What I've been doing while I haven't been blogging.

I finished up this quilt - baby quilt 3 of 6 for the year - last week.  It's for Scott's cousin who just had a new baby boy.  I couldn't get a really good picture but this should give you the idea.  It was a super easy  quilt that I found here.  Not super in love with fabric that I picked but it went with the bedding.  It just seems so dark. Maybe that'll help mask the inevitable things baby will end up adding. . .

The pattern ended up with all of these little half square triangles.  One night while waiting to fall asleep, I was plotting about what to do with the back when this idea came to me.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I was deliriously happy but in the wash, I had some raveling issues with the sail.  I think it can be fixed with a little hand stitching but it sure is a bummer.

And I cut my fabric for the Kaleidoscope quilt along.  This is for baby quilt 4 of 6.  I think it's going to be a cute one.  Just waiting on the next set of instructions that I think are coming on Thursday.

And then the start of another new project.  Hopefully this will be a finish by the end of the week.  This is supposed to be for my big trip in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!!!!  Oh hexagons.  I wish I knew how to quit you. . .

And then my three Farmer's Wife blocks