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.