Party - Party- Party -- Party!

So we had a good time.  He was surprised.  He said he thought something was up, I was dressed up ( a definite rarity) and some conversations he overheard were weird, but he had no idea it would be anything like this!

We had Greg, Dee was up in Oregon picking up her new puppy!  Michael and Renee, Bobby and Fayne - Andrew's parents.  Fayne is an incredible cook, and she kept saying how good my Crawfish Etouffee was!  Cha-ching!

Amber and Dan - Could not have done this without them.  They did so much for me in the last two days.  She made corn muffins, listened to my complaining, cut up my veggies, picked up the cake, stored all my food.  I am eternally grateful.

Paula and Glen but they got lost and headed home, then I convinced them to come back.........

Ann and Press who were between LSU Ball Games!  Way across town, they came back and forth cross town several times just to be here.

And we did have Holly, the photographer girl, and the cake was incredible with the picture from the Canadian Rockies on it, it tasted wonderful.

What did I eat.......I will pay for this I know........dip and veggie chips and some crackers, two *small*  pieces of that incredible cake with the picture on it and chocolate filling, mirliton casserole AND crawfish etouffe, a half glass of REAL Dr. Pepper and somewhere is my Cheetos I never found.

Pictures?  I did not snap a one with my own camera.  I will have to show them to you later from Holly.  I am paying enough for her work.........just saying........

The Big Day - party preparations

Ok.  I have been at Carrie's since early morning and I DID NOT leave it a mess.  I wanted you to know that.

I made the dip, cleaned the mixer up and everything.  Wiped down the counter top even.   I brought all the food I cooked from Amber's house to Carrie's.

And I went to the store and got myself come cough syrup and cough drops.

At Carrie's we blew up a thousand balloons, and I found out that she has gone on stage with the hypnotist guy.  OMG!  MY Daughter????  She said she was one who didn't get hypnotized and he took her off before all the humping started.......she did express gratitude that she was not part of that.  At least she has some moral fortitude, however little!

When I went to make the corn muffins, I found they had no milk at the house and no plans to get any.  But she COULD go out later and get some if I HAD to have to muffins.

So I brought the muffins to Amber along with eggs and she will make the muffins, and bring the veggies and get the cake.  I owe her a party, I told her!

I even had lunch with Frank at The Chimes.  Salad and steamed veggies with soy nuts.  I will splurge tonight. That dip is incredible.  I will have to offer you the recipe although you can't get the ingredient that makes it so good anywhere but South Louisiana.  Creole Cream Cheese.  From my childhood I have loved it in the morning with salt and pepper on it with my Ganny and Papa.  Sometimes I would get some oatmeal and sugar with Papa or sometimes they would make Lost Bread.  Lost Bread is New Orleans French Toast with cinnamon sugar on it rather than that powdered sugar mess.  And always that thick dark coffee dripped in the little enamel coffee pot now sitting in my kitchen.  Lots of sugar and some evaporated milk made it wonderful.......but I digress.

Carrie's house looks good.  She is an avid decorator!  So that is what she wanted to contribute.  Everything else paled in comparison to that.

BUT~~~~~~~~Some guy did attempt to pick me up last night at the coffee shop.  That was good, because the other two I was with didn't get noticed!

glen

HYPNOSIS

Well, this is very late Friday night and tomorrow is the big day. Tonight we went to the comedy club The Funny Bone. I didn't know it was still in existence. But it is, and we were there with some friends.

Frank and hunter have birthdays just days apart and we have, for years, celebrated them together. Hunter called with tickets to see a hypnotist. Frank loves magics shows so he was all over that. Hunter is an interesting person. He is highly intelligent, but has difficulty relating to "normal" people, but Frank has always been able to relate as friends with him. They respect each other. And they understand each other. They both are hyperactive and have dealt with life from the fast lane. Hunter faster than Frank, but fast nonetheless.

 So we went.

 It was interesting, a bit lewd at times. But interesting. Some of the act was really great, but he had nine people literally humping each other several times throughout the act. Yuck! I liked the faces he had them make, the time he told the guy he had ants in his pants and wow! There was no hesitation and the pants flew off!!! That was funny because he had a really nice thong on underneath! 

