triangle wrangle

Such a strange winter!  Almost February, and no real snow since...November?  We did have a brief dusting the other day.

No real accumulation on the little side garden I started this fall.

I left behind a trail of muddy footprints in the grass...

...while others left their mark on the thin ice of the front pond.

As usual, my shadow kept me company.

She's quite smart.  Whenever she wants a little extra food or some attention, she'll sit in our front window (much to the consternation of Tabitha) and wait patiently to catch my eye.

She knows that I always have time for a little head scratch!

Todd has been busy in the barn.  Last month, he built a large room on one side, so that we could utilize "loft storage" above the room.  We filled it pretty quickly.

Now he's building another one.

Hard worker!  Meanwhile, I've been concentrating on my quilt projects in my spare time.  I love laying out blocks in different patterns.  It's amazing how different they can look with just a few rotated pieces.  For example, I've decided to make my yellow log cabin quilt into a wall hanging.  Trying different combinations yielded very different results.  I'm still undecided!

I've started a new quilt where this same principle applies.  I had a fat eighth bundle (a group of 12 fabric pieces all measuring 9" x 21") depicting scenes from Alice in Wonderland.  The colors are rich and very different from what I usually work with, especially when paired with navy fabric from my stash.  I decided to make HSTs (half-square triangles), and utilized a new "8 at a time" method.  I am never going back!  Detailed tutorial here, but the basics:  you pair 2 pieces of fabric, draw a series of diagonal lines, sew on some of them, cut in between some of them, and you end up with 8 little triangles, all just needing a quick iron and tidying trim.

Boom!  Ready to sew.

I have laboriously measured and stitched together individual HSTs, and hated it.  This method is so quick!  I ironed, cut, sewed, and evened up the squares in less than 4 hours.  That is absolutely unheard of for me.  This would've taken WEEKS with the old way! 

I've been playing with different combinations, just like with the yellow log cabin quilt.

You can really make almost endless combinations of these patterns with HSTs.  Here's one chart I pulled from the Internet, but there are many, many more!

Ahhh...one of the many reasons that I love quilting!  At face value, you can say, a blanket?  So what?  But it's such a delightful challenge.  At each step of the process, you have to be precise.  Precise with your measuring, precise with your cutting, precise with your ironing (iron too vigorously and you can stretch your fabric out of shape!), and precise with your sewing. You will never, ever be perfect, and I love that.  And the fabric!  I don't have to be a great artist to make great beauty come alive with color and shape.  I can just choose carefully, any combination that I want, and make it work for me.  It's irresistible.

So on these cold winter days, I'll keep playing with my fabrics and my yarn after work...oh, and hopefully start working on my flowers soon!  Our indoor flowers are a great inspiration.

Have a great week!