The Goose is Getting Fat...

Oh Christmas. It's going to be a new adventure for the Hub and I. No young 'uns at home to make us decorate... or even better, to decorate for us. DS1 used to do it for us in the old days. Maybe he'll do it for us this year now that he's moved back to the hometown.

With the girl child off preaching the gospel in "foreign" lands (California... it's like foreign, but with domestic shipping rates) I know how important the holiday season will be for her to feel support from home. She starts with her birthday, then skips right into Thanksgiving (she was born on Thanksgiving Day) then jumps on to Christmas. I'mjust getting started with holiday sewing. Here is my first free motion quilting project ever:

 

See the tutorial from Missouri Quilt Co HERE. I love YouTube... love it ...love it...LOVE IT!!
If you are a coward like me and don't feel confident free-handing a stocking, THIS is the template I used. It's a downloadable PDF and part of a nice text tutorial at fabricworm.blogspot.com.  

Aiming for Accuracy - Week Number Last!

Hooray for done!

After four months of weekly tutorials, the top - or "flimsy" as some (including me, because I think it is the perfect descriptor, and because it's my blog I can do what I want) call it- for the Aiming for Accuracy quilt is DONE! Of course, that's the easy part. I still need to make a back for it and decide how I'm going to quilt it. You can find the tutorials for this quilt at Quilters Gallery. I enjoyed it a lot and I feel like I learned a lot. Michelle Foster, designer and teacher, is pretty dang great at the whole quilting/tutorializing (that's a real word cuz I just used it)/and blogging about quilting and tutorializing (now it's been used twice...must be a real word) thing.




(Promise me you won't let my English teaching friends read that last sentence. It'll be our secret.)

FWQ - October 2013

Yay! Another month's blocks are done. Just that much closer on my Farmer's Wife Quilt. These were assigned for October. Wanna look at the originals?  Here they are at American Quilting.

Alpha Blocks

Finally! I have all the blocks done which represent the letters of the alphabet. Next step is sewing them into 12 large blocks...in alphabetical order, of course.

How many block names do you know? What if I give you a hint?
Album, Bachelor's Puzzle, Chimneys and Cornerstones, Duck and Ducklings, Evening Star, Friendship, Grandma's Choice, Hayes Corner, Illinois, Johnie Around the Corner, Kansas Star, Log patch, Morning Star, Night and Noon, Octagons, Pineapple, Quartered Star, Rambler, Shoofly, Turnstile, Union Square, Virginia Reel, Whirling Whirlwind, X Block, Yankee Puzzle, Zigzag

Click here to see the photo of the very cool, completed original at American Quilters.

Hub's Day

Happy Birthday Bryan.

There is no other hub I'd rather have in the center of my little universe.
You spin my world.

Progess you can sink your teeth into - A4A week 13

The Aiming for Accuracy quilt designed by Michelle Foster from Mishka's Playground is built in three sections. Now, at week 13, section A is DONE! It is pretty exciting stuff. Here is my section A.

The quilt design is much like a puzzle in the way it comes together. Section A is less than a quarter of the quilt. Section B is a bit larger and Section C is more than half. Then the three sections are surrounded by a border. It should come together quite quickly in the next few weeks. Stay tuned...

Click here to see other Section A submissions from the quilt-along.

The Farmer's Wife - September 2013

Once upon a time there were three tomatoes. There was great big Daddy Tomato, beautiful plump Mommy Tomato and little tiny Baby Tomato. One day after dinner Daddy Tomato suggested they all go for a walk in the woods. So they did. Great big Daddy Tomato took great big strides. It was hard for little tiny Baby Tomato to keep up.  Beautiful, plump Mommy tomato stayed behind with little tiny Baby Tomato who stopped to examine every new thing in the path. Daddy Tomato encouraged plump beautiful Mommy Tomato and little tiny Baby Tomato to walk faster but there were just too many things for Baby Tomato to look at. Finally, great big Daddy Tomato lost patience with the slow-pokes. He walked back to where Mommy and Baby tomato were looking at ants. Suddenly great big Daddy Tomato squashed beautiful plump Mommy Tomato and little tiny Baby Tomato and shouted "Ketchup!"

OK so the story is silly and probably promotes domestic violence but I wanted a segue into today's quilting photo.

These are the Farmer's Wife quilt blocks that were assigned for...SEPTEMBER!! (See the originals here.) Now I can look back and say: Remember that time I completed all the quilt blocks that were assigned in the same month they were due? That is not to say I have "ketch-uped". I'm just happy to announce that I'm less behind this month than I was last month. And, since you asked, yes I am getting a lot better at those points and angles.

