Shaded Four Patch Rabbit Hole

It's been weeks since my last post, and we're still knee-deep in paint and renovations across four rooms. If you missed the chaos, check out the previous blogpost here. I haven't stitched a thing in what feels like FOREVER! To cope, I've been indulging in the next best thing: endless scrolling through the quilty corners of the internet. Naturally, I wanted to make every single quilt I saw, but the one below completely stole my scrap loving heart. It was quickly sketched in EQ8, and the quilt-planning frenzy commenced! Now, I just need to crack the code for quickly making the red-highlighted unit.  

 EQ gives you three choices for making this unit: paper piecing, individual paper templates, and rotary cutting. The first two? Absolutely not happening. Rotary cutting triangles is fine, but let’s be real, I’d prefer a faster, easier method, something like whipping up flying geese or half-square triangles in bulk. And here’s what EQ suggests for rotary cutting.

I painstakingly did all the math and drafted a quilt plan, only to realize afterward that my old Billie Lauder books probably had a shortcut for this quilt unit. Honestly, I should just keep those books on a pedestal in plain sight, think of the time I’d save!

Well, I'll be darned, it's actually in one of them! Who would have guessed they’d call it a shaded four patch? The instructions are decent enough, but oh boy, I’d love to see this magic in action. So, off I went, back to the wild world of the interwebs for some visual enlightenment!

I stumbled upon a video by Deb Tucker.  Same method just oversized so you need to trim them to size. It was surprisingly helpful, though, with some genuinely useful tips sprinkled in.  Click image below to watch or click here to go to the video on YouTube.

Then I stumbled upon this gem from Just Get It Done Quilts. She has instructions for 3 different methods.  She even went the extra mile and cracked the code for making eight at a time! Her 8 at a time method isn’t in the cards for me right now, but it’s comforting to know it’s out there for future quilting emergencies.  Click image below to watch or click here to watch on YouTube.

Now that I've cracked the Shaded Four Patch code, this quilt should be a walk in the park!

 Before I go, let me share a hidden treasure, a video by Billie Lauder herself. Billie passed in 2018, and sadly, her website and most of her videos have vanished into the abyss. After a rabbit hole expedition, I unearthed four of her videos on YouTube, but they were not worth watching.  Then, like a quilting miracle, I found the one I remembered best, the Ultimate Scrappy Four Patch.  It too will be helpful in making my quilt block.  This technique is in one of my Billie books. Watching her video brought a big smile to my face. She's absolutely giddy about four patches! The video is embedded in a Quilted Hugs blog post, so you'll need to visit the blog to watch it. I snapped a screenshot for the image below.  Head over to the blog post, click the video, and don't forget you can make it full screen by hitting the square in the corner. Happy watching!

See you in a day or two for the sewing room update!

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No Quilting For Me

 A huge shoutout to everyone who noticed my vanishing act! It warms my heart to know you’ve been missing the weekly quilty updates. I had grand plans to check in nearly every day these past weeks, but by the time the day ended, I was too pooped to do anything but kick back and chill. Sewing progress? Virtually nonexistent. The last thing I managed to sew was on September 19th.can you believe it? Wow!

Every day, I promise myself I'll get out there, sew a few blocks, or cut fabric for my Yo-Yo quilt, but by the time the day is over, that motivation has packed its bags and left town.

What’s been keeping me so busy? Painting, unfortunately, not the masterpiece kind, but the kind everyone dreads and procrastinates on. We (a.k.a. me, myself, and I) decided it was time to paint the laundry room, kitchen, living room, and sewing studio.   All rooms will be painted the same colors.  Antique white for the walls and White Cotton for the trim.

And as always, painting is never just painting, it’s a scavenger hunt for things that need fixing or upgrading. What started as a two-week painting adventure has now transformed into an epic saga stretching well into the unforeseeable future.  HAHA!  One of upgrades/fixes is this window into the kitchen that is in corner of my sewing room.  We think my sewing room was a carport at one time.  The floor was concrete before Mr. Podunk added the ceramic tile.  The rest of the house has a crawl space an the typical plywood subfloors.

My sweety is a Mr. Fix-it.  There's almost nothing he can't fix.

However he's not real handy with caulk or drywall mud. What you see below is my work after he "tried" his best.

The walls in the sewing room are textured.  Neither of us like it but making the walls smooth is a DIY nightmare we would like to avoid.

All of the fabric has been moved to the spare bedroom.  Well, all except the scrap bins and three project boxes.  My plan was to sew a little each night. LOL!  Silly girl.

The spare bedroom is a chaotic haven of fabric, bursting at the seams with so much color. I can't help but confess that I visit this room daily.  Those clear bins filled with colorful treasures make my little art heart skip a beat! 

For now, everything else from the sewing room has been stored in my fabric cabinets. When it's time to paint this space, all of it will be moved into the living room.

The sewing room has officially retired from stitching and now moonlights as a door-and-trim painting studio, doubling as a cozy storage unit for my painting supplies.

The sewing machine table has turned into a catch-all. It’s a bit disheartening, isn’t it? Stay strong, Lea Anne! They say absence makes the heart grow fonder!

So that's it, my quilting friends. How about weekly updates on the painting saga?

 

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