July stuff...

Gwen mailed her blocks to me. Max finished hers, but we haven’t gotten together yet to switch. Soon we hope. Very soon. 

This was a glass top table. I didn’t really like it. Went to the wood shed and pulled out some of the old wood there. Tractor joe did a fantastic job of putting it together and attaching it. 

Years and years ago I said “sure, I’ll take some pickets” that were in my great aunts garage. 

They received a good cleaning and scraping. Eventually they will get put up in the new location. 

Alley (Zander and Luke’s mom) fell in love with our new table top. They also had a glass top patio table. 

She didn’t like hers either.

The next day we were out getting wood to make over her table. 

I made some log cabin blocks and don’t really love them. So they are just a stack for now. 

Still using the small scraps up. I’m loving these. Still have a ways to go until it is baby quilt size. 

I’ve had this bundle of fat 8ths. I came close to opening it. But then I looked at my log cabin blocks, the pile of them continues to grow. The bundle was put back. They will be my reward for actually finishing something. 

Long Time Gone is a top. It’s ready to go to the quilter. 

Wow. I had more than I thought to post about!

barns and the temperature quilt...

When I finished all the months and laid them out, I decided just to sew them together. It is ready for a trip to the quilter. There is left over cut pieces. They might become a baby quilt. 

Now the barns....

My three barns

Max has two done! 

Gwen has two done!

Things are moving right along. 

May is moving right along...

Finished quilt pictures!

I didn’t count the blocks correctly when I laid these out on the floor. I thought I had enough for 8 by 8 house blocks. But when I started sewing the rows I discovered only 7 rows. To make the quilt longer I used progressively wider sashing between the rows. That worked and quilt has been delivered. 

Bonus triangles put together for table topper. 

Moonstruck. My nephew who grew up raising cattle will be getting married in August. They haven’t changed any plans yet. Wait and see.

This is a free Bonnie Hunter pattern. Bricks and Stepping Stones. It is this size because that is how many black and white checks I could make with my left over Moonstruck fabric. 

New project...

I have two quilting cousins. Gwen in New Mexico and Max in Minnesota. We are making a cousins quilt. We picked a barn from Farm Girl Vintage. 

We picked colors for the barn several weeks ago. Each of us will make three blocks using  our colors and any 6 inch block to fill it. My barn colors are brown, green, and pink. 

I picked the flower block for my cone flowers, the John Deere for our mowers, and the birds for the crows I need to chase away from the garbage bag when we put it out. Today is garbage day so I will be on crow patrol. My blocks came from the Farm Girl Vintage 2 book.

The bowl and spoon are Gwen’s. She makes a lot of bread. Max hasn’t had a chance to start any blocks yet. 

This will be the third summer working on Long Time Gone. It’s time to get it done. After breakfast I will look at the book and put some more pieces together. 

Or go pick rhubarb and make something. 

It is still April......

Why has April seemed so long? I’ve been putting off blogging because there was always something to do instead. Except today I planned on doing some binding. So blogging is better than binding, I guess. 

I made these yesterday. I had a choice, try out some new to me blocks or bind. These won out. In my defense, I was able to reorganize a pile of scraps. Things ended up in three boxes. Chunky scraps, skinny strips and fatter strips. 

I started with 1 3/4 cut squares with all these. Adding two more 1 3/4 strips and three 1 1/4 strips OR two each of the 1 3/4 and 1 1/4 strips and two 1 1/2 strips. There was a method to the madness, while achieving a variety of looks. They will finish at 6 inch blocks. 

I babysit about 3 days a week. Right after they called off the schools, the daycare closed. That keeps me busy. 

For the record.... I did not put Zander in the dog kennel. He did this himself. He thought it was great fun. 

I’ve been doing jigsaw puzzles too. I bought a bunch in January, at first I thought I might have over done it, but it turned out to be a smart buy.

It started with this....

I love all of them. There were more, but you get the idea. 

Moonstruck is quilted and ready for binding. We went up to Minnesota to pick it up. I prepaid for it. So when we got there I had to call and tell them I was there. Without getting near each other, they came out with this quilt, and grabbed two more that were ready for quilting. Then off she went back inside. We packed a lunch that day. We didn’t even do any drive-thru eating. We also stopped at my cousin so we could trade puzzles. 

The mini houses were put together and quilted. Ready for binding. 

This is ready for binding...

All of them will get the same black and white stripe binding. The fabric is sitting right there. I have no reason NOT to start. 

It’s way too cold and windy to mow, or transplant some things, or clean some old pickets for a fence.

So it’s best to stay inside and work on the dreaded binding. 

Heavy sigh.

One more thing. This is June July and August. Only four more months and 2019 temperature quilt with be done!

Well at least the months will be done. It isn’t clear to me how I will actually turn it into a top. I can think about that later. 

More quilt show...

The first two and very bottom picture are from the fabric challenge pack last year. Shades of gray. There were 5 inch squares and a couple fat quarters. The very top one belongs to Karen. The middle one with penguins belongs to my cousin Max. The very bottom sailboats one is mine. 

The other two are older tops that were finally finished. The log cabin goes way back, but never took a completed picture. The other is a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Double Delight. 

Block Swappers

There are 12 of us in block swappers. We met up last winter to exchange blocks. We all got these blocks to work with. 

I found them rather addictive. I made more houses. I left off the chimneys so the exchange blocks were different. 

These were mine. I think the rule was happy colors. 

This is my finished quilt at the quilt show. One last picture. Me and my cousin Max. We both made quilts from the 2016 row by row experience. They are the same but different. It’s hard to get pictures in the hallways at the quilt show. 

The temperature quilt...

This isn’t the temperature quilt, but I have 56 mini house blocks done. They need trimming. There are several triangles yet. I’m sewing flying geese with them. Not sure how it will all go together yet. Luke is here this week, while Zander is at his dads. Yesterday Luke got hold of my little plastic container that held all the dog ears from these blocks. They ended up all over the floor. We, or I should say, I cleaned that up. Luke watched. He seemed excited when I gave him the empty container to play with. 

I bought a bunch of solids. The white isn’t solid, it is just a nice size chunk I had here. It is the 30-34 degree color. Blues go cooler the warm colors are the warmer temperatures. This is the first six days of January. I wrote the names of the colors and temperature ranges. I don’t know if there is enough, that should make it easier to order more if I do run out. The months will be in columns. I was caught up in June.