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October 22, 2026
New plan....................... from Exuberant Color


I had a change of plans after reading Kathy's comment yesterday.  She said How about pinwheels?  I have been planning to do a pinwheel quilt at some point so this was the perfect start.



Last night I sewed 27 little 4" pinwheels with all 4 segments matching.  I will now make a few more with some 2 and 2 sections.







My plan for that future pinwheel quilt included 3 different sizes of pinwheels.  I had some half strips of Marcia Derse fabric left over from cutting a previous quilt.  I was able to cut 8 four inch triangles from ...

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October 17, 2026
Slow day.............. from Exuberant Color


Some days have slow starts and yesterday was one of them.  I did go down to the basement and brought up the Fractured blocks, but never got around to sewing them together.








Instead I finished sewing the 8th pink Bear Paw block.  It will look a lot better when it gets its final press (I hope!).  I like the combination of the 3 fabrics.







I put it up on the design wall with the rest.  At this point I'm wondering if 14" blocks look too large for a baby quilt.  It would only take 9 blocks for a 42 ...

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October 14, 2026
Playing with stash................ from Exuberant Color


This block is made from the other pieces on the Fractured Studio die.  I cut them a couple days ago and sewed them yesterday.  I have made a table topper in the past with these blocks.






I have had a quilt in the back of my mind for a few months, to be made with batiks.  I started sorting through them last night while I watched 3 hours of NCIS.







The pile in front is the pieces to be put back on one shelf.  Behind it is the pieces I have pulled for the quilt.






Even my knitting is green ...

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October 3, 2026
Still thinking.............. from Exuberant Color


I spent a large part of the day yesterday gathering and packing things to take to the thrift shop in town.  What was on my mind though was still these fabrics.  I divided them by dark and light last night to check out an idea.


I thought maybe I would like to make another quilt similar to this one that I made in 2013.  In this one the angle is different in each block but I have a die for the block which would make them all the same angle.  I was thinking about cutting out a few pieces yesterday ...

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September 23, 2026
Half way point................ from Exuberant Color


The top 6 rows (of 12) are ready to sew now.  Then I can move the blocks up and design the bottom half.






I cut two more Bear Paw blocks and sewed one of them.  This one has the least contrast between the 2 fabrics in it.  After I sew the other one I can take the pink thread off the machine and change back to brown.





Marcia Derse has flannel fabric now and the prints are from a couple of her previous lines.  I didn't buy all of them, but just my favorites.  I'll mix these in ...

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September 22, 2026
The chickens won............ from Exuberant Color


The chickens will be the backing on this 16 patch quilt.  It's unlikely that I would make another quilt in the future that could use this fabric.  Now I have 2 ready for my longarm quilter.



I realized as I got more blocks on the design wall that there needs to be a double row of the spotted fabric all around the perimeter.









This is so much prettier than the camera wants to show you.  I still need 2 more rows at the bottom and I will start filling in the 9 patches today.








Here is yesterday's pink ...

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September 21, 2026
Layout preview................ from Exuberant Color


I wanted to see how the layout was going to look, so I took one 9 patch block of each fabric combination and previewed them with the 2 alternate fabrics.  I figured out that I need to do 2 columns on each side with the spotted fabric plus one row top and bottom.  Then the floral fabric will fill in all of the center spaces.  I think it will be interesting close up.  I'm not sure about a distance view.



Downstairs I cut the batting for the 16 patch quilt and looked for backings.  From top to bottom they ...

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September 19, 2026
Trying the layout....................... from Exuberant Color


Trying out the 2 favorite choices together: I think they work pretty well.  I was able to get 36 squares from the spotted fabric. I haven't cut the other one yet, but if I don't make any mis-cuts I think I will get 24 squares.






The busy print has rust color in it with brown in the spotted fabric. Even though they don't match exactly they coordinate pretty well.








I looked back through the brown bin and found another piece and this one is brown.  The problem though is the light color leaves; they are so much ...

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September 17, 2026
Sewing some 9 patches.................... from Exuberant Color


 24 nine patches are sewn so far, lots more to go.  I had pulled some fabrics to try as alternate blocks so here are three of them.  This one of cheetahs isn't too great. I think it is too light.





This is my favorite but I only have enough to cut 24 alternate blocks.  That would only make a quilt 36" x 48".







I have two pieces of this fabric so it is a strong contender if I do this layout.







I decided to turn the camera to simulate an on point setting.  That is nice too.









I also ...

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September 3, 2026
Working on two............... from Exuberant Color


I had errands to run in the morning before the heat became oppressive yesterday.  When I got to work this backing was the first project.  I have cut the pieces so maybe I'll get them sewn together today.



Next I cut 19 squares from the alternate block fabric.  I will have to design this quilt sideways on my double design wall in the basement.  It will have 99 blocks to make a top 72" x 88".

I braved the heat late in the afternoon and filled the birdfeeders and picked tomatoes.  Most of the tomatoes are up high on ...