One day I want to be hypnotized. Not like this in a comedy club where they make you do horrible things, but, for really. I did speak with two of the people afterwards and asked them about the experience. One said she knew what was happening but was compelled to do it. Like you were really drunk and somebody suggested rolling a house, you were all for it! The other said the hypnotist spoke so fast that you had to focus totally on him. And you just did what he said because there was nothing else.

 What do you think happens when you are hypnotized? Do you want to be, of course, responsibly hypnotized? Have you e er been? What did it feel like? 

Did you design a quilt while you were under? Hmmmm. Maybe that would be a fabulous spark for creativity. Maybe I could be hypnotized to like to sew on labels!!

 glen

Blogger is having problems, have you noticed?

"Creating more than 10 Custom Redirects will currently throw a bX error. Engineers are working on a fix and we'll update this thread as soon as it's resolved."


This was the report from Blogger this morning.  They are having problems.  I cannot post coments on anyone's blog or my own.  I tried multiple times.


I tried reporting it, but it is diffilcut to find a Report a Problem page.


glen

Best Laid Plans

Best laid plans of mice and men, as the saying goes.  Actually Robert Burns said,

The best-laid schemes o' mice an men,
Gang aft agley,
An lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

And it really doesn't matter that we understand his Olde English words or not, you get the gist of it.

So Frank had told me he was going to have a long long day today, leaving early and getting home very late.  I was happy.  Not to have him gone but to be able to cook.  Since Carrie did not want me to upset her pristine (not) kitchen, I was going to do it here.  I called Amber and found she was heading out passing by the house and would drop off the foodstuffs on her way.  BUT......

When I awoke at 7:30, he was just finishing up breakfast.  Hmmmmm.  Not so early, I surmised.

He had decided NOT to go to the first meeting but to head to an entirely different direction, like Belle Chasse, that would take him out later and get him back sooner.  Hmmmm.

Ok, I will deal with it.  About 9 AM he says to me, are you mad at me or something?  I sense that you want me to leave.  I did not want to engage this man in conversation, not that there is much likelihood that he would actually have a conversation with me, but I wanted him out of here, since the food was coming in at 9:30.

I smiled, sweetly and said, No, I just don't want you to be late!  Here is your drink and your snacks for the road, bye! Off I went into the back and he eventually left in about 10 minutes.  Iam sure he was early for his meeting in Belle Chasse.

So I get the food from Amber and commence to cooking.  Twelve mirlitons and sixty beautiful shrimp gave their all for my Stuffed Mirliton Casserole.  And 5 lbs of Louisiana Crawfish jumped into two huge double batches of Etouffee.

While I was making the casserole I ran out of Italian Bread Crumbs.  Aughh.  Attempting to improvise, found some stale crackers in the pantry.  Perfect.  I took the bag out of the box and began to crush them up, but the bottom of the bag broke all over the floor.  Which just happened to be occupied by DiNozzo.  He ended up eating most of the crackers while Chloe raced in from the yard to get the rest.  I searched for another item to use, and decided upon the crackers I bought for the dip for Saturday.  Oh, well, sacrifice is a noble deed.  And now I am really craving crackers.

Then I had to clean it all up.  It took nearly as long to clean everything and make it like it never happened.

I called Amber and she was just leaving Best Buy and was passing in front of the house and would pick up the cooked goodies for storage until Saturday.  Perfect timing.

But when I walked back into the house, it smelled wonderful.  Not good.  I opened the door and put the stove vent on, sprayed Lysol all over the house and mopped the floor with Pine Sol.  Anything with a strong smell, got sprayed, mopped and fanned.

I can't smell it anymore, but I am sure Mister Nose will when he comes home.  Where are those Smelly Bassets when you need them?


glen

Complaint

So click off if you don't want to listen to me complain.  Let me add a tease here........it is about Carrie!

