February Update

February has flown by, I can't believe it's almost over! Here are some of the things I've been working on this month:

I chose the 10 blocks for the Farmer's Wife quilt for my January solids (Pink).
January blocks: 9, 29, 41, 43, 56, 58, 64, 70, 95, 98

"Selfish" sewing for my birthday:
1) Farmer's Wife Block:

Block 9

Pink

11 pieces

Paper Pieced

 

2) Japanese X and Plus Block

thematically appropriate since my birthday is on Valentine's Day

I've also done some work on two of my cross-stitch projects, the Once Upon a Time Sampler and the Alpine Flower Sampler.

I also finally bought, and I'm super excited about this, EQ7! I have already created a New York Beauty block for the following mini quilt project (input appreciated):

Option 1 (Red on Black), Option 2 (Black on Red)

 

I am trying to figure out if the red on black or the black on red is better. Bonus points to anyone who can guess what I was inspired by.

 

I also finally worked up the pattern for the plus quilt I envisioned for a commission from a family member.

 

 

I've sent it to the person who commissioned it, and am waiting for feedback. I'm also thinking of adding one more row of white and black rectangles to the left side, so it's not quite so unbalanced.

 

I also found a home for the Riley Blake Challenge Quilt, and embroidered my initials and the year I completed it ('13) into the bottom right corner before gifting it.

 

Last but not least, I made the backing for the Community Quilt and got it basted.

 

 

Hopefully I'll be able to post about a finish by the end of the month, or at least the quilting done, as I got an offer from one of the other contributors to do the binding. We'll see if I take her up on the offer.

WIP Wednesday

I found paper piecing templates for the Farmer's Wife quilt, and omg does that ever make me happy.

I printed the January ones yesterday and put one together. It was a breeze! And it's perfectly 6.5" without losing corners and stuff. I can't even begin to explain how happy that makes me.

Block 30

Brown

16 pieces

It's a little puckered in the center where I had a lot of seams intersect, but that was likely to happen regardless. Despite that little flaw, I love it. I'm also planning on making all of my farmer's wife blocks first, since I'll be paper piecing, before starting on my Nearly Insane blocks in that colorway. Just to make sure I have enough fabric for the project I'm likely to finish first.

Linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Sew Much To Do

I currently have so many projects that I have started or need to start that it's hard to pick one to work on. I keep thinking that I should work on one of my bigger projects so I can baste it at the Sewing Day this weekend, but the weekend continues to creep closer and I'm slowly starting to panic.

Instead I made another Farmer's Wife block.

Block 24, 35 pieces

I used the templates to cut most of the pieces for this one, because they were odd sizes (I'm talking 1 and 9/16th inches and stuff like that). Also, my seam allowance was way scant because I ended up with an almost 7 inch block and I'm a little pissed because I'm going to lose pretty much all of those pretty points along the edge. My quarter inch foot, which I finally switched back to from my walking foot is so not a quarter inch.

The other thing I sewed tonight was a second Stash Bee block for the Hive 8 queen bee.

I hope she likes the bits of color in the mustaches and the sea horses. If I have time, my plan is to make two blocks or more each month. Partly because I know I'd love to get more than one block from people and partly because it's fun to dig through my stash and see what I can come up with.

Linking up to Lee's WIP Wednesday.

Farmer's Wife and Michigan Quilt

Got home from work and was exhausted. But I thought I'd put in a solid hour or two of sewing. Instead I put in four. I got the third column of the Michigan quilt done. This was fairly easy to accomplish since the bottom 4 blocks are solid background and were already cut. But the other four required choosing and cutting of fabric and then sewing.

The purple has more contrast, but my flash didn't quite reach there and it gets fairly dark on my craft room floor at night. Good thing I have task lighting over my cutting table otherwise I'd never get anything done. I'm quite happy about the fussy cut artichoke that I pulled out of my scrap bin since my hubby is a chef.

I also printed out templates for the Farmer's Wife quilt and then ended up just measuring out the pieces with my ruler for the first block.

Here is the completed Block #4

Theoretically I should have put the darkest brown in the middle, but it's fine like this too.

Farmer's Wife

Although I know it's going to take me forever to make the Nearly Insane quilt, especially if I continue to hand sew the blocks, I have decided that they are just too intricate to make it anything but a handwork project.

So instead I will also be trying my hand at the Farmer's Wife sampler quilt (it was either that or Tula Pink's City Sampler, but those just seem too easy compared to the Nearly Insane blocks). I'll be sticking with my idea of using the solids bundles I get this year from my No Prints Allowed Club subscription. Which means the first couple blocks will be in brown. I'm going to need to make 9-10 from each colorway.

For brown we have the following random picks: 4, 24, 30, 34, 38, 52, 61, 104, 110