One Monthly Goal Done...

...done, just under the wire. The top of the Heat Wave quilt is done! It turned out that it wasn't that refreshing of a change, lol. This was one of the more challenging projects I've done because of all the points. There was a lot of sewing, ripping and re-sewing to get points where I wanted them, and it is still far from perfect. But it won't get better, so it was time to stop fiddling with it and get done.

No idea how or when it will get quilted; but after 25 years, it's a good feeling to have the top done.

Ready or not, fall has arrived in Maine, a bit early this year it seems. The temperatures are already dipping, and the leaves are changing color and falling. Even this tiny tree, barely an inch and a half tall, is starting to turn red. Summer is my least favorite season, but we had such a beautiful summer this year that I hate to see it come to an end.

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Star Crazy was my One Monthly Goal for August; and it is disheartening that, for a second month, I couldn't get this project finished. I sewed on the next two rounds of borders, and you can see how badly rippled the outer white border is. I should have measured the quilt top before I added the last green border, but I took it on faith that my quilt dimensions matched the directions for cutting that border. Wrong! And I know better!! 

There was no way that was going to quilt out, so I rrrrripped them back off. Put it in the corner and haven't touched it since. I'll continue to work on it, but my One Monthly Goal for the month of September will be a refreshing change. It's a pattern called Heat Wave by Karen Stone, copyright 1995, so it's an oldie but goodie.

I hand dyed a gradation of colors plus the background for this quilt, a long, loooong time ago. I spent much of my time at camp this summer working on paper piecing the blocks, and I finally finished all of the component parts. I did run out of the hand dyed yellow right at the very end, found another piece of it, and will finish up the last couple blocks. Then it's time to put it all together.

Paper plates work very well to organize all the parts. I took a class with Michelle Renee Hiatt last summer at the Maine Quilts show, and that was a suggestion from her. It works great, and I've been organizing my sewing that way ever since. You can stack 'em up and keep everything separate. Sometimes I write cutting instructions right on the plate. 

My One Monthly Goal for the month of September is to finish the top for the Heat Wave quilt.  It's doable.You can see what others are doing this month here.

One Monthly Goal for August - Reboot

Up until yesterday I was no further along on the Star Crazy quilt, but I now have the top and bottom triangle borders finished. I tried to get this quilt finished in May, didn't happen. This month for my One Monthly Goal, I'm planning (again) to finish the top and get it quilted and bound. I really should be able to get this done!!

To see what goals others have set for themselves for the month of August, click here. 

NOT part of my monthly goal is to finish the Two Step blocks. I have 24 more blocks to make, but they're quick.

Also want to make a few of these border blocks for a pineapple quilt I've been working on for ages....

....and a few of these scrappy rectangles blocks, which I've also worked on for ages. This is one of a series of scrappy one-patch quilts that I'd like to make. My Strip Tease quilts that I've made in the past also fit that criteria, all 45-degree diamonds.

For years now I've been cutting up my scraps into sizes and strips that I commonly use, and I have a big pile of these rectangles. These are cut 2" x 3-1/2". Never occurred to me until yesterday that these are perfect for leaders and enders. I can make a big pile of twosies, then sew them up into a block. They finish to 9", and I only have 20 put together so far, so I have a ways to go.

OMG for July Done

Yikes, I almost forgot to post my OMG finish for July. I actually finished this quilt, In Honor Of, my seventh Quilt of Valor, a week or so ago; but I was ramping up for Maine Quilts, so no time to write a blog post.

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

This quilt by Diane Tomlinson appeared in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine, Jan/Feb 13. The original quilt was made with Stonehenge fabrics, and I liked it so much that I bought enough to make two quilts--one to donate and one to keep.The Maine state coordinator for QOVF had a booth at Maine Quilts, so my quilt is already gone.

This one was quilted with a pantograph called Patriot, which is my standby for the quilts of valor. I haven't had much luck finding pantographs to use for these quilts that work for me, but I did come across a new one the other day with stars and crescents that I liked. Soon as I remember where I bookmarked it, I'll buy it!

