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March 16, 2025
A variety of things.............. from Exuberant Color


The missing piece from my February 2025 Kaffe collective fabric came in the mail yesterday so here are the last 2 pieces I purchased.  I was surprised at  how many creases were in the fabrics, all of them, this time.







I did more ditch quilting on the Crooked Cobblestones wall hanging.  Here is a close up of some of the stitching.  I was using medium pink thread on this line because most of the pieces in this column had pink in them.  I'm showing this section so you can see how hidden the ditch quilting is, even when the ...

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March 15, 2025
RSC Week 11 - More Yellow from Grandma's Red Needle

Where did the week go? It's already middle March, which means we are heading towards cooler days! Hot and sticky today. 

Beginning of the week was wet and thundery. We got almost 4" rain. Not much, but every little drop counts. Mauritius is in drought (it's the rainy season and almost no rain!?) Water restrictions are put in force. Water reservoirs are about 40% or less. 
Enough of weather, whatever it is, we can't do anything about it! 

Over to sewing!

The RSC color for March is yellow
I made most of the blocks at the beginning ...

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March 9, 2025
New fabric................... from Exuberant Color


I usually preorder some of the new Kaffe collective fabrics in February and August.  There weren't many that I wanted but I thought this group would cut up nicely.  You can see here how they would look in a 2.5" strip.



I like Brandon's "gingham" which had some new colors offered.   I ordered 2 colors of one more print but there was a mistake on my order and one of them wasn't included.  It will be coming next week and then I'll show both of them.


I put the strip of Tilda's ladies on ...

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March 8, 2025
First quilt top in March 2025.............. from Exuberant Color


The top is pressed now and ready for its debut.  I didn't measure it (and it's in the basement) so I'm estimating the size at 57" x 75".  I took photos with 2 cameras and this was the closest to the actual color.






I took a couple closer photos so you can enlarge these and see the variety of fabrics better.









I didn't use any of the prints that had green in them.  They will be in a future quilt.

I sewed more stratas for the 16 patch quilt last night.  I have enough of the ...

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March 7, 2025
Top sewn, not pressed.................. from Exuberant Color


The Tilda Whimsy top was finished last night and I'll press it today and take its photo.  There were only 5 seams in both directions but they were long ones so it took a few hours.




I got the next batch of strips ready to sew for 16 patches.  That project will probably be my evening sewing for several days.









I didn't have any dishcloths on the needles so I started one last night to use up the lighter blue and I'll finish it with the darker blue.  The lighter color is called Stonewash and the darker ...

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March 6, 2025
Layout........... from Exuberant Color


There are 16 fabrics in the mock up of the Whimsy quilt and I used about 28 fabrics.  I'm not sure that was a good idea.  There are only 9 spots for each block (because there are 4 different blocks) so I was extremely limited in where I could place them.  I think this might be the best layout I can achieve and I'll decide that when I look at it this morning.


There were some cute selvages on some of the prints.


Last night I cut the 16 patch block pieces out of the stratas I pieced ...

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March 5, 2025
More decisions............... from Exuberant Color


Here are 3 more sets to make blocks, but there are 4 different ways the block is arranged so I can't just sew them together without having an idea which of the 4 blocks they need to be.  I'm pretty sure how the red rainy day ladies block will be sewn but I have to start a layout before I can decide on the other 2 sets of blocks.  Meanwhile I turned on the iron and pressed the blocks that are already sewn as well as the 16 patch stratas that are sewn.  I'll have to make ...

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March 4, 2025
Tilda Whimsy blocks from Exuberant Color


 The Whimsy blocks so far; there are 5 identical of three of them and 6 of one of them.  I need to cut some new pieces of one of the shapes to have good contrast before I sew any more.  I have 21 of 36 sewn.









If you follow the directions, you would be sewing those 4 blocks into one big block (9 total).  But....you would have to alternate the pressing of the last seams to have them lock at intersections, and I don't know which block will go where until I'm doing the layout, so I ...

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February 21, 2025
All cut............ from Exuberant Color


I finished pressing and cutting the rest of the fabrics for the last two shapes for the Tilda Whimsey quilt.  I have also cut strips for a 16 patch and one other quilt.








I spread out the fabric for each group and also added 4 fabrics at the bottom right that I can add if I need more contrast in one of the shapes.  I might not start sewing these into blocks until Saturday.


I worked on the hand sewing of the binding on this green Kaffe Rosy quilt last night.  I have about 3/4 of one short side ...

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February 18, 2025
2 quilts back home.............. from Exuberant Color


I got 2 quilts back from my longarm quilter friend so I'll be looking for binding fabric soon.






While she was here she helped me slide the bag off my new 30 yard roll of batting and get it up on the tables.  Now I can cut batting for a few more quilts.  





I spent a couple hours choosing and grouping Tilda fabrics for her Whimsey quilt pattern.  Then I made notes for each group with what I need to cut for that quilt plus 2 others.  There has to be a 16 patch quilt made from these fabrics ...

