name change possible.....

This is not my finest hour. This quilt is coming out so-so.
After I had this much sewn together...
I noticed it....
the cow is crooked.
That hasn't stopped me. I am still working on it. I could always start calling it Down on the Farm with a Crooked Cow.

It is in my newer machine. The one that I do any quilting on. I save the simple piecing for my old Montgomery Ward, and I mean old. It is about 28 years old now. I wonder if any one would want to see that one?

Not many have entered my giveaway. Let's see traffic on the blog could be slow. Really slow. Or most people do a "jackie" and just look at the pictures.
There is still about 48 hours to enter!!

paint and an extra block......

I got out the paint this morning and printed out some words to make a border for one lonely block I had. It is finished now, right up to the binding. I don't enjoy binding. This is a stall tactic.

First......... an up close look...it seems to capture the colors best. Now there are three choices for the binding.
A safe tone on tone reddish color. I picked this out on Saturday. I plan on using it for the border on my Down on the Farm quilt. It would look nice here too....

Then there is the bright green. It is not as light as looks on the left, but not as dark as it looks on the right. I would say it is in the family of lime greens.

The last choice is that stripe I never would have bought if Karen hadn't said something when we were at the quilt shop.

The whole thing measures just under 12 x12 inches square. Now here is the deal. I am going to give this away. To be in my drawing, all you need to do is pick out the binding you like best. Then comment or email me your pick. When I pick the name (or tractor joe actually will do the picking)...I will bind it with the winners choice and send it to them. You do not need to advertise this on your blog (if you have one)....in fact it is better not to. The less people who enter, the better your chance. It is kind of a secret giveaway. Let's see....how much time should I allow for picking out binding?

You have till Sunday, June 13...of this year. What time? hmmm.....Let's say 3:00 pm in the afternoon, my local time. You do not need to be living in North America to win.

frolic and what I learned.....

This was my first charm pack. I bought it a couple months back.
I really wasn't sure what to do with it.
I knew I wanted to use as much of the fabric as possible.
I learned there is block that would do this, it is called Electric Fan.
I took the 5 inch squares in stacks of 4. Cut them in an X and arranged them into the block.
I learned that I should have read the directions in the book for this block. (Around the Block with Judy Hopkins) It took me a couple blocks to see that every quarter was exactly the same, just turned 90 degrees each time.

Things went so much faster when I figured that out.

I learned that I can use prints all together. I have watched Karen do it all the time....and her things look so cool..... I finally tried it myself.
It looks like summer to me....like it is happy.

It takes 36 squares from the charm pack to make this quilt.

Then there is the binding.

I learned that is wise to take Karen shopping...
As I stood there in the fabric shop looking at the Frolic fabrics...not having a clue as to which ones to buy for the corner stones and binding..... Karen came over and said,

"I like striped binding."
"You mean like this ugly stripe?"

"Yah"
Oh boy. What to do, what to do??

I love her striped bindings. They really add something to her quilts. So I took a deep breath and grabbed the stripe for binding, along with some SAFE solids.

I learned that I have a new love for striped fabric.

setting triangles....

The pattern for Down on the Farm, calls for plain setting triangles.
But the other day during that magical second cup of coffee,

I started thinking....

Do I need to have plain pieces of tan?
What else could I put in there?
Flying geese?
What about a checker board pattern?
My first thought was black and white, but I don't have enough black around here.

What do I have?
I looked and found some blue. So far I am loving this, even if it is rather bold.
I also added black fabric to my shopping list.

what next....

School finished yesterday.
I came home, watched some soaps,
then got busy.
I changed the needle in my machine and started cutting up a Frolic charm pack.
This is what I ended up with................

I don't love these blocks. They are busy and brighter in person. So I am just not sure what to do next. They need to sit and rest....then my brain will calm down too.
The very last idea I had was to put summer wonky words around it for the border and light sashing between all the blocks.

breezeway and the quilt so far....

I keep forgetting to show these before and after of the breezeway.
For several years this is what it looked like in there...
the ugly blandex was gone,
but now it was....
pink styrofoam insulation
and exposed 2 x 4's.... The new paneling went up and it looks SO MUCH better!
I posted about the Oliver light going in there, but never the walls.
Now the back door REALLY looks bad with its peeling paint.
That will be a summer project, repaint the door.

I took a picture of the page with Cutting Garden.
This may or may not be my next project.

But first, I need to work on finishing down on the farm.

The flowers are all ready to go....

this is going to be big for a small quilt, 35 x 51.

The pattern calls for a 1/2 yard of fabric to make setting triangles. As luck would have it,

our quilt shop in Forest City is having a 12 year anniversary sale this weekend!

Karen and I have made plans to head over there!!

more flowers...

I can't get a decent picture of the calendar quilt....
so this will have to do.

It is actually done and on the wall in the basement.
Then I did some more flowers for Down on the farm.
Slow but sure, I am getting them done.

I have enjoyed making these flowers.

There is another quilt in the book that is all flowers, I might do that one too.