A little hand work

Over the last few weeks, including our all-too-brief vacation in Colorado, I did a little hand sewing and no machine sewing.  I even packed up my old Viking 100 and sent it with my brother down to my niece Evelyn.  That leaves me with just my Elna machine which is OK.   I am happy doing hand work when/if the machine needs service.

I made a few Manx blocks and started a new Jen Kingwell quilt.  Both of these projects will be on the "slow go" over the next few months, but it's really nice to begin something new.  

I love Jen Kingwell's patterns and have had Green Tea and Sweet Beans for a while.  It has both pieced and appliqued blocks, and I have several yards of a nice off white print for the background.  I decided to use mostly wool for the appliqued blocks which are scattered throughout the quilt.  It is a whimsical design that was Kingwell's first block of the month.   

The quilt finishes at about 71" x 74", but I'm not sure how big I'll end up making mine.  I am not doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year so that I can finish up a few other projects.  I'm not even sure I'll do Abby's block of the month again because I still have blocks to make for that queen-sized project.

The Manx blocks are very portable, and these were worked on at my mom's house, both at the dining room table and the one on the back porch.  It was fun to watch the birds and look at all Mom's flowers, well-tended by my sister Jenny.  I am using traditional colors for this quilt - red centers, with white prints and blues.  I have so many blue scraps that it's difficult to put the lid on the bin at this point.

I made four blocks on our trip and had one already made before going.  But one does not fit with the others since I started with light blocks rather than dark.  It will be a potholder!  

These four would make a cute table topper, but I'm going to aim for nine 8" blocks for a 24" square.  I need to get some pointers about putting the blocks together from my friend Soni who demo'd the technique at guild meetings.

It's a new guild year, so there will be new blocks of the month to make also.  The background color has changed to off-white, and the September block will be "No Name" from quilterscache.com in fall colors.  I try to make at least one block each month out of scraps to enter into the lottery, so I'll get busy with that today.  In that guild, I'm also in a round robin group and have an orphan Christmas Dresden plate block to start my quilt with.  That's all ready to pass along at the October meeting.