An Out Of Season Mini

Last September, Lori (Humble Quilts Blog) hosted her annual small quilt Quiltalong called Land That I Love . Though I am normally all on board for anything in red/white/blue, I was longing for some fall weather and decided to pull autumn colored scraps from my basket and use those to sew along. I made the top last fall, but I just barely got it quilted. So I am terribly out of season.

I will be linking this with Wendy (The Constant Quilter blog) for our monthly mini parade. Check out the link for the other marvelous mini makers and their creations.

I almost bound it in a matching, subtle brown, but I couldn't do it. The quilt wanted a warm color that stood out, so terra cotta was the winner.

This photo shows the quilting. Not crazy about the way I decided to quilt it. After the fact, I decided the feathered wreaths in the center were a little highbrow for this humble quilt. But I'll live with it. The pieced blocks are just stitched in the ditch.

My version of Gay Bomer's Heartfelt has come back from the quilter. I am really happy with it. I will show you an angled view so you can get an idea of the quilting, and I will give you some better peeks after I have the binding completed (just a little ways into the second side--very slow binder here).

That sums up the quilty portion of this post. I just want to take you out on the farm for a moment. 

Tell me, are you familiar with the word "gambol"? Because that is what the baby lambs do every spring, and it is so fun to watch. The other day I stood at the kitchen window and tried to zoom in with my phone--picture quality not the greatest, but it was the best I could do, under the circumstances. You have to catch them when they are in the mood. Look at the lambs in the background of these 4 shots.

The lambs will just be running along and all of a sudden they will leap up into some of the funniest positions.

Dictionary definitions will say things like "frisk or jump about playfully". The lambs have it down to a science. And that, my friends, is gamboling!

There are no photos of the babysitting llama this year, as Coco has moved on to a better world.

There is a dirt road that runs along the north side of the farm, and that is where I often go to take walks at dusk. That is my favorite time of day to be out walking. Whether I am facing east or west, I have a mountain range in front of me. These photos were taken early this week. 

This was the sight just after the sun dipped behind the end of the Wellsville range to the west. This is the mountain range I see from my sewing room.

When I turn around and head for home, I am facing the Bear River range to the east. This is the range we see from our family room or deck.

Until next time, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.

Leader/Ender At An End

These Windmill blocks have been a leader/ender project for me off and on since October 2014! This was inspired by Kathie Holland at Inspired By Antique Quilts blog (which no longer exists). I sure miss Kathie!  The blocks finish at 4". They are going to need trimming before I start sewing them together, but I am finally finished cutting and sewing blocks. This is as far as I am taking this.

I purposely did NOT try to keep like colors apart from each other. This is the most "just throw it up on the wall" I have ever done. The lighting wasn't great at night when I took this photo, but all of the colors are a couple of shades of blues, along with deep reds and blacks--and a wide range of neutrals. There are "make do" blocks all over the place. One block has 5 different fabrics. Betcha' can't find it. ;)

The shapes are cut using one of the mini acrylic templates from a set of 12 by Bay Creek Quilting. Most of the set are jelly roll friendly.  This photo of the set was lifted from the Bay Creek website. The second from the right on the top row is the one I used here. You have to cut with all of your fabric either right side up, or all of it right side down--also, always face the ruler the same direction. I once cut a bunch facing the wrong way, and I included three of those blocks in this quilt. Can you see the 3 windmills spinning the wrong way?

About the only other sewing I have done since my last post involved using up leftover sashing strips and scraps from the purple Heartfelt quilt. I got the blocks (1 1/2" finished) assembled and now I am debating, "To border, or not to border?"

I have a lovely purple paisley I had wanted to use, but it has lots of red in it, and they just didn't do anything for each other.

So many things other than quilting have been going on, and during a minute here and a minute there, along with much help from family on their Sunday visits, this puzzle finally got finished! Hubby insisted I be in the picture. Love those sea turtles!

