Design Wall Monday - Farmers Wife Sampler blocks

Last week's Farmers Wife Sampler blocks were Hovering Birds, and Windblown Square.  This makes 66 of the 111 finished.  I have about half of them sashed as well.  
 

The Windblown Square blocks is really the same as the block called Whirlpool, except it used 3 colors instead of just 2 colors. They are made from all Half Square Triangles.  

Today needs to be spent getting organized again after the quilt show.  All of the things from our Quilt of Valor display table are in one pile in the living room.  My own quilts that I displayed at the show are in another pile.  I need to unpin the paper labels, and fold them all up.  The few little purchases I made at the quilt show vendors are in a bag on the loveseat.

And my brother-in-law dropped off several boxes of old photos he would like scanned and organized. Those boxes are in a stack in my kitchen - waiting.

Yikes!!  Will I actually get to sew today? 

I'm linking up with DWM:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/

I'm also linking up with Monday Making:

https://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

Quilt Show

 We have a small quilt guild with fewer than 50 members, but our quilt show this year is BIG!  Probably the best quilt show we’ve had since I’ve been a member. The theme was Spellbound, and a lot of Halloween projects were shown along with everything else imaginable.  The committee can be very proud of what they accomplished with all of their hard work planning. And members can be proud of the quality of the quilt in the show.  So much talent on display. 

There was a good crowd all day, and I heard such good comments from people. There were too many beautiful things to photograph and post at once but I will show a few highlights.

One of the Past President’s quilts. This quilt actually represents 2 years, as this gal was president 2 years in a row.  We made the house blocks for her after the first year and told her to “hold onto them” because the blocks for the second year "might" blend nicely.  She received the trees to go with the houses, and she did such a lovely creative job of designing a layout. 

One of our members has won ‘Viewer’s Choice” several times, and that award has been well deserved each time because she is SO talented.  Two of her quilts caught my eye immediately this year.

One because of the amazing use of color, and the other because of the spectacular quilting.  

And our Featured Quilter had so many beautiful things I don’t know where to start.  But this darling small quilt had 3-D dresses on each doll.  She mentioned that she has a real love of paper dolls, and this quilt sure represents that love.   She also said her first loves are embroidery and applique, and her quilts very definitely reflect some major skills in those areas. 

And how about 24 FEET of Bargello beauty?  One of our members challenged herself to accomplish this amazing quilt.  She assembled the top between April of this year and June.  Incredible!  Then found a young man who agreed to quilt it on his long arm.  Gorgeous!!!

I’ll share a few more pictures this week.  

Rainbow of colors

One of the things I love the most about making a big variety of blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is just that - VARIETY.   I love being able to make a block or a few as a "change up" from working on bigger on-going projects.  It keeps the boredom away.  The block sets hang in my sewing room closet using skirt hangers, and before I know it there are enough to make a whole quilt top.  

 Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge:
https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

These blocks are not lime green, but they are definitely cute!  I still need more of these Twinkle Star blocks, so I cut 5 sets of block pieces in different colors.  There is a little bonus, and that is cutting tulip pieces from these same scraps while they were on the cutting table.  These 3 blocks were sewn in between other projects this week. 

The other 2 sets are next in line, sitting next to my sewing machine ready to go.  And look - there is a lime green one!  By the way - my nerdy spreadsheet is also tracking individual blocks.  That number is growing much higher than I ever expected.  More on that some other day.

And more rainbow scrap play time this week yielded these 2 blocks.  I cut that first one from the leftovers laying on my table after cutting out that Christmas runner I'm making.  The other used one of the florals from the recent Summer Soiree blocks.  All leftovers. 

Mary blogged about a great scrap quilt made with lots of fun bright colors the other day.  The link to her post is below.  In another later post she shows the template she used, called Windmill.  It's basically the same as the Roll On blocks that I've used several times over the years.  But I like the name Windmill much better.  https://blog.maryquilts.com/2021/10/13/finished-112/ 

 

The big difference between Mary's quilt and the two I made this summer is not using a white or neutral background - just lots and lots of color.  I love that idea!  My readers are well aware that I lean toward neutral backgrounds so much of the time.  Neutrals are safe.  But these will make great RSC blocks going forward with a new rule I've made for these - no white or cream backgrounds, only colors!!  And I have a whole box full of scrappy charm squares to get me started. 