We are doing a birthday thing for Frank, at her house.  And he doesn't suspect that it is happening.  16 of his closest friends are coming.  We are all excited.  No presents, just people. And Crawfish Etouffee and Mirliton Casserole and Creole Cream Cheese Dip!  And a birthday cake with his picture on it!  LOL.

Since I did not want to have the menu Carrie thought up, which consisted of sandwich trays costing $75 each, she said I could take care of everything.  No problem. I have entertained a lot, just not recently.  So I have been planning and purchasing things all week.  I bring them to her house so Frank won't see them here.  Like things I don't buy normally -- soft drinks, wine, shrimp, crawfish, 12 mirlitons.

I called her this morning to let her know I would be cooking at her house either today or tomorrow, and ask which was better for her.  She was instantly upset that I would get her house messed up.  Like it is a showplace or something.  Like I would track mud or branches in and leave dirty dishes everywhere and jump on the beds.  Not like she has never done any of that stuff at MY house.

I defended myself, but later thought, what an idiot.  I called Amber and now have all the stuff I need stored at her house, and can get stuff cooked tomorrow either at Amber's or here.  And I can store the cooked food at
Amber's until time to take it to Carrie's museum.

But it took all day until now to shop for final stuff and drive across town to get the stuff from Carrie's and take it to Amber's.  But at least I won't mess up Carrie's house!

glen:  and the party will go on!

Ahhhh, I See, Said the Blind Quilter!

Here are pictures of Patty A's one color zig zag quilts.  Gorgeous.  Well actually two colors but you know what I mean.  I might just have to find myself two colors and go at it.  I really like the yellow because of the light space.  It makes me think of the potential for embroidery in that space.  Something delicate amongst the bold zigs.  The blue reminds me of stair steps.  I am constantly amazed at how well odd fabrics can go together.  I touch two fabrics and pronounce that they do not fit well, but look at the blue quilt.  The lilies certainly did not come in a kit with the last zig zag fabric.  They look perfectly wonderful together however.  I have learned so many things by putting together this type of scrap quilt.  Things that I would NEVER have put together, come together in happy stitches!

This is why I like doing things together with all of you, the synergy is amazing!  I have learned so much during this exercise.  It would never have occurred to me to do different sized pieces in the block.  Or one color, obviously.  As much as I hate to admit that I had no foresight there, I really didn't.

To be truly creative and new is a very difficult thing.  There are blogs who explore that type of energy and I follow a few of them, hoping they will rub off on me.  I am a part of Modern 8 Create, where we do some interesting things, and you get some creative inspiration from others.  But I have not had a major flash of
"creative inspiration".

Maybe I have and I just have not had the time to do it.  I can tell you one thing, if I could get my room cleared out and organized, I would have fighting chance!  LOL


So what does that tell me?  I think I know...........

A New Way to Look at the Zig Zags

Beryl's Baby Steps

Check out Beryl's Baby Steps Quilt.  She is not participating, as far as I know, in this with us, but was on the Design Wall over at Judy L's place.  When I saw it, I thought, why didn't I think of doing it that way???

One color, or one major color, gives it a totally different look.  And yet still keeps the zig zags true.

glen

The Caterpillars Approve!

Didin't I tell you the caterpillars were sending signals out to me?  Well check this out.

When I get home from my appointments this morning I checked out the loveliness of the back yard patio.  And there on the tree, the caterpillars were showing their approval with a giant check mark!

They must be  inherently left handed though.

In other developments .....  it looks like some critters found my earthworms that were unearthed by the digging in the buckets.


glen

Anne of Arizona Zigs

Anne of Arizona -- sounds like a great title for a book, doesn't it!  Anne has been laboriously trimming her HSTs to play along in the Zig Zag Quilt Along.  She calls her quilt the Ziggity Zaggity Quilt.  What fun!

Check out her blog Quilting in the Desert and see some of the wonderful dog collars she has.  I never put it together until this morning they were one in the same person.  Majestic Collars!  LOL.  And check out the greyhounds who are not too happy with the SNOW that fell last Monday in her part of the desert.  SNOW!!!

