Looking back at September

Yikes!!  Where did my September go?  I had a couple of big finishes, but there are a LOT of things left undone this month as well.  I kept getting sidetracked I guess.  But that is OK because those unfinished projects will just continue into October along with some new projects.  Life is good, right?  

• Clean ONE AREA in my sewing room!!! - currently sorting books & making progress
• Bind at least 1 quilt - 
• either Quilt of Valor (Patriotic Stars) - DONE 
• or the Rail Fence - DONE 
• Cut out NEW QOV from kit (Daring Spirit) - see photo - didn't happen
• Quilt and bind the red/white/blue pinwheel table topper - didn't happen
• Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color is red
• gingham blocks (2) - DONE
• Twinkle Star blocks (2) - didn't happen
• Ohio Star block (1) - DONE
• String block (1 red) - DONE + 1 yellow & 1 aqua
• Diamond Tile blocks - didn't happen
• Make the piano key border on Potting Shed (Kim Diehl) - DONE (quilted & bound)
• Cut out this month's Simple Whatnots project - Farmer's Market - didn't happen
• Make 4 pillowcases - 2 so far
• Finish the last 3 Bee Patriotic Sew Along blocks - didn't happen
• UFO - BOO bench pillow - in progress
• Pick a PIG - Laundry Line (Kim Diehl) for Simple Whatnots - didn't finish cutting

Some of the distractions this month included playing with Halloween projects and reading through a lot of old quilting books in preparation of donating them. 

There are currently 35 books in the donate stack.  That bottom shelf is now empty except for the binders, and there is a big basket sitting on the shelf where the books were.  I've begun working on the next shelf up to weed out more books.  I was hoping to take them to guild this weekend to give away, but because our county has explosive Covid-19 numbers right now we've decided to cancel our October meeting.  It's going to be too chilly to meet outside, so this is the responsible thing to do. So the book stack will just continue to grow for now.    

Design Wall Monday - September 28

Isn't this a sweet little panel section?  Snowman Meadow by P & B Textiles has been hanging in my sewing room closet since I purchased it.  Yesterday I was looking at my PIGS (Project in Grocery Sack) list to choose one for October - which is coming up quickly.  It's time to do something with this, and a wall hanging for winter is my current plan.  And it will be a good break from the Halloween UFO I'm trying to finish up in October. 

There are 6 different squares this size on the panel, and then 3 little ones.  I'm thinking about using the larger squares as the center of stars, so finding a red or green for star points is next.  Wonky stars would be fun.   

Today I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at:

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

A walk in a park

 We had a really great day yesterday with family.  Right now our kids and grandkids are part of our "bubble", but we do try to make most of our time together outside.  

We grilled burgers and hotdogs at our older daughter's house and then went to a nearby state park for an afternoon of exploration.  Palisades is a beautiful area of rocky bluffs along the Big Sioux River in southeastern South Dakota.  It has easy hiking trails, lots of rock formations, a campground, lots of picnic spots - everything a family could ask for on a beautiful fall day.  The 5 grandkids had a blast climbing rocks and threatening to jump into the river.  

I'm so glad my girls suggested we get together and enjoy the outdoors - NOT on a golf course for a change.  I've lived in SD since 1972 (except for 1976-78) and had never been to this state park. Hopefully we'll go there again.  And maybe next summer we could actually explore some other state parks we've never seen.  

Just a couple of blocks

Lori Holt's designs are some of my favorites, in spite of the fact that there are a zillion little pieces in each.  This is the Rooster block from her Farm Girl Vintage 2 book.  Our Sew Vintage group is talking about Chicken Scratch (embroidery), and chickens this month.  Lori Holt has a couple of different chicken blocks in her first FGV book - a mama chicken and a baby.  And then their is the rooster in this second book to complete the little chicken family.  Isn't it cute?  This is the 12" version and I still have all of the 12" blocks from the first book, just waiting to become something special.  This rooster can join the rest of his family, and the other farm critters, foods, and flowers.

I needed 2 more rainbow strings blocks to have enough for a child sized quilt, so here we go.  The aqua block is done and added to the stack.  The yellow one needs a few more strings to cover the other side of the muslin foundation.  Then a quick square up to 9.5", and these will all be ready to lay out with some sashing (black) and colorful corner stones.  A very traditional simple layout plan.  

How quilting has changed

 As I worked my way through the set of 30 year old books (Great American Quilts) to purge, I was struck by how much techniques have changed over the years.  Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would be amazed, wouldn't they?  Wouldn't they just love rotary cutters?

In the 1987 book, the traditional schoolhouse block had templates to trace for each of those pieces. There were no sizes listed anywhere for those pieces either.  In fact there was a packet of plastic templates included with the book with some of the templates ready to cut out and trace.  The first blocks I made when I started quilting in the 80s were traced with a pencil and cut out with scissors.  I still have the cardboard Dresden Plate templates I made.   

And then in the 1995 book, the schoolhouse block appeared again - but this time there were no templates to trace except for the triangles.  Instead of templates for simple squares and rectangles we see the sizes given for the pieces.  And if we look for this same block today we would most likely be given the dimensions for the triangles to be cut diagonally from squares.  No templates at all.  

On a side note - I now have a stack of books about 15" tall, ready to be given away.  And there are many more to go.  

Finishing & sorting

 I took Monday off and it felt so good to just do what I wanted to do all day.  That included some sewing, and some sorting and organizing.  And I watched an old Spencer Tracy movie while binding this little gem.  Potting Shed is quilted and bound, and hanging up. 

The color is a bit on the "yellow" side because it's hanging in my living room, and this is how overhead lighting makes it look.  But I can enjoy this one hanging here until it's time to hang a Christmas wall hanging from this quilt rail. 

Same room, same lighting - but my big (24 x 36") pillow form arrived yesterday.  Definitely this one is pillow sham size.  

Notice the fall runner and wire pumpkin on top of my treadle machine.  I finally got around to putting out some of my pretty fall decor pieces.  This is a time of year that I enjoy decorating for.  

And the other thing I did yesterday was start the process of going through quilting books in my sewing room bookcase.  There is a whole decade of these Great American Quilts books. These are just the beginning of the book purge.  Many more books will be added to the stack.  I plan to give these away.  

This will be a slow process because I'm going through these to see if there is anything I really want to save.  One final chance to enjoy these books before letting someone else enjoy them.  It will also be slow because the books have to come upstairs, and I'm only carrying small armfuls at a time. 

Design Wall Monday - Sept 21

 My design wall this morning has a fun little UFO on it - the bench pillow for Halloween.  

What's on your design wall this week? https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/ 

The background along with the top and bottom borders had been done.  But I set it aside before tracing the GAZILLION little applique pieces. That is where I picked up this weekend.  The pieces are now all ironed onto the pillow foundation and ready for some blanket stitching.  It might take me all of the time between now and Halloween to do that blanket stitching.  

I'm not sure which end to begin with, but this pillow will be so cute when it's done. 

The other little Halloween project that is on-going is this one Spooky Houses.  I found a few buttons in my button jar that could work on it, and I still need to applique the bat into the sky.  That will probably happen while I have the black thread going for the bench pillow applique.   

And the black cat iron-on applique patch arrived in the mail on Saturday.  It's the perfect size, but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use it here.  From a distance it's very difficult to even tell that it's a cat or just a swirly shape.  We'll see - maybe I can find an even cuter black cat.