Robots Welcome!

Well, maybe not welcome, but you don't have to prove you aren't one in order to leave a comment!

As you can see, I have most of the Rocky Mountain Christmas (aka Smoky Mountain Stars) flimsy assembled. I am down to borders and wondering if I want to square up all of the little bonus HSTs created in the making of this quilt and slip them in between two of the cranberry colored borders. They are 1 1/2" unfinished. What do you think? I've put the few I have finished on opposite sides of the quilt in different layouts. The original pattern has the two plain borders.
Squaring up all of these little HSTs is not fun, I don't know about you, but on the tiny blocks like this the seam just seems to make a teeter-totter out of the ruler and it is so hard to hold it stable. I'm okay on the larger blocks--the bigger surface area allows more contact, or something. I had seen the Bloc-Loc rulers online before, and it seemed that they would solve the problem. Sandi has posted about them on her blog here, and I thought it was something I wanted to try. Then Bonnie posted about it here. There is a channel cut into them that you place over the center seam. It does kind of lock in place and make the job much easier.

They are kind of pricey for such little things and then to pay shipping besides, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But when I started considering doing all of these little HST I knew I would be playing teeter-totter again. So I was excited to find that my LQS now carries the Bloc-Loc rulers. They are still pricey, but at least I avoided shipping!

I have had fun playing with my new toy (I have GOT to choose a name!) this week and got my version of Pink Lemonade quilted.

I've played with the name for this one and "Flies in the Mustard" is settling in, I think. I used the Handi Quilter 2" clamshell template to do this. There is a learning curve to get used to it. Masking tape helped hold it securely in place. If you look closely you will see some misshapen shells in the finished product, but I think if you aren't looking for them they don't jump out at you. I unpicked the worst ones, but there are some that I am leaving in place.

Some fun mail lately--I got this LOVELY PURPLE PLAID cotton shirt from Doniene at Now It's Just Quilts blog. What a treat. She knows I am making The Farmer's Wife from plaid shirts and she knows I love purple. Oh, I love this fabric. Thanks again, Doniene. I owe you one!

Then Randy at Barrister's Block blog generously DONATED (she said dumped, but I don't consider this a dump) half of her Christmas scraps to my second set of the FW blocks which I am making in Christmas scraps. This is more than scraps, Randy--this is a prize package! I owe you, too.

Finally, I know many of you follow Judy L. over at Patchwork Times, so you have probably seen this new book. I have her Weekend Quilts book and I think it was her clever border treatments that really drew me in. So when I saw that she had a book devoted to borders I immediately put it on my Amazon wishlist. I checked local shops, but couldn't find it, so I finally ordered. Got it today and it is a great source for border inspiration! It includes 15 quilt patterns, which in and of themselves are fun layouts. But each quilt is paired with 4 different border options. The title doesn't lie--60 borders in all! How cool is that? And there are instructions on how to adapt the borders to any quilts. Judy uses primarily bright tone-on-tone prints for her quilts. Those are not my fabrics of choice, but lets face it--a beautiful quilt is a beautiful quilt, no matter your fabric preferences, and Judy makes beautiful quilts made all the more beautiful by her creative borders. This is a keeper! Check it out! No affiliation, I just appreciate a job well done!

Lots of random stuff in this post. If you stayed with me, thanks! 

Until next time, 

Janet O.

A Plethora of Projects

(I love the word plethora.)
When I was making Lori's "Pink Lemonade" I made a few extras of the red Shoo-fly blocks. I needed a runner for my hutch to blend in with the Valentine's Day decor, so I pulled out those little blocks, made a couple more, and put this together.

I will call this one Raspberry Lemonade.

I think I want to quilt the center with the paisley heart design I saw on LuAnn's blog. She was kind enough to send me the link to Leah Day's tutorial for this design. I will bind it with the red I used in the setting squares.

I finally quilted my Itty Bitty Primitive Pinwheels. The one at the LQS was quilted in a straight line grid and I couldn't see a better way to do it. You can see the pattern more clearly on the back. 

My lines aren't perfectly straight, but it will do. Now I need to choose a binding and get it finished. I already have a home for it. For Christmas my oldest son gave me a shelf unit he knew I wanted for my sewing room. Can you see the picture sitting on top?

Next to the shelves is the cabinet to my Mom's 60-year-old Bernina.
 I can see that I need to trim the dangling threads from those flimsies
hanging above the shelves!

That was a gift many years ago from my youngest daughter. I love it, but have never had a place to display it that I felt did it justice. Now I do and I want this little pinwheel mat to go beneath it.

This picture is a print of "Hands of Time" by Liz Lemon Swindle. I love her artwork. Enlarge it and get a good look.

Rocky Mountain Christmas is coming along. It is still kind of a background project. Mentally I have divided it into 12 sections, and I have 4 of them assembled. 

I take one section, put it on my largest design board and take it to the cutting table. I trim up any corners that didn't turn out as straight as they should have and then take it all to the sewing machine. I web this section, sew the rows together and place it back on the wall. All of this takes very little time, so when I have a few minutes and don't want to think too hard about what I am doing I work up another section.

I'm in the cutting stage of another quilt. I've decided to make another Primitive Gatherings Picnic Quilt from the rest of my Kansas Trouble fabrics. This is the quilt that was my secret at Christmas because it was a gift for my oldest daughter and her husband, but this one is no secret.

I have jumped on board Randy's "The Farmer's Wife Sow-A-long." The particulars, as far as we have them, are found at the end of her post if you click here. My book came in the mail today. 