I am glad we had people choose both methods.  If you look at her quilt you can see the difference between using the rails and the HSTs.  Even though they both zig zag, they are different.  If you used the HSTs you could really get some nice shading and make it look like a twist effect.  But i love the look of both of them.  And, of course, she had all those HSTs leftover from her Swoon blocks.  Two quilts for the price of one!  I always love that!

Anne said she wanted about two more rows, which is sort of what I ended up with.  Two more rows.

I can't wait to see all the ones people are working on finished.  If you want a very easy and fun quilt, consider the zigggity zaggity loveliness of this one!

Garden and Yard Day

Today was Yard and Garden Day at the Parks' house.  I love my yard, it is always so beautiful in the summer.  But it takes a few days of work to get it started.

Frank cut the grass, I worked the beds.  We really don't have beds here because that old Oak tree gets roots in everything.  So I have aluminium buckets, big buckets!  Full of my color.

So here we are working.  I took on the big buckets of flowers and Frank took on his palm trees.


The palm trees had outgrown the small containers they were living in.  Here Frank replants the three palms I got last year for $2 each.  They look really poor right now but were gorgeous all summer.  The winter gave them a big hit but they will do well in these new containers.


 The buckets were full of oak tree roots.  I had to dump all the soil and remove the roots.  With no roots the flowers will blossom into gorgeous color

 These are the two beds with new summer flowers -- petunias, rosemary, begonias, verbena and zinnias.  The zinnia was the most beautiful cream color I have ever seen, like a wedding bouquet.  This big bucket is waiting for the caladiums that Carrie and I ordered.  Each year we have huge caladiums in about 4 or 5 places in the yard.

At Lowe's I scored an entire flat of white petunias that needed some TLC for $2.50.  I added them to my collection of odd flowers and gave the rest to Carrie, who was working on her own yard today.

See the caterpillars?  They are Heliotheria or forest tent caterpillars.  They group for warmth and look like they are sending out signals by forming words on the tree.  I think they are asking for a Mardi Gras Mask here.

Here, DiNozzo looks over the work we did and pronounces it good!  Last year he ate most of my flowers the day after I planted them, so I will watch that turkey this next week, very very closely.


 This is the patio looking toward the house.  That is the back of the garage you see here.  Carrie and I laid that patio using stones we selected at the stone yard.  They delivered them the next day.  We cleared the grass, laid the hardware cloth, laid sand and set the stones.  Then we used tiny pea gravel to fill in the holes around the stones.  The pea gravel is long gone, a victim of sprayers.  But I am cultivating moss to grow in between the stones and I like it better than the gravel, which always hurt my feet anyway.

 The is the side of the patio, looking from the house into the yard.  You can see the Japanese water garden beyond the tree with the caterpillars on it.


 And here is looking at the patio from the yard but across to the fence.  the back of the garage is on the right side to give you a point of reference.  I did spend the day picking those caterpillars off me.  They are clumsy and fall out of the trees constantly.

This is looking out into the yard from the patio.  There is the Japanese waterway leading into the Japanese water pond with the loon and the turtle, traditional Japanese elements.  And the "water" pours out under the cement bench and ripples formed with dark green monkey grass spread out in the lighter St Augustine grass.  It really is pretty.

you should stop by and sit with me on the patio before it gets too hot.  Although with all the trees, we sit out there all year long, even in the summer afternoons.  The birds are singing and the squirrels running from tree to tree, and the dogs barking............and the sun sets in the west!  A beautiful day.

Zig Zag progress

Here is my zig zag as of now up to date.  I am debating whether to add two more strips in the center with all the colors, thus elongating the piece.  Or to use a border piece that will carry all of the colors to make it larger.

I think I have nearly used up all my white scraps of 2 1/2 inch strips.  Yeah!

I will think about it tonight, right now I am off to Tommy's for supper!

glen

Shopping and Patty A's zig zags

Just to show you I am not alone out there, here is Patty A from Ohio's Zig Zags from her scraps.  Hers is more muted than my bolder colors and I just love it.  Tell you what I do also love about her work is the way she can piece with abandon!  Check out the gorgeous linen quilt she is working on now.  These are scraps from a wedding quilt she just finished.  I am lusting after those colors for sure!  See her work at her blog:
Patty The Quilt Lady.  If you scroll down to just past the daffodils you will see the original quilt, that I just love.