I also finally got my father-in-law's history printed up for the family. It has taken me a year to get photos and documents found and added to the history he had written when he was 70. It took the history from 25 pages to 160 pages! I hope he would be pleased with the final result. This Tuesday will be the 102nd anniversary of his birth. He has been gone for almost 15 years.

So many people are trying to do good things to help the situation in Ukraine--and the people who are fleeing. I have been trying to support the efforts of others, including DD#2, who is a "cookier".  She made these lovely cookies based on the Ukrainian eggs, or pysanky. She has made and sold hundreds of these cookies via her Instagram account and word of mouth. I can't eat them, but I bought some and delivered them to friends and neighbors. They are so pretty!

Chookyblue has been quite the social butterfly lately, with Zoom parties almost every week. So fun to visit, even if you can only join in for a short time. I caught the tail end of it this time around, but I was glad to have a chat, while I unpicked some seams that looked like I had done them in my sleep. I probably had!

I wish all who observe Easter a blessed day of celebration. If you would like to watch a brief, but thought-provoking Easter message, click the link #Because of Him.

Leaving you with another shot of sunset over the mountains. I was driving home the other night and about 1/2 mile south of my home I had to stop (in the middle of the road) and take a picture. I knew if I waited until I got home the color would be gone--and I was right. And yes, we have had a wet and snowy week.

You should be able to click on the photo to enlarge it.

Until next time, be creative, and be kind.

Janet O.

March Monthly Mini and More

Could not resist the alliterative title for this post.

My monthly mini is in the photo below, on the right. This is based on Pam Buda's "Glad Tidings" pattern. I couldn't finish the borders according to the pattern because I couldn't find fabrics that I liked in combination for the borders as written. The green I used in the quilt is a very old one, which I couldn't currently match, and I had used all I had in the blocks. This photo was taken in the "Christmas Corner" of my sewing room.

I had planned to make this my monthly mini last December, but was still trying to match the green, so I set it aside and made the quilt on the left in the photo above, instead. I finally faced the fact that I couldn't match the green and made do with a black Judie Rothermel print that had tiny red/green flowers printed on it, and I didn't use cornerstones. 

Since it is in holiday colors, I chose a holiday print for the backing, which you can see below. I really struggled to get photos that show the quilting well, since I couldn't get the sun streaming through the window at 9:00 p.m. This is the best I could do, with the Ott-lite on my cutting table laying on its side.

This finished at about 11"x14". I am linking this with Wendy The Constant Quilter, where you will find the list of mini-acs with links to check out their creations.

My version of Gay Bomers "Heartfelt" quilt has been delivered to my neighborhood longarm quilter. I just can't quilt everything I piece--there isn't time. 

It is about 86" square. You can see the ripples in the two lower corners. I did try to correct those, and they look better, but I didn't get a photo after the repair. I did not do any of the appliqué in the pattern, including the center medallion. I did my own setting and borders. After the fussy sashing and cornerstones I chose, I couldn't bring myself to do fussy borders. Except for the 4 corner blocks, each block contains different purples. At first I was worried that I would not have enough purples to use different ones in each block, but I had a box of purples left that I didn't even touch. (And I bought more yesterday.)

Yesterday was the final meeting of The Tiny Club at Village Dry Goods.  I have yet to get all the blocks made, but these are some of the ones I have made since my last post.

Can you believe all those tiny pieces in a 2" finished block? 

Wait until you see some of the blocks in the patterns we got yesterday! Lynn told me to let you know that if you have been waiting for the next set of patterns and rulers to be available, he will have them ready by April 7th and you can contact Village Dry Goods to get your hands on them.

Here is Lynn with one of the ways he is using his tiny blocks.

But that isn't an end to the fun I've had lately. Last week Chooky had a spur-of-the-moment Zoom session and I was able to pop in and enjoy the gals chatting and stitching for an hour.

