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.

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.

It's A New Year...

... and migosh, it's already February. Time moves so quickly these days. Last year was an extraordinarily busy year for me. Staying busy with the family accounts for much of that time, but I also worked two quilt shows during the summer and fall, and then the holidays. There simply are not enough hours in the day.

And soapmaking. I spend more time reading about soap than I do about quilting. I took a couple of adult ed classes in January and February last year and learned how to make cold process soap. I've been hooked ever since. I make it on a small scale for family and friends, and I really like experimenting with all the different ingredients you can add to soap. I've added body butters and lotions to my repertoire, and my extremely dry skin is so much better for it this winter.

This past Christmas, my son indicated he wanted to learn; so I bought him all the tools and some reference material; and he's as hooked as I am. Now my daughter-in-law has gotten in on the act, and my younger son told me yesterday he wants to learn too. I'm lovin' it.

This is a lovely batch of orange-scented soap with some marigold petals on top that I cut last week. I'm anxious to use it, and I wish I didn't have to wait for it to cure for four weeks. 

I managed to finish 12 quilts last year, some of which were in the works for quite a while. All of the ones featured in the last post, which was from May of last year, were completed. Nothing like commitment to display at a quilt show to motivate, and here are the others I finished last year.

Jungle Blooms was my first effort making a One Block Wonder quilt, from Maxine Rosenthal's book of the same name. I really enjoyed making this, and I absolutely love how it turned out. Can't wait to make another one. The cutting and piecing are not difficult, and moving the blocks around to create a design was absorbing.

I quilted it with something that looked like a palm frond, which I thought appropriate for the theme.

I was very happy indeed to finish Twisted Ribbons. I don't know how many times I blogged about it, and it dragged on and on. Decided it was time to knuckle down and get it finished, and it went in our chapter show in October.

Farm Girl Sampler from Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet was a fun quilt to make, but it definitely wasn't a quick quilt. All the blocks were made with rotary cutting instructions, no templates or applique; so some of them took a bit of time to make. I've already purchased Lori's newest book of sampler blocks, Vintage Christmas, and looking forward to getting started on that one.

Lori designed additional blocks that were not in the original quilt, so I subbed out the house for the cow block. There's a barn and a milking pail in the quilt, so I thought, why not?

I don't knit much anymore, but I was happy to include the sheep anyway.

I was also happy to see Lori included a spool block. The gingham plaid is cute enough to make a whole quilt with. Lori's book had quite a few other projects in it besides the sampler quilt, and blocks were all included in two sizes. There is so much you could do with these blocks.

This year will be another year with multiple charity quilts, and some golden oldies for a chapter UFO Challenge. This Quilt of Valor is from a kit that the state rep gave me to work on last October. The ribbon border was a pain but worth the effort. I've been trying to make time to get it loaded for quilting, but that hasn't happened yet... I've finished a few other tops that are also in the RTQ (ready to quilt) pile, and you'll see those eventually; but the Quilt of Valor is the next one I need to push to finish.

Catching Up to July

I've been busy the last three months, but I can't even remember what I've been doing. Except, that, in May, I got myself involved with the state quilt show; and that has tied up an amazing amount of my time the last two months.

My granddaughter turned a year old last month, and we've spent as much time with her as we could. We also made a trip down to Maryland for a nephew's graduation. Thankfully, it wasn't too awfully hot, but I was still happy to get back to Maine weather. It's been a very nice summer here so far.

One thing is for sure, it's been kind of a dry year for quilting and knitting for me. I got exasperated with the 365 Challenge when it began to take up all my quilting time and I didn't have time to sew anything else. I am still collecting and printing out the blocks, and if it takes me three years to finish them, so be it.

I did finish up the last of the Farm Girl Vintage blocks but don't have the top together yet.

In April, Leslie Muir Volpe, a Maine artist who specializes in miniature quilts, did a workshop for my quilt chapter. I love minis and have been making them for years; even still, I learned a few new tricks from Leslie.

Our project for the workshop was Charming Churn Dash, and five of us finished ours by the next meeting. I am in the middle!

I put the workshop information to good use for this little sampler for a quilt chapter challenge. The quilt will finish at 24" square and contain 23 blocks in sizes 3", 6" and 9". The feathered star is the last block I have to finish before I can sew them all together.

The quilt has to be finished and turned in on July 19, so I don't have much time left. Nothing like waiting til the last minute, is there? lol

I put the last stitch into the binding just this morning on Neptune's Hexagons. As so often happens to me, I didn't like it when I was working on it, but now I do. Too late, I already promised it to my dear DIL.

It was constructed from a jelly roll plus background and borders.

Credit where credit is due: "Jelly Girl" by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree & Co.

I like the back of this quilt as much as or more than the front of it. It looks modern to me (and I know Nothing about modern), and I love the mixed up colors in the hexagons.

