Barn Star sampler

 We're heading for a heat wave, the weather people say.  I'll try to do any housekeeping and cooking early in the day and then escape to the air conditioned sewing room when possible.  It all starts today when we are heading to Woodstock and the Billings Farm Museum to deliver my Hankie Quilt #2 to the Vermont Quilt Sampler show.  We'll try to get home before it all gets too oppressive.  We want to walk around the grounds of the museum, too, to see all the barn quilts that have been commissioned.  I've seen quite a few online, but it's always fun to see them in person.

I have quite a few projects I'd like to work on this summer, but I'm not wild about starting anything new right now because we are heading to Colorado for a week this coming Saturday.  

I made this month's Barn Star Sampler block Sunday and think I'll work ahead this week while I have my purple tub of fabric handy.  It happens every year about this time - I suddenly get tired of a block of the month project and want to finish.

Both Sunday's and yesterday's blocks measured 16" finished, and I managed to cut out the pieces necessary for the first of two August blocks, too.  

I will need to get outside early most evenings during this heat wave to water plants.  My tomato isn't looking great, but it does have a few little green tomatoes on it.  I think I'll pick some lettuce from our neighbors' crop, too, since the heat will most likely make it bolt.   It's amazing how prolific - and delicious - her little planting has been.

A little get away

Paul and I headed south to Stockbridge, Mass., early Thursday morning to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum.   Having visited the impressive collection of Rockwell paintings and magazine covers a few years ago, we were intent on seeing a special exhibit of artwork from Mad Magazine.  It was impressive!  And the ride down couldn't have been nicer, albeit long (4 hours).  It was a sunny but slightly humid day.

Afterwards, we headed back north to spend the night in Bennington, VT, a nice town with an impressive monument to the Battle of Bennington in 1777.  The Green Mountain Boys defeated the British in the battle which actually took place over the New York State line.  The supply depot was where the monument now stands, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood with beautiful, historic homes.  We visited early in the morning, before it opened.  I imagine the view from the top is impressive.

The statue of Col. Seth Warner, who led the ragtag bunch, stands in front of the monument.  It was carved in the Montpelier sculpture studio of Harry Bertoli, the grandfather of a friend of ours.  Of course, I had to take a picture of Paul with this impressive statue.  Unfortunately, it was quite muggy and buggy, so I didn't stay out of the car for too long to catch many details of the carving.  

We headed north from there over historic Route 7A, through Shaftsbury where Robert Frost once farmed and then Arlington where Norman Rockwell once lived and painted using local citizens as his models.  In Manchester, we stopped to tour Hildene, summer home of Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert.  It is an impressive place with a working farm, cheese making, an impressive house, and lovely garden where the peonies were in full bloom.

We arrived home in the late afternoon and agreed it was a fine trip, full of interesting things to see and do.   Friends came for a cookout lunch yesterday, and today I hope to get back into the sewing room.  We are in for a week of unusually hot, humid weather, so there won't be a better place to be than there with the AC blasting.

Two finishes!

Friday, I shopped for and added a binding to the white on white piece (about 12" square) I have been working on since the early 1980s.  Yes, that long!  I took a class on white on white quilting at the Vermont Quilt Festival when it was still just 10 miles down the road from me in Northfield.  One of the vendors sold printed squares, so I bought one to work on while traveling for some years until I started taking Dear Jane blocks with me on trips.

I found the white on white piece a couple of years ago at the bottom of a bin and have been taking it to work on now and then at monthly Calico County Quilters meetings ever since.  After I finished quilting it, I soaked it in warm water to get the blue lines out.  They faded but were still visible, so I washed it in hot water with new Dawn dish soap and some Oxy-clean.  That did the trick and also removed some of the stains acquired over 40 years of dragging it from meeting to meeting.  

The binding is a cream-on-cream that contrasts just enough.  Eventually, I'll hang the nameless piece on the wall after taking it to guild for show and tell.   I finished it at our Calico County meeting Saturday and also worked on the Sashiko I started on vacation in March.  I'll take the Sashiko along to Colorado next week as it's small enough to fit in my suitcase.