I did go shopping this morning and bought the most amazing dresses.  Yes, for those who know me know dresses are not my thing.  But what I set out to get was a form fitting dress.  Something I have never had before.  Never, ever.  Ever.

I picked up some size 16s and went to try them on.  THEY WERE TOO BIG!!!!  So I went back and got 14s, and they fit.  Mostly.  I just need one to be taken in a bit.  the 12s were a push for now.

But here they are, me not in them as I have no way to take a picture of me.

Now I need somewhere to go.  And a feathery hat.  Like those church ladies wear.  I am looking out for a hat now.  Blue teal or lime green.    I want to be just perfect when we get on the cruise ship and they take that initial picture.

I called Chuck and told him I was hot and smoking now to be prepared for when he saw me.  There was a slight hesitation and then he came back strong and clear, he said, Honey, you were hot and smoking last time I saw you!  (Yeah.  He was in a hospital bed after open heart surgery and I was his lifeline to the world!  LOL)

I purchased the perfectly colored scarf for the teal flower dress, which will go with the white as well.  I have teal sandals that will make the perfect outfit.  I also have red shoes for the white dress if I need that, and a wonderful red white and blue jacket from Carrie's Shower 3 years ago that will make the perfect accompaniment for that white sundress.

Then there was the beaded blue beauty. I did not realize it but the wonderful purse and purple scarf goes with that too!  LOL.  Serendipity!  Love that purse.

Amber, you can borrow any of these if you want!  LOL.  You would look smoking hot in any one of them, too!

glen:  any way you look at it, Patty and I are smokin'

Shopping

I am going shopping this morning.  65% off at the Cortana Store of a local department store.  They consider it an outlet store now and a friend scored some fabulous Liz Claiborne and Vera Wang suits for less than $30 each!

WOW!  I have a shopping buddy coming to pick me up this morning and we will spend the time nose deep in discounts!

I will show you what I brought home later this afternoon.  Frank's birthday is coming up soon so I may even score some cruise wear for him.

glen

Let me make myself perfectly clear......

I wrote the last post last night and my endorphins were running high and must have blocked out my brain work.

You can put them together on the diagonal.  Why I didn't say that word, I don't know.  Like this:

Those of you doing the HSTs don't need to do diagonals.  You can do strip rows.  That makes the HSTs easier at that juncture.

Wait, let me go stuff something down DiNozzo's barking mouth........Ok, back.

I did a really really bad bad bad Momma thing yesterday.  I totally forgot that it was Carrie and Andrew's Anniversary.  I had it in my Ipad but it crashed remember, and I lost all my dates.  Well, I never gave it a thought!


I was so upset.  I should have remembered.  But with all this going on, I guess it just got away from me.  Anyway.  I have an appointment at the hospital today and when I get back I will work on the blue, gold and green rows and make the decision about the Vertical/Horizontal look.  We will see what it looks like with three more rows.  It may not matter at all.

glen:  and then, again, it may make all the difference in the world.  I really need to get back to the zen thing....

Next Step in the Zig Zag Saga

When you get enough on your wall, or like me, run out of available pins you can move on to the next step.  But cautionary word here.  Don't go too far ahead or you will be making those nasty Y seams!

Since this is pin intensive to keep on your design wall, and you really need a design wall to construct this one, I suggest beginning to make your diagonals at some point.

I started with 7's.  Or rather L's.  I made the pink ones first and replaced them on the design wall as 7's and realized they needed to be L's.

When you get a line of L's, you can string them together.  But don't sew the rows together just yet.  I will tell you when it is safe to do so.



I thought it might be a good time to offer a tip on how to make sure this sewing part goes easily for you.


1.  Choose two blocks of the same color in the zig zag line.














2. Fold the one down on top over the one on the bottom.  I take the pin out of the top one, then fold down.  Take the pin out of the bottom block and use it to mark the seam where you need to sew.  If you do this now on the design wall, it will save you some headaches down the road at the sewing machine.


