Finally been sewing!

Didn't take a single stitch on a quilt from May through August. In September I had to get myself in gear for our first guild meeting of the season. Guilds in our valley pretty much shut down for summer, but in other parts of the state they keep going. Do you "guild" all year long? Just curious how much of an anomaly we are. Or maybe we aren't one at all.

This is "North and South" from Pam Buda's "Vintage Patchwork" book. It was our summer project for guild to have ready to share in September. I grabbed a box full of HSTs and sorted through to find enough matching to make this. There were supposed to be 36 flying geese made to put this together, but I did it all with HSTs. 

There are no borders on the pattern, but I've been tempted to play with some possibilities.  Time will tell if I actually do. It will finish at about 8" x 12".

We also did a 1/4 yard challenge in guild last season, and were to share our results at our closing social, but I wasn't there. This is my final product in flimsy form. It is about 18" square.

I don't hate it, but I also don't know that I love it enough to want to put more time into it. I have a little pile of the leftover fabrics. If you are interested in taking over this project--quilting and binding as is, or adding, or giving it a total makeover--speak up, and I will send this your way.

(Spoken For)

I hadn't made progress on this next project for quite some time, but I did finally attach the outer border. It is my second Burgoyne Surrounded mini quilt. You can read the story behind it HERE. (If you do read that post, I just want to say, I STILL haven't entered a quilt show.)

According to that linked post, I started this quilt in October of 2015. Still not the oldest UFO in the closet.

I placed my hand in the photo so you could get perspective on the size.

I haven't had this much quilty content in some time, but there is more! This week I attended "ChitChat Finish That" at the shop over the mountain (Village Dry Goods). I haven't been able to go since April, and I also haven't worked on this project since the last time I went, so it was good to get back to it. I got three of the blocks on the right completed, and parts for another block prepped. The pattern calls for six rows of 7 blocks. My plan had been to make more rows for a queen size quilt. But a family member needs a twin quilt, so I will actually be making it just the 5 rows with borders.

This is "Every Little Bit" designed by Pam Buda. It was published in American Patchwork and Quilting in June of 2015. I just looked it up on Amazon, and they still have a copy of the magazine.           

                                               

"Every Little Bit" references the fact that you can use up tiny pieces in the piecing on the sides of the churn dash. The magazine includes a page of foundation patterns you can make copies of for the piecing.

That concludes what stitching I have been doing since summer ended.

But I have also unearthed a few things in my sewing room that need new homes.

On the left is a bundle of 4 wool patterns--three of which include wool, though I don't know if they are complete or not. On the right are 2 sets of Temecula's Mini-a-Month postcard sets. You can see the years in the photo. I already have each of these sets, and was recently given duplicates. (Spoken for)

The wool projects all go together, and the two postcard sets go together. Leave a comment indicating if you are interested in either one. PLEASE include your email address in your comment if you don't know whether or not you are a "no reply" comment.

Our latest adventure took us to Iceland:

So much I could share, but trying to really limit things. It is called the land of fire and ice--formed by volcanos and glaciers.

Waterfalls everywhere!

Thermal activity...

They spell it Geysir.

Black sand beaches--yes, I got my foot in the ocean.

Below is Mt. Kirkjufell. We were supposed to kayak here, but the water was too rough for the tender boats to take us to shore. :(

We also spent a day at the Faroe Islands. I took a boat trip out among the sea stacks. Incredible!! I hope you can click the photos below to see the majesty of these formations. Maybe I will make one my header photo

We also spent a couple of days in the Netherlands and a day in Scotland, but I will only leave you with a couple of photos from the Scottish Highlands.

First Loch Katrine in Trossachs National Park.

This is what inspired Sir Walter Scott to write "The Lady of the Lake".

And finally, a hairy coo (cow).

It was a crazy busy summer. I am hoping to have more sewing/blogging time as we move through fall, and into winter.

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.

p.s. My giveaway from months ago went to Mary at Quiltin' Grandma Blog. In my last post I was still waiting word from her to make sure she had wanted to participate.

A whole bunch of randomness!

I did it! I updated my Tuffets Tute to show how I have had the greatest success making a smooth closure on the Tuffets. You can find it in the tabs under my header photo, or just click here.
In order to get photos of the process I made another boxy pincushion--the little purple and cheddar one. This tiny thing finishes at 2" square.

If you look closely you can see a pin head on the bottom edge of the dark pincushion. I hadn't stitched it closed yet. : )

And, as you can see, I couldn't resist taking the little Dresden to the dark side. I love the way a black background makes colors pop!

If you recall the block Lisa Bongean designed for The Splendid Sampler, you may recognize the center of this. Lisa called her block "Dedication Rose", and it was designed for needle turned applique, but I did it in wool.

And then I gave it a few borders to make a little medallion quilt out of it.

 My red/white mini Burgoyne Surrounded was intended to be entered in our State Quilt Guild Jubilee show of red/white quilts, but life happened--and my entry did not. It would have been the first time I entered a show. I finally got another block made. I am making this square, so I only have 5 more blocks to go.
I think it is fun to see how much the 97 pieces in each block shrink as you assemble them.

 


Since everything is already cut for the whole quilt, and some of the little units are assembled, you may wonder why I haven't whipped this up faster. I'll tell you--because it takes so much concentration!! More often than not I am sewing at night and I am too tired to think this hard. But I will say that the red/white version is easier than the black/tan/cheddar version that I did a couple of years ago.

The beast has been set aside for a while now, but I have completed all of the quilting in black thread and white thread. I'll probably do the gold, light blue, and bright green blocks next, but I am struggling to match those greens with a thread. I'll do the grey and navy blue blocks last. There are a lot of those.



If you have followed me for any length of time you know how much I love red/white/blue projects. Take a look at these two free patterns by Stacy West (Buttermilk Basin) available from Henry Glass.
On the left is an 11" x 17" wool applique pattern and on the right is a little pieced quilt about 22" x 28". Oh, I want to make them both. You can find the pattern links here.




I debated whether or not to share this. You have seen a lot of my Mom's quilts lately. But here we go. On Mother's Day the women's auxiliary organization of my Mom's congregation held a little reception with a fruit/veggie buffet after their meeting. 

They featured as many of my Mom's quilts as she could gather. I had to go get photos, but I will just share one I took when I slipped in early, before the women arrived. There are 15 of Mom's quilts displayed here, all hand quilted in her tiny stitches. The quilt in the corner won sweepstakes at our county and state fairs many years ago. It went to the Houston show, too. It is a simple Irish Chain--the thing that made it win is Mom's quilting.

One more random thing, after sifting through the comments on my giveaway and weeding out the No-reply comments that didn't include an email address, the random number generator chose a winner for my drawing. Gayle (middlesister blog) is our winner. Gayle already had the book, and she graciously offered that it be gifted to another winner. So back to the random generator and this time it selected Kristie (cowgirlquilter blog). Congrats to you both. Your winnings will be on their way soon!

Until then,
Janet O.

p.s. Thanks to everyone that left a comment on the giveaway. I enjoyed hearing from so many that usually don't say much. I had 21 "no-reply" comments this time--more than ever. I appreciate the six that left contact info in their comment. If you are "no-reply" and you don't leave your email address in your comment, you are not entered. Sorry, it is just too complicated to deal with winners that can't be contacted. This is supposed to be fun. : )