I really need to get back into the routine of posting more than once a month, so I don't have such lengthy posts, but if you have stayed with me through it all, I thank you. 

Until next time, be creative and be kind,

Janet O.

I wanted to leave you with a peek at what makes me smile each  morning during the long winters. I have these at 5 windows in my home right now, but these two window ledges are the ones where they have been blooming all winter. Click to enlarge.

February Monthly Mini and the Month in Review

Has it really been a month since my last post? And I have so little to show for all the days that have passed. In fact, my Monthly Mini is hardly worth mentioning. But I must, so here it is.

This is truly a little thing--5" square. That means the blocks finish at 1 1/4". It is a mug rug I made for my retreat buddy. Her name is Kim, so I made this from Kim Diehl scraps.  I'm linking with Wendy, (The Constant Quilter) the organizer of our monthly mini roundup. Check out her blog to see what the others have made for February.

Aside from this bitty thing, I have spent a little time here and there continuing to assemble my Sentimental Stitches Heartfelt top, from a BOW with Gay Bomers last year. I left out the appliquéd medallion center, and any other appliqué blocks. These are 8" blocks. I've set them on point and added my favorite sashing and cornerstones. It's coming along. 

The top left side is sewn together. The middle row needs the sashing attached on either side before it is added to the mothership. The lower right side is all still separate blocks, sashing pieces and cornerstones. The fabric hanging on the right side will be the outer border. I am trying to decide whether or not to put a narrow cream strip between the setting triangles and that outer border.

I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day--two weeks ago. Hubby and I decided not to brave the crowds to eat out that night. Instead we had a pancake brunch at a small local pancake shop that has yummy gluten free pancakes on their menu. I had mine smothered in strawberries and cream.We sat in their loft, and  I tried to get a selfie of the bright red wall behind us, which seemed so appropriate for Valentines.

After brunch we shopped for strawberries. We found lovely ones at the FIFTH store we tried, and I bought 9 pounds of them. Came home and dipped most of them (I love everything about dipping strawberries), and delivered them to widows, elderly, family, and friends. It is my favorite Valentine's Day tradition!

I have talked before about the Tiny Club at the quilt shop over the mountain. It was a 3 session class that ended in January. But happy news--there is a "Part II"! We get three more months of tiny blocks, with 3 new rulers to go with the patterns this time around. Below, left you can see Lynn showing what we could be making with the next group of patterns. If you are interested in Lynn's patterns and rulers, you can click the link above to contact the quilt shop for info.

Well, I actually joined a guild in January--it is called Sew Small, of course, and focuses on small and miniature blocks. Lo and behold, at the February meeting there was Lynn again! (Photo above, right.) It is amazing what he can figure out with those tiny pieces. 

I haven't started on the second series of blocks yet, but this shows what I have made so far. First look at the photo on the left. Then look at the right to see a size perspective with my hand in the photo. These all finish at 2".

These three blocks at the bottom are ones I had made from my own patterns. 

I finished up the month with a fun evening Zooming with friends from around the world, with Chookyblue of Australia playing host. What fun we have, even if the Australians got pretty excitable this time about their many frustrations with American spelling. (Don't bring it up with them. It's a touchy subject.)   ;)

There were several more participants than this, but my iPad mini only shows 9 per screen.

What a joy it is to be able to visit across the continents and talk about things that matter most, and things that really don't matter at all, in the grand scheme of things. It can be one of the worst days, but I come away from these sessions uplifted and smiling. Thanks, gals! You are wonderful tonic in these crazy times!

My hopes and prayers are for a quick end to the invasion of Ukraine. My heart is with those who have had to evacuate, those who have been separated from loved ones, those who are taking up arms to defend their country, and those who have family in Ukraine. May this be over soon!

Janet O.

