One Monthly Goal for December

My favorite thing to do is quilting, and my favorite quilting thing to do is piecing--units and blocks. Which is why I have 3 almost finished tops at the moment. I decided to join the One Monthly Goal bandwagon once again because it is a good motivator, so my goal for the month of December is to finish the aforementioned 3 tops. 

To see what others are working on this month, visit Elm Street Quilts here.

In last month's post, I uploaded a photo of the holiday medallion I've been working on, Holiday Solstice. The only difference between that photo and this month's photo is that the quilt is now sitting on the table instead of on the design wall. The rest of the borders have still not been added. There is one more pieced border to add plus 2 plain borders for a total of 3 more borders. I want to get this top done!

This was last year's holiday medallion mystery quilt from Michelle Renee Hiatt called Holiday Extravaganza. I am in the process of adding pieced borders....

... and I still have to finish the round I'm on, plus one more pieced border, plus 2 plain borders. I want to get this top done!

Then there's this--blocks and parts of blocks, and none of it has been put together yet. So the third top I would like to try and finish this month is Ticker Tape Parade, another Michelle Renee Hiatt mystery quilt from last year. I want to get this top done!

If I really put some serious effort into it, I could probably get the first two tops put together in a week; but there are just too many other things to do. Well, anyway, 3 finished tops is the goal this month. 

My little Leaders and Enders envelope blocks are also coming along. I think I probably have a pile of about 25 by now. Also, I lied in my last post--these will finish to 2-1/2", not 3". 

These little blocks are composed of 4 half square triangle units. I could have used a flying geese unit for part of the envelope, but it didn't occur to me to do that immediately. Going forward, I'll try that if the remaining scraps I have for this project are large enough. 

It is stunning how rapidly Covid is spreading everywhere, including in Maine. Today we had the largest single day total of new cases since the pandemic started. I wonder if people are throwing caution to the wind because they are so fatigued with all of it. Two of the people in our family circle decided to visit the Maine Mall on Black Friday, and the mall was packed that day; so we cancelled our plans to have our granddaughter up for the weekend, which was disappointing. Just didn't want to take the risk. At Christmas time, we may just have to do a drive by and throw the kids' gifts out the window.

Stay safe, everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving

 

We are having one guest for dinner today, my younger son. We don't get to see him so often, so we're happy about that. Sharing a good meal with family and a few minutes of sewing on the side is a satisfying day. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Poking Along

It's been a while since I've blogged, and it's been a long, looong year. My family has stayed well throughout the pandemic, as I hope all of you have; but I am suffering from covid fatigue, election fatigue, civil unrest fatigue, and husband fatigue, and I know I am not alone. And by the looks of it, there is no end in sight to any of it. So! Perhaps reading and connecting with my favorite bloggers again will help!

We were up to camp more often this summer because hubby is now retired (husband fatigue). We have no internet up there, and cell phone service is sketchy; so I missed the first couple One Monthly Goal signups after the end of June. I was also discouraged with it because I won a prize in April and still haven't seen it. The host has responded to my queries, but still nothing. I haven't decided if I'll restart the OMG or not, even though I've left the widget in my sidebar.

Maine Quilts 2021, which is normally held at the end of July, has already been canceled; and we are gearing up for a virtual show instead. My quilt chapter, like so many others, has not met since February; and locally, quilt chapters most likely won't meet again for many months. Covid is rising sharply in Maine, as it is everywhere. In the meantime, I updated my UFO Challenge in the side bar from a group challenge with my chapter to a personal one. Lofty goals, and I may not finish a thing, but there it is. 

I have just been playing in my sewing room since July, making a few blocks here and there for new projects, experimenting, and learning new tools. I've probably said it before, but I am a big fan of the Studio 180 rulers. It is exactly the same concept as oversizing half square triangle units and then squaring them up; and the rulers work perfectly for a variety of units. 

Michelle Renee Hiatt is one of the certified instructors who branched out on her own, and I like her designs a lot. Even took a couple of classes with her at Maine Quilts one year. Last year, I discovered she was doing a holiday mystery medallion quilt, but I was too late to get in on it, so I had to buy the pattern. Michelle leaves each clue up for one week only. After that, if you miss a clue, you have to buy it. Still working on that one. 

This year her holiday mystery medallion was Holiday Solstice. It was a whole lot of sewing, and it looks complicated; but these blocks go together easily with the Studio 180 rulers. I still have to finish adding the last pieced border, then a couple of plain borders, then it will be Ready To Quilt. 