Aiming for Accuracy Progress - Week 10

This is starting to look like it might someday become an actual quilt. I admit I've had my doubts about my fabric choice. Especially when I see the fabulous, coordinated blocks others are making. I'm still a little nervous that mine may turn out having too many colors, not enough balance.. The original that Mishka is making looks like stained glass or watercolors. It is so cool. As soon as I chose orange rather than black for my contrast fabric I lost the opportunity for stained glass. Turns out I actually like orange so that's ok.

I'm really pleased at how much better my seams and points are since I started. I'm learning a lot, often by making mistakes. I just have to remember:

"If you are not making mistakes you are not making progress."

 

 I hope we get to see all the finished projects at the end. Most of them are going to be Fabu-lisious!

Farmers Wife - August 2013

These are the blocks assigned for the Farmer's Wife August Block of the Month Quilt. OK so these are MOST of the blocks. I'm short by three. I set aside the one's with odd angles until I'm more comfortable with them. I'm getting better at angles. I can nail a right triangle on the first try most of the time. I'm just going to let the blocks with odd angles sit for a while. I know eventually it will "click" in my brain and I'll wonder what the problem was in the first place. At least I hope that is what happens...and soon. I just picked up the kit for September. It made me want to cry a little. 

Here is the link to the originals over at American Quilting.

The Farmers Wife - May 2013

This is my second set of Farmer's Wife blocks complete. Block numbers 36 - 46 assigned for completion in May. I'm not sure I'm getting better at paper piecing. The more blocks I finish the more I think, "Ima hafta redo this one...and this one".  If you want to see what they are supposed to look like follow this link to American Quilters.

Can you see where I sewed a wrong piece into one of the blocks? I didn't see it until I hung the block on the wall. My hope is the quilt fairy will fix it so it is not noticeable when it is set into a quilt with 100 of it's sisters. With 64 one-inch pieces in the block I wasn't about to pull it apart...again.

(Update 29 Aug 2013) Someone at the quilt store today said: "If you can't see a mistake from the back of a galloping horse, it don't matter." I laughed along with the rest of the group and felt better about my error.

Aiming for Accuracy Weeks 5 and 6

Here are my recent additions to the Aiming for Accuracy Quilt along. 127 photos were posted in the quilt along gallery last week. There were participants from 8 countries, 32 states and 4 Canadian provinces. It makes me feel part of something international.

Farmers Wife - February 2013

Congratulations to me! I have completed the 11 Farmer's Wife quilt blocks which were assigned for February. I haven't been doing them in order as presented in the book even though that is how they are kitted for the block of the month club. If one strikes my fancy I'll do it (and conversely if it looks too hard I'll skip it.) But I confess I did the last two of these just so I could say I'd finished at least one full month's assignment.

The silver lining about starting six months behind the rest of the group is that I have six months worth of fabric swatches to mix and match with rather than just one month at a time. Most of the time I've liked the colors they have chosen but sometimes I've switched it up just for fun. You can see the originals here. Tell me what you think. 

Flannel boards and other mysteries

Crafting with the cgf's ( my crafty girlie friends) last night I took stuff to make quilt design boards. Of course the cgf's don't quilt so they were  polite but uninterested. When JuJu's daughter asked what I was making I told her they were quilt block design boards. She didn't know what that was so I explained they are flannel boards for assembling quilt blocks. She did not know what a flannel board was. Really?!? I guess we now use  magnets when we are storytelling to children. In all fairness, I don't think she knew what a quilt block was either.

But I digress. Here is a tutorial for the design boards. I f you are making a quilt with a billion little pieces, such as the Farmer's Wife quilt, you'll wish you had six of these awesome little beauties. They are easy and nearly free to make.

Sad Note: Unfortunately, once again I am unable to supply a photo. The Hub is fishing in Alaska this week. He took the camera. Not only did he take it fishing, but he also took it for an unplanned swim in the Kenai on the first day there. My birthday is on Sunday, maybe I'll get a new camera.

Aiming for Accuracy Sections 1-4

About the time I was finishing the Beginner's Quilt along (which Mishka had actually posted last year). She started a second Qal called Aiming for Accuracy. These are the blocks for that Qal which is in progress currently. She posts a section of the quilt along with instructions and fabulous tutorials each week on Thursday-ish. These are the first/largest sections. The Aiming for Accuracy Quilt along will be going until October 2013. Come join in.

Beginner's Quilt along

When I discovered the Farmer's Wife quilt it haunted me as a project I really wanted to do. I also knew I didn't have the skill for such a large and demanding piece. So I surfed around the net and found a Beginner's Quilt Along at Quilting Gallery (which not only has a fun blog but also a terrific learning center). It was exactly what I needed to learn the jargon and get to know my new machine. I highly recommend this Quilt along for anyone new to the game. Mishka's tutorials and instruction are fabulous.I made this quilt top under her guidance. It's nothing fancy, but pretty alright for a first timer.

