Yellow Instead of Blue

Yep, I ended up choosing yellow for the binding of this table topper.  The blue made it look to dark for the "summer" feel I was wanting in the one.  So, what do you think?  I did the quilting in a blue thread, though.

Chalk up another completed finish for 2014!

Warmest...

Strawberries and a TableTopper

I was busy all day today.  The Pacific Northwest is the berry capital of the US, and June brings the first berries ripe and ready to pick.  Yes, strawberries are coming on strong around here, and there are several "U-Pick" farms every where.  I went to one about 5 miles from my house and spent three hours picking 26 (half I picked for a neighbor) pounds of strawberries this morning.  Then I came home and put about 1/4 of them in the dehydrator, and the rest in the freezer.  Below shows the dried strawberries, as it only took about 8 hours to dry.  I have never dried strawberries before, so I only did a small batch.  But, these turned out so good tasting, and pretty that I might have to go back to the farm and pick some more early next week.

After I got all of the strawberries in the freezer and in the dehydrator, I sat down to get some sewing done.  Last fall, I made a hexagon table topper that I posted about here, and thought I would make another one for a change for my round dining room table.  This is such an easy pattern, and I had left over 1 1/2" strips from a honey bun I used in one of my Farmer's Wife  quilts I did last year.  

During the course of making the Farmer's Wife quilt out of Moda's Breath of Avaigon, I ended up getting a yard of a border print, which is a SKU in fabric line.  I really didn't need it to complete the blocks, but I knew I would have left over fabric from the blocks and figured I would be able to make something with this border bring and the scraps.

So, I fussy cut the border print for both the center of the front of the table mat and for the backing.  This way, it can be used on either side.  

This is the back of the table mat, showing a full view of the border print.

This is the front of the table matt, showing the border print in the center, and strips from the leftover HoneyBun roll sewn all around.

I have it layered and ready for quilting, which I plan on doing tomorrow afternoon.  And, I will have to pick out a binding from some of the other scraps I have in my leftover bin.  I am leaning towards a dark blue.

Warmest...

I. AM. DONE. (At least 1/2)

Yes, believe it or not, I met two goals today. (Close your eyes, and imagine me doing the happy dance) I completed the color way "Moda" Breath of Avignon, Farmer's Wife's blocks for December, and thus the whole set to complete the quilt.  This means, I have done 110 blocks this year.  This color way was part of an online quilt-a-long, that started in February, so I got a late start on them, and had to double up the number I did per month to get the set completed by the end of the year.  The quilt-a-long fizzled out about the fourth month, but I really wanted to keep going and make my goal of getting them all done by the end of the year.

Let me say, that this was a much bigger task that I could have ever realized or imagined.  Most of the blocks are multiple pieces, complicated assembly, and tiny pieces, making it all that more difficult to work with in getting them together.  Some blocks should have been done in a paper piece method, but I am not talented in that area, so I struggled to piece these blocks.  Another area that I made an error in, was the templates I printed out were not at 100% scale.  Which, would have been fine, if I had made all the blocks with just the templates, but I bought into the quilt-a-long's use of Marti Michell's templates for some of the most repeated used pieces.  After the first 10 blocks I did in February, I made the decision to cut out all remaining 100 blocks, so that I could just sit down and make a block or two when I had short times to do some sewing.  About half-way into the next 10 blocks, I realized that my templates were off.  But since I had already cut out all the blocks, I knew I would be in for a struggle to get all the remaining blocks to fit together properly.  So mixing the full sized templates with the printed templates at less than 100% scale, made for some mis-matched pieces and blocks, as each block size was to be 6.5 inches square.  My blocks range from 6.0 inches to 6.5 inches, so I am going to make it work with the sashing when putting the blocks together.

So with further ado, here are my December blocks for the "Moda" Breath of Avignon color way....

November's Done

Yep, November's blocks are done. That's all I can say. Oh, other than, on to December's blocks!

Farmer's Wife Update

Well, remember a few posts back, when I said I would be posting my November blocks from the Breath of Avignon colorway, but it would have to wait until I got all of Novermber's done?  Well, as I so eloquently crabby stated in my blog yesterday, I still haven't gotten any sewing done yet this month, so I decided to share those November blocks that I did get done.  Here they are:

 

October's Blocks

Progress! I have done the colorway "Breath of Avignon" blocks for October. This means I have done 90 blocks so far in this colorway for the Farmer's Wife quilt. I am really trying hard to meet my goal of getting all the blocks done by the end of the year. I am currently thinking about the sashing to assemble all of these blocks, as I don't have enough of the white print fabric to use. I do have enough for the borders, and the backing. At least I did think about these awhile back, because this line is out of print. (I have 4 blocks done of the civil war reproduction done for October, but I'll wait until I have the rest for the month done to post).

September's Done

Yipee! I got my September Farmer's Wife blocks done. For both color-ways! Here are the last three. I got them done while doing four loads of laundry, and fixing some meals for this weekend. I needed to cook some ahead meals, as we have a gun show both days this weekend.

P.S. I also got two blocks done for October, but I'll share them when I get more done!

Back to Quilting

Today, I spent time working on quilty stuff. First off I am trying to catch up on my Farmer's Wife blocks for September! I got four more blocks done from the colorway "Breath of Avignon". I do have all the civil war collorway blocks done for September, see here.

Awhile back I posted about a Local Quilt shop monthly quilt project that was on my list of past year's projects I wanted to get done this year.  The yellow arrow shows the four other ones on my list I would like to get done this year too!  You can see the pasts posts that show these blocks here.

(Sorry for the poor pic, but taken late in the evening)

So, after having the blocks done and stored for three years, I ran into a few issues.  Let me preface this by saying that i have gone to some very wonderful local quilt shops, but the one that I
participated in for this project lacked in running the shop as a business.  They substituted the background fabric after block two, their close, but it is a distraction.  And the substitute they chose was short, and I ended up having to piece the sashing.  The finishing instructions, written by the shop owner, were incomplete, excluding the last three rows (sashing blocks, sashing). It is just frustrating to invest time, money, and materials on something that is mediocre at best. Arg!   Now my quandary is to decide on how to proceed?  So why I ponder, it has been put back on the UFO shelf.  Bummer...

A Few More

I sometimes wonder if I know how to count? I thought, as of a couple of days ago, that I had all of one colorway of my Farmer's Wife blocks completed for August. Umm, no, I did not. When I went to recored the completed ones in my journal, and tallied them all up, I was short three blocks! Imagine that...sometimes I wonder?

Farmer's Wife "Breath of Avignon" August Blocks

I think I have mentioned before, that I am not the fastest sewer there is out there, and let me tell you, getting these Farmer's Wife blocks is using up more time than I ever realized. Then silly me, I take on the challange of doing them in two colorways? I guess, when I took on this challenge I said to myself, "How hard can this be? 6 inch blocks? What a breeze this will be! I'll just go ahead and do it twice. Yeah...well, I've only had a few that I can catorize as a breeze and after the first couple of months, I knew this was going to be really time consuming!

Enough griping, moaning, and being on a pity party. Here are the blocks I have done for August in the Breath of Avignon colorway.