Her next mystery, Best of the 60s, starts this Friday. This one is not a freebie, but she offered a great price for the clues if you signed up right away. There is an awful lot of work for her in the instructions sheets, so I think it's fine for her to charge for the patterns. I bought one of the batik fabric packs she suggested, so I'm all set. Can't wait to get started. 

I've had one finish since July--this little Thimbles quilt. It measures about 9" x 12". I had a small bag of scraps that all coordinated, so I cut out the thimbles and pieced them as a Leaders and Enders project. Bonnie's Leaders and Enders challenges are fun to do, and I love the concept; but I don't seem to have the patience to work on a big project like that for a year. It finally occurred to me that making mini quilts as L&E projects holds my interest much better and greatly shortens the time to finish.

My next L&E mini is going to be an envelope quilt, made with a  baggie of Christmas 30s repros someone gave me. These little blocks will finish to 3" square.

 

 

June Finish

June was not the best month--one thing after another went wrong, mostly trivial things, but still. The worst of it was when we broadsided a deer on the interstate in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. My husband, who was driving, saw the deer emerge from the woods, headed for the highway at a full gallop. He managed to slow down from 70 to 55 mph, but we hit the deer so hard that the poor thing just exploded. My son, who was coming along behind us about a mile back, said there was only half a carcass left on the highway. Thankfully we had the pickup truck that day, wouldn't have wanted to think what would have happened in the car. Just got the truck back yesterday from the auto body shop--$2600 in damages.

The Department of Transportation is cutting back the growth further and further away from the highway; but at 70 mph, there's not a lot of time to react. The auto body shop and the insurance company both reported that there have been a lot of deer strikes this year because we had such a mild winter. Two winters ago, the deer stripped my evergreens at the front of the house. Night after night, I'd watch through the window around midnight, and three or four of them would come and munch on my plants. By the end of the winter, they consumed nearly all of the greenery. My neighbors' evergreens suffered the same fate. I didn't see the deer this past winter, so they must have found things to eat in the woods.

I did not finish the Mountain View Lodge quilt, which was my One Monthly Goal project for June; but I did finally finish the Star Crazy quilt. Yay! Only took me 10 years, lol.

I quilted it with an all over feather, Plumage, I think, from Willow Leaf. I got off on one of my rows and had to restitch a few places after I got it off the frame, but it didn't take long.

SO glad to get this done!

Credit where credit is due: Star Crazy design by Sue Garman, for Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show, 2009.

Company is coming tomorrow for several days--my sister-in-law who visits once during the summer and right after Christmas every year--and there are other activities planned for the month. Of course I'll be at the sewing machine this month, but I hesitate to commit to a One Monthly Goal. I have a few more days to think about it.

Another thing that took some of my time in June was hand dyeing. There's a Bonnie Hunter string quilt I want to make that uses 4 yards of solid yellow. I used to hand dye cotton years ago, and it occurred to me that it would be a lot less expensive to dye my own yellow than to purchase it. I kept all my supplies over the years, thinking I might get back to it; and I still have a bunch of prepared-for-dyeing (PFD) cotton.

I had to buy new dye, of course; and ProChem has evidently changed some of their formulations. The Golden Yellow I bought 20 years ago was more yellow than what I just dyed some fabric with. I now have some cheddar colored fabric that would probably look great with some Civil War repros. Clearly it will be a process to find the right yellow. In the end, it might be cheaper to just buy it, lol. Still having fun with it though, so I'll keep going.

More soap and lotions got made in June too--a new herbal shampoo bar that smells so lovely, another batch of hair conditioner, another batch of bug repellent, a spray to ease sunburn, some lavender violet face and body cream, and some honeysuckle rose salve. I picked the honeysuckle blossoms and infused them in a lightweight oil, along with some dried rose petals, to make the salve.

The timing of that turned out to be pretty good. My husband was pulling some vining weeds out of the junipers yesterday, and evidently the oils in the plant were toxic as he now has a bumpy red rash all over his arms and belly. We don't think it is poison ivy or poison oak--don't know what it is, truthfully. Haven't been able to identify it online.

Last night before he went to bed, he applied Cortisone on one arm and witch hazel on the other to see which worked better. The itching woke him up during the night, so he tried the honeysuckle rose salve and said that worked the best.

