Farm Girl Vintage

Feed and Seed is done. This was one of the more time consuming of the Farm Girl Vintage blocks, maybe because of all of the HSTs around the outside. It wasn't difficult to make, just kind of putzy.

 

I even followed the basic color scheme from the book with the aqua HSTs. The next one on my cutting table is Tumbleweed, followed by the Turkey block that I bought and downloaded. 

 

Yesterday I only had a couple of hours in the morning to do a little sewing since we had to venture out into the snowy weather for a doctor appointment. Just love driving 70 miles each way in bad weather!  I drove my husband to see the neurosurgeon to discuss surgical options on his neck. And his surgery is tentatively scheduled for Dec 28 to replace 2 disks in his neck. And it must be my age showing, because this surgeon looked like a kid - tiny (about 4' 11") young woman wearing gym shoes. She looks younger than my own children and actually could be.  But we liked her way of talking and explaining the options.

A surprise from Down Under

I have to show off the fun surprise I just received from Australia . . .

 

 

My girls have a cousin who moved to Australia just before high school. She and my oldest were best friends and have stayed in close contact these 20 years. I've always felt like she was one of my own girls.  My daughter has gone to Australia to visit twice and the cousin comes here to see her dad and brother about every 18 months. They've been in each other's weddings, and now can share the experience of having children.

 

I've made 2 quilts for her kiddos - the first one 3 years ago when her son was born and the second one this spring when her daughter was born. Luckily both times I was able to send the quilt with her dad when he went to visit so they didn't have to be mailed. And this time she sent a "thank you" gift back with him for me.

 

The package contained these 2 gorgeous fabric cuts (about 1 meter each), a small wooden cutting board, and a kitchen towel - along with a very lovely thank you note.  The botanical print is a plant I sure don't recognize, but it's very pretty. And the child's print has koalas, lambs, kangaroos, possums, and a couple of animals I'm not sure of.

 

It will be fun deciding how to use these fabrics. 

Mystery Quilt beginnings

I have 20 of my neutral 4-patch units made and lots of strips cut for more. My plan is to make a smaller version of the mystery but we will see how it goes. 

Thanksgiving break from sewing

 

We have a house full this weekend for a late Thanksgiving celebration: 5 kids under the age of 6, 3 dogs, and 7 adults.  After a mid-afternoon dinner of turkey and all the fixings we all went outside for a photo opportunity using grandpa's drone.

 

I'm thankful that my daughter's families are all here and that my SIL could join us too. And I'm very thankful for 2 sons-in-law who like to cook and helped out a LOT in the kitchen. Jamie made the best dressing and gravy, Darin carved the turkey, and I even had lots of help cleaning up.

 

Only one mishap with a dog helping himself to some leftover mashed potatoes.

 

Monday our house will be empty again and we'll get back to our normal boring routines.

Design Wall Monday - small finishes

I was on a roll this weekend, trying to finish up some small projects that have been cluttering up my sewing space.  I finished 3 small items, including machine quilting. Yay me!!  Check out what others are doing at Design Wall Monday http://www.patchworktimes.com 

 

 

This grey/white/yellow pillow is made from leftovers from a chevron baby quilt I made last spring. I had extra HSTs left after finishing the quilt and kept thinking they would make a great pillow.  And they did make a nice pillow, along with a strip of the flower print added to make it large enough for the 16" pillow form.  I machine quilted the chevrons by just following the shape and quilted a 1.5" grid on the flowered section.  Now there are only 2 grey and white HST remaining, and those are in the scrap bin.

 

 

The Dresden Plate block was something I started and stopped and started and stopped.  The blades and center circle are all cut from a charm pack and yes - there are still more of these blades ready to be made into something.  Sometime last month I actually sewed them into the Dresden Plate and appliqued it to the white background. Yesterday I quilted it very simply and added an envelope back. One more 16" pillow done.

 

And finally, I pulled out this little table runner to finish. This is a Pieced Tree pattern (on the little cards) and is basically just made from large flying goose units.  You can cut and stitch the top in about an hour. The original pattern is actually one "goose" longer on each end, but I've found this to be too long for many tables, so it's smaller than the pattern.  I cut this out last winter from 3 Christmas fat quarters and it's been just hanging out on a shelf ever since.  This was sewn together quickly and then I marked the grey triangle sections using a disappearing purple quilting pen and machine quilted it myself.  I have to finish the binding but that will probably happen over my lunch break today. These would possibly make good Christmas gifts.

Crazy Cats

I forgot all about posting a photo of this kid quilt when I finished it.  This was a panel that I cut up and pieced back together using fabric from the stash and a design I saw online.  The whole thing was stash, even the back.  The whole top took 3 hours to cut and sew. Check out the original post here with a link to the pattern.

 

This one is finally quilted, bound and finished. It just needs to find a home.

Crocodile pillowcases

On Thursday morning I made these 3 pillowcases for my 3 grandsons.  The 2 older ones (3 and 5) like crocs and gaters. The youngest one is only 18 months old but he will probably like these critters too as he gets bigger.