January Monthly Mini and The Baggie Challenge Conclusion

Barbara recently mentioned that she was the recipient of a boatload of scraps (maybe she didn't say boatload) from Carol Y.  I was also blessed by Carol with a good sized box of her scraps. As I spent a pleasant hour or so sorting through them, I ended up with a nice little pile of some vintage scraps. Those scraps, along with a few little pieces from my Mom's scraps, became my monthly mini. Thank you, Carol!

This finished at 11 1/2" x 14". I am thinking about calling it "Half a Century". I am no expert, but the scraps seemed to include a couple of mourning prints from the early 20th century, along with a piece of indigo. There was a piece or two that appeared to be from the 30s or 40s, and a piece from my Mom's scraps seemed to be more 1950s to me. I did have to fill in the blanks a bit with a couple of little repro scraps, and the border print is definitely a repro. I don't think the binding is a repro--it was just a piece of leftover binding from an old project. But the red matched the color of the red in the blocks, and I liked the diagonal pattern in it.

The quilting was kept very simple. Straight lines all the way, and only neutral grey and navy blue threads were needed.

Linking here with Wendy (The Constant Quilter). Check her out for the list of other monthly mini-acs.

After making a monthly mini for the past 4 years, and making minis for a few years before we started the monthly gathering, I am running out of room for all of these little quilts. I have given away many of them, but there are still dozens of them here. They are rolled up and stuffed in baskets, folded on shelves, covering tabletops, and hung on walls. I realized tonight that I have not changed my yardstick gallery in years. So I hung my new little quilt there. Okay, so it was only one change--but it was a change. 

So let's get down to business. I had issued a baggie challenge to Wendy's monthly mini makers during the last quarter of 2021. It is time to wrap it up and choose winners of prizes! There were twelve of us who participated, and it was so fun to see your creations. I marveled at the creativity. Participants were as follows, and are linked to their post with their baggie challenge mini:

Amity Quilter

Barrister's Block

Busy Thimble

Gladiquilts

JulieK Quilts

My Material Creations

Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors

Rogue Quilter (me) I wasn't included in the drawing, of course.

The Constant Quilter

The Joyful Quilter

Timeless Reflections

Wabi Sabi Quilts

There were a couple of others that started baggie projects, but I couldn't see that they were completed. 

The winner of the drawing is Sandy at My Material Creations. Congratulations, Sandy! Your prize is one of the quilts shown below (with a few other goodies). Let me know via email which one you would like. I was just going to send the winner my December baggie challenge creation, but it is a little bigger than most of my minis. If it is larger than you would like, I have included a couple of the smaller minis I have made from bags of scraps. It is your choice.

I drew three other names, and they will receive a small surprise package. They are The Joyful Quilter, Gladiquilts, and JulieK Quilts. I will be in touch with you if I don't already have your address. Congrats to all the winners, and my sincere thanks to all who participated. It was really a treat to see the wonderful things you all made from a container of scraps!

One final thing, while we are speaking of challenges. I grew up with a puzzle for the family to work on during the holidays. After my father passed at Christmastime 5 years ago, my Mom kept a puzzle going year round, until she had to move from her home because of health issues. I have wanted to put up a puzzle in my home, but I could never figure out where it wouldn't be in the way.

Well, this year, after we took down the Christmas tree, I decided not to move the furniture back, and we put up a puzzle in the place where the tree had been. We started out with an easier, 500 piece puzzle, and we had it done pretty quickly.

Now for the challenging part. Hubby was going to town and asked if I needed anything. I had seen this puzzle at Natural Grocers earlier in the week and had resisted (even though I am fascinated by sea turtles). So I caved and asked him to pick it up. It took all the time I could afford Saturday just to turn all the pieces over and find the straight edges. Haven't connected any of them yet. The entire border is solid black. Won't that be fun? But I love this puzzle! Enlarge the photo to get a good look at the intricate stained glass effect. Wanna come help?

I'll leave you with this photo of the sun breaking through the frosty branches the other morning, after it crested the mountaintop. It has been a deep freeze here lately, but we haven't had the snow our friends in New England and surrounding areas are experiencing.