There are courses in herbology that you can take, and they are not inexpensive. I've always been a little dubious that herbs really can alleviate all the ailments they say they can; but I have to say, I'm beginning to be a believer. I bruised my tailbone two summers ago taking my granddaughter down a metal slide at the park, and after a year it wasn't better. I started applying a pain stick I made that contains arnica and cayenne red pepper, and it has helped so much that it mostly doesn't bother me anymore. I've used it for other aches and pains, and it does seem to really work well. Even if it's all in my head, if the pain goes away, I'm all in, lol.

OMG for June

One of the guys my husband used to work with made a beautiful canvas boat cover for us over the winter. It is for a pontoon boat, so it's not small. He has steadfastly refused payment for his time and materials, so I thought perhaps he might like a quilt for his recliner. I made a quilt like this years ago for my brother-in-law, same pattern, same fabric line, different colors. That one was well received, and I hope this one will be too.

My goal for the month of June is to complete the entire quilt.

You can see what others are planning to get accomplish by clicking here.

The Star Crazy quilt is still sitting on the frame. I have to finish that one to be able to finish this one, so maybe I'll get a twofer this month, lol.

No OMG This Month

So! How are we liking the new and improved Blogger? Not! My dashboard automatically opened up into the new format; and for the life of me, I couldn't see how to start a new post. I found the button to use the Legacy (old) formatting and switched back to it; but eventually, I discovered how to start a new post in the new formatting. I hate change, and it will take a little while to get used to the new format if Blogger forces me to use it. 

My OMG for May was to finish the Star Crazy quilt. I'm sorry to say only half of it got quilted, and it's still sitting on the machine (insert sad face). Too many other things got in the way the latter half of the month--
tying up loose ends for my part in two quilt shows that got cancelled;
several all-day sessions of soap making to include 7 pounds of soap, a couple of different batches of lotion, and some stuff to keep the bugs away and soothe when they don't stay away;
and some serious spring cleaning, which may be ongoing til the fall because I've neglected it for so long. I suppose that's the most of it. May not sound like much, but I'm so darn slow at everything that it takes me forever to get things done.

This is also the season that dandelions and violets are blooming, and I have been harvesting blossoms to use for face cream, lotion and soap. I infuse the blossoms in either water or oil, depending on what I'm making.

Last year I made a couple of batches of dandelion soap, dandelion lotion bars, and violet leaf soap, but I missed my chance to make violet face cream because I waited too long.
This year I made my lavender and violet face cream, and it is such a lovely light cream. I shared some with my friend who let me pick flowers at her place.

I also picked some lilac blossoms which will be used for lotion most likely. Honeysuckle and wild rose will be blooming soon, and I can't wait to try some recipes with the roses. All of these recipes came from nerdyfarmwife.com; she uses a lot of plant material that she grows locally to make her own bath and beauty products. I have a couple of her books, and I really enjoy her blog.

I did finish this wallhanging earlier this month. It was a kit from Keepsake Quilting called Lake Life that I bought late last year. I also bought enough of one of the other fabrics in the line to make pillowcases, which hubby received for Christmas. We bought a camp on a lake last summer, and hubby has just retired; so this was a surprise for him.

Hubby started working from home in late March, I think; and it was a challenge to get this done. Even though he was supposed to be working, he would pop down to my sewing room occasionally throughout the day. I couldn't always hear him coming, so I'd have to work on the quilt at night often times after he went to bed.

We visited camp about once a month all winter just to make sure everything was secure, so I sent him up one day in April, and that's when I managed to get it quilted. Binding was another task that took place at night.

There was not quite enough backing fabric in the kit, so I added a panel of fabrics left over from the front, which worked out beautifully.

Lake Life was quilted with a pantograph called Waterworld, from Willow Leaf Studio, which was perfect for the theme of the quilt.

OMG for May

Star Crazy was a project for One Monthly Goal a while ago, and now it's back on. I got it loaded on the frame, and there it sits. I have just GOT to get this done, so my OMG for May is to get it quilted and bound, once and for all!

To see what others are working on in the month of May, visit Elm Street Quilts by clicking here!

The top half of the Sashed Tumblers quilt is now complete. That's 6 rows out of 12, and I think I'm going to have to add two more rows to get it the size I want.

The 5 Farm Girl Vintage 2 blocks were finished this month too. My friend received the next 6 block kits in the mail a week or so ago. I have them cut out but haven't started the sewing yet.

I only make cold process soap about once a month now because I have quite a bit on hand. This was a 3-pound batch I made with 4 different colors using the spoon plop method. Yes, that's a technical term. It was the first time I'd really tried it, and I should have been more conscientious about pushing the soap into the corners of the mold and into the other plops. As it is, there are gaps in between spoonfuls of soap, which doesn't really bother me. They might separate in the shower, but that won't really bother me either.