3.  You don't have to pin exact and perfect, I don't.  I straighten it up when I get to the machine.  Speed sewing for sure!  Then I sew them together and replace on the design wall.  I do about 10 block segments  at a time.  Right now there are 6 rows of colors so it is easy to keep track of where they go and in what order.

Remember don't sew the rows together just yet.  The time is not now, no matter how eager you are to get a corner done. I am already rethinking the size of this one.  I am thinking that it may need to be only about 18 squares wide rather than 20 and I can use the leftovers to make the second row of that color.

But I also had another brilliant thought.  What about a VERTICAL Zig Zag line?

Yes, my pretties, yes, vertical..........

glen:  are you following along, my pretties???????

Zig Zag Particulars

I know....three posts in one day is way too much.  But did I say I am stoked?  LOL

I have 19 of the black blocks made here.  I think 20 will give me a nice lap sized quilt.  EQ says that should be 57.5 inches wide.  If I do 12 taht means indivicual 12 colors.  The way an on-point quilt works is that you essentially count every other row on the vertical.

You also have to decide whether to end your row with a "up" or a "down" block.  Either way, but I think if you ended with one of each it would look odd.  So think about that when you make the decision on how many horizontal rows to set.

Did I Say STOKED?????

I said I was going work on sewing for a bit, but after seeing this I am really stoked about this quilt.

I can see the rippling waves of the Caribbean as our ship glides through them.  Patsy and Chuck will LOVE LOVE LOVE this quilt!

Oh, and use this time to perfect your skills.  Since this is an exciting quilt that requires just a little bit of brain work, think carefully about how you sew your quarter inch seam.  Try to make a perfect quarter inch.

And when you trim, think about positioning your ruler so your rotary cutter is so precise when it slices through the fabric.  And think about where your fingers are -- AWAY FROM THE BLADE!

It took me a second or two to figure out how to lay these guys out.  This quilt is on point so make the bottom corner of your color strips touch the very top corner of the white strip of the next row.  Once you get the row going, you will have it.

Easy as pie!

Stoked, did I say I was STOKED?

glen:

Zig Zags (exciting) Lunch (exciting) Payton suspended (wow)

Today is horrible weather, tornado warnings, sightings, hard driving rains, lightening and thunder.  Good day to quilt!

Ok, I am stoked!  LOL.  I love this part of the project.

Planning (exciting)
Designing (exciting)
Creating cutting Plans (exciting)
Buying fabric (exciting)
Finding fabric (exciting)
Cutting up fabric (exciting)
Sewing pieces together (exciting)
Sewing blocks together (exciting)
Sewing blocks to top (exciting)
Sandwiching (maybe ok)
Quilting (ok)
Binding (no fun)
Label (torture)

That is what I like about quilting.  And you can tell that is true by the number of To Be Quilted Tops on my floor.  But I am working on that. And I digress.......

Zig Zags.

I sorted out the color strips last night while I watched Jamie Leigh Curtis kiss on Leroy Jethro Gibbs.  Ugh!  Not a good match.  I wonder why they thought that would work for all of us vibrant sexy older women lusting after Jethro ourselves?  They should have left that story line alone.  But I digress........

I have two, count them TWO boxes of light 2 1/2 strips, so I should not cut up my piece goods and create light strips.  With this many I can control how light or how beige-y I want to go.  I think I will go white light.  And this will be the quilt that goes to Chuck and Patsy to commemorate the cruise next month, so it has a home, and it should get done and quilted.  Quilting will be easy, I am already thinking of that.

I am going to start sewing after I upload some photos.  Sewing will be just putting a light and a dark together and making sure I have at least a 4 1/2 by 4 1/2 square.  (can you see the ruler saying it is 4 1/2 inches?) If you use 2 1/2 inch strips you should be getting a 4 1/2 inch square from the two sewing together.  And what I also did was to trim making sure the strip itself in that block was 2 1/4 inch showing on right and left side of the strip.