Stay safe and warm, and be gentle with each other.

Until next time,

Janet O. 

December Monthly Mini

Wasn't sure I could pull it off this month, but just this week I got this put together. The stars finish at 6", so it isn't as "mini" as many I make, but I enjoyed putting this together. It finishes at 18". I am linking up with Wendy at The Constant Quilter blog for the monthly mini parade. Check them out. Is this the fourth year we have been doing the monthly minis?

This may look awfully familiar because the color scheme is almost the same as last month's mini. I just added green this month in honor of the holiday season.I had toyed with the idea of a red binding, but when I tested reds against the finished top, they seemed to take away from the gold stars.

You can see the quilting, which was a mix of diagonal lines and stitch-in-the-ditch, in the photo below.

Friend Kathy knows that I don't enjoy switching threads (which she loves). But I do it sometimes because I think it will be the best look for the quilt. So as I was auditioning thread colors, I thought of Kathy and the photos she takes of  her pretty bunch of spools laying on the quilt. I took the photo below in honor of Kathy. :)

This was taken post-quilting, but pre-binding. I had just cut the binding strips and laid them around the edges. The reds in this photo are brighter than in real life, but the other colors are truer than in the first photo.

It may be a stretch, but this quilt is for my "baggie challenge". These fabrics weren't in a baggie--they have been sitting in a project box for years. I was taking a class from Marsha McClosky and I had the reds/greens/golds (along with a few neutrals) in my project box for the class. When I got to class I learned that we had the option of making the blocks in miniature, which, of course, I chose to do. So I had a LOT of fabric leftover, and it has been marinating in the box for years.

The challenge allowed for the addition of two fabrics--a neutral and a color. Black was my neutral in this quilt, so I added the black in the center column. The color I added was the red in the front of the left column. It had arrived at my home two days before Christmas in a baggie of "scraps" from my retreat buddy, so I felt it belonged in my baggie challenge piece.

In January I will do a post where I will link up all of the monthly mini makers who chose to participate in my baggie challenge. I will draw a name to receive one of the quilts I have made from baggies of scraps in the past. I may have a few other prizes for some lucky participants, too.

I hope you had a lovely holiday, whether you were surrounded by friends and/or family, or celebrated quietly. We had a unique Christmas Eve/Day activity. Our DIL is an artist by profession. She offered to give us all a chance to try our hand at painting with acrylics on canvas. She put a LOT of work into it, and transformed our living room into a classroom. 

She had invited us to bring a picture or object that we wanted to use as our inspiration, and then she gave us a session of instructions. We were then set loose to try our hand, as she moved among us giving help and suggestions as needed.

Some family members have natural artistic talent and the rest of us were out of our element, but had a good time. We spent hours on Christmas Eve working on our paintings, and those of us who hadn't quite finished up spent a few more hours on Christmas Day.

Here we are on Christmas afternoon with our mostly finished pieces, and our proud teacher. Our granddaughter (front and center) had started two pieces, so neither was completed yet. Our oldest son (married to our teacher, and standing on the far right) was doing a more involved piece, since he has had private lessons already, and he still had more to do. Hubby is absent from the photo as he chose to spend the time with our youngest grandson who has disabilities that prevent his participation. Our oldest daughter and her family remained in Oregon for Christmas, so they are missing as well.

It was a stretch for some of us who are artistically challenged, but it was fun to try something new!

We celebrated New Year's Eve just the two of us this year. We usually have some family and/or friends over. But hubby had his second dose of the Shingrix vaccine yesterday and he has been feverish, achy and coughing. So we had no guests and hubby went to bed early. I just finished up New Year's Eve with my usual routine, watching the classic movie, "Bachelor Mother", starring Ginger Rogers and David Niven. Love that movie! As midnight strikes I can look out the French doors of our family room and see fireworks going off from one end of our valley to the other. As much as I enjoy fireworks, I always worry for all the people and animals that are traumatized by the noise.