I am slow as molasses as most everything I do, so I expect it'll take me all or most of the month to finish Star Crazy, the Sashed Tumblers top, and make the next 6 Farm Girl blocks. I also have a tough time staying focused on one project, so it is entirely possible some other project will get injected into the mix.

OMG for April Done!

Good grief, I almost forgot to do my post for One Monthly Goal! I actually finished my quilt early this month, had it all done by April 22, then forgot about the posting.

To see what others accomplished this month, visit Elm Street Quilts by clicking here.

The Spinning Pinwheels quilt finishes at 36" x 48", just the right size for a charity quilt for the Margaret Murphy Center near my town. It was designed by Nancy Mahoney and appeared in Fons & Porter's "Scrap Quilts" magazine, Fall 2017.

It was fun to put together, easy with paper piecing; but the quilt top did not go together without issue. When I was constructing the very last block, I realized the pattern was off. The block itself went together perfectly, but when I started sewing the blocks into rows, things weren't lining up as they should. I eventually figured out that the pattern in the magazine had been drafted incorrectly. Isn't that just maddening??

No one would probably ever notice it, but the green leg in those skinny stars is slightly shorter than the yellow leg, and the whole star tilts very slightly because of it. The seams where the blocks join each other are all off by 1/4"; but I figured visually it was better to line up the green and yellow legs than the block seams. Darn good thing it was all bias edges because a little easing was required to get it together. Still turned out pretty well, I think.

I quilted it with the Popcorn pantograph from Willow Leaf Studio.

I did work on some other things this month, and that can wait til another post. I also started another scrap quilt, one called Sticks and Stones. One of the gals in my quilt chapter brought one in for show and tell one meeting, and I liked it.

One night a week or so ago when I was too darned tired to do anything else, I sat and sewed 162 two patches together. The 1-1/2" squares were cut out a long time ago, and there are plenty more where those came from.

Then I sewed together 6 sets of two-patch units--those are the stones, added a couple of 1-inch strips on either side--those are the sticks...

... and when I get enough of them together, they will make up the Sticks and Stones quilt, a pattern I found on Annie's Pattern Central.
I love this!

I still need probably another 150 two-patches for a quilt that finishes at 60" x 74"; so it'll be one of those projects that gets worked on here and there.

OMG for April

I figured out why it was that I was unable to leave comments on blogs with the drop down Comment box. I have no idea what settings bloggers use to get that box in the first place; but I now know that if you have third party cookies blocked in your browser settings, that will prevent you from leaving comments. I discovered that was the problem by googling it. It's a verb now, googling. I google everything. Google is your friend.

In my particular case, my son installed an add-on to my browser called Privacy Badger that blocks advertising and cookies as you are touring the web. You know all that advertising you get in the sidebars on Facebook? Gone. You know all the pop up windows you get on other sites? Gone, mostly. It works extremely well, but it can also block things you don't necessarily want to block. Luckily, you can turn off Privacy Badger for a given site. Once I did that, my ability to leave comments was restored. Yay!

After carefully considering several alternatives, I decided I wanted to get the Spinning Pinwheels quilt done this month for my One Monthly Goal. Right now I need to make 9 more sets of these triangular units for my finished blocks.

My goal for April is to finish the blocks and assemble them into a finished quilt. You can see what others have planned for the month of April by clicking here.

I'd still like to try and get Star Crazy quilted this month and get some more work done on the Sashed Tumblers. In the meantime, my quilt pal finally received the first installment of her Farm Girl Vintage 2 BOM. I already have a complete kit that I hadn't started yet, and I told her I'd work on it with her. This month her kit included the first 5 blocks out of a total of 50, I think; so right now we have nearly a full month to get them done.

This is my first one, Cheerful Tulips. Once I get the other four finished, I'm going to start working on the Vintage Christmas blocks, another Lori Holt sampler quilt. I bought the kit for that one last year and got all of the blocks cut out and bagged up but never really got started with the sewing.

OMG for March Done

I have had an uptick in spam comments over the last three months, so additional steps have been taken with comment moderation to combat it. Speaking of comments, I have been unable to leave comments on the blogs I like to read for many weeks now. When I try to leave a comment, I can click on Comment as Google account or Comment as Name/Url, and I haven't been able to get anything to work. I HAVE a Google account. I AM logged in. For the life of me I can't figure out how to make it work. It is beyond frustrating! If anyone knows a solution, please share.

