A Miscellany--Color Names, Quilt Blocks, Notebook

These are ten more dashes pinned and ready to stitch.  It's not often I stop to notice the colors in a stack of quilt block parts.  These delighted me!

When they're stitched, I will have a total of 42 churn dash blocks.  Enough, or will I need more?  It will depend on the layout, which I'll have to start considering soon.  And the size.  These will finish at 8 3/4".

We had a little accident in the sewing room last week that required washing some fabrics. I almost threw these red scraps away and would have if they'd been poor quality.  I hadn't realized there were so many.  I've been wondering what block I could make with them.  Log cabins or log cabin centers?  Tiny nine-patches?  Or...? (The orange fabrics will become zinnias.)

As I was pressing I was thinking of the names we use for colors, specifically the lighter, pale colors.
We say light blue or robin's egg blue or sky blue.
We say light yellow, pale yellow, or cream.
We say light green or mint green.
But I've never, ever heard anyone say light red or pale red.  Have you?  It's always pink.  Why do you suppose that is?

And last, have you ever used a disc notebook?  For quilting notes I've always used an 8½" x 11" spiral notebook with a light grid on it, but one day I saw someone with a discbound notebook which caught my attention.  There are several companies that make these including The Happy Planner, ARC by Staples, Levinger, and a few others.  This will be a phone notebook.

The discs are little solid plastic circles with a ridge around the edges, which is what holds the paper in place.

The discs require holes that look like these.

A week or so after I discovered this style of notebook and after I'd bought some discs, I found a hole punch at the thrift store on half-price day for a whopping $3.00.  It's a hefty gadget weighing nearly four pounds and can punch 10 pages at a time or a thick cardboard.  So I punched and put together the note book, above, from a blank book whose cover I didn't like.

The advantages I see to a notebook like this are

• Pages can be easily moved and new pages can be punched and inserted wherever.  (Maybe you, too, make quilting notes on random pieces of paper that never seem to find a home or get to where they should be?)  
• The discs seem to hold the paper securely:  nothing falls out when I pick up the notebook by just one cover.  
• There's nearly no shifting of the pages as there is in a traditional 3-ring binder.   
• The covers and pages can be folded back-to-back, open or closed, to lay flat, unlike a 3-ring binder.
  

I really love the idea of being able to easily organize pages--finished quilts, in progress quilts, future quilts, quilt ideas, etc.  My spiral notebooks now have pages for both finished and unfinished quilts and they are a disorganized mishmash.  I know, that wouldn't happen if I finished my quilts in the order I started them.  Ha!

So, have any of you (or even anyone you know) ever used a notebook like this?  If so, what do you think?  Did you like it or not?  Were there problems with it?

I wish you all the best.
--Nancy.

Sweetness and Light: A Fine, Fast Finish

I call this a fast finish because from first stitch to last it took 3 months, which is really fast for me.

Just to say, I love this quilt!  I love everything about it--the colors, the fabrics, the quilting, all of it.  It is a quilt I wish I had had to wrap up my own babies when they were little.  I hope my daughter likes it.  (We probably all know the mom and dad have to like the baby's gift or it never gets used.)

None of these photos are particularly wonderful but the first and last photos are probably the most accurate as far as colors, though maybe still just a little too creamy.  Some of the photos were taken with flash and some without.

Above and below show the whole quilt, bound, washed, and dried.  It measures 41" x 49".  It lost 3" in width and 4" in length between top to a washed and dried quilt.

I used Quilters Dream Cotton Select batting.  Quilters on the Facebook Celebrate Hand Quilting page recommended it.  After I purchased and layered the quilt I learned that Quilters Dream comes in different thicknesses.  The batting was thick enough that I was a little concerned the quilt would be more like a mat than a soft, pliable, cuddly quilt, but it's just perfect.

A few close-up photos.

Definitely taken without a flash, below, but you can see the quilting better.  As I was quilting I kept thinking of Xs and Os we use as symbols for hugs and kisses.  There are plenty of both in this quilt, if one wants to think of it that way.  I'm still thinking of this quilt as "Sweetness and Light."

Perhaps sometime I will get the lighting just perfect when taking photos of my quilts.  Even in natural light these photos look "shady."

This is the backing I used.  It is from Michael Miller called Best of Sarah Jane Flannel Dolls Soft.  When I bought it online I guess I wasn't paying attention to the length of the repeat and bought just barely enough to cover the back if I placed the figures upright going across the quilt instead of  the length of the quilt.  Maybe next time I'll avoid a directional fabric for backing.

This was a bear to quilt.  I don't know if it was the thickness of the batting, or the flannel, or all the seams in the top, or a combination of two or all three.  I used regular quilting thread but the stitches are longer than I'd like.  Even so, all three layers are fastened together and I don't think they will come apart except possibly after very hearty use.

I used Prismacolor colored pencils to mark the circles as I did on a previous, similar quilt.  Much of the marking was gone by the time I finished quilting, but not all.  I washed the quilt just once and most of the rest of color is gone.  What's left will wash out when my daughter washes the quilt the next time or two.

Do you keep notes about quilts you make?  I use a Cambridge notebook with quad ruled heavyweight bond paper.  Each quilt gets a page, both front and back if needed.  I like having this information for reference. 

I keep track of sizes, cutting measurements, dates I started and finished parts of the quilt, details about batting, fabrics, thread, binding, etc.   It's very useful to me.

A last look.

I'm linking this post to
> Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts
> Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
> TGIFF at Devoted Quilter
> Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More
> Beauties Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty
> Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese
> Let's Make Baby Quilts at Michelle's Romantic Tangle
Thanks for hosting, ladies.

--Nancy.