Another start

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to sort through all the catalogs and magazines that had been piling up in the living room.   The ones with clothing were all advertising stuff for spring and summer!  Consequently, almost all went into the recycling bin.  

But one of them went up to the sewing room with me.  It was a pamphlet with patterns for scrap quilts that came with my renewal of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine (sorry about the glare), and it showed a very do-able little quilt using pieces of the rainbow, arranged ROYGBIV style.

I have a new grandniece or -nephew coming this winter, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.   I'm sure the parents haven't decided on a color scheme for their little surprise, so I'll wait to create a back in a color(s) of their choosing.  (I hope it's not "neutral" like the last one I made them!)   I've made three rounds and hope to add the green round today.

I'm using a white dotted fabric for the strips in between.  The original pattern shows a light blue dotted fabric which is also nice, but I don't have enough of any color for that.  It's quite easy although it's important to square up everything after each round of color.  I don't want to end up with a parallelogram!

I'm heading to the quilt shop this morning with the Gumballs and purple Round Robin quilts.  I'll tell Marie there's no rush on the quilting.  Having just finished Dear Jane and Wensleydale, I am definitely not in a hurry to bind two more quilts.

I need to get some more thread as well as a new blade for my smaller rotary cutter.  I am hoping to make a Flowering Snowball quilt this fall also, and I find the smaller cutter is easier to use around the plastic templates.   I already took a small chunk out of one point the other day as I tried to cut some pieces ahead. 

Quilt pictures

 It was sunny and not too wet outside yesterday so I decided to take pictures of two quilts I finished recently.  First is my Modern Dear Jane, which I started 1/1/23 and finished 8/2/26.  Phew!  I love it and can't wait to put it on our bed.  That will have to wait until the cooler nights when we put two on.  I will enjoy looking at each little block.

I quilted this myself, in sections, and hand stitched the binding to the back.  Here's a close up.

And here's my Christmas Wensleydale which I started last winter and finished in the spring.  I had Marie quilt it with her long arm.  I machine stitched the binding.

I really don't need another Christmas quilt, but I had a lot of scraps.  I thought I could do the whole thing with the scraps in my stash, but found I needed more fabric, including the fabric for the border.  It's hard to see in the picture but that inner border is a soft blue to go with the floral outer border.  This will be fun to use during the holidays because there are some cute little motifs here and there.

Maple leaf blocks

For the sampler I'm designing for the state quilt guild, I made a couple of blocks that I really like this weekend.  One is a 12" maple leaf block and the other is a 12" block made of four 6" maple leaf blocks.  They will end up as the centerpieces of the sampler, I think.

I wish I had cropped the photos before downloading them from my phone!   I was just too eager.  I'll have to crop them before I write up the instructions.  Maybe I was thinking ahead to the yellow rainbow scrap challenge blocks I plan to make this week.  

I did make five log cabin blocks yesterday after I made a batch of nutella cookies and a large pan of brownies for library programs this week.  The kitchen got quite hot, but the cookies were delish.  

Our friend Fred is coming over for coffee on Friday morning, and I'd like to make something special to serve.   Will we have enough cookies left over or should I make something with blueberries?  That is the question!  And if the latter, shall it be bread pudding or muffins?  I guess I'll decide tomorrow...

A hot week coming up

The weather people are predicting a hot and humid week ahead except for today which I had already set aside for baking and, perhaps, jam making.  I promised cookies for library programs Wed. and Thurs., and our friend Fred is coming for coffee on Friday.  Luckily, we have a heat pump which offers air conditioning when we need it.  I'm going to try to do a little cooking ahead today.  Our blueberries are coming in fast and furious.  Peaches are ripening, too, for some blueberry peach jam.

Over the weekend, I worked on blocks for my planned Green Mountain Sampler, a compilation of blocks selected from the last 40 years of the state quilt guild's various raffles and challenges.  2009's block was a maple leaf, and I made a 12" and four 6" blocks.  Those were fairly easy.  

I've been thinking about how I'm going to put all the blocks together in a sampler with some fillers like checkerboards and flying geese.  This is a fun project for me as guild historian.  My goal is to have the written instructions and the finished throw-sized sampler quilt ready for the spring meeting.

Yesterday I tackled the 2019 block which was the center of a guild logo challenge based on the 12" APQS Vermont block which is paper pieced.   The result was disappointing to say the least.  I now remember doing this back then and finding it very difficult to make all the points match.  

