End of June 2018

Well I did not get my OMG goal this month. 

I got only 7 Bright Jane blocks made. 

I was hoping for 8. 

My Sweet Farmer and I are taking a week off and going to,

 of all places, 

a Guernsey cow convention in Iowa. 

Among other things.

we will be dining aboard a river boat on 

the Mighty Mississippi River.

Bags are packed, passports, cash, oil changed,

 Dear Daughter stitching, etc. 

No little children until next Monday. That's a whole week. 

Then we have family visiting here every day until Aug. 

See you next month. 

Blessings,
Chris

Another Bright Jane Block

This Bright Jane block is done by English paper piecing, sort of.

Not too shabby, but 

 I will have to revisit the how-to instructions before doing another.  

There has to be an easier way to get that center done.

I hand pieced this star block for my first Dear Jane quilt
made in Civil War Reproduction fabrics. 

It looks a lot better now than it did 

when I first made it about 8 years ago.  

The boys decided they wanted to put blocks up on the wall this week. 

The bigger one wanted to put the step stool on the table so he could reach higher. 

I said it was not safe to do that. 

The little one repeats everything

so he is learning that some things are not safe. 

Not sure they noticed that half the blocks are on backwards. 

I have been sewing up buffs for our church summer camp. 

Lime green ones and purple ones. 

Now I remember why I stopped trying to sew t-shirts. 

Blessings,

Chris

btw . . . with the root canal all is good and only took the double whammy pain killer once.  

Slow Stitching

Some slow EPP progress on a Dear Jane 2 block.

The boys helped take the Dear Daughter blocks off the wall. 

The little one was trying to put them in a pile

and the bigger one was taking off several and dropping on the pile. 

Linking with slow-sunday-stitching.

Blessings

Chris

Mid June Update

I did get lots of reading done this week. Well, not textbooks. I accidentally bought a kindle book when I was investigating a series of 16 novels that I had read 40 years ago written by Canadian author Mazo de la Roche between 1927 and 1960. The  Whiteoaks of Jalna is a fictitious story spanning 100 years and 4 generations of a family that came to Canada in 1850 and build a magnificent brick mansion on 1000 acres of land near Lake Ontario in the Oakville area. As a result, I got no stitching done but I did get a root canal yesterday. Yes. I invested  yet another $700 to keep one more tooth. And I have to go back to my own dentist to get the filling put in so more $$$. Also, I have had that sinus/throat/cough thing. Not fun when you are in the dentist chair for 2 1/2 hours and your face is frozen. I learned that if you take extra strength Tylenol and Advil at the same time, you get a more effective painkiller. Just saying. 

The RSC  colour for June is Aqua/teal/turquoise 

and I got a few done and started. 

 I bought a new mini iron.

 I plan to do this star by EPP. 

Wish me luck getting those 8 center points together. . 

Blessings,

Chris

linking to 

lovelaughquilt  main-crush-monday   mid week makers  BOMs Away  let's bee social  needle-and-thread-thursday  can I get a whoop-   needleandthreadnetwork     wips-be-gone  esther aliu's WOW slow sunday stitching

Slow Sunday Stitching

June Dear Daughter Blocks 

Photocopied the patterns onto heavy freezer paper 

 ironed them onto the reproduction fabrics

 sprayed Best Press on 

before pressing the seam allowance 

to the back

Now the hand stitching fun begins.

Blessings,

Chris

June 2018 OMG

I totally surprised myself with what I had accomplished in quilting last month. I had not set out to do all that but am quite pleased with the results. June is here and that means it is haying time on the farm. I do not drive tractor nearly as much as I used to, but am always on call. I stopped playing computer games 2 months ago and have been turning the computer off more often. However, I still find myself sitting here reading blogs and facebook for hours. So I am endeavoring to slow that down and focus on other more important things.

The RSC colour for June is teal/turquoise and I have pulled no less than 8 Bright Jane blocks that were prepped last year that did not get made. My OMG one-monthly-goal- is to make  8 blocks. They will all be foundation pieced using one of my Singer Featherweights.