May you enjoy a wonderful start to the new year, and may we make it a kinder, healthier year for us all. 

Until next time,

Janet O.

I leave you with the photo that was the inspiration for my painting attempt. This was taken just outside those family room French doors as the full moon rose over the Bear River Range of mountains on December 18th.

 

The Stockings Were Hung...

...on the Shaker peg rack in the kitchen, because I don't have a mantel. :)

This is the sum total of my sewing since my last post over 2 weeks ago.

DD#1 reached out a couple of weeks ago to see if I would have time to make stockings for her 3 family members. How hard could that be, I wondered? Even the fact that she wanted each one a different patchwork design made out of recycled men's shirts didn't deter me. And in order to make sure she would receive them before Christmas Eve, I had two weeks to complete them.

She was kind enough to link me to the excellent tutorial at Cluck, Cluck, Sew, which gives great instructions for the method, but has no pattern. I used a shape from a pattern my other daughter still had from a class she had taken with her sister many years ago. The tutorial also tells you how to adapt the double hourglass block in another of her tutorials to make a small block for the stocking. My daughter loved that design, so of course, I had to make one. Keep in mind that I only had 2 weeks in which to finish all three stockings. That double hourglass stocking took every spare minute of that first week! I had to simplify!

The next design I attempted was the chevron design created with HSTs. This went much faster. From cutting to having the stocking front and back sewn together, it was finished in one day. I didn't attach the cuff, hanging loop, and lining until I had  the name and holly stitched on the cuff.

The final stocking was the alternating pinwheel design. It took two days of my sewing time to create. Without a pattern that specifies the stocking shape and how many blocks on each row--or even what size blocks, I would just make blocks and lay them out, place the pattern over it and see if everything was covered. I would try to take into account the shrinkage that would happen when it was all sewn together. But sometimes I missed my guess and had to add a row, or add blocks to the ends of rows as things came together. After 1 1/2 weeks the three stockings were created, but the cuffs needed finishing.

I spent whatever sewing time I could scrounge over the next couple of days getting names and holly stitched on the cuffs and assembling all the parts to complete the stocking. I made it within the two weeks, but just barely. 

I never would have made it without my new best friend in my sewing room, an Accuquilt Go!Big cutter. This was gifted to me early in the year (THANK YOU--you know who you are!). With Mom's needs, and then her passing, and my husband's retirement and our "retirement trip", it took a few months before I was really able to play with it and get a feel for what it can do for me. I am using it on several projects that are in the works, and on these stocking I used it to cut all the 1 1/4" strips for the double hourglass stocking. The 2" finished HST die cut every triangle for the Chevron pattern, and I didn't have to square up a single block. Using the 2" finished square die and the 1" finished HST die, the final stocking went together so smoothly and, again, I didn't have to square up a single pinwheel block. 

If you want to attempt making patchwork stockings, I highly recommend the links above--but maybe give yourself a little more time to get them finished--like next Christmas! :)

In the midst of all this stocking mayhem, we held meeting #2 of the Tiny Club at Village Dry Goods. Lynn has outdone himself in coming up with creative ways to make a 3x3 grid out of 2" finished blocks. Look at what he shared with us this time.

Some of you have already contacted Village Dry Goods about getting Lynn's rulers and patterns. They are trying to accommodate those who want to purchase them, so check the link above and get in touch with them, if you would like to join this mini madness!

Lynn had very concise "storyboard" samples of each of this month's four new blocks. Though I haven't had a chance to try making any of them yet, I am really anxious to see what I can do.

 

Recently I heard a more succinct version of the old familiar saying, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." This one is simply, "If you can't be kind, be quiet." We could use a whole lot more of both--kindness and quiet!

My prayers and thoughts are with those whose lives were devastated by the tornadoes. 

Until next time, 

Janet O.

Leaving you with another recent sunset, captured on a brief, chilly walk a few evenings ago.