Monday, May 24, 2021

Farm Girl Vintage 2! The Sewing Goes On!

I was kind of sad that the four books I own by Lori Holt (and several PDF's) did not have a puppy block!  Luckily Barb had the Christmas book and borrowed it to me for this puppy!  It was fun to make.
Next, I decided instead of wrapping up these Lori Holt blocks, I should buy Farm Girl Vintage 2 and keep on sewing.  So I started with a nice easy pair of Acorn blocks.  Love how they came out!
Then I got crazy and cut for a pair of Rise and Shine Rooster blocks. I then took some of Lori's advice and tried to lay it out to help me with getting the fabrics right.  I use my board that I made from her tutorial for each block.  I wish I had made another smaller one to keep!  I love all the colors in this one, but way easier to screw it up.  

Super happy with how the blocks came out!  And Hazel, who is now pulling herself up and trying to take a step or two constantly, is eight months old!  Such a sweetheart!
Also, I gifted a mug rug to my mom (and will my aunt Nancy) of the extra crow blocks.  Papa DeLos' nickname was Old Crow after the whisky and his seeming crankiness so I thought they would get a kick out of that.  My mom has several crows at her house to always remind her of him.  Such a good man--very lucky he lived so long and I had so many years with him!
Over the weekend I sewed three different Eye Spy quilts.  This one is a freebie on Bonnie Hunter's page I printed off (Eye Spy a Four Patch).  
 
I finally used up the orange and black four patches I got from June years ago in the quilt on the left.  
I already put corduroy backs on these two and plan to tie them.  Kathy and I picked up a freebie back of fabric last week and it had a few huge chunks of corduroy.  There was some cotton and lots of fleece.  I also made a seat cover for our huge recliner because Lombardi keeps it pretty hairy!  I have a blanket I put on it but now I am hoping this will work better.  
I also made a bunch of beanbag fish and stuffed them with rice.  I had cut them out a few weeks ago and now they are all sewn.  Will be gifting to Saxon and Hazel.






Monday, May 17, 2021

More Blocks and a Mini Completion!

This cake block about killed me.  One heart is still not right.  I am over it!
Next was a nice simple block and I raided my HST bin so it was even easier!
Really enjoyed the Crops blocks.  They were fun to make.
These are the Farm Fresh Eggs blocks.  Also nice and simple.  I now have 24 blocks (two sets of 24) and am thinking that should be enough for a few baby quilts.

 I decided to quilt a baptist fan on this other Bachelor Button Blues quilt too.  I managed to break two buttons while doing it.  Note to self, put on buttons last!  I was just so excited to get them on there!  So buttons are replaced and it is ready to go to my best friend Monica.  I am hoping she likes it!

Friday, May 14, 2021

A Winner and a few flimsies!

Decided to make the Red Button Quilt Co. freebie this month--Welcome May.  I do not have much wool and wanted this to be colorful so with the current budget I went with what I had.  I pulled out my bag of already backed with sticky stuff and cut what I could from that.  I had to make brown but otherwise this was already in the bag!  I also pulled out hst's from my bin that were the right size and did a bit of squaring up where needed.  That made this project go fairly quickly!




Next up, figuring out how to quilt it.  

I also cut out a bunch of fish from felt that I had.  I am planning to make some fish beanbags, etc. for Hazel and Saxon for Christmas.
 


I also FINALLY got around to making Crosses Mourning for me from my Dad's clothes.  I made three of these and sent them to my sister, Margie and my Uncle Jim not long after my Dad died.  I always planned to get around to making myself one and even saved some of the border fabric to do it.  Now to quilt it...I think I had Ros quilt the others, I would have to look back at my blog but I am going to do this one.  I also put some of Limbania's fabric in here and some of the civil war prints are June's.  We lost touch awhile back and she moved to Oregon.  I looked her up a few days ago and discovered that she died in November 2018.  She was a great sewing buddy and I am super sad that I did not even know she passed away.  Her ashes were brought back to Mesa and she was placed near her hubby Herve....we drove past there not long before we left and waved at Herve but I had no idea that June was there too.  
I only had two folks who commented to win my mini quilt so I rolled a dice and got a 1, so my first commenter THE JOYFUL QUILTER is the winner!  Send me your address and I will get it out!  



Saturday, May 8, 2021

Mother's Day Surprise and More!

The days are warming up and we were able to take Hazel outside for a bit one afternoon.  She loves looking at my quilts and she was pretty happy staying on the quilt for several minutes just checking it out.  She gets all around now with a pull crawl kind of movement and sometimes with a knee/foot combo so far.  She rolls all over and spins too.  Such a personality even so young.  I love this little one!
For Mother's Day we went all out and made more butterfly feet.  One for me, my mom, Jeremy's mom and of course Hannah.  We only had the one mold so did this four different days and her mom did not find out (that stuff sticks to the toe nails!) and we will gift it to her tonight.  I think they turned out alright though neither Kathy or I are painters.  We figured that part would be a bit hard for Hazel so she just did the feet!  Table runner underneath was made by my dear friend Michelle Bright who passed away a few years ago now.  I think of her often and have some of her sewing stuff so I feel she is close to me!
I made a pair of cows and Hens.  That one hen is super busy but I thought it would look better..oh well, used up some of the strips that were given to me!  
May is red and so here is the Pine Tree Point block in red.  This one came together pretty well.  This is not my favorite block to do...very fussy.  Glad I am only doing one a month!  Linking up with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Finally got my haircut two Fridays ago--it has been since just before my brother's wedding (weekend before Pandemic got going) last year.  Our sort of landlord lives down the street and does hair.  So she cut mine out in front of her house.  It was a little chilly and windy, but am super happy to have it a little more manageable!
 

Friday, May 7, 2021

Humble Quilts Mini Swap

I participated in the Humble Quilts Mini Quilt Swap this month.  This is the beauty I got from my swap partner Betsy.  She sent it all the way from Florida.  Since I am not much of an appliquer I am tickled.  It is always nice to get a quilt I would not be likely to make!  The backing has sewing scissors too.  


I had decided I would make my own partner (different person) a Kathleen Tracy mini.  It is in "Small and Scrappy" and is called Treasure Boxes.  I enthusiastically got started before I knew I was in the swap for sure.  I decided to make two since I like to keep one for myself (otherwise I have a hard time letting go of them!).  I had the whole thing up to the binding point when it occurred to me I should double check the requirements...and it needed to be 12 or more inches!  Mine was only 11!  ACK!  I had already basted and started hand quilting the second one ( I was not nuts for it so set it aside and machine quilted the other one) so I guess it was lucky that I had not doubled but twice doubled the cutting and had accidently cut for FOUR quilts.  I went ahead and sewed the other two and added a border so it was over 12 inches!
I was pretty happy with my quilting for once!  I used the walking foot and just did diagonal lines across it.  

The picture below has the first one on top and then the slightly larger one I sent to my partner Bonnie.  The third one has some hand quilting which I may pull out and is still in progress.

                                        

My partner posted she likes it, so that made my day!

And here is a picture of the fourth one which now also has the border on it (see last picture)...so now I have a three extras...thinking I may be giving away two of them!


I quilted the last two and got them bound Thursday night.  So here are the three I still have.  If you want a little one for your mini quilt collection, leave me a comment and I will pull a name a week after this post goes live.  I am keeping one and I will gift the other...I knew they would all find homes!


 

Happy National Quilting Day!

I participated in the National Quilting Day sewalong on the Modern Quilt Studio page.  We sewed Friends all Around.  Here is my first block....