This one took me a lot of time, a lot of little pieces with even smaller pieces attached.  20 – 2″ squares with 1″ triangles added.

But it looks really really cool.

One more red one to go, hopefully this weekend I will get the last Red & White one done so that I can move on to another color!!!

This block represents a quilt top from 2015 and another one of my favorites –Start to the end of the journey – The ending to the journey

Well, I just couldn’t not finish one of these – it was bugging me way too much. AND This was the easier of the 3 that I have to do.

The original quilt top was part of a challenge from FB, flickr.com or some other group that I was in. It’s a nice little picnic quilt.

It’s sort of fitting that I am working on these  this weekend – just last week I noticed that the Canadian Geese have started to appear in fields and yards on their yearly migration thru the state.

So since I got the other one made today, I was a on a roll. I pulled out the list of quilts that I need to do Geese Migration blocks for and I saw 3 red ones. So I dove right in.

Had a bit of a break to go to the nearby garden nursery, but I was gonna try to get another block done. So I started cutting, and cutting and cutting. But then I got stuck on a decision – I am not good at decisions that there is not an obvious answer.  I could tell I was spinning my wheels. So I decided to get, what I thought was the hardest parts done, the Flying Geese.

I got those done and I will have to draw out what the next part is for these one.

I know, it sounds ominous but it’s not.

New job, new systems to learn/navigate, it all just rolls into one really busy summer for me.

I have not had much of any time to do much crafting, but I have had time to “start” cleaning out my craft room.  It was getting so cluttered (and if you were to look at it now it would look really cluttered if you didn’t see it before) so I dove into cleaning out stuff that I haven’t used in a long time. Craft stuff collected over the last 35 years or so.  IT feels good, but hard to admit I’m not gonna do some of the things I collected.  BUT someone else will – I have donated a lot of stuff so that feels really good!!!

Over the last week or so, when I could scrape a few minutes away from computers, I looked thru my gallery of quilt tops to look for inspiration for the Geese Migration quilt project that I started this year.  I went thru and found all the quilts that I want to make a quilt migration block for and started piling material for them.  This was the first one on my list to do – very much not my normal color pallet but it’s good to step outside your normal, and experience something different once in awhile. (well that’s what they say at least.

So this block comes from the set of tops that I made when I did a color challenge – one of my favorites Yellow quit tops.

Well that’s one off my list, 12 more to go.

Very little time this month to do anything “fun” – it’s been all work and no play kinda day.

But we were able to sneak away to the cabin for a weekend and I got to work on a project that I have been waiting to do.

I made the pieces quite awhile ago ( Chips are stacked – July 2018 ) and was waiting for the right time to do the board.

It is 48″ square, the check chips are 5.5 inches.  It couldn’t have worked out any better – the boards were 6″ including the space between. We had a couple of challenges with the paint – we had planned to use the paint that was there, but all the cans were just dried paint/stain. So we had to punt a little bit, but I think it’s turning out awesome – if I do say so myself.

Well now that the Beachy Waves top is done, I can post the Geese Migration block that goes with it.

I should have waited to do this one until the top was done because I used some fabric pieces that I could have really used when I added that extra row to the quilt. But it all worked out just fine.

Well, technically, the top is complete.

It’s not bad. After putting all the rows together it is amazing how the puckers really calmed down. It was hard to get a full picture of this because of the size that it ended up being – about 90″ long – I have 8′ ceilings in my basement and this is only about 6 inches from the very top. There were some seems that didn’t line up, but then as I went down they lined up perfectly. This is what is to be expected when working with so many bias edges I guess. 

It was a challenge and fun at the same time. But sewing on the curve is really hard on the hands – my fingers were tired when I was done, that’s for sure.

Well, I put together one more stringer for this project. so it will be 9 columns by 21 rows or vice-a-versa.

This one has 3 pieces that are pieced together because I didn’t have quite enough fabric – but I think it will work out just fine.

Now comes the hard part of getting all those seems to match up – nicely!!!

This would make such a cook kit – 10″ pieces of fabric – I didn’t even use the full strip. A cool way of using up small amounts of yardage left over on those bolts.  And you wouldn’t have to have 21 fabrics, I just used what I had left over from some 5 yard packages that I had purchased a long time ago.

Well, got so far and then came to a screeching halt tonight.

First of all – this happened:

I had all the columns made and laid them out and something looked a little off. Yep, right there in the middle one of the white on white pieces was in backwards.  It is so tricky with these white on white fabrics when they are faint. I almost thought I had one of the other ones in wrong, but I checked that one and it was fine and I just continued on – didn’t think to check any other ones.  So had to pull apart and put back together.

Trimming these up what not an easy feat at all.  But, I got into a grove and it got quicker and quicker.

Finally got to the point that all the columns were done and I took it up to lay it out and see how it was lining up.

Seeing this all laid out was an awesome site. This one is kicking my butt, but I love how it is coming together.  What I did realize, seeing it laid out like this is that I really do want it to end differently.  I want to have the same direction on both ends.  So I either have to make another column or not use one column.

I wish I would have known this before I made the Geese Migration piece of this project – I think I used a couple of pieces that I am going to have trouble finding enough to make another column.

So I pulled the box out and seeing how it looks. There are 3 that will need to be pieced because I don’t have enough width of a piece of fabric because of the arch. But It won’t be that noticeable, I will put this line towards the bottom.

In the laid out picture, I know it looks like the 5th row from the right is not all the same but it is, it just happened to be a pattern that was a arch and had a dark background, I like how it looks there. I do love this more and more when I see it, even though it is not my color scheme at all. Too bad I didn’t make this 30 years ago, my son’s favorite color was green, we had to have everything green – all because of the Ninja Turtles.

Just to put this project into perspective – each column/row took 45 minutes to sew together and another 25 minutes to trim up.  Lots and lots of concentration on this one, but I really really do love how it is turning out.  So much so, that I have a new idea for a twist on this one – good thing I have a “No New Project” rule this year – see Geese Migration project 🙄 .

So this is what happens when you are too picky –

I had 5 of the 8 strips done, when I looked at them hanging there, I just didn’t like something about them.

Well, I decided, after having 5 of these done that I didn’t like 1 of the fabrics in them. Well, that fabric was in each strip 3 times – and none of those spots was at the top of the bottom – all deep in the column.

So off to the fabric store I went – yep, broke my goal of not buying fabric again!!!!

Purchased 3 white on white fabrics and started cutting curved pieces. Then “Jack” and I sat and watched a movie together – we had a great time together, really we did.

Funny how in the quilting world we always talk rows… rows this and rows that.  In this project, it’s columns. So funnier yet, I am a programmer and my whole day life is about rows and columns – I guess my two worlds have finally collided.

Well this was a lot of sorting and coordinating to make sure that I got everything put back together with the replacements, so I am back to where I was – 5 of 8 done!