Over the weekend, I also pieced a back, pin basted, and quilted the Manx/log cabin quilt.  I used my walking foot and echoed the barn raising setting.  The binding is the same cream-on-cream.   I noticed that when I spritzed some of the quilting lines some of the red centers ran.  Ugh!  I'm not quite sure what to do now - maybe wash in the machine with color catchers and Oxy?  I'll ask folks at guild what they recommend.

Funny how, whenever I finish a quilt, I need to take a break for a day or two before working on anything else.  I spent quite a bit of the day yesterday reading Paper Cuts, a new installment in the cozy mystery series, The Secret, Book, and Scone Society, by Ellery Adams.  I enjoy this series set in a small town with the main character being a former librarian who owns a bookstore and offers a bit of bibliotherapy to her customers.  Could be my alter-ego!

Class project: table runner and a bunch of 16 patch blocks

I never did settle on a class block pattern that I could do over and over again.  That's just not what I enjoy doing.  I wanted to try making half rectangles, and the new tool from Creative Grids works really well.  It even came with directions for using the tool to make wonky sides for blocks which I plan to try sometime.  

I ended up making a table runner sampler with the blue and orange blocks for the class.   It has a modern look, and I will either give it away or try to sell it.  I'll try to make a back for it soon (peach?) and decide on a binding (more peach?) soon.   

I enjoyed the class even though my final project isn't great.  Playing around with a very simple block was really fun and encouraged me to try new approaches to the old traditional patterns.  I can see applying the techniques to churn dashes and more.

I also ran up a few 16 patch blocks in blue and orange to add to my ongoing stash of four patches.  I'll put them together... manana.

Today I'm taking the Christmas ribbon star quilt (60" x 60") to the quilt shop so Marie can quilt it for me.  That will reduce my to-be-quilted items hanging in the closet.  I'll also leave Renee's round robin quilt top there for her to pick up.  I like the way it ended up, and I don't usually like brown.  The blue makes it look great.  

I made the last round of 8" blocks which almost doubled the size of the quilt.  I like the way someone put it on point, and the repeat of the squares in two of the borders made by different people.   When I received the quilt, it seems awfully small to me.  I hope Renee will add to it to make it just a bit bigger still.

My round robin quilt is another Christmas one, and because it's a medallion, I think I can quilt it myself using my Elna.  Now that the air conditioner is in the sewing room window, that room will be my haven for the rest of the summer.

Sewing up a storm

I spent a good part of last week making bow tie blocks for the swap and then playing with fabric for the class I took Tuesday online.  My pile of 8" bow tie blocks is quite high although I didn't count them yet.  I'll probably make a few more, but for now, I've set them aside.  I have piles for the swap, about 25 for myself, and ten for Debbie.   

The class, "Blocks Unlocked," with Jennifer Houlden was very interesting and fun.  There were only four participants so we had plenty of time to ask questions.   We were encouraged to play around with a very basic block, adding squares and rectangles, then half square triangles and rectangles, and more.  Each person had different ideas which we got to share.  

Our "homework" is to come up with a design that we want to pursue.  I tried a variety of designs, and I now have a collection of potential potholders!  The gray background seems too dull, yet the green border is too overwhelming.  I like the string fusible circle but can't see making a full quilt out of it.  And my trial stretched out flying geese were too much fussy work.  The best turned out to be the variety of half-square triangles with some solids thrown in.

Feeling like I should settle on a colorway, I rejected a batch of fat quarters I initially thought might work in favor of a turquoise and peach scrappy look.  A sampler of sorts is beginning to come together.  I have a nice white background with occasional small triangles in turquoise, orange, and other colors scattered throughout.  

I made six blocks using some of these little blocks and other scraps.  Getting a 9" square is difficult somehow, but at least all the blocks end up the same 8 x 8.5" size.  Will see what ideas today's class brings.  I might just turn these blocks into a few table runners!

Meanwhile, it's been lovely weather, and over the weekend, we took a long walk in the town forest and played croquet with the neighbors.  Then neighbor Gale and I did a drastic pruning of an overgrown lilac in hopes to encouraging more blossoms at a lower height.  Now the humidity is building, and we might just need to turn the heat pump's AC on for the first time this year.