For the past couple of nights I’ve been treadling away sewing strips into pairs of strips.  I just finished sewing my last pair to make an 48 block Scrappy Trips.  I need to wind a few bobbins and then I’ll be off treadling again.

About 6 years ago I was in a swap and received 24 black and bright blocks.  I then started drawing in EQ to find a design.  After many ideas I ended up with the one above.  During the design process I considered doing some applique. Yeah, right – that idea was quickly scrapped, but not before making a wall hanging to coordinate with the quilt I’m planning on making. (The colors are WAY off in the picture below).

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to a UFO retreat – not that it would matter if I worked on something new, but I thought it might be a good time to pull out the swap blocks.  So, I’ve been studying my EQ drawing.

In the drawing, the corner knots are 8″ finished and the sashing is 1″.  In the wall hanging they finish at 4″. No big deal. But I’m also looking at how to deal with the swap blocks which are not all 12 1/2″ before I set them into the quilt.

I considered sashing the blocks with green/turquoise/green — but per EQ, I don’t have enough fabric for that option, so I went back the drawing board.  Along the way I wondered if the 8″ knot were going to look ‘weird’.    But what if I go with the same size knot as in the wall hanging?  It wouldn’t take as much fabric (1 1/2″ pieced sashing instead of 3″ pieced sashing).

I pinned my center blocks on the wall hanging.  In person I like it.  But I wonder whether or not it will translate when I do the next round of blocks.  I guess it’s back to EQ.

Today it is my ‘design ironing board’.  It’s strips sets for a Scrappy Trips.  I’ve been sewing pairs together.  I’ve got them laid out in bundles of 3 pairs to see how many more strips I need to cut.  I stopped after sewing half of my strips to see how many more I need.  Since I’m aiming for a quilt about 60 x 80, I need to cut another 48 strips to add to the mix.

I really thought I was further along than I am.  Hum…I wonder if I want a smaller quilt?

Check out what others are working on by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Did you see Bonnie  Hunter’s find in Nashville?  I LOVE that flying geese quilt.  But then I love flying geese 🙂

Based on Bonnie’s photos, I’ve drawn this classic quilt in EQ. That’s 480 flying geese, each finishing at 1 1/2″ x 3″ for the sashing around 9″ navy/midnight squares.  The quilt will finish roughly at 70″ x 88″

I’ve got too many shirts for my space, so I’ve got to use them up.  So this afternoon I made a few geese to see how they’ll look in the plaids.  I think they’ll do.

I’ve made four of each since I plan on using the Quilt-in-a-Day flying geese ruler.  When I need to make tons of geese this ruler allows me to make then quickly and precisely.  Of course every quilt and quilter is different, so it is always important to know more than one way to do things.

According to my calculations, I’ll need 120 plaid 4 1/2″ squares. They’ll be scrappy of course, so no yardage to calculate.  I’ll need to get 3 1/2 yards of the blue — I think I’ll bind it in the blue – and 1/2 yard of the orange.  Oh, the sky fabric?  About 3 1/3 yards.  I should be able to find it in my  big bag of muslin.

I’ll work on the geese and then seek out the navy and orange fabric.

This week, in addition to playing with the treadle machine, I cut 2 1/2″ strips into 16″ lengths to make Scrappy Trips, a Bonnie Hunter pattern.  I have no idea how many strips I’ve crammed in to the shoe box.  My original intent was to use a 40 strip set, but then realized the resulting quilt would only be 30″ x 40″ and I want a larger quilt — closer to 60″ x 80″.

So, I pulled the 2 1/2″ strip box out, and started cutting 16″ strips of fabrics I thought would play nicely with the original strips.   I kept cutting until I was out of strips, then pulled out the “scraps” my friends gave me a week ago since those colors play nicely with the original fabrics.

I’ll count this fabric when I get the quilt made.  So, nothing out, and nothing in either.  Although it was tempting to run back to JoAnn’s yesterday afternoon.  My sister and I ran over there to get border and backing fabric for the quilt she’s working on and when we got it home I thought the purple she bought would be a great border for the floral quilt I made a couple of weeks ago.  I tell myself it’s big enough for a child (it’s 48 x 60), but then at the same time, I know I prefer to make quilts in the 60 x 70/80 range.  I could pull more florals from my stash and make another 10 blocks and the quilt would by 60 x 72.

So, the numbers:

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 80.11 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 23.141  yards

Net Used for the year -56.97 yards

To see how others are doing check out the links over at Patchwork Times.

For this week’s ingredient of Ranch Dressing Mix I made Zesty Ranch Crackers.  Well, actually, my young quilting friend made them.  I manned the camera.

I originally found this recipe on a quilting blog I read. The quilter got the recipe when she went to a retreat or sew-in.  Naturally I can’t find the posting to give credit, but I have seen the recipe in numerous other places.

What you need:

• 3 sleeves of unsalted tops saltine crackers
• 1 pkg ranch dressing mix
• 1 pkg Italian salad dressing mix
• 1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 cup canola oil
• Large mixing bowl with sealable lid

Pour oil into bowl.  Add dressing mixes, pepper flakes and mix well.  Slide in crackers. Seal bowl, gently flip bowl two or three times to coat crackers.  Flip bowl every 15 – 20 minutes until the oil is absorbed.

If there are any crackers left store in dry air tight container.  I only got about 3 or 4 from this batch.  They were supposed to go home with my friend, but I don’t know if they made it.

To see what others did with their Ranch Dressing Mix hop over to Patchwork Times.

This evening I finish kitting up the blocks for Nifty Thrifty from Scraps & Shirtails by Bonnie Hunter.  My quilt will only have 20 blocks in it.  Unless I change my mind.  Since I’m not going to start piecing this one until my summer quilt retreat, that could happen.

I’ve bagged the book and fabric and put it in my box of UFOs.  I’m putting the information here because I’m sure I’ll be turning the whole room upside down when I go to look for it.