A Finish, A Road Trip (with a blogger meet-up), and Guild Stuff

 Settler's Puzzle is finished!

So happy to have this completed. It was not the oldest UFO in my quilt closet or cupboard, but it was started 12 years ago in a class with Pam Buda, so it is good to have it ready to put on a bed. That is exactly what I did with it when we got to our daughter's house in Eugene, Oregon. I even took a couple of photos of it perfectly centered on the twin bed. Now they are nowhere to be found in my photo storage. Go figure!

We try to get to the coast when in Oregon, if at all possible. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed a few hours of the sand and sunshine.

No one enjoys it more than my granddaughter!

And just in case some of you are wondering, I DID get my toes in the water.

After a lovely week in Oregon, we headed for home, but took one brief detour to McMinnville. That is the home of Ruth, the blogger at Country Log Cabin blog. She has talked of a quilt shop there on occasion, and we finally had time to swing through the beautiful countryside to reach Boersma's. Ruth met me there.

She immediately felt like an old friend, and we chatted as I did a very quick job of shopping, and checking out. Our visit was shorter than I would have preferred, but we had a Zoom meeting we had to make at our hotel that night, and we still had to drive across the state. Thank you, Ruth, for taking the time to meet me, and for bringing lovely, handcrafted gifts. It was such a pleasure to finally give you a hug, and see your stomping grounds, after years of following each other's blogs.

In Guild meeting last month, 4 of us brought our "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" quiltlets, from Pam Buda's Vintage Patchwork book. 

These each finish at 10 1/2". Mine is in the upper right corner. I actually got it quilted and bound. I love seeing the variety achieved with fabric choices, when each of us used the same pattern.

Tammy shared what she did with 10 vintage Dresden Plate blocks.

So clever the way she made up for a difficult number of blocks to work with by using blank blocks in two opposing corners, and quilting them as though the Dresden Plates were there. 

Tammy is heading off soon for a two year mission in Africa. We will miss her, but she will be amazing.

Our guild project for May, from Vintage Patchwork, is "Wives and Daughters".  I love the book, and the BBC production. I didn't want to miss out, even though I will not be able to attend the meeting when we share them, due to leaving the country for a little adventure. I mostly followed the pattern. Just did my own thing with color placement. This finishes at approximately 6 3/4" x 8 3/4". Just a tiny thing.

Purples often find a home in my quilts, so I just had to share this gorgeous collection from Heartspun Quilts (Pam Buda), called Plumberry Farm.

What I have always loved about Pam's collections is that they look like you have been collecting the fabrics for a long time. They don't all have the same undertone, or coordinating prints. It looks like you have been collecting, not just buying a collection. Good job, Pam! :)

I'll end with a little video I took on a walk to the bottom of the family farm last month. You will see and hear sandhill cranes and Canada Geese, and hear peacocks from the neighboring farm. You will also see a fox slinking in and out of the picture. I hope it works for you. But don't try to watch full screen, or it will be blurry. I took this with the full zoom on my phone. Enlarging it doesn't do you any favors.

That's all for now. Until next time,

Be creative and be kind!

Janet O.

Village Dry Goods and Pam Buda UFOs

I've spent a lot of time at Village Dry Goods lately (the quilt shop over the mountain). I've been to their "ChitChat, Finish That" days in March and April, and I also went to their 2-day UFO retreat in March.

Here is what I have to show for all of those sewing days, and a few snatches of sewing time at home. And as I wrote this post, I realized that everything I have to share was designed by Pam Buda. She has designed beautiful quilts over the years!

This is Pam's Pattern, "Every Little Bit", that was in the June 2015 APQ magazine, but I started it in 2021. When I was posting this, I checked and found a couple of copies of the magazine on Amazon, and a few on eBay, if you are interested.

There are two more vertical rows in the pattern, and then a couple of borders. Since taking this photo, I have completed two blocks for the next row. Also, I'll note that Pam designed it with 2 different designs in the cornerstones, alternating every other one. I opted to stick with just one. 

                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    At the Village Dry Goods UFO Retreat, I completed Row 4, and Fran (shop owner) thought it deserved to be modeled. :)             

At the VDG class I attended where Pam taught in 2024, we worked with these patterns shown below. I have already made the upper right design (see previous post), and I started on the lower one (Stargate) at a previous ChitChat day, only to realize that when I cut out all the pieces for every block, I cut something wrong. I corrected the problem before the UFO retreat, and I got this far with it. I am making every star in a muted Fall color--each a different fabric.

This Pam Buda design below was 12 years in the making, for me. It is called "Settler's Puzzle" and I started it in a VDG class with Pam back in January 2014. It was February of 2021 when I finally finished the top, and it had been hanging in my sewing room closet ever since.

Then recently there was a need in my family for a twin size quilt, in a hurry. I hadn't planned on adding another border to this, but to bring it close to a twin bed size, that's what I had to do. I happened to have enough left of the gold fabric, so I stitched it on, and had my quilter give it an edge-to-edge design, but with a border design in that outer border. (The colors at the bottom of the above photo are more true.)

This gives you a better idea of the quilting. I am currently halfway through the binding process (using the green fabric), so it should be finished before it gets too hot to have a quilt over my lap.

This last project is from Pam Buda's book "Vintage Patchwork". Every one of the 12 little projects in this book can be made from one layer cake of fabric. There is even a cutting guide included, so you make sure you can fit them all within those 10" squares.

This one is named "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". Each of the quilts is named for a classic book of literature, or a title character from such a work. I read "Tess" once in high school and once in college, and I loved it. I tried to read it many years later and I found it very depressing. 

The edges on this look wavy because I have just pinned the binding to the back and I still need to stitch it down. This is 10 1/2" square. I just used leftover HSTs from 2 other projects.

Our guild members each have this book of Pam's, and we have been making a different project each month. It has been fun.

I bought myself a new toy tool at the UFO Retreat. It is lovely and practical--my favorite kind of tool. This is a beautifully crafted, weighted clapper. I drooled over them the first day, but thought I would pass. Then I tried one, and knew I wanted one. Working with tiny pieces as much as I do, it can often be difficult to get the seams to flatten, even with a regular clapper. But this weighted clapper does an amazing job, and looks amazing while doing it.

That is the natural wood colors, not stains or dyes--even that purple wood. It is Purpleheart wood. There is Redheart wood in some of his other designs. This is 3 1/2" x 13 7/8".

These are made by a man who lives in my valley, but are sold exclusively through Village Dry Goods. The photo below shows a few more designs on their shelves. There are more coming because they are trying to stock up for Shop Hop coming up later this month.

Pretty cool, aren't they? It can be hard to choose a favorite. I wish you could see every design, but they are stacked in front of each other.

I will end with the beautiful bouquet-of-the-month for March, from my daughter. (April's bouquet comes this weekend.)

And I cannot close without a sunset, because there have been so many beautiful ones lately. This was earlier this week as I walked over to my sister-in-law's to drop something off. Taken from their driveway. They also live here on the family farm.

Flowers and sunsets are two of the things that calm my soul. I hope you are finding time for whatever does that for you!

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.