In the meantime, I continue to read and write and kiss boo boos and change fewer diapers since both boys are in potty training. Whatever will I do when their Mom finishes school in 2 months?

Blessings,
Chris

End of May 2018 Progress

A Heart a Day for the Month of May

I have been enjoying  hand appliqueing hearts onto these 4 inch squares.
This challenge came from Deb at Happy to be Scrappy
I missed one day but have caught up. Have no idea where this will lead,
but it has been an interesting lesson in slowing down and doing one small thing consistently.
 I decided that if I do it in the morning it is enjoyable, but, if I leave it until night, it becomes something that HAS to be done and is no longer fun. There are still 6 to stitch.
This is one of my new 6 & 6 for 2018 Challenge.

Bright Jane

This one came out to play this spring and the  superscrappy RSC  colour for May has been pink/rose.
 I am using one of my Featherweights. I have been doing foundation piecing on the blocks this past year because I have all the foundation patterns prepared and printed onto Carol Doak's special paper left over from my first Dear Jane quilt that I completed in 2014 but am still machine quilting.
And
I added sashing strips to the right side and bottoms of most of the finished blocks
in preparation to assemble the top some day.
The blocks are 4 1/2 inches. There will be 169.

I had all 60 completed blocks and the bright border flags up on the design wall and asked the little boys to take them down and put them into project boxes. They could not reach the top row even on the 3-step stool. But I have new converts to play with my blocks.
 Jonathan had walked into the quilt room and exclaimed "WOW!" when he saw them. 

David had not noticed but came and gave me hugs and kisses first.

Dear Daughter

My OMG one-monthly-goal for May was to complete the hand applique on 4 blocks and add the sashing and cornerstones. I was ahead since I made several extra donuts and 3 alternate blocks. Next month there will be a couple of flower blocks. I intend to make the easier ones and skip the more intricate if I can. But then there will be 2 bird blocks in November and I am looking forward to making them. These blocks finish at 8 inches and the sashing is 3 inches.

Huguenot Friendship Quilt

After sewing on the Dear Daughter sashing and cornerstones, I changed the thread to red silk and continued machine appliqueing these blocks with a fine straight stitch using the Bernina.
 It is really boring but this is an impulse project and I work on it between other things.
It will get exciting again when I can put the border together after
all the blocks are complete and the center assembled.
These 36 blocks will be 8 inches set on point with alternate white squares and setting triangles
with an applique border.

Antique Wedding Sampler

For some crazy reason, I pulled out the kits I purchased from Homestead Hearth 2-3 years ago and started working on just one block. Then, since I was prepping corner appliques for one, it was easy to prep them for 2 others, so I did. I had photocopied the patterns onto extra heavy freezer paper and cut out the diamonds and triangles for 3 sunflower blocks when I was in Shipshewana in April.
I stitched these together by hand using an English paper piecing technique.
 Still not decided if I like doing this or not.
These blocks are 12 inches. There will be 25 of them set on point.

Morrell

Yes. I did work on 2 more Morrell blocks. And I completed them.

All 105 pieces of the 3 Flying Geese units.
 I still have several more blocks that I had prepped ready to foundation piece
a couple of years ago. There will be 60 ten inch blocks and
a 20 inch center block.
Someday.

90 Day One Big Thing

I completed one course for my Doctorate in Christian Counseling
and submitted it. 

I continued working on another only to discover that,
where I thought I was close to the end, there were still no less than 12 more books to read
and
an entire 12 week study to work my way through.
 Sigh.
Oh well. It will be a good foundation for my dissertation.
Good thing I bought all the books when I first started it 2 years ago.
This course is about bringing healing to broken women.

And all this because I stopped playing computer games.
 Imagine that. 

Blessings,
Chris

linking to 

lovelaughquilt  main-crush-monday   mid week makers  BOMs Away  let's bee social  needle-and-thread-thursday  can I get a whoop-   needleandthreadnetwork     wips-be-gone  esther aliu's WOW  slow sunday stitching