I will have to do my sample over before I can publish it in the booklet/web page I'm planning.   I now remember making an 8" block based on Marcia Hohn's Vermont 2 block, also paper pieced.  I'll pay better attention to the colors as well when I get around to it.  I really don't like the way these colors are arranged.

But before I tackle a re-do of the Vermont block, I will work on this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks:  log cabins, improv houses, and traffic jams.  The color is yellow - hooray!  My yellow/gold box is full of scraps.

Gumballs top

Even though I had a lot to do last week (Heritage Days, after all), I started a new quilt.  It's a scrappy one called Gumballs, a pattern I saw in another blog and which appeared in McCall's Quilting some years ago.  I decided to try to use up some blues and, unusual for me, cut all the pieces before sewing them into blocks.  I needed 120 nine patches and 120 half-square triangles, plus other fillers!  I can almost close my blue fabric tub now.  

Over the weekend I managed to get most of the blocks together and finished the 60" x 72" top yesterday.   I have some pieces of previous backs ready to put together today.  But I'm not all that thrilled with the whole thing.  Maybe I'll like it better once it's quilted.  At any rate, I'll take it to Marie for quilting when I have the back ready, and I'll probably give it to Bags of Love after that.  

Meanwhile, Dear Jane has been languishing on a chair, waiting to be bound, and I did get half-way around over the weekend.  Our perfect weather has come to an end, and it looks like I'll be indoors watching the rain for the rest of the week.  

Our blueberries are coming in strong right now, and I've already frozen several bags.  I want to bake another blueberry buckle for Friday (my birthday) so will try to get outside in between showers to pick two cups more.  We're planning to go out for Chinese on Friday with Chris and Paul's sister Pat.  I'm sure we'll be too full after dinner for cake, so I'll give them each a piece to take home afterwards.

And speaking of blue, I must be in a blue period as last week I also finished a blue tote bag for my brother Axel to give to a friend who has been driving him around.  It's hard to see, but both sides have a pocket between the handles.  I used pre-quilted fabric from "Connecting Threads" for this bag and another one I need to put a button on.

Yesterday I went to the quilt shop where they offer a discount of half my age around my birthday.  I bought about many yards of mostly neutrals, stocking up for the coming year.  Phew!  Had a nice, long awaited chat with Robin while she cut everything.  That in itself was a birthday gift as we don't get together often enough.

Favorites from Billings show

 I forgot to show photos of two quilts I really liked at the Billings Farm Museum show last weekend.  The first was called "Eclipse," and I loved its simplicity.

Next is my favorite of the show, perhaps because I met the quilter, Susan Damon Balch, a year or so ago at a meeting of the state quilt guild.  I forgot to write down the name of the quilt, but the use of monochrome gave it a peaceful feel and I liked that she blended in some traditional quilt blocks in the background.

Billings Farm Museum show

I spent yesterday in Woodstock at the Billings Farm Museum "Quilt Guild Day."  The Green Mountain Quilters Guild was the featured guild in an old barn set up just a little way from the main building where the annual Vermont Quilt Sampler exhibit is.  Five members of the statewide guild showed some of our work and demonstrated some techniques, including three ways of working with hexagons, hand quilting in a large hoop, Hawaiian quilting, and sashiko.   Several people asked how to get started in quilting which was fun to discuss.

It was a gloomy day, but morning and mid-day visitors to the grounds all stopped in to see what we were up to.  At around 2:00, the heavens opened up and it poured off and on for about an hour and a half.   We decided to pack up and go home at 3:30, even though we were scheduled to leave at 5 pm. 

We did sell about ten small quilts made by members which was good.   Several people wanted to buy my little landscape, but it was promised to a lady who had to visit the ATM first.  I love how the sky turned out in this one, and I have another hanging on the wall over my desk.

There was a distinctly "farm" smell throughout the barn perhaps due to the pigs and other critters in the barn next door.  Because it was a bit damp, I'' run all five of the quilts I brought with me through the dryer on "air" to freshen them up a bit.

I was also surprised that my bookshelf quilt received a lot of comments from visitors.  I made as a "row robin" several years ago with my international friendship swap group.  

I enjoyed looking at the quilts in the show, too.  This is the third year for the show, and the jury takes great pains to make sure there's a variety.  I was especially pleased to see quilts by three members of my local guild there.  All were deserving of note.  I didn't take too many pictures but the museum's website (link above) has several good shots.