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September 1, 2026
Second quilt top finished in august 2026........... from Exuberant Color


This last quilt top for August was pressed and photographed yesterday morning.  It is 39.5" x 61.5".  When I started making the three inch 9 patches I had no quilt in mind.  I had been thinking about another quilt with the Economy block with more of the 90s florals and I wanted to add white and black to a quilt.  All of the ideas came together to make these 40 blocks.  I was happy to find another white with black print in my stash to use for sashing.  




I ended up cutting 15 floral fabrics for the large ...

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August 22, 2026
Playing with blocks....................... from Exuberant Color


A few days ago I showed some fabric that might work as alternate blocks sprinkled through the new quilt I'm working on.  I tried these 3 yesterday.





This is the one I thought would be most likely to work.  The idea is to have a print that blends with the blocks, not one that stands out as "here I am".  The purpose of the blocks is to enlarge the quilt without having to piece more blocks.


This one is still a possibility but I think it might be too obvious.







I thought ths one was too busy but I ...

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August 19, 2026
Last two.................. from Exuberant Color


There was just one strip to cut yesterday to complete the stratas.







This is all 40-1/2 stratas, ready for me to decide which 16 patch to make.





I decided to look through my larger print brown fabrics to see if there was anything I would want to use for a few alternate blocks sprinkled through.  This photo shows 22" top to bottom.



This photos shows 1/2 yard of the fabric.








This photo shows 22" top to bottom.  I think this might be the best candidate.








This is showing 1/2 yard of the fabric.  I think this one ...

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August 3, 2026
More sorting fun.................... from Exuberant Color


Here is the whole rack that I showed a portion of in yesterday's post.  Yesterday I sorted the reds, what fun, and there weren't any I wanted to get rid of.  To the right of them is the overflow of Brandon fabrics (which you can see the edge of on the right) and a couple Kaffe yarn dyed wovens.  There is a pile of fat quarters in front of the stack.  So  the second shelf from the top was sorted Saturday and the reds on Sunday.  The 2 unsorted shelves are the Philip Jacobs prints.  On the bottom ...

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July 29, 2026
A visitor................... from Exuberant Color


For those of you who read Nann's blog With Strings Attached, you know that her power was off yesterday from the big storm on Monday.  She contacted me to see if she could visit...we had been planning to do this some day.  We had lunch and a tour of my studios.  It's always fun to meet a blog friend in person.


She brought me a gift.  She goes to estate sales, etc, and gets the best bargains on fabric.  This batch has an African theme.  A couple pieces are long enough to use in a pieced backing ...

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July 23, 2026
Binding cut................... from Exuberant Color


I had the iron on to press some other fabrics so I pressed the binding fabric and got the 7 strips cut.









While I had the fabrics out for the Snail's Trail I also cut a 2.5" strip off the larger pieces.  I needed a few more so I pressed some more fabric and cut them and now have 80 strips, 80 different fabrics.  Maybe they will become a 16 patch when I need some mindless sewing.


While I was at it I cut a few more strips off some of the fabrics and there are 71 in ...

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July 7, 2026
Pressing........... from Exuberant Color


I had to turn the iron on yesterday to press the binding fabric for the current finish so I paired the fabrics for the Snail's Trail and got 4 pairs pressed while I was at it.  Hopefully I'll get some blocks cut today.



While outside checking on my tomato plants I noticed some of the buds on the Tiger Lilies are turning orange.  It won't be long now for the first few blooms.








Thanks to a friend, I had blackberries on vanilla ice cream last night for dessert.  Yummy!

I got the binding strips cut yesterday so ...

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June 27, 2026
I found one................... from Exuberant Color


It's interesting how many fabrics I looked past without seeing them when I made the first search for the backing for the floral stars quilt.  I think this one will be perfect.  It is from the same time period as the floral fabrics and I have 9 yards of it.






That was actually the second fabric I pulled out of the large bin and I first thought this might be a candidate.  It is a taupe type beige and is a Jinny Beyer fabric.  After I found the other one though, I realized this would make a great backing ...

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June 26, 2026
First quilt top for June 2026................ from Exuberant Color


This was my original plan, adding pieces of a variety of light color florals to the edges of the blocks.  This way a border was assembled while I webbed the quilt; no long strips to add to the center section.  But then I kept thinking I wanted it larger and that is where I got hung up for a year and a half.  I finally decided I would settle for a smaller quilt, 67" x 79".


After I took its photo, I decided to look in my backing fabric bins and see if I had enough yardage of anything I ...

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May 26, 2026
More sewing...................... from Exuberant Color


 I'm still sewing stratas for the William Morris fabric Trip Around the World quilt.  Normally I lay out the order of all of the strips and sew it as one huge strata instead of sections.  This time since I had 4 different 'runs' of light to dark I decided to sew each separately (there is one more group to sew) and then play around with the order before they get sewn together.  I can't press anything until I have the whole strata sewn together because of the pressing method I use.  I'll show my play time for ...

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