There is enough of the crocodile fabric and the green left to make one more.  I can always add it to the pillowcase donation stack.

Christmas pillow

 

At the Sew Vintage group I belong to we were challenged to take one of the Farm Girl Vintage blocks from the book and do something "Christmas-y" with it. I chose the Egg Basket block and pulled some Christmas fabrics from the stash. The cutest block shared with the group last weekend was Pam's house block. She turned the Farmhouse block into a gingerbread house. Adorable!!

 

The poinsettia applique was fussy cut from one fabric and the envelope-style back was pieced from leftovers of the other basket fabrics.  I only machine quilted in the cream background, using a random narrow line.  A 16" pillow form was tucked into the envelope and I have a new Christmas pillow on my sofa to enjoy for the season.  The bonus is that this didn't become an orphan block hanging on my design wall while I wondered what to do with it.

Design Wall Monday

My second Kim Diehl project is now a flimsy. The designer calls this one Barndance, but I kept thinking Hurricane. It looked like wind swirling plus all of those little pieces kept wanting to escape my fleece design board.

I haven't decided yet how I want this quilted, so it will live on the design wall for awhile. 

Check out Design Wall Monday at:  http://www.patchworktimes.com 

Retail therapy

 

Old time general stores were known for having pretty much anything you might need or want under one roof. And that is a perfect description of The General Store of Minnetonka (Minnesota).  It was one of the fun stops on my road trip with Sylvia, Pam and Marilyn this past week.  Need some Paul Bunyan or Minnesota Vikings themed gifts? How about unusual kitchen gadgets or gourmet food items? Personalized Christmas ornaments? Educational or vintage toys for kids . . . or adults? Socks? Jewelry? Home décor? This store has it all in 2 floors of nooks and crannies with a surprise in every turn.

 

 

Another fun road trip stop was SR Harris, a discount designer fabric store in Burnsville. Floor to ceiling displays of every kind of fabric imaginable: bridal, wool, velvet, silk, fleece, home décor, outdoor . . . and a whole large room of quilting cottons. I had a plan to just add a few pieces for the upcoming Bonnie Hunter mystery but of course I found some other things too. The 3 yards of crocodile fabric is for pillowcases for all 3 grandsons. I did find some good additions for the mystery quilt, and picked up a couple of seasonal fat quarters.

 

I exercised only a little personal restraint on this shopping trip because after all, the reason for the trip was friends, food, and retail therapy. A success!!!

 



 

Road trippin'

2 days, 4 friends (including me), 600 miles, some great restaurants and LOTS of fun shopping stops - that was my road trip this week. Wednesday morning we took off and headed east toward Minneapolis, equipped with coffee, comfy shoes, and our credit cards.

 

One of our first stops was in St Peter MN where we had lunch and explored some shops on Main Street, including a shop called Contents.  They had gorgeous season décor and gift items, but also had a good sized section devoted to kids, with quite a few "retro" items and lots of educational toys and books. 

 

I picked these bike streamers up for my 4 oldest grandkids. Anyone remember having these as kids?  I sure do! I loved having my streamers fluttering from the handle bars of my bike. Some fun stocking stuffers to get my Christmas shopping started.

 

Our next stop was a discount fabric store called SR Harris as we reached the suburbs. And I did some stash enhancement there. More about that another time.  Our last stop before a late supper was the General Store of Minnetonka. OMG!!!  That was a fun stop. More on that another time too.

 

The whole trip was a fun, relaxing time - lots of good conversation, didn't watch the news or read the papers - just had some fun.

I couldn't help myself

I'm showing my true colors here - because I just had to fix this block.  My 6" version of Winter Star (Farm Girl Vintage) had the center section on every side reversed. It made a nice looking block, but every time I looked at it the thought popped up about it being WRONG. So while watching football on Sunday I took it apart. Today I put it back together the right way and I feel so much better. Just call me obsessive.  I can take it.

 

My other Sunday afternoon activity was cutting all of the pieces for my next Kim Diehl Simple Whatnots project.  Over my lunch break today I started sewing the 4 patch sections from 1.5" squares.   

Farm Girl Vintage progress

These are all of the miniature Farm Girl Vintage blocks (except for the cat) that I've made so far from both the book and online.  There are 41 total so far and I've made both the 6" and 12" version of each one. The cat block was laying on my coffee table because I was embroidering the face and I forgot to put it back in the group before taking the photo. 

In the second row from the bottom the blue and pink block has the middle side pieces all reversed - OOPS! The full sized version is correct but somehow I turned those pieces when I made the little one. I may - or may not - fix that. 

I still have a few to make, including a couple of the downloaded blocks like the cow.

My buddy for the day

This is Jack. He has a low fever today so he can't go to daycare. So grandma drove 70 miles to spend the day so mom and dad can go to work. My MIL did the same for me many years ago. Glad I can do it now. Too bad I don't live a little closer. 

Playing

Just had to play with some of the Christmas fabric in my stash.