June's Tally of Accomplishments

Here is a partial rundown of what I have finished in June. It is only partial because Google is giving me a hard time about my password and I can't get into my email. Since I am a technology immigrant, not a native like some of you youngsters who grew up with technology, I have a difficult time learning new technology. The only way I know how to put pictures on my blog is to take a photo with my iPhone, email it to myself, save it to my computer, and then load it onto my blog. Today Google is not letting me into my email so there are several pictures that I am not able to include in my photo mosaic. Now, to contradict myself, the photo mosaic on PicMonkey was very easy to use, as several of you told me last month. I hope this is a better way to look at a large number of photos.

The photos aren't in the order I would have liked, but here they are:
1. Merry, Merry Snowmen block #5;  2. All five Merry, Merry Snowmen blocks as they go together in the quilt; 3. June's FMQ challenge; 4. Finished Prism quilt! Yeah for me. A finished project; 5. Blogger's BOM block #10 in my Christmas fabrics; 6. All 10 of my Blogger's BOM blocks in Christmas fabrics; 7. All 10 of my Blogger's BOM blocks in my purple/black palette; 8. Blogger BOM #10 in purple/black; 9. 2012 Designer's Mystery BOM block #1; 10. Seven FW blocks using Apple of My Eye by Riley Blake; 11. Five more FW blocks. 

The pictures I am not able to load are of six baby burp cloths I made using various flannels that are left over from previous baby quilts I have made in the past. These are for Daughter, or her baby, whoever needs them most. And, a picture of 12 more scrap houses. I sewed a total of 61 scrap houses in June. That brings my grand total to 229 houses. By my count, that takes me to August 16. It feels good to be ahead in the count.

I am linking this post with Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts. Many thanks to Lynn for hosting this monthly link up.

FMQ June 2012

I had fun with the FMQ challenge this month. Below is my best sample:

When I started the top half, I had intended to do 1/4 of the circle with sun rays. I had so much fun, though that I just kept going.  I did section off the rest of it. In the lower section, I doodled, but then as I was quilting, I changed what I had intended to do. Is that what the 'free' in free motion quilting means?

Another Good Sewing Week

I have had another great week in my sewing room. My summer class is done and grades are posted. I have just one more week of meetings, reports, and student obligations to take care of. Then I intend to go into hiding and pretend that I have left town. My plan is to get a lot done in the three weeks that will remain before we go to New York to see daughter.

This is what I have been working on this week:
#1: Merry, Merry Snowmen BOM. Here is block #5

I love the movement in this one. It was fun to do. My applique skills are improving, but I will probably always prefer to piece.
This is how the first five blocks fit together:

#2. More Farmer's Wife blocks. I got seven done this week. I am finding some helpful blog sites, but I hesitate to mention them because of all the hullabaloo about posting anything having to do with FW.

I think that little basket needs to be set on point and I think I should applique a handle on it. It looks a bit bare to me as it is. It would have been nice if I had thought to center the apple in the block on the upper right. Oh well. It's supposed to be scrappy looking.

#3 More houses:
I got an additional 24 scrap houses sewn this week. That brings my total to 217. By my count, that takes me to August 4. WooHoo! Here are a few of them:

I now remember why my total is not a multiple of four. When I was first working on these, I really messed one up. I picked out stitches and resewed until it was just a mess. I am pretty sure that I just threw that one away. It wasn't a temper tantrum, just frustration as the paper became so perforated that it was useless to continue with it.

That's what I did this week. How was your week? Thanks for stopping by.

This Week's Progress

Another week has flown by. I haven't been posting throughout the week so here is what I have accomplished in seven short days.
Scrap Houses:

I now have a total of 193 Scrap Houses! According to last week's post, I have completed 31 this week. I know I have mentioned in the past that math is not my strong suit and I am suspicious about that number. Since my paper patterns are on sheets of four and I complete several sheets at a time, the total should be a multiple of four. I guess I need to recount my sets of 10 to see if I have made a mistake somewhere. Oh well, bottom line is that I have made significant progress with my houses. According to my count, 193 takes me to July 11. I am purposely keeping these very scrappy looking. I am not color coordinating any of the houses. This is forcing me to get away from being so matchy-matchy in my fabric/color choices. This has been a good challenge for me.

New Project: Farmer's Wife
I am really late coming to this party. I have been reading a lot about this quilt project in blogland. I purchased the book and took a long time thinking about the fabric I would use. I have lots of stash, but I really didn't want to start another long project working with my dark scraps. I bought an Apple of My Eye (Riley Blake) fat quarter bundle for this project. I love the colors and couldn't wait to cut into it and start putting some of these together.

I completed five blocks this week. I chose relatively simple ones. Sometime I will post a rant about the templates provided with this book. Even I can do the math on a 9-patch based 6 inch block. Why are the templates not perfect 2" finished or 2.5" unfinished? Sheesh! If I wanted to draft my own templates I wouldn't have bought the book.

I'll go on (and on and on) about that another time. Meantime, I love the colors of this fabric. It would have been better to select fabric with a smaller scale to use on 6" blocks, though. Anyway, I love the fabric and I will keep on keeping on.

