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.