If you are wondering what I had for lunch, I am SURE you are wondering about that, this is what I had:

Kale, celery, bok choy, spinach, snap beans, sugar snap peas, Swiss chard, garlic and some Asian spices tossed in.  Stir fried with some olive oil I brought back from Greece.  Then some mushroom soup.

Yes!  Calories?  Not much.......maybe about 50.  I am looking for some coconut oil.  It does not go to fat in the body.

Oh, just heard that Sean Payton, head coach of the Saints have been suspended for a whole year..........wow.
Not that I am a football fan, but hey, big news around here.

glen

Scrappy Zig Zag Quilt Along

Leaving off the S in Scrappy doesn't work here...........

OK.  Thanks Patty and Charlene for responding.  I know there are more because I have some good friends who are dedicated lurkers who are dying to play along as well.  You know who you are.......LOL.

So here's the deal.  There are two totally different ways of making a zig zag quilt.  We need to choose which way to go.  Neither of these quilts are mine, I have them saved as examples of what I like.  For some reason both are brights and I normally don't work in brights.  Maybe that is what attracted me to them in the first place.  I do like the white in between though.


One involves half square triangles.  Lots of them.  This method allows for some flexibility in color options or scrappy-ness.  As long as you adhere to the "dark/light" principals you will do fine with this method.  Half square triangles can be tedious to make if you have to make so many though.  I think these quilts tend to have greater value opportunities because you can add value "shadows" to make it appear the line is twisting or has a shadow.

The second way is to use the rail fence method.  This is just a pair of strips, light and dark, sewn together then placed perpendicular to each other.  It gives you the same visual in a totally different way.  You don't have to have it go on a diagonal, you can Do it straight as well.

This one appears to have two color strips and one white divider strip.  Let me find another example.  Can you see it working in this one?  Two rails, a light and a dark, and horizontal rather than diagonal.  Make it larger so you can see it better.

I kinda like the easier rail fence way.  I get tired making all those HSTs.

Now the size.  I guess that is determined by what you want to do with it and how many scrap strips you have.  You need to get a general idea of what you would like.  I want at least a lap quilt.

Here is my rendition of the quilt in EQ.  This is 53 x 64 and says it takes about 2 yards of lights, and maybe a half a yard or so of any given color grouping for two rows.  I used the green as a measure.  The strips are from my 2 1/2 inch stack.

So the next thing I will do is to sort out my 2 1/2 inch strips into dark and light of course.  Then the darks into colorways.  Like all the greens, blues, reds, yellow, oranges, purples, blacks, browns.  Is that all the colors?  If not, wing it from there.

Then start to put your similar greens together, similar pinks (see there is one I left out) together, etc, etc, etc.

I think that should keep you busy for a few nights.  And of course I have to leave time for you to get lost in your stash scraps.  Finger the materials.  Remember what you used it for.  Who has that quilt now?  Is it still in your UFO pile?  Did you love that quilt?

I am sure I left out some questions there too!  LOL.  I will pull some strips out and start sorting tonight and have some pictures for you tomorrow of the mess I made!

glen: any questions?  I am making this up as I go along.

Scrappy Quilt Along?

How many of you have scraps?  OK, stupid question.  How many of you have scraps you want to use?

How about a Scrappy Quilt Along?  And we can make some fun things with the scraps.  I have 2 1/2 inch strips that will make a beautifully wonderful zig zag quilt.  Not that I need more quilt tops.

But I think we all need to get our 2 1/2 inchers out and do some zigs and zags.  How about it?

The Scrappy Bargello is still on my design wall, Dan and Amber's quilts are still on my chair to be quilted and the Neighborhood is still needing the extra block and quilting.  Then the Elephant quilt is needing its borders, but that is simple.  Maybe tomorrow if I feel better than I did today.

Sort of a zig zag

I thnk I might make that zig zag quilt and send it home with Patsy and Chuck after the cruise!  Yes.

Let me know if you are in for making your own Scrappy Zig Zag ( or controlled color, it doesn't need to be scrappy but use your stash stuff).  You can use dark and lights or complementing colors or all Kaffe fabrics.  Any which way you want to do it.  I am sure you will have more imagination than I do.

Are you in?

glen