Another new project: 2012 Designer's Mystery BOM
What fun. I read other blogger's posts last year about the 2011 Mystery BOM with great interest and was sorry that I had missed out. I am in on it this time around.

The fabric is Vintage Modern. Don't you just love those colors? I have been stuck in a very dark color palette for a long time. I am really ready to turn away from those dark calicoes and break out into the modern age of quilting.

That is what I did this week. How about you? Now, my Snowman block #5 is waiting for me so I had better get moving. And many scrap houses before I sleep (sorry, Robert Frost).

Thanks for stopping by.

Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop

I am linking this post to the Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up. There is a fun Blog Hop going on. You should check it out.
  Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop

Thanks to Plum and June for hosting this hop. This is my first Monday Link Up. I would have had a lot more to show for the week and I am blaming it on DH. Yesterday my plan was to work on the FMQ June challenge and make more Scrap Houses. Just as I was ready to begin DH swept me away on a day trip to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. We have only lived in Kentucky for three years and there are many places we need to investigate. It was only an hour and a half drive from where we live so it was a great day trip.

It is beautiful, that's for sure. We stopped at a scenic lookout to see what we could see.

Not much except trees and wooded mountains as far as we could see.
We checked out several of the trails as we had planned to hike the trails to the falls. No way. These trails are WAAAY too challenging for us. They are extremely steep, from what we could see at the beginning of each. At our age, a fall could be very serious. We chickened out.

I took a picture down one of the slopes but you can't appreciate how steep and how deep it was. We couldn't see the forest floor from where we were. We are not really wimps. We hiked at Natural Bridge two years ago. We hiked at Mt. St. Helens last year. This one scared the bejeebers out of us. I have a whole new appreciation for the efforts of the pioneers who settled and/or moved through this area. I don't know how they did it.

Even though we stayed on very safe, relatively flat terrain, my knee is killing me today. I may have twisted it without knowing. I didn't notice it until I got up this morning. This getting old crap if for the birds. On the other hand, the alternative isn't too good either. My mother would tell me to "quit yer belly-aching." I would use another term, but my mother was a nicer person than I am.

That's my big long excuse for not getting more done. A good day of sewing was lost.

I have already posted about finishing the quilting of my Prism quilt. Someone asked about the backing and I realized that I didn't even show that.

It's pretty gaudy. I bought a ton of it a long time ago because it was on clearance and I knew I could use it for backings. Now I finally have. See? There is always a reason to buy fabric. It does eventually get used.

I also finished the baby quilt I have blogged about before. It is made with Hoopla from Moda. I got the pattern on the Moda Bake Shop site.

Now that it is finished...OK, I lied. I have about 1/3 of the binding to finish. Now that it is nearly finished, I am thinking that it is too girly. We now know that baby Whozits (due in October) is a boy. I originally thought the primary and secondary colors would be great, but as I have worked on it, I think it is too flowery. I think I will be looking for more boyish fabric and have a go at another one.

I also have been working on my scrap houses. I have 162 total. Woo hoo! By my reckoning I have now caught up to where I would have been if I had sewn one house per day since January 1.

Now I still have to sew like crazy to get them done before the fall semester begins. That will really put a halt to all of my progress. Who can actually sew one scrap house a day? My life doesn't work like that, but I will get to the end of this project anyway. 

If you are hopping around on the Get Acquainted blog, welcome and I hope you stop by again. My followers are terribly bored by this blog because they have heard it all before. Sorry. Well, except for Cumberland Falls. I haven't blogged about that before.

Thanks for stopping by.

A Big Finish!

I have been really quiet here lately. That is because I have been quilting and finishing my Prism quilt. IT IS FINISHED!

I quilted in the ditch on all seams. Then I echo quilted the diagonals 3.5" from the seams. 80/20 batting, Sulky #733 thread (30 weight), Kona solid navy for the binding. I LOVE using the walking foot. Am I the last quilter in the Western World to get one of these? What a difference. Absolutely no ripples in the binding. Wow. I will never be without one again.

Some of my chalk lines are still a bit visible. I love the way the variegated thread played out with the colors of the quilt. I know the photos are a bit blurry. I only have my phone to use for picture taking. Sad. I know. I guess the next thing I need is a camera for the purpose of this blog...Oh, and to take family pictures too.

Thanks for stopping by.

Report on May's Progress

This is going to be a picture-heavy post. Sorry about that. I really do need to learn how to do one of those mosaic thingys (It's a word because I said so).
1) I completed both colorways of the Blogger's BOM project for both April and May:

2) I completed Merry, Merry Snowmen block #4:

3) I completed the FMQ challenge for May by Leah Day:

4) I completed 61 scrap houses blocks. I now have a total of 146! I am getting close to being where I should be had I actually sewn one block a day since January 1:

5) I have kept up with the Prism QAL. I started machine quilting it on the last day of May:

Phew! I got a lot done in May. I have to sew like a demon in the summer because once school starts again in August, I will have a hard time setting aside time for sewing. Also, it is time for the Designer's Mystery BOM to start. That will add another project to my monthly to do list. Hope I can keep up.

It is really helpful to post about my monthly progress. Thanks to Lily's Quilts for the link up opportunity.