The coronavirus pandemic is making me nuts right along with everybody else. Our lives are on hold for the foreseeable future. Grocery store shelves are so bare that it's downright scary. We can't get toilet paper, sanitizing wipes, flour, yeast, canned vegetables, canned fruit. There doesn't seem to be a problem with fresh produce or fresh meats though--yet. Over the counter medications are sketchy. If people would scale back their hoarding, there would be plenty to go around. At least I haven't heard that anybody has starved to death yet. I can't see my kids or my granddaughter. Last Monday we had 89 cases of COVD-19 in Maine, today it was up to 253. No, it's not New York, but there's no getting around the fact that it's going to get worse. Truthfully, it's surreal.

I finished Nature Walk this afternoon, which was my One Monthly Goal for March. This is supposed to be for my granddaughter, but I like the colors so much I may keep it for myself, lol.

To see what others have finished for the month of March, click here. 

I quilted it with a dragonfly pantograph in grey thread, but it turned out a little busier than I expected. Still love it.

Credit where credit is due: Nature Walk by Tamara Kate Designs. 

I washed the backing for my Star Crazy quilt today, and I should probably get that loaded and start the quilting on it, but I'm waffling. I should also get back to the Spinning Pinwheels, but I'm waffling.

I started this Sashed Tumblers quilt using a bunch of scraps left over from the Yankee Puzzle quilts my quilt chapter made last spring, and this is really what I want to be working on at the moment. No one else in the chapter seems to be interested in using the scraps, and since I'd like to not continue to store them, I started this quilt. It's another of Missouri Star Quilt Company's tutorials. I have all of the tumblers sewn into rows, only need to add the sashing between the rows, no borders on this one. I may have to add a couple more rows to make it a little longer, but I'll assess after I get the rest of it together.

I also finished the Missouri Two Step quilt earlier in the month. Another one with fabrics I love. This one IS for me.

I quilted it with the same dragonfly pantograph I used on Nature Walk.

Credit where credit is due: Two Step tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt Co.

OMG for March

Busy, busy, this past week, wondered if I could make time to get the OMG post up. My goal for March is to finish the Nature Walk quilt.

To see what projects others are working on in March, click here.

Here is a close up of a couple blocks. I like the line drawings for the alphabet letters. Perfect for a little girl.

Yesterday I was tasked to present a demonstration on paper piecing for my quilt group. I've done this demonstration 6 or more times, so this time I changed it up a little and did a freezer paper piecing demo. Four pieces in each half of the section, quick and easy.

Four of these sections together will in turn make a Spinning Pinwheel block. Nine Pinwheel Blocks will make a 36" square quilt, which will be perfect for another donation.

I am keeping the yellow and green constant throughout, the rest of the block is scrappy. I only have a fat quarter of the yellow, and if I have enough, I'll make a few extra blocks, and set them 3 x 4 for a little big larger quilt. This year our chapter is donating to Margaret Murphy Centers, and they're looking for larger quilts for their center in Lewiston for nap times and such.

OMG February Finish

We've had crazy weather in Maine over the last couple weeks--snow, rain, ice, below zero temps, 40-degree temps. The daffodils are peeking out of the ground. Must be March or very nearly. Next Tuesday the high is supposed to be 54 degrees. Spring is coming.

My One Monthly Goal for February, Happy Trails, is finished. I could have finished it sooner except that my longarm gave me fits with thread breakage. Tension, tension, tension gives me fits! I powered through, got the quilt done, and I'll figure out the rest later.

The quilting was fun and easy to do (except for the thread breaks), a pantograph called Mimosa from Patricia Ritter.

I pieced the back with 6 large pieces of blues I wanted to use up. I've done this once or twice before; but by the time I get to preparing a backing, I'm usually in a hurry to finish the quilt, and I wind up buying a 108" wide back. It didn't take that long to piece this back and square it up, and it's an excellent way to use up stash, so I really should do this more often.

I totally rethought all the Blocks of the Month I wanted to start. Common sense prevailed, and I decided to focus on my UFO Challenge list for quilt group until the end of June. If I can keep up with that, then maybe there will be a few other little projects in between, lol.

To that end, I finished quilting the Missouri Two Step, which is on the list; and it's in the binding stage.

And this one, Nature Walk, is also on my UFO Challenge list. Got the blocks finished this month and started sewing the rows together. The rows are pieced vertically because not every intersection has a cornerstone. Just the first row is complete.