This n That

 Today is the day for setting up for the quilt show.  I've volunteered to help set up poles and hang quilts, and I'm hoping that my back will handle it.  I've been fighting a strained back all week since trying to move something heavy on Sunday.  

I've had limited sewing time this week but have made some decent progress on bags, which was really my only goal for the week.  But then my new issue of Love of Quilting magazine showed up in the mail.  And I just had to dig into my Christmas fabrics to play with a project from the magazine.

There was a table runner pattern in the magazine that uses this particular block, and I just couldn't resist making with it.  These blocks are paper pieced so the points come out perfectly.  I plan to make 2 of them - one using the red/aqua Christmas fabrics and the other using the red/green below.  It's sure fun to have a whole drawer full of Christmas fabrics to play with. 

Bag planning

The front of Sophia's zebra bag is fixed and looks much better.  I have the back and lining pieces cut, and the handles made.  This was a kit I bought, but . . . the pattern called for the handles to be 42" long.  This is for a little girl who is 9.  She doesn't need this bag to drag on the ground when she carries it.  I'm not very tall either, but this bag hung about at my waist with the handles that long.  So, I made ONE handle at 42" and cut it in half.  

The pattern calls for fusible fleece to be fused to the lining and I'm really questioning the logic in that.  So, after chatting with a couple of people about it, I'm thinking I'll fuse it to the outside of the bag and do a few simple quilting lines on it for stabilization.  I don't want it too flimsy - or too bulky. 

And here is the "pattern" for granddaughter Olivia's music bag.  She wants a bag just large enough to carry her lesson books to piano lessons, so I'm making it up as I go.  I have a pretty splatter paint music print for the main parts of the bag, and a purple (her favorite color) for handles, plus a top and bottom band.  Those bands will hopefully help keep the music print a bit cleaner since it has a lot of white in it.  And I want to make some batik flying geese in the colors of the music print to run up the front of the bag.  Hot pink, lime green, purple, aqua - all of those colors are in the print.  

Two finishes this week - a bag & a wall hanging

The navy blue Sew Together bag was a UFO most of 2021, but now it's checked off my list. Yay!!

This is #17 for this bag pattern.  Guess I really need to learn to make a different type of bag some day.  But I really do like making these little bags!

The other finish is the Bats & Boos wall hanging.  This was actually one of those squirrels that crossed my path and insisted that I drop everything and make it.  And I'm so glad that I did because this was a very fun project.  This one will go to the quilt show this weekend.  And then next Monday morning I will hang it from the quilt rail in the living room for the rest of October. 

I've often said that I'm a nerd who loves a spreadsheet.  Projects are so easy to track with a very simple spreadsheet.  I have a tab for my UFO Challenge list, a tab for random blocks made, and a tab for project finishes.  When I start working on a project I list it on that sheet, and then when it's finished it gets a date and category selected from a drop down menu I created.  That way I know how many of anything I've actually finished.  My finished total for 2021 wouldn't look very impressive without so many pillowcases added in.  

It's fun to see how many things actually did get completed this year.  And those items started but not finished show up highlighted in yellow until they are done, which is a good reminder to keep working on them.   

Not all progress is forward

 The navy blue Sew Together bag is all done except for the handwork around the handles and zipper.  At some point this week I plan to have it all finished. 

The tote bags for my granddaughters have also been started.  The parts for the front of Sophia's bag were cut and sewn on Monday morning.  But I couldn't figure out why the borders on this panel section didn't fit.  I measured them twice, and even pieced the top and bottom to make it fit.

And then I looked at the pattern again.  Oops!!!  Two mistakes on my part due to not reading the instructions closely enough.  

Mistake #1 - I didn't trim to size after adding the the blue borders.  Mistake #2 - I put the narrow flowered sections on the sides (because they fit since I didn't trim the blue), and the wider border on the top and bottom.  I ended up piecing those because they were too short.  Duh!! GRRRR!  This was a careless mistake on my part!!

So, I do believe my seam ripper is coming out again.  And once I trim that blue, then the flowered pieces should fit IF I put them on correctly.