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February 15, 2025
It's finished! from Exuberant Color


I found a nice stripe in the mid-tone of the quilt for the binding and got it sewn on.  This quilt is 39" square.








The backing is a grayed purple even though it seems to be brown in some lights.  The quilt is much softer looking in person, not such high contrast.

I used Hobbs 80/20 in this quilt.





The close up shots show some of the colors in the quilt, like this green print.






There are browns, rust, blue and gold tones.








Burgundy check and a burnt orange are in this shot.







Up in the top left is ...

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February 14, 2025
A little fabric therapy................ from Exuberant Color


I made my first fabric purchase this year.  Yes, it's Tilda again and yes, it was pricey because it is a new line, but I needed a perk.  











I bought the smallest pack available, fat 8ths plus 1/2 yard of my favorite fabric.





I finished quilting the baby quilt last night but haven't trimmed it yet.  That will happen today and I'll find a binding fabric and hopefully get it finished.





I was just about out of the cookies in my freezer so it was time to bake something else.  I love this cherry topped cake ...

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February 9, 2025
Several backings.............. from Exuberant Color


After trimming the backing for the large Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging, I chose backing for 4 more pieces.  I was glad I had a large enough flannel piece for the flannel baby quilt.



These are the backs for the three smaller pieces.  I hope to get these all quilted and trimmed today.









Since these are all small pieces I used flower head pins to baste them.  The flower heads lay nice and flat.

We didn't get any ice early in the day yesterday but I think there might be a thin layer that occurred in the evening.  My Sunday ...

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February 8, 2025
Looking for a backing........... from Exuberant Color


This quilt top is next in line for basting to prepare for ditch quilting.  I needed to find a batik for backing yesterday.  It is 37 x 58" so I need almost 1 3/4 yards of fabric.











The first place I look is the 2 shelves of multicolor and large design batiks.  Most of them are hard to use because the color changes so often in them.










When I first look through the stacks I'm looking for larger yardage pieces and pull them out.  The one one the left is more blue, not green as it looks here ...

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January 14, 2025
Several things......... from Exuberant Color


First in the morning yesterday I made a couple new labels for boxes of pieces and parts. These are all strips, triangles and scraps.  They are on the highest shelves because I will be looking in them the least.  This is the top 3 shelves of a 7 shelf bookcase.


I put the pieces for one of the 20 dark blocks in Plaid-ish up on the design wall.  I have more than half of the pieces cut for those 20 blocks.







Last night's full moon is called the Wolf Moon.  I took this photo before dark, not knowing if ...

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January 7, 2025
Catching up.............. from Exuberant Color


I'm getting a slow start to my projects in this new year.  I had to do some catch-up, grocery shopping and laundry.

I'm looking for the dies that will cut some of the pieces of the Plaid-ish quilt.  One of them is a 5" square.  I'll get some fabrics pressed today and start cutting.  Some of the shapes will have to be rotary cut.  My right shoulder has been bothering me so I won't be doing a lot of cutting any one day.


I did some reorganizing of computer folders too and I enjoy doing that ...

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January 6, 2025
Sorting by value........... from Exuberant Color



As I was dividing the Kaffe scraps into dark, medium and light for the Plaid-ish quilt I decided the mediums will all be pinks, reds, or oranges. Because so many of Kaffe's fabrics are multicolor, a lot of them got eliminated from the selections. I didn't get all the way to the bottom of the bin.  I will look at the sizes I need to cut and decide how many of these I really need.


As I work on the Plaid-ish quilt I'll decide if any need to be removed, or if I need  more.






I might ...

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A little help and future project............. from Exuberant Color


I had some help yesterday going through my quilts and dividing them up into keep, share/gift and sell.  It was quite a workout.

I downloaded the free Plaid-ish Quilt pattern from the Kitchen Table Quilting site a couple years ago and I have decided to use some of the large Kaffe scraps to make it since the bin is overflowing.  This will be a slow cutting project and sewing probably won't start until late this month or early February.

First I have to divide the scraps into light, medium, and dark.  That alone will probably take a few ...

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December 28, 2024
Finish #2 for December 2024........... from Exuberant Color


I chose a binding for this quilt yesterday, cut it and sewed it on, all by machine.  I found 2 pink Kaffe fabrics that I liked for binding but went with the pencils for this reason: It had to be cut lengthwise to get the stripe going the right direction and I had used it for another quilt.  That left a piece about 20" wide by 64" long, that was just waiting to be cut for another binding.


I think this is the first 'all Kaffe fabric' quilt that I didn't use a Kaffe fabric on the back.  I ...

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December 26, 2024
Cleaning off the table................ from Exuberant Color


I sorted the Tidla fabrics into 4 groups of value to prepare for cutting for the Whimsy Quilt (free Tilda pattern).  I haven't pressed them yet so now I'll press them by value groups and do the cutting of each group as soon as they are pressed.


Next to move off the table was the box of 3" finished triangles that I cut from waste pieces (from cutting quarter square triangles on the die cutter) when I was cutting for the hourglass blocks in the quilt top I finished last month.


I ended up with 19 stacks of ...

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