I finished another top the other day, a very simple pattern called BQ2 from Maple Island Quilts. Now it's in the RTQ queue, behind the last Yankee Puzzle. Just one more.

Today I am working on these blocks from Missouri Star Quilt Co's tutorial called Two Step. I love their tutes and their BLOCK books. One of these days, I'd like to make their line up of "disappearing" quilts. Their newest one is a disappearing crazy eight block, I think, and it looks very interesting.

My summer cactus is finally blooming again. And in the summer! The flowers look almost like a double blossom, very different from the Christmas cactus--which never blooms at Christmas.

The bugs up at the lake have been horrible this summer. They adore me, so yesterday I made a 3-pound batch of Summer Soap scented with Juniper Sage fragrance oil. It's a plain white bar so nothing to see really. One field researcher swears it's the best thing to repel mosquitoes and other bugs. There should still be plenty of bugs around by the end of August when it's cured, so we'll see how well it works then.

One Monthly Goal for July

This Quilt of Valor has been hanging around the sewing room for quite a while. I got it finished and managed to get it loaded on the longarm, and there it sits. It's going to be another hectic month, so I don't want my goal to be too lofty. My goal is simply to finish this quilt. It really should be doable!

To see what goals others have set for themselves for the month of July, click below:

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal July Link-up

Still haven't finished the Star Crazy quilt. That'll probably be a reboot for OMG in August, after the craziness of quilt show is over.

Happy Fourth of July!

Pizza Box Challenge

The reveal for our quilt chapter's pizza box challenge was a few weeks ago at the last meeting of our membership year. This was my quilt, and I really like it. Every border except the first one was triangles, so I guess that was the theme, lol. I especially like border #2, with the tan background. For me, that makes the quilt.

These are the quilts I worked on during the challenge. Border #1 was my handiwork on this one.

Border #2....








Border #3....

...and Border #4.

If you're interested, you can see the rest of the challenge quilts here. 

I am not a designer, but I got through it. Probably the biggest challenge for quite a few of us was getting a border to fit when either the quilt wasn't square or the length of the sides didn't correlate to a particular block size. The quilt that I appliqued the fans on finished to 22" when I got it, which doesn't divide evenly by anything except 2. What do you do with that? I went with the applique, but during the reveal, I saw some other border ideas that would have worked equally well.

In September we'll begin a new membership year, and this year we're hoping to do a themed row by row challenge. I think that will be easier.

Goings On

My elder son is traveling today, so we spent yesterday at his home and celebrated Father's Day. It was a beautiful day, so we cooked ribs on the grill and played badminton in the back yard for a while. While we played, my granddaughter was running all over the place, trying to scoop up all the birdies, lol. She was worn out by bedtime.

Last weekend we stayed at the lake. Sunday morning the water was so still that the sky and the mountain across the lake were perfectly reflected in the water. This is the view from our living room window. I am putting together a small sewing room upstairs by the window so I can see the lake.

I found this jack-in-the-pulpit in bloom in the yard, a couple of them, in fact. Several weeks ago I found some enormous red trilliums. We must have missed the early bloomers, so I'm hoping to see some ladies' slippers next spring. 

I still haven't learned to scale back my expectations for setting goals in the sewing room, working on that, lol. Between finishing up the Yankee Puzzle quilts and the pizza box challenge, there wasn't much time left for anything else, including my project for One Monthly Goal. This Yankee Puzzle wasn't my stated goal for May, but it was my finish for the month.

I quilted this scrappy one for my friend, same pattern, different arrangement. My quilt chapter has made quite a few of these, and it's amazing sometimes how different they look.

I also finished the last round of our pizza box challenge a week ago, SO glad to get that finished. The reveal is Wednesday, and I am sure everyone is anxious to see the finishes.

Although One Monthly Goal for May was a fail for me, I did make some headway on the Star Crazy quilt. I have two more rows of half square triangles to sew for the top and bottom, then it will be smoother sailing for the last three borders, all plain.

I have started my work for Maine Quilts 2019 this month, so I knew better than to set a OMG for June. I'll chip away at it as I have the time. I am also cutting and kitting up blocks for Lori Holt's Christmas Vintage book that was just released. Looking forward to starting on that.