I wish I had had enough fabric to make the hexagons blocks all the way across, but I only had the one jelly roll, and I used every scrap of it. I did a progression thing, you know, 6 wedges, 5 wedges, 4 wedges and so on in the hexagons, but I'm not sure anyone understands it but me. My husband looked at it and wanted to know what was wrong with the blocks at the end. Sigh.

 

One bad thing--when I was squaring up the quilt after machine quilting it, I found a pin sticking out of the back of the quilt--not once, but twice. I use those flowerhead pins, and the flowerhead was lodged inside the quilt. Luckily, in both cases, it was close to the seam in the backing, so I was able to pick out a little bit of the seam, remove the pin, and stitch it back up.

No idea how those pins got left inside the quilt, never happened to me before. Isn't that your worst nightmare, to give someone a quilt and discover there are pins in it.

Farm Girl Vintage Weeks 16 and 17

I thought I already posted the first set of these Farm Girl Vintage blocks, but no. I'm finding it challenging to keep track of much of anything these days, just too darn much going on in my world. 33/45 blocks finished now, the end is in sight! I've ruled out the idea of enlarging the quilt, otherwise I might not get much else done this year, between the FGV blocks and the 365 blocks!

Farm Girl Vintage Friday, Weeks 13 to 15

We left Friday morning to go to my son's to spend the weekend caring for my little granddaughter. My son worked, and my daughter-in-law wanted to see a friend off down in Connecticut, so we had Baby Girl all to ourselves during the days. She stayed with us last weekend, so we were pleased to have her two weekends in a row this month.

I think I got a week out of sequence somewhere with the Farm Girl Vintage blocks; but no matter, I finished these four blocks the week before last...there's the Milking Day block that goes with the Cow block I made earlier...

...and these are the blocks for Week 15, which was last week. No way did I have 30 different 30s repros for the pumpkin block, so I repeated a few fabrics and threw in some other orange fabrics I had--to include one with a pair of scissors, and one with Mr. Potato Head, lol. I like the idea of a little surprise here and there.

Well over halfway through the blocks and border flying geese units now. I'm toying with the idea of making this quilt large enough to fit on a double bed, but I'll figure that out later.

FGV Friday, Weeks 12 and 13

I was gone from the house five days in a row a week and a half ago, so lots of things didn't get done. These blocks are from week 12 of the 2015 Farm Girl Vintage quiltalong on Lori's website. Haven't done the blocks from last week yet, nor this week's, so I'll have to try and finish four blocks before this coming Friday.

We had a nice little warm up in central Maine this week, so much of the three feet of snow we had on the ground has melted. Happy to see some grass, but hate seeing the dirty snow all along the sides of the road from the salt and sand. Spring is coming!

Farm Girl Vintage Friday Weeks 10 and 11. . . And A Finish

With these daily and weekly blocks, miss a day and you're way behind before you know it. Today ends Week 11 of my personal Farm Girl Vintage Quiltalong, and the blocks from the last two weeks are all done now. I'm not really fond of gingham, but I did really like the Gingham block from last week, it makes me smile.

I also finished a small Bricks quilt (pattern by Tracy Kincheloe) for my granddaughter on the last day of January (had to get a finish in for the month!). It's freshly washed and all crinkled up nice and soft. We were hoping to have her up this weekend, but we just had a big nor'easter come through Maine yesterday, and there is more snow predicted over the weekend. Don't want to take her on the highway in snow and bitter cold, so we'll have to wait.

The pantograph I used reminded me of a four leaf clover with hearts inside the leaves. I sorta figured that, with the way our world is going today, our grandkids will need all the luck and love they can get. The pantograph is from Willow Leaf Studios and is called Hearts, Etc from Lisa Thiessen.

Farm Girl Friday

I first became aware of the Farm Girl Vintage quilt at our quilt show last October. One of our chapter members completed one and entered it in the show, and I liked it soon as I saw it. I bought the book and soon after found Lori's website and a FGV Quiltalong she did in 2015. Her quiltalong consisted of a weekly Friday post about two of the blocks in the quilt, an occasional construction tip, and sometimes one or more alternate projects, like smaller quilts, pillows, aprons, and so on.

For the last two months, I've been sharing the links with our chapter members and working on the blocks. So far I've finished 15/48 blocks and 39/106 flying geese for one of the borders. Some of the blocks are pretty easy, some are more challenging. I'm making the quilt with 30s repros and using as many of my scraps as I can. I've added the sashing to just the first block right now. Here are the other blocks I've made.

The Milk Cow block is not in the book, but there's a Milk Day block, so I decided I needed a cow to go with it. I purchased the pattern separately from Lori's website. Definitely a challenge but worth the effort. Very cute!

We had Baby Girl last weekend for three delightful days. She's seven months old now and such a good baby, always smiling.