This was a kit I bought a couple of years ago after my granddaughter was born. I did most of the cutting and then it sat, which is fine. She's in a twin bed now and ready for this larger quilt. I so LOVE these fabrics! Finishing this one will be my goal for March. 

OMG for February and A Finish

Happy Trails is my One Monthly Goal for February, to finish the top, quilt and bind it.

To see what goals others have set for themselves, click here. Evidently the process has changed slightly, and you must click the InLinkz block at the end of the post to see all the entries.

I need 24 blocks for Happy Trails, then I'll sash them with cornerstones and add a border for a twin sized quilt. There are only two rounds of triangles around the center four patch, and I have the first round of triangles sewn to the remaining blocks. One more round and assembly of the top can commence.

I finished the Heat Wave quilt this evening. It has been a long time coming--one of my oldest UFOs--and I am very pleased it's finally finished. I hand dyed this 8-piece gradation of fabrics plus the background 20+ years ago and started this project with them. I barely had enough of the red to finish the project, so I wound up using a red batik for the binding. Looks just fine.

One of my friends quilted flames in all of the spiky pieces with a variegated thread and a simple meander of a sort in the background areas. It was exactly what I wanted, and she did a fantastic job.

The background is also hand dyed but not by me. Not nearly as bright as the front, but I've had this piece for years too and wanted to use it up.

Credit where credit is due: Heat Wave by Karen K Stone.

January OMG - Mission Accomplished

My One Monthly Goal for January is completed, quilted and bound. This was my little Twister quilt that I'm calling "It's A Girl!". Backed with flannel, which is my favorite backing for kids quilts.

To see what projects others completed in the month of January, click here.

The quilt was quilted with a simple pantograph, Angel Wings from Willow Leaf Studio, I think. You almost can't see the quilting because of the cirles in the background fabric, haha. Simple was good in this case.

I've been busy with other quilting projects too all month but very scattered in my approach. Seems like everybody had a new block of the month starting up at the beginning of the year, and I started collecting the instructions for no less than four of them, lol, and I'll be starting another with a friend later this month.
-- Michelle Renee Hiatt is doing a mystery quilt on her blog, Sew On The Go, called Grand Central. I am still working on her last mystery, Ticker Tape Parade, which just finished last month, I think; so I haven't started the Grand Central yet.
-- Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show online has started a BOM from one of Sue Garman's patterns, Afternoon Delight. I saw Sue's quilt a long time ago and always liked it, so I'm collecting the patterns for that one.
-- Moda is hosting their third Blockheads block of the week on their blog, so there are over 50 blocks that will be presented. There are 14 participating designers, each of whom will contribute one or more blocks. I decided to make mine up in batiks that I've had sitting around in the stash for years. The blocks can be made in multiple sizes, so I have to decide what I'll do for a layout before I can start sewing. I think I'm going to go with multiple sizes like the Blockheads 2 Moda hosted in 2018.

--The last one is the only one that is an actual BOM where the instructions and fabrics are shipped every month. Esther's Bloomers is a block of the month by Kim Diehl using her new Heirloom Shirtings collection, and I loved it when I first saw it back in November. It's a 6-month program, so fabric and instructions for multiple sections are shipped every month.

This is the center block. I made a bunch of four patches from a variety of backgrounds to surround it. Some have applique, and I'm still working on those. I think the next installment  ships around the 10th of the month, so I have time yet.

One of my friends will start receiving her Farm Girl Vintage 2 BOM kits later this month. I already bought the book and the fabric collection, so I'll do mine along with her. Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet, who is the designer, has already started a quilt along on her blog, so we'll follow along with that too.

Guess that's enough Blocks of the Month!

This is not a block of the month, just what I hope will be a fast project to make to use up some fabric and which will probably be my One Monthly Goal for February. I'd like it to be a shelter quilt to donate but haven't decided yet. It is Happy Trails from a tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt Company using a different setting that I really liked. I modified the size so I could get a larger quilt and also so I could use my Studio 180 rulers, which I have come to love.

I may make some other blue and white scrap quilts this year. I want to make a few more shelter quilts and also some quilts for camp. Next up is a blue and tan snowball quilt with a flying geese border from last month's issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. I've made snowball blocks before but never a whole quilt full, and I think it will be relatively quick. Plus I can use my Studio 180 Corner Pop ruler on the corners so I don't have to draw all those lines on the corner squares. A great invention, those rulers. Wish I'd had them years ago.