A little late to the party, it seems

I pre-ordered (in mid February)
the book Farm Girl Vintage when I saw a preview.

The author, Lori Holt (Bee In My Bonnet blog),
shared that she would have a sew-along the beginning of May.
I knew right then that I wanted to join in!
(I work better with the accountability of a sew-along - 
that's my story and I'm sticking with it :)


In early April, my order said 'allocated', 
but didn't ship for some reason. 
Had to await the next incoming stock arrival 
so it could be re-allocated, then shipped to me.  
A glitch in the system, I was told.  
(To be clear, it wasn't the author's fault, but my supplier.) 
But, all that means is that 
I wanted to start the sew-along on May 1st -  
but without the book, I'm BEHIND.
Behind, and I haven't even begun!!  :)

Now that the book is finally here, and I've drooled all over it,
I've decided it was worth the wait!
I love that it has 45 block patterns!, all so adorable,
and each comes in two sizes
so you can choose which size you want to do... 
or just do them all!  
I love how the book is already spiral bound,
AND there's also a cover that folds over the spiral binding 
(so it doesn't get stuck on other books on the shelf).

Now that I do have my book, 
I'll start pulling some fabrics this week
and maybe try to get caught up with the sew-along.
Decisions, decisions.
So many block patterns, so many quilts, too many CUTE options.

There is no pressure, of course; 
as Lori Holt says:
"You are the boss of your own quilt." 

 Are any of you folks going to join in the Sew-Along?

friends:

There are so many words that describe 

the wonderful women that are in our lives:

(whether or not you are a Momma,)

I hope it's a beautiful day for you!

skip Spring, jump to Summer

Is is just me, or did we again skip Spring?
If I recall correctly,
the weather (here, in Ohio at least) was like this last year, also.
The sweet smell of  warm, Spring showers,
and gentle breezes changed almost overnight
to Blazing with a capital B-hot, humid, June Bugs-buzzin' May.

I am NOT turning my air conditioning on 
one week after the furnace last ran!

So, more important, quilty things:
I've quilted a little this past week...
First, I did a customer quilt that I can't share yet, 
because I haven't met up with the customer to make delivery.

Second, I did get one of my (five needed) baby quilts 
done except for quilting in the name and birth date.

I was able to gift it at the baby shower!,
then I brought it back home with me to await the baby's birth info.

Looking at the pictures, I see that I also need to do the binding. :)
Can you see the un-quilted area in the bottom, center, above?
That's where I plan to stitch in the baby's birth date and name.

As you can tell, I again went with my 
new favorite go-to pattern- 
16-patch/X-block layout (aka Good Night Irene).
(I love this pattern for it's scrappy-ness and ease of piecing... 
I think it makes GREAT Eye Spy quilts.)

Also, don't know if you can tell, but the
setting fabric that I used this time is different (to me),
it's a 'Grunge' fabric...
white with a patchy, subtle overlay of blue and green 
that is almost dry-brushed looking areas of color.
I've not used this fabric before, but would definitely use it again.

So, looking back, it doesn't seem like much accomplished for 
a week, but, I've also stitched on my Gardener's Alphabet blocks,
and have only 11 more letters of the alphabet to do.  Hoping it
will be off the UFQ list soon!

Hope your week was grand, also! 
with or without the furnace or air-conditioning.

One of these things

is not like the others.
One of these things just doesn't belong... 
Do you remember that Sesame Street song?

Well, I sure did after I pressed my strawberry blocks!

I have all of the blocks made for my quilt-y gift!
As I pressed each strawberry block, I put it off to the side.
And I didn't even notice UNTIL it was 
off to the side that one was definitely different.

I had purposefully sewn the 'stem and leaf' sections
with some of the leaves going left and others going right.
But do you see the strawberry on the right-hand side in the above picture?
That's an Oops.  

Who knows why I didn't notice that the stem and leaf section was upside down??

It was a quick fix.  And I'm glad that I noticed it before all the blocks were sewn together and quilted!

But that song's been stuck in my head all day.
I know I'll be humming it to put myself to sleep.

May Day

Another May day already!










Time to find some unsuspecting folks 
and drop off some little flower bouquets on their doorsteps!
I have lots of daffodils and grape hyacinth right now
so I'll share those. 
Does anyone else leave May Day baskets anymore?

Also, I've seen the first arrivals of the hummingbirds back in my garden!
That's always exciting to me
catching them flitting around the flowers and shrubs.

