September Monthly Mini

I am so pleased that I am not posting this minutes before midnight on Monday. I took the last stitches in the binding on this little quilt while watching our local college football homecoming game on TV with hubby and my sons and DIL. The quilt finished at 9"x10", and each 9-patch finishes at 3/4". I am linking up with Wendy (constantquilterblog)  and her monthly mini links for September.

This had its beginnings when I had leftovers from the little quilt I made for a swap with Kris (lavenderquiltsblog) in early 2018. This one is a reverse of the value placement of Kris' quilt. It has been languishing in my sewing room for almost a year, waiting to be quilted. I had started quilting it months ago, but didn't like how it was looking, so I set it aside. Needing a monthly mini in a hurry (no surprise there), I unpicked the less-than-pleasing quilting and tried again.


This is the view of the quilting from the back. Better than my first try, but still not my favorite.  I was okay with it until I put that swirly border on. I should have practiced more, but I was not going to unpick this baby again!




Other than a bit of work on my Circa 1880 quilt, the only other progress for the entire month is that I finished up the piecing of the Circa 1880 club small quilt for August (we get a new small quilt pattern every other month). 

I really messed with the value placement on this quilt, making some of the churn dash blocks sink into the background, while others stand out. A few of the bits of fabric had to be pieced in order to be large enough to cut out the piece I needed. Three of the sashings were pieced. I wanted it to appear to have been made from a scrap basket, where choices were limited. I also slipped a little churn dash block into the center. I had fun playing with this one.

We have had a very wet weekend and Saturday morning I picked 4 pints of raspberries in the rain. I couldn't bear to see them go to waste and if I waited for the rain to stop in a few days, many of them would have been overripe and mushy. I love picking berries and I love rain (we live in a high mountain desert where rain is a welcome blessing most of the time), so I enjoyed the experience--except for the rain that ran up my sleeves whenever I reached for the berries on the taller canes. It is my Dad's patch, and I had helped him care for it the last few years of his life. I have tried to keep up with it since he passed almost three years ago
This evening my DIL made a gluten free/vegan lemon poppyseed bread with a lemon drizzle. We sprinkled our slices with fresh, rain-kissed berries and it was YUM!

I'm feeling an urge to play in the plaid fabrics from thrifted shirts. Maybe a baby quilt is in my near future--just for fun! I pulled a pattern today and I've chosen the shirts I want to use. We'll see if anything comes of it.

Until next time,
Janet O.