My sewing “mojo” was hiding somewhere for a while and I had little desire to sew. I had a “sewing-block“. Turns out the best way to resolve it was to sew a block!
I’ve been distracted from time in my sewing studio by some recent travel, visits from out of town friends, and a couple challenging recent life events. A couple days ago I knew I needed to get my back to sewing (as there is just so much fun stuff to be made) and decided returning to working on my Tula Pink City Sampler (100 Modern Quilt Blocks)would be a good place to start.
Once you get started up sewing again, things get rolling, and I was able to make also blocks 32 – 40 over the next several days (my sewing was “un-blocked”!):
10 block recently completed
Today while taking photos for this post, I discovered I did not like the gray “frame” in one of the blocks (too overpowering):
see block with red arrow
So I redid it this morning with a red “frame”:
New block frame
Now I have 40 blocks out of 100 now complete!
Only 60 more to go (oh my…)
Not sure why my photos came out so dark from my design wall, I guess it was the lighting in my sewing studio this morning.
I am enjoying working from my piles of scraps selected for the 100 block sampler, and I’ve decided to just keep the piles out until I finish all 100 blocks.
I’ve been making a bunch of small scraps while cutting the fabrics for the 6.5 inch by 6.5 inch blocks and I plan to stuff pincushions like I did in this post – Stuffing it the Eco-conscious Way!
I plan to continue working on the blocks for the sampler and maybe whipping out a pincushion or two between sets of blocks if my tiny pile of scraps gets larger than my little basket for tiny scraps.
What he didn’t share was that I took several cool (well I think they are cool) photos in B&W while we were on hike, as did my partner John. I thought I would share some of my favorites from this amazing hike (despite what Mike says in his post linked above!):
I guess the park had this sign to really discourage you from going off the trail:
I’ve completed crocheting a 100 granny square blocks! Here they are in piles based on yarn combinations:
You will notice I do not have an even distribution of color combinations. That is because the blanket is very “scrappy” as it is made from a collection of coordinating thrift store yarns. I had similar but not exact colors and varying amounts of each color.
After sorting piles it was time to do the daunting task of laying it out on the “design carpet” of my living room.
My eyes were crossing as I tried to find a way not to have the same (or similar) squares touch each other but after a while I gave up and said “good enough” and settled on the layout above.
Mike the Miniature Schnauzer tried to distract me while I was sorting and laying out the squares, with his cuteness:
So I decided it was time for him to try on a granny square hat:
I am going to join the granny squares with brown yarn to make a lattice between the squares and then finish off the blanket with a green border, and perhaps a rust border too. We’ll see how it evolves, but first I have to put on a YouTube video on how to join the granny square blocks again (I forgot what I did on my first granny square blanket – Attack of the Giant Granny Square Blanket).
But before I work on joining the squares, I had to organize them into the layout I decided in someway, as I could not just leave them out on the “design carpet”.
So I figured out putting them in piles, with the top of the pile being the first square on the left for each row; and then numbering the rows. Here are the piles laid out:
As you can see in the images above, I ran a piece of yarn through each pile, so they did not get separated/out of order if a pile accidentally got knocked over.
I’ve been traveling a lot lately with my partner John going on his business trips with him and since I actually finished these 100 blocks a couple weeks ago now (so behind on blogging) and I can’t take all of them with me when traveling to start joining them into a blanket, I’ve started another granny square block series to work on while traveling!
I seem to be a little obsessed with making granny squares, they are the perfect portable travel project!
Well it’s time for one of her guest bloggers to step in, as Tierney has disappeared from the blogging world for some time now due to “Hooman Life Distractions“.
I recently learned us dogs are supposed to refer to our Humans as “Hoomans” courtesy of looking at too many dog postings on Instagram. I guess they feel dogs are not very literate? Nah, I am going to keep called them “Humans”, as you can see I am literate enough to write guest blog posts.
In case you have not guessed it, this is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer here to fill in for Tierney and do a blog post.
Here to fill in (though it takes away from my nap time)
If you are new to this blog, I fill in from time to time and here are a couple samplings of my previous posts:
Once you recover your awe from the brilliant writing by a 12 year old Miniature Schnauzer in the links above, you can continue on with this post.
I am not sure if my Humans Tierney and her partner John will like this post, because I am going to tell you of how they attempted to COMPLETELY TERRIFY me by taking me on a day trip to Seven Falls in Colorado Springs, Colorado and making a death-defying vertical climb up the scariest stairs I’ve ever seen, with me in a backpack!
Here we are at Seven Falls before the terror started:
When I thought it was just a fun day out with the Humans…
Seven Falls, according to the Broadmoor’s website (yes Miniature Schnauzers are capable of online research, duh) Colorado Springs Seven Falls, is Colorado’s most majestic waterfall.
The only waterfall in the state on National Geographic’s list of International Waterfalls, and often called “The Grandest Mile of Scenery in Colorado,” Seven Falls is situated in a 1,250-foot-wall box canyon between the towering Pillars of Hercules. Take in stunning valleys, striking rock formations and golden prairies as you climb the challenging 224 steps to the hiking trails and the banks of glistening streams that feed the falls, and its 181-foot drop of falling water.
Did you notice the phrase in the quote above: “as you climb the challenging 224 steps…”? To me it seemed like they were climbing 224,000 steps to get to the top as I was looking our the backpack on the back of John’s back.
Here is the photo my Human Tierney took (she caught the photo during a moment that I had turned my head to take a break from the terror I was looking at below):
Why are they making me endure this? I was perfectly happy looking at the scenery from ground level
Oh! My Human Tierney just walked in while I am working on this post, and is now insisting that I share more photos from this day trip to show the climb was worth it.
My guest blog post writing is being interrupted by an irritating Human
Although I don’t agree, here are a bunch of random photos from our day trip to Seven Falls. Just know the photos I like the best are the one’s taken on the ground before the crazy climb, even if the Humans think the climb was worth it!
All I see when I look at these photos are rocks, rocks and more rocks. But the Humans seem to enjoy the scenery in Colorado.
Here is the scenery I really enjoyed: after we climbed back down the 224 steps (and the Humans’ legs were like jello), we found a nice place to have a picnic before heading home:
Now we are talking about beautiful scenery!
And here I am trying to convince the Humans that I’ve earned a sampling of their food:
Me, me, me, me, me!
So that’s the end of my story, here I am putting the finishing touches on this guest blog post:
I know I can edit this post better than my Human Tierney does her posts…
You will hear from my Human Tierney again after she catches up reading her blogging buddies posts (and she’s let them go too long without reading). Hope she gets her act together!
tierneycreates 