I'm a little nervous about keeping up, but I am anxious to try! I'm thinking I will make it from my shirt stash and call it The Farmer's Wife Cut up His Shirts. I don't know--that title is still a work in progress. Maybe I will go crazy fussy cutting all those plaids (you know I will have to do that), and give up on them, but I think it would be really cool, and different, in the plaids.  Okay, I know I already have two plaid projects going, but I just love plaid fabrics in quilts!

I've rambled long enough. Until next time,

Keep stitchin'

Janet O.

ETA: I forgot all about linking up my FMQ challenge project, until I saw Denise's link on her post today. Thanks Denise!

Here is my effort, feeble though it may be. I feel like I have regressed in my ability because I haven't been practicing regularly. Hopefully that will change soon--more to come. : )

I had tension problems this time--which I don't usually, my motion seemed anything but free, and I kept running into the pins. Talk about not seeing the obvious!! Lovely, it is not, but finished, it is! And now for the link.

On the Wall

Rocky Mountain Christmas (aka Smokey Mountain Stars by Bonnie Hunter) is back on the design wall. I intend to at least get it to flimsy stage in the next 2 or 3 weeks, amid all of the other projects. I won't be quilting it until much later this year, but I want to have the top ready. Right now I do have all those corners sewn to the squares, but the squares and borders are just stuck to the wall. I wanted to make sure I could get enough border cut from the shirt I wanted to use. It was only an XL shirt. I have made the quilt a tad larger than the pattern and I wasn't sure if I could get enough 5" strips from the shirt. I made the border 4" instead and I could have still cut 1 or 2 more strips. I had to fussy cut them in order to match up the plaids when I piece them. Maybe I am the only person who would have done that (no, I think I know at least one other blogger who would do the same. Do you know who you are?) but I had to do it. : )

I'm not sure which was the leader/ender and which was the real project, but today Pink Lemonade by Lori D. got assembled along with Block #1 of Marti Mitchell's Ramblin' Rose Meets Jamestown. The name "Pink Lemonade" doesn't seem to fit mine  because my yellow isn't anything like lemonade. I've been trying to come up with a name for it. Cider Squeezin's comes to mind. Have you ever had cider from an apple press? I don't know--I'll have to give it more thought.

I'll leave you with this shot of the cloud cap over the mountains out my back door. The alpacas came to the fence after I took this shot and I took a couple of photos of them looking me right in the eye, but those turned out blurry, of course. 

Janet O.

This and That

I looked at the date of my last entry and realized it has been over a week since that post. I guess I have been busy, but I can't really say with what. On the quilting front, I finally got the corners of Pink Lemonade made on Saturday night. Up to this point I had been really careful with the directional prints. That all went out the window with these little guys!

Hopefully tonight I can get the rows all sewn together and get this to a flimsy. I'm really glad I joined in on this little QAL. Thanks for doing this, Lori! I made some extra of the red shoofly blocks and am hoping to work them into a Valentine's table runner.
Have you seen the haul Bonnie received for her 50th birthday? I have to share a little coincidence about the block I sent her. Remember the Storytime Stars quilt she made for the baby her brother and his wife are expecting any day? Though I usually only quilt with bright fabrics for my grandchildren, I was very taken by this quilt. The bold graphics and primary colors just grabbed me. I was so happy when she posted the pattern and I printed it off immediately. So when I got word through my blogging friend, Mary C., about sending Bonnie birthday blocks, I knew immediately I was going to adapt Storytime Stars somehow. I made the blocks smaller and instead of piecing a tiny checkered border, I used a checked print. EVERY single bit of fabric in this block came from the scrap basket I used to raid with great regularity at a now closed LQS. I knew all of those bright pieces and those b'day prints would come in handy someday, even if they were out of my normal color-comfort zone.

Some have wanted to know the size of this block. It is a 12" finished.
Each star is four inches from point to point.

So I sent this block off last week to wing its way to Bonnie in North Carolina. Upon opening it she sent me an email saying that she just sent the Storytime Stars quilt off to her brother and SIL, who happen to live where I do--not just the same state, but the same valley! Who knew? I told her to warn her brother that if I ever see a couple with a baby wrapped in that quilt I will be wanting a closer look--at the quilt and the baby!

If you follow Marj over at Eclectic Quilter blog, you may recall that she had a giveaway a few months ago when she was cleaning some things out. I spoke up for the Ramblin' Rose Meets Jamestown pattern, and was lucky enough to receive it. I'm not usually a flowery fabric person (but I do love Floribunda), but over the past two or three years I have been drawn to some rose prints in tan, green and red shades. I have picked them up in scrap baskets, remnants and yardage. That large piece on the right was four yards of a Moda fabric at a thrift store for $4. I have one small table topper I have made from them and figured it was time to do something more. I thought this pattern might be the thing. If I work on one of these blocks each month, hopefully this quilt can grow while staying in the background. I think I might use some other block besides log cabin as the setting squares. I love log cabin blocks, just not sure I want them in these fabrics.

And finally, SOTMD (aka Orca Bay) is progressing slowly. I still love it, though I'm still not sure why. So not my usual style. My mother saw it on my design wall last night and said she wouldn't be able to sleep under such a quilt. I know she said it with love. : )
If I can get more of the cream and white triangles cut (everything else is cut) I will hopefully have more to show when Bonnie does her final Orca Bay Linkup in February.
That does it for now. Until next time, keep stitchin'!
Janet O.