WIP: Layer Cake Quilt Backing

I am slowly but surely making progress on backing for the Layer Cake quilt. It is wonderful to get back into the sewing room without any other worries nagging in the back of my mind. Sometimes, I just cannot relax unless other chores, goals and whatnot are done around the house first. But, after the office purge was completed, I gave myself a week off to do whatever I please. This does not mean that I am neglecting the household chores though. I still cook dinner, do the laundry, etc., and etc. I am just not letting the other things get to me.

Anyway, I ironed and trimmed up the blocks for the lone strip going down the backing on Tuesday and Wednesday. But, before sewing the blocks up, I decided to do an exercise. I wanted to check on the color values. The way I did this was to take a picture:
Note: The shadow on the bottom portion of the quilt is cast by my sewing cabinet and cutting table.

I then cropped the picture to focus only on the strip of blocks:
It looks pretty good, does it not? I then converted the picture to a black and white format:
This helps you see the tonal (color) value of each fabric. I did see two problem areas. One near the top and one near the bottom. Let us look at the top problem area first -- the seventh and eighth strip:
These two strips are from two different blocks not yet sewn together. They look really close in tonal value. If it was in a quilt block itself, I would probably change out one or the other because I would want the block to 'pop'. Remember, this was just an exercise for me to learn more about concept(s). I did not bother changing it up because this was just a strip of fabrics I wanted to use up for the backing.

Take a look at the cropped color picture above. Do you see how that area looks "blah"? I believe this is due to the fact they are very close in tonal value in spite of the fabric having different colors (brown and blue). The only thing that seems to save this area is the slight difference in the scale of prints.

Now, on to the second problem area, which is near the bottom:
Yikes! Again, these two strips are from two different blocks not yet sewn together. I found it interesting the two are essentially the same tonal value in spite of one being brown and the other blue. I think it did not help that they essentially had the same scale in prints. If this was for a quilt block, I definitely would take one or the other out and replace it with a different fabric.

This exercise was valuable for future design of quilts. I think I will do this in the future for all the fabrics I choose for blocks and/or quilts before cutting into them. After all, I would want my quilt(s) to 'pop' instead of just being "blah". Also, I learned that I should not rely upon my instincts alone and use the tools that are available to us quilters. Yes, a camera is a tool.

Wordy Wednesday

Today's picture is brought to you by...

Chessie and Gracie
Yes, yet another picture of the cats. Stop that groaning. I can almost hear you all groan. ha!

Amazingly enough, these two are getting along rather well these days. Occasionally, Chessie gets a brain fart and goes after Gracie like she is an enemy and must die. Gracie can defend herself rather well in spite of being a tripod; but, I would prefer that they do not get into spats since Chessie is almost twice the size of Gracie. I am afraid that she might actually hurt Gracie one of these days.

Chessie and Gracie were spying on the next door neighbor's cat on this particular day. It used to be a pampered indoor cat. Now, it is an outdoor cat and looking rather scruffy these days. I feel so sorry for the critter because it has been kicked out of the house. But, it is what it is.

Do you see that crate Chessie is sitting on? Well, I set that up for her because she does not fit well on the windowsill. She can now gaze out the window to her heart's content. I also set up another crate on the floor to make it easy for her to get up to where she is at in the picture. She's will be 15 this summer and it is getting difficult for her to jump up to where she wants to go. She is so spoiled that she has even taken over a step stool to get up on top of the safe (where she has a favorite bed).

The Office Purge

I believe I have mentioned that I haven't taken much in the way of pictures due to an office cleanup and purge. I have not done much sewing or crafting either due to this reason.
We can now fit comfortably in the office. Gracie is very happy because it is the one place she feels very safe. The small cat tree fits perfectly under the windowsill. Dan can pick up playing his Banjo again. And, I am no longer going insane from the madness of boxes, crap, and whatnot. I took pictures of everything except the last Goodwill trip. Here is proof that we did do a major purge.
I recycle papers at a nearby school. I call it "the dump" because it is where we can dump papers, newspapers and cardboard into community dumpsters to be recycled. Note: The 30-gallon bag on the left is full of shredded papers from the filing cabinets and more.
This is the second trip. We got rid of tons of paper along with some cardboard boxes, did we not?Our first Goodwill trip. Note: I forgot to take pictures of the second trip to Goodwill which was two and half boxes full.

