Thrice Broken Dishes

I managed to get one quilt top together this holiday weekend, but barely have started borders on the other I was hoping to get finished. This quilt top we are calling Thrice Broken Dishes. It is a Twice Broken Dishes pattern, but if you look closely, the blocks are laid out as one big Broken Dishes block. The greens and blues are pretty scrappy so it blends in quite a bit, and there is a big brown diamond messing up the design a bit, but it is there.

This was one of the quilts for which I was making piano key borders. The quilt made from the leftovers of this quilt, will also have piano key borders. This quilt is for DD#2 and was supposed to be finished last year. Hmmm, I'm hoping for this year!

If I get any sewing time tomorrow, I'll be working on the borders for Easy Street. Once I get that quilt top done it's a quilting marathon for me. I have three quilts that MUST be finished this year, and I am running out of time!

How Many Sandwiches Would it Take?

I needed some leaders/enders to work on while I made some piano key borders. I dug out the last of the nine patches I had sorted from my 2" cut squares, but hadn't had time to finish in San Diego back in June. All I had left fit in this plastic container, which is about sandwich sized.

 

I finished sewing these nine patches up tonight, and I counted the total that were in this small container. Are you ready? I had 45 nine patches in there!

Here are a few of the nine patches spread out, and the rest in a pile. Since these are made with 2" squares, they will finish in the quilt at 4.5"square. Forty-five of them could join together to make a 22.5 x 40.5 inch piece, and these fit in a container the size of one sandwich. Just think, in the space of two sandwiches, you have enough fabric to make a baby quilt top! Isn't that crazy?

I have plenty more 2" squares, but the nine patches I've made this summer pretty much used all the ones that I had either four of five of the same fabrics. I can't remember how many nine patches I made in San Diego. I was playing with EQ, and I think if I have 198 or so, I can make a large queen quilt if I use alternating solid squares and put it on point. Maybe navy for my solid squares? If I don't have enough nine patches now, I'm probably pretty close, I know I had over 100 made in San Diego, I just can't remember how many more than that.

I have the piano key borders done for one quilt, and I am working on a huge long chain of piano key borders in florals. Since I have three floral cream quilts needing borders, I decided to just make as long a chain as I can with what I have cut, and then just unsew the one seam where I need the breaks. It's not my normal working method, but I simply have too many projects going right now to count piano keys for three different quilts.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I am hoping to get a quilt to top stage. I have two seams to sew on the center, I need to piece the inner border strips together and sew it on, then sew on the outer borders which are ready to go. It's doable depending on how many interruptions I get. The backing for that quilt is already pieced.

I may have sewing time on Monday too, and I'm hoping to be working on borders for Easy Street then. I have all the strips cut, and ready to piece together and add them on. I still need to figure out a backing for Easy Street.

Once those two quilts are tops, I need to start a quilting spree. I have three quilts pin-basted now, and I have more ready to go. I only have so many pins, so it is really a matter of quilting what is basted, so I can get to the others that need to be finished. I'm getting closer though!

Stage 1 Almost Complete

Our backyard remodel has been progressing, and Stage one is almost complete.

You can see the seating walls are now capped, and the darker border is in.

I had told the landscapers I really liked the herringbone pattern, so they gave it to me in the ramps to get up to the higher level.

The dogs and the twins are really enjoying the new surface.

Here is the other ramp. Don't they look so nice? I am just thrilled with their work. They still need to put sand in to fill the tiny cracks between pavers, but honestly, their isn't much sand that will fit, they did a great job laying them.

I've had a few people ask me why we chose to do ramps instead of just making a step up. We chose ramps for a couple of reasons. Once we decided on having multiple levels in the yard, we had to choose between steps and a ramp. We have a couple friends in wheelchairs, so we needed at least one ramp for them to use. Not that the step up would be too big for a wheelchair to manage, but we wanted to make it more accessible for them. So why two ramps? Well, DH has this picture in his head of the twins racing around on the new patio on the Big Wheels we plan on getting them for Christmas. One ramp would mean a traffic jam, two ramps means they have a circuit to ride.

There will be gravel along side the pavers, and the last third of the yard will be mostly artificial turf, but with a gravel "river" in the drainage ditch. I am already liking the yard so much better, and I think it will be amazing when it's finished. It will still be a while, because we haven't chosen the artificial turf yet. Still, within a month or two, we'll have a whole new yard!

Sewing Frenzy

I am trying my best to get some quilt tops ready for a huge quilting spree. DD#3 starts back to college Wednesday, so I'll be back to babysitting full time. It's time to do that last final push to see what I can get done before my sewing time gets drastically cut. I will still have time on the weekends to sew, and during naptime as well.

 

I got the center of this bonus Twice Broken Dishes quilt together. I made one Twice Broken Dishes quilt a while back from these colors. DD#2 fell in love with it, and wanted a queen sized version. I have two more seams to get the center of the queen sized version done, and I am already and working on the borders for it too. I had leftover pieces from the first quilt, and the second, so this is the bonus quilt, using as many pieces as I could of the first two quilts to make another. Some of these blocks are all the same fabrics, and some each block quarter is different. I'll have to choose an inner border for it, and I know I have enough pieces cut for a piano key border for both this and the queen sized version. This quilt will likely end up a donation quilt.

I also pieced the backing for the queen sized version of this quilt. I used 10" squares, so it was quite a bit of piecing but it really cleaned out a bunch of smaller yardage cuts, and it looks pretty good! Pressing that backing after assembling it was a chore. Even with my new ironing station, pressing something 110" square is a big job!

I am piecing piano key borders for the Twice Broken Dishes quilts, and more piano key borders for the remaining floral cream quilts. I liked the way the piano key border looked on my SIL's quilt, and it is a great way to keep using up floral scraps. I have three floral/cream quilt tops left, and I'm not sure if I have enough cut to do piano key borders for all three, but maybe. I really think piano key borders are my favorite. I use them and variations of them a lot. I think it's because I am such a scrappy quilt fan, and a piano key border just extends the scrappiness into the border.

I dug out some of my projects I had brought to San Diego on vacation (that seems like way more than 2 months ago!) and I'm using those as leader/enders right now.

Lots going in in the sewing room right now, and a big pile of quilts needing borders, but I am working on those!

Already Looking Better

 

I am so pleased with how the backyard is coming along! It won't be done for a while, but it is already looking so much better. The bulk of the pavers are laid, but all the edge ones that need cuts still need to go down. There won't be a jagged edge at the side when done. The ramp isn't done yet either, but the landscapers put in LONG hours in very high heat this weekend to get this much done.

This is a different view of the pavers. You can see the second seating wall in this pic, right next to the shed. The walls still need the capstones.

The pile of pavers is down considerably! In fact, I'm wondering if they have enough to finish.

I only got a little bit of sewing done this weekend. I pretty much have the baby quilt backing pieced, and I starting assembling Twice Broken Dishes. Lots of stuff going on here, and my mind is whirling so much its hard to concentrate.