Floored

What has me floored is this T-shirt quilt spread on the family room floor. I have just laid the finished blocks (so far) out on the piece of fabric I will be using for the sashing to get a feel for the effect. What I'm getting a feel for is the size! There are 12 blocks here and I have 18 more to go. Yikes!! This is for my son who just graduated from college earlier this month. He was involved in so many organizations on campus and they all have their own t-shirts and usually get a new design each year. He has done his own laundry for years, so though I knew he had an excess of t-shirts, I had no idea of the masses that would be delivered to me when I innocently asked if he would like a t-shirt quilt to remember all of his campus participation.

As you can see I have pieced all of these blocks and about half of the ones yet to come are also pieced. I should have left out the sashing on the pieced blocks to help cut down the size. The finished blocks are 16"!. Although I used the fusible interfacing on the backs of the designs I felt the narrow sashing between the pieces would help further stabilize things. It probably wasn't necessary, but I'm not going to unpick these now.  Even if I use very narrow sashing (I hope the plaid isn't lost in the process--it wasn't easy to find) this will be a king-size quilt, for sure! He'd better get a bigger bed. But I need to set this aside for now.

My youngest grandson turns 2 in a couple of weeks and I have the fabric waiting to make him a quilt. It is based on one of the Robert Kaufman "Celebrate Seuss" prints.  I need to decide on a pattern pronto. I just fell in love with the print and bought it without knowing how I was going to use it. Story of my life.

The fabric was over $11 a yard, so I found my own coordinating prints, rather than use theirs.

I wanted to be able to post some major progress on the Mariner's Compass today. After yesterday's class I worked late into the night to get a part of the radiating checkerboard completed. Now I'm not sure if I  like my color choices around the compass. My original idea had been to use a variety of tonal reds and the blue. For some reason I chose to incorporate all of the colors and now I think they may overpower the compass and look too busy. And it was no easy task to work out the color placement! Anybody want to weigh in with their opinion? The strips are not sewn together, so if I'm going to change it it will be easier now than later.

I'll leave you with a photo of one of my other passions. I make herbal soap and here are the trays of cured soap ready to use from my soap making session of last month. This is a small offering--before Christmas I fill about 20 or more trays with the stuff in a wide range of scents, shapes and colors. I use all vegetable oils as my base, essential oils for my scents, and herbs and spices for my colors. I have been doing this for 15 years. It is all we ever use. Maybe if this blog ever gets enough readers for a give-away I will send some out. It is delicious stuff!

Cured soap, ready to go.

'Til next time, from the little mountain valley where the sagebrush grows,

Janet O.

This is the view this morning out my back window. I have hiked those mountains a few times--when the snow is gone! It is a pretty view even through the dirty window from all the rain we have had in the valley this week.