Did you know that Dell and Goodwill have a partnership where they accept most computer equipment of any brand? We donated an ancient Hewlett Packard printer several months ago with no questions asked. Anyway, Dan donated several ancient laptops he was hanging onto. The Cheer box in the picture above contained tons of computer equipment and power cords. I am real proud of Dan for getting rid of what he did. He still held onto a few things that he thinks he can use in his future office. He really wants a multiple computers setup someday.
These are all books plus a few software and music CDs. By the way, for most of the software we own, I keep the original packages along with papers.

We took these boxes to Half Price Books yesterday. We were both surprised that the store bought everything. (I had told them that whatever they cannot buy, please give them back because we can take them to Goodwill.) We gained $52.50 for all five of these boxes.

Before anyone gets on my case about Half Price Books not being a good place to sell back books, let me tell you that I already know this fact. I am just not inclined to take the time to sell them individually over the internet. It is a lot of work to set up online sales, box up the book(s), and ship them to the buyer(s). At least, this way we get a tad back for the books and I know people will be able to buy them cheaper and still enjoy the books.

These pictures do not reflect the tons of trash we threw out too.

Are you not proud of us for decrapifying our lives? Yes. I know 'decrapifying' is not a legit word; but, it should be one. Ha!

Maybe now life can return to normal? Yeah, right. The next major room to go through is the Master Bedroom and I am NOT looking forward to that project. I am taking a week off before beginning the work in that room. I will not be taking pictures this time around; but, believe you me, there will be a major purge of clothes from dressers and the closet. I also need to go through the bookcases and the Master Bathroom.

Link Roundup

Source: Uploaded by user via Lee Ann on Pinterest

First of all, I’d want to tell you about a couple new sweepstakes I have come across.

1. Recipe Kitchen: $25,000 Kitchen Makeover Sweepstakes
2. Better Homes & Gardens: Room Refresh Sweepstakes

I realize that these are not quilting or crafting related. But, we have resumed our house hunting. There is a possibility we may land a home soon and it would be lovely to win $25,000 towards a kitchen makeover because the house we are interested in definitely needs a brand new kitchen! And, the other sweepstakes ($5,000) would be cool to win because some of the rooms need updating/refreshing. Note: it is highly unlikely that we will land the house we are looking at as we have entered a bidding war for the property. At least, I am not getting my hopes up for the home.

Anyway, please check out the Giveaways Tab above for more details on the giveaway I just mentioned.

Moving on.

• Pincushion Jar Tutorial Sewing (a tiny bit); Crafting
  Uses a short wide mouth jar – too cute!


• Monster Hat Crochet Pattern Free; for toddlers and young children.


• Linky Followers
  A new alternative to Google Friend Connect, which is being phased out because Google wants to force all bloggers to use Google+. Linky Followers is still in beta form. In other words, it is still undergoing testing and may possibly have bugs (problems). It is also still a diamond in the rough -- it needs shaping up which will most likely occur over time.

Wordy Wednesday: After the Storms

I woke up to tons of lightning one night. Dan said the wind was fierce and he thought he heard the chairs were blowing about. When I got up in the morning (January 25), this is what I found in the backyard.
The stalk from the Agave plant fell over. Yes, it's dead. It's been dead for a very long time. We just didn't know what to do. We still don't know. We tried pulling it out by ourselves; but, it's still rooted to the ground. It has since settled to almost being horizontal to the ground. We told the landlord about the plant; but, she's doesn't seem too concerned. I'm thankful that it fell on our side of the backyard instead over the fence into the neighbor's yard. In the meantime, what to do? What to do?