This week, I've been working on another UFQ,
stitching together some little, seven inch pot-holder blocks

that I've had finished for a year or more.
(I'm afraid to check to see how long they've really been a work in progress!)
Thinking more on it, I know I started making them 
as take-along samples when I was teaching at
the local reproduction fabric shop... 
so I guess it's probably more like they are two year old UFQ's.
Anyway, after finishing the bindings, 
can you see (above) that I have them safety-pinned into place
and readied for whip-stitching together?
I have a couple of groups of them stitched together and they are table topper sized.
I may, though, stitch the small table-toppers into one bigger quilt.  
Haven't decided yet.

I have my day dedicated to finishing a little boy's quilt 
for a baby shower this weekend...
I'm using my new favorite go-to pattern: 
X-blocks with 16-patch blocks,
(also known as Good Night Irene...)
as it makes a good Eye Spy, I think.
Which is great for little kids.
And great for using more stash & scraps!

I'm off to stitch;
Hope your weekend is wonderful, and
that you, too, can do a little stitching.
Or playing in the garden flowers!

slow stitching, three years slowly

It's all about perspective.

If you've read my blog over the past half year or more, 
I've been holding down my lazy-girl chair a lot,
slowly recuperating.
I've also been doing some red-work embroidery stitching
on The Gardener's Alphabet quilt blocks.

The Gardener's Alphabet is a Crabapple Hill pattern that I just love. 
(: I love so many of Meg's Crabapple Hill patterns that I'll never finish all of them that I'd like to do, but I may start them!... more on that later :)

I've had the last half of the alphabet traced and crayon-tinted for a long time
(Yes, I started at the end of the alphabet, not the beginning).
I can't believe it, but three years I've had this one going!!
I even went back and checked the time-period, 'cause I couldn't believe it's been that long!
Now I have the letters M/n and P blocks stitched!
I'm so excited!
The letter O- Ox eyed daisy is in my embroidery hoop now,
and the next letter I have readied is Q- Queen Anne's lace, 
so a lot of french knots coming, I know.
But that means that it's been three years and I 
have the quilt half stitched!
That also means that I only have 3 more years working on this one!! :)

I don't have any blocks pressed yet as they are just going back into a work basket and will re-wrinkle during the next three years while I continue stitching the remaining blocks.  The close-up photos look better than the far shots (which show the wrinkling more than the stitching).

And finally, here's the 'more on that later':
It's not a UnFinished Object!
It's a six year plan of attack!
So, plenty of time to start more of the CAH quilts that I love!!!  lol

I've heard confirmation from other quilters, 
who've said that a six-year, 
hand-stitching embroidery project is a good plan,
not unheard of at all.

See? Perspective!

What are your slow stitching, six-year quilt plans? :)

a little meandering last week

Little by little, I'm building up quilting-steam again
and thank everyone for the well-wishes sent my way.
(Med#5 seems to be working without causing too many ill side-effects,
and thankfully, all test results were negative or benign.)  
I know I'm feeling better, as I have even, 
over the course of the last couple of weeks,
done some meandering!

Here is Bev's quilt that I got to meander over:
(warning - book store head-turn :)

(I don't know why it won't turn right-side up - sorry!)
Bev is in a quilt guild and signed up for the guild's UFQ challenge.
The challenge?  
To list and sequentially number six Unfinished quilts.
Each month of the six month challenge, 
a die would be rolled and the number that turned up
would specify the quilt that would be the next month's 
challenge to finish.
She said:  that of course, the first month the die was rolled, 
her challenge was to finish a quilt that was just blocks in a box!! :)
She had no other fabrics, borders or layout chosen, 
just a box of twelve, pieced blocks from a mystery done a few years ago.

She got right to work and found a piece of stash yardage that had barns on it and decided to incorporate that.  Then she found a border fabric of roses that worked with her pieced block's fabric colors.
Good choices, weren't they?

Her request to me for quilting was to do anything I wanted,
but asked, please, if I'd not quilt over the barns.
Here are a few of the barns and what I came up with for quilting:

In the pics, you can see how I quilted in the pieced blocks, and in the last two pics, you can see the border's quilting also.  The barn fabric itself had just a little foreground design printed, and most of the blocks had clouds printed, so I just added what I thought would be more foreground and scenery.
It was a fun one to quilt and felt good to get back to meandering!

As I finished it up by trimming threads, I remembered: 
I think I have a piece of that Barn fabric...somewhere!  
Now to just come up with some pieced blocks to go with it! lol

I'm off to look through the stash for barn fabric! :)

Thanks for visiting and
Happy Stitching!