And, YES, there is a basketball hoop in my craft room AND my design wall is crammed into a corner AND it's too small for an entire quilt. Ya do whacha gotta do.

The Farmer's Wife Quilt

This Farmer's Wife quilt kit is also from American Quilting. The quilt has a fun history which I suggest you read about here. The Farmer's Wife is the quilt that made me want to make a quilt. I kept seeing quilts and blocks on Pinterest labeled Farmer's Wife. I researched it and loved the concept and decided that would be the mother of all quilts for me at this level of experience. It has 111 unique blocks, each 6 inches when finished and makes a queen size quilt in the end.

It was that research that led me to discover that American Quilting was doing a block of the month Farmer's Wife in modern colors. I was in love! Unfortunately, the BOM had started in January 2013 and runs until November. It was now July and the monthly kits have 12 blocks each. But again I begged, and again the nice ladies at AQ scrounged around and  found me the six back kits and let me join. I have finished 12 blocks  in the week since then. Today is the pick-up date for kit  #7. I'm only about 60 blocks behind. No pressure.

Quilting Progress: ABC - Quilt With Me

I'm making good progress on some of my long term quilt projects. I'll share them over the next few days.

This one is a Block of the Month kit I got at American Quilting. The quilt is called ABC - Quilt With Me. It was last year's BoM so the quilt along ended in June 2013. Having only started this mad obsession a few weeks earlier, I had to beg to buy the kit. Follow the link to check out the finished product on the American Quilting blog.

I knew I had to make this quilt the first time I laid eyes on it. It is the perfect gift for my mother. She has been a quilter all her life and also taught 1st grade for 35 years.The quilt is lap size but small enough that she can hang it as a wall quilt. I love it! I've had a couple of peeps say they don't like the alphabet letters on it. But I explain that quilt block patterns have names. Each block's name begins with the letter of the alpha next to it. For example the A is beside the block titled  Album Block, B is next to the block called Bachelors puzzle, C block is called Chimneys and Cornerstones, D is Duck and Ducklings etc. (And if you didn't go look at the original you have no idea what I'm saying.)  :-P

Rumors

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. - Mark Twain

I haven't left the building, checked out or died. I had hoped to go back and play catch up blogger but the longer it goes the less likely that is to happen. So Ima just start fresh.

I've taken up a new hobby...can you guess what it is?

Let's see now...where were we?

OH right! We were blogging.

The girl child has been gone six weeks. She will be leaving the Missionary Training Center tomorrow. I hardly feel like she has been gone. I still find her stuff around the house. I pulled a pair of her shoes out from under the couch this morning. The Hub sees her every week day since he works at the MTC, so I get almost daily reports. I've also tried to write her twice a week. Trust me... my life has NEVER been interesting enough to write two letters a week to the same person.

That's not to say things haven't been happening. For example, Mr and Mrs DS2 have moved in to their very own house. DS1 has changed jobs and moved in to the house vacated by the DS2s. But really, how much can you write about other folks lives?

I did, however, finish the recipe book I promised her for Christmas. And I made a missionary apron for her. I tried to convince her to take the one DS2 took on his mission but she didn't like that it said Elder Boothe. Hers has Hna. Boothe on it; aside from that it's pretty much the same. I had hoped to paint it in a grape motif (since she is serving in "the Lord's Vineyard")  but when I finally got to it I didn't have the right color paint. So I went with handwriting instead. Best laid plans, and all that.

The "scriptures" written on it are food/cooking related:
To love his neighbor as himself is better than all...Burnt Offerings.  Mark 12:33
Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep. John 21:16
Feast upon the words of Christ. 2 Nephi 32:3
Fasting = rejoicing and prayer.  DC 59:13
Food... for taste and for smell, and to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul. DC 59:19
Wheat for Man D&C 89:17 Chocolate for Woman M&M 24:7
He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15
If thine enemy hunger, Feed him. Romans 12:20

HOLY COW!

Where did that six weeks go?!? I finished the wedding book and didn't even bother to get the photos because I felt so time crunched. As for memorize Monday? Well THAT fell beside the wayside even more than reading the Book of Mormon in 60 days. The sixty days has flown past leaving a whooshing sound hissing in my ears and, no, I didn't finish but I will before the month is out. Yes, I will.

So now the girl child is off to serve the Lord.  Right about now she is in her new room at the Missionary Training Center getting ready to spend that first night in a room full of girls. Because she is an only girl that bit will be an adventure all by itself.  She'll spend 6 weeks learning Spanish in the MTC and then she's off to Fresno California to preach the gospel in the "Lord's vineyard". It will be the greatest time of her life. I'm a little jealous.

Why isn't there a photo? I let Girl Child take my camera.