a few blocks and half of '15

If you recall, I was being taunted by the
stack of fabrics and the Farm Girl Vintage pattern book
for a couple of months or more.

Yesterday I did meander over a baby quilt for a friend, 
and I'll share that another day,
but, as soon as I finished up those 
four quilt tops/works in progress of mine
(that I'd promised myself I'd do before starting something else),
I headed to the sewing room and got in my sewing fix!
Yay!!
I didn't stay there long each day,
but it was just enough to settle me down
(if you are a quilter, then you probably understand that).

I'd decided to start with the 6 inch blocks,
but I may eventually add some of the 12 inch blocks, too.

So, in four days, with just a little stitching time here and there,
I have these five blocks sewn:

So soothing, just that little bit of stitching.

Then I looked at the calendar and realized that 
it's almost the end of June already.
That's half a year gone!  
Boy, oh boy, it seems like time is flying.
Or is it only me that thinks this?
I sure had big ideas about things I wanted to accomplish this year, 
and I'm not half finished, though the year is!!
Guess I better get cracking, yes?
Focus, focus may become my mantra. :)

Hopefully, like me, 
you had some stitching/calming time this past weekend also.
Happy end of June!

Oops!

I did it again...
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Sorry to put the lyrics to the Britney Spears song 
into your head for the day,
but, I did it...
I've started another quilt project.

I think it's a problem condition that I have...
this start-another-project-thing.
(: By the way, I don't think I'm the only quilter that has the same condition. :)

I promised myself that 
I WOULD NOT START ANOTHER QUILT PROJECT until 
I had finished up some works-in-progress (WIP).

Please note the word 'until'.
 
It was a difficult few weeks, 
but because I am aware of my condition  and I'd promised myself,
I DID quilt some commission quilts;
I also started the PROMISED working-through-the WIP-stacks
on my sewing table and ironing board.

As an example of a WIP, 
I had cut out a stack of red, white, and blue tumblers last Summer.
I don't know why they were never sewn together. 
But that's the first WIP that I attacked:

After I finished piecing the quilt top, I readied the backing.

Then, I finished piecing two baby quilts  -

the one on the left for a little boy (already a month old) - it just needed the rows sewn together, and the one on the right for a little girly (that will be here in August) - (it needed it's borders):

I went ahead and prepped the backings for them.
Lastly, I finished piecing the wedding quilt
that I've had in progress for at least two years

 and made the backing for this one, too.


That is four, yes I said four!! 
quilts ready to quilt!
The tumbler flag quilt will be layered, pillow-case-turned and then quilted.
The two baby quilts and the large blue/brown star quilt will all go into my queue for BigDD, the long-arm machine. 

Which brings me to this: 

Farm Girl Vintage and my chosen fabrics
[the bundle is Sprinkles by Red Rooster Fabrics, 
across the top is mostly Swiss Dots/Riley Blake for backgrounds, 
and other fabrics (from various lines) that will be my piecing fabrics]

Like I said, :)

Oops, I did it again,  
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Hope you are getting some of your projects tackled also,
and Happy Thursday!

raining indoors and lunch with a friend

We have had rain, rain, and more rain around here.
Not as badly as some have had,
but just over 4 inches in one 24-hour period last week was plenty.

And, when it's raining indoors, you know you've had enough rain. :)

I didn't take a picture,
but I am so glad that I collect antique porcelain wash tubs...
I had e. v. e. r. y.  wash tub that I own
parked around my hearth and wood burning stove in the living room.
In between showers on Wednesday evening,
my Sweetie was on the roof,
with my warehouse-sized jumbo roll of plastic wrap.

Yes, he wrapped the chimney in plastic wrap.

(We didn't have a large enough tarp on hand.)

We were laughing at ourselves and our dilemma...

 with a ladder up to the roof edge, 

and a ladder ON the roof against the chimney, 

and the warehouse-sized jumbo roll of plastic wrap in hand

and wrapped around and around and over the chimney.  

We were laughing at ourselves, laughing at ourselves.

 

He promises that the plastic-wrapped chimney is only 

until the rain stops long enough to get a roofing guy out here 

to see what's up.  Or off.  Or something. 

The rain continued Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 
so I was still drip-catching through the weekend.
Thankfully though, not as much rain indoors those days.
 
Raining indoors day 
was supposed to be the day that I went to lunch with a friend.
We'd talked about going a week or so before,
but something came up then, so we changed it.  
Then we changed it again when it rained indoors.
Anyway, we finally made it and it was so nice and relaxing...
Good company, good food and a nice place to visit.

We lunched at the Morgan House, in Dublin, Ohio.
Morgan House is huge - with different sections that include:
restaurant, gift shop, home decor and furniture, and gourmet foods.
We were seated in the original dining section of the restaurant - the log cabin.
It truly is an old log cabin!!! - 
it was erected from the original log cabin
named after famed Civil War Veteran John Hunt Morgan.
Shortly after the Civil War, the log cabin was dismantled and reassembled on Glick Road, here in central Ohio.

This picture was taken with my phone, so not the greatest picture.
(: Or maybe operator issues :)
But hopefully you can see the original log cabin wall in the background, with a great quilt hanging on it, and yummy lunches on the table.

Thankfully, the raining indoors has ended, 
as I'd rather be stitching than catching drips. :)

Hope you are having as wonderful a start to your Summer
as I've had!

meanderings

This past week I've meandered on a couple more quilts -
this time they were Beverly's.
This first quilt that I meandered 
was her guild's 2014 Year in Blocks, pattern-a-month Challenge...

different gals within the guild designed 

a different block pattern each month.

If participants had at least one block pieced 

from the previous month's pattern, 

they got the next pattern free.

She said they could make as many blocks as they'd like from each block pattern, and put them together as desired - also part of the challenge,
so she made herself a Row by Row quilt:

Beverly added this project to this year's guild UFO-challenge-list
and it was 'picked' as her quilt to finish for July meeting,
therefore, it jumped up in my quilting rotation 
so she can get it trimmed and bound for the July meeting.
It was a fun one to quilt...
as I got to play when I meandered each row:

  I did free-motion butterflies, water,

 swirls, wood grain,

  breezy curls, sand, and others.

 Here are a couple more pictures:

I also got to meander over this gorgeous, purple floral quilt of Beverly's:

She used up some purple stash and has another UFO off her list!!
I'd say it was a good quilt-guild challenge year for Beverly!

Also makes me think I should get more motivated 
with my own UnFinished quilt Objects!!!

I did do some hand-stitching this past week, 
and had a nice lunch out with a friend - 
pics of that next time.

Hope you have an enjoyable weekend!

A great party link! Doll-quilt swap party that is

As promised, here's the link to the Doll Quilt Swap
that Lori (Humble Quilts) hosted last month:
DOLL QUILT SWAP PARTY .


It was such fun to participate!
I think that the only requirements in this swap were that
each quilt had to be under 24 inches square and be made entirely of
Civil War era reproduction fabrics.
Oh, and to be mailed by the beginning of June.

Last time I checked there were over 40 different little quilts/links,
each with the swap quilt pictured as the link.
Sooo much inspiration from quilters
from around the whole world!
If you have a few minutes (: or even an hour :) to go blog visiting,
it will be worth your time, promise!

This is the little quilt I sent off to JoAnne in Indiana:

Four-patch scraps, 17 inches square. With a  vintage salt-cellar pin cushion I made.

 and what I received from Jill:

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday!!

a little more stitching... and some cake

I worked in just a little stitching time this weekend...
it was french knot time:

It's the next letter in my work on the Gardener's Alphabet 
(a pattern by Crabapple Hill).
This one has lots (and lots and lots) of french knots, 
but I like the almost finished look.

And, the 'tropical mango' box cake mix was pretty good.

Maybe a little better the second day, 
as the mango flavor was a little stronger.
I did make my own icing, and added some lemon juice - 
my grand-mommas always added lemon juice to icing for fruity cakes, so I do also.
I'm not really an icing fan, and scrape it off the cake before I eat it,
but it keeps the cake moist until then.
I normally bake from scratch, 
but this mix cake was good and moist.

So, my review :) 
of Pillsbury's Seasonal Tropical Mango cake 
is two forks up!

Summer busyness already,

and it's not even officially Summer! 

Not just the busyness is here already, but
the four H's are here, too...
Hot,
Hazy,
Humid,
Having Summer-time fun.
The humidity, for me, makes it a little hard to breathe, so that means that little is happening outdoors around here, so it's a good excuse to have some indoor fun!

I found a yummy sounding cake mix...
I've heard that there were limited edition, seasonal, flavored cake or cookie mixes, but I've never seen them in the grocery before.  
Until last night!

Since I love mango-flavored anything,
this one will be made for Sunday family dinner.
(: Oops, didn't realize that my salad dressing photo-bombed until I inserted the pic! :)

More fun:  I meandered on one quilt for a friend - 
the pretty purple one on the left is done:

and in the right background, 
a little girly quilt I'm making that is awaiting borders and then off to the long-arm (this is the third [I believe] of five baby quilts that I need for this Summer of coming babies). 

Also fun in the past week:

I finally got these stars & nine-patches pieced 
for a wedding quilt gift,
and am now auditioning borders (2); backing is off to the right.
I've been working on this one for a while.  
More correctly:  I've not been working on this for a while,
as I cut all the pieces and sewed about half of the star blocks 
last November and then put it away.
When I got all it all back out recently, 
I didn't have enough of the light, solid corner squares 
cut for the star blocks...
but I did have extra dark squares.
(insert 'things that make you go hummmm?' here)
Reviewing what I'd sewn with the pattern instructions, 
I'd mistakenly put in light fabrics on both opposite corners of every star block I'd made.
So I had a little time spent doing some un-sewing, re-sewing, and re-pressing.
But it's finally coming together, and I'll be able to gift it, only a few years after the wedding.   Better late than never, right??  :)

Hope you are having a wonderful start to almost Summer, too!

the quilt I sent for the swap has arrived

This is the little quilt I sent to JoAnne:

Not great lighting for the picture  
(at least it stopped raining long enough for me to take an outside picture), 
but it finished at 17 inches square; 
I used some of my favorite scraps for the four-patches, 
and reproduction shirtings for the setting squares.

Because I was late in sending it off, I added a little something extra 
- a little pincushion that I made:

I made a small block with scrap fabrics, stuffed it with cotton wadding, and put it into an individual, antique salt cellar, then made a decorative pin to go in it.
The picture, below, shows a corner of  the backing of the quilt and 
one of the corner pockets (for hanging) with labeling:

(I guess that's the only shot I got of the backing that I used.)
Finally, here's a shot that shows my hand quilting just a little better:

I haven't hand-quilted in quite a while, and though I was certainly rusty, I did enjoy the hand-stitching time.  
I was down to my last hand-quilting needle 
when I started the quilting, 
so when it bent toward the end of the quilting process, 
I had to switch out to a needle that was bigger, 
and I was worried about the hand-quilting stitches 
in the center of the quilt
looking different from the outside, lastly stitched areas.  
But, JoAnne wrote on her blog that my hand-quilting stitches were
"tiny", so I guess I shouldn't have worried. :)

I so enjoyed participating in this swap again 
(thanks, Lori for coordinating over 70 quilters and the swap!).  
I didn't realize when I first was assigned JoAnne as a swap partner
that I was already a regular reader of her blog: The Patriotic Quilter.  
If you have a minute, click over to see JoAnne's blog and see the quilt that she made to swap, too.

Happy Monday!

Announcing:

arrival of the doll quilt from the swap!
Jill, from Pennsylvania, 
made the little quilt for me and I'm in love with it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you Jill!!!!

Isn't it adorable?!?
The amount of fabrics Jill used in this little quilt is astounding - 
truly like a vintage doll quilt, 
made for a little girly from the family's clothing scraps.

With our yucky weather again today,
it was hard to get a good picture of the true colors, 
but the setting squares fabric is a salmon-y pink, 
and the outside, half-triangles are a deep, chocolate brown;
the four patches are made with shirtings and fabrics of every design:   
there are keys, itsy-bitsy flowers, pins, tacks, berries, baskets, hearts, sprigs, stems, dots, and flourishes.  Also circles, squares, diamonds, stars, horseshoes and jockeys.  There are even roosters with little tossed feathers!  
(In her note, Jill said she doesn't know why, but she always puts a piece of fabric with a chicken in each quilt she makes - isn't that great?)  

The backing fabric she used
 
is a beautiful vintage-looking, golden stripe with salmon flowers.
 And to top off all of that?  It's hand quilted with what looks to be a variegated pink thread (you may be able to see the excellent hand-quilting if you enlarge the photo).

Just beautiful.  I already have it on my old Singer sewing machine used as a stand, that sits beside my stitching chair, and it's perfect there - like it was made specifically for that space.

Jill packaged the little quilt in a fat quarter of beautiful green fabric, tied with a flourish-printed selvedge, and in the package was a sweet card, a PA-made chocolate bar 
(: of which I've already eaten at least half :) 
and a little 2 1/2 inch charm pack of Jelly Bean - 
a fabric line by Laundry Basket Quilts. 

I am so thankful to Jill for all of her time and love she put into making this quilt, and for all of the extras she stuffed into the envelope to send to me.

It was another wonderful 'swap' to participate in and I thank Lori (of Humble Quilts ) for hosting again!  I think there will be a link-y party on Lori's blog soon, to let all 70 people who participated share their little quilts from the swap.  I'll share it when it's available.

Happy Thursday, and thanks for visiting!

the little quilt I sent for doll quilt swap #2

I admit,
I was a day late in sending my little doll quilt for the swap.
I finished it late evening on the last day of May -
the day it was to be in the mail.
It was cold and rainy and cloudy all day on the first of June
and I needed to get a picture of it before it left to go to it's new home.
So, between showers, I ran outside to try to get a picture of it.
A picture with a little more lighting than inside the house was offering.
After shooting about 25 pics, this is the best I could come up with:

 I do have a couple of close-up shots to share after it's received by my swap partner.

The swap was hosted by Lori of Humble Quilts blog.  It was so much fun to participate again.  My thanks to Lori for all of her work.