tell me that my near vision will likely continue to decline over the next decade, which is annoying and expensive but I guess I'll just suck it up and try to console myself with the cutest frames I can find.  The alternative would be to give up reading and hand sewing, after all! 

And yes, I realize that if I'd been cutting and sewing instead of writing this blog post I'd have a lot more to show for myself today.  Oh well.  I can only do "me," right?

Oh, one more thing I did accomplish yesterday that I'd been procrastinating like it was a colonoscopy: I got my friend Marybeth's vintage sampler quilt out, inspected the bits of my quilting I was unhappy with (nowhere near as horrible as what I remembered), and got it loaded back on my long arm frame sideways so I can quilt those final borders and get it back to her in this lifetime!  

So, my sewing goals for the next few days are to:

1. Clean up my workspace and get supplies organized for Stonefields
2. Select (and prewash if needed) the fabrics for the first few blocks
3. Cut out those 40 squares of background fabric for appliqué
4. Piece my first four sawtooth star blocks 
5. Dare I even put this on my list?  It sure would be nice to get those final borders quilted and ship Marybeth’s sampler quilt off my to-do list and home where it belongs!

Enjoy a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, those of you in the United States.  I hope you find some time for stitching!  Hey, just realized this may be my last post of the month and my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for May was to finish piecing my Deco backing and get that off my cutting table.  DONE!!  Woot woot!  Time to think about whether I want my June goal to be manageable or aspirational.  Stay tuned…

I’m linking up today’s post with some of my favorite linky parties:

ONE MONTHLY GOAL

Anne-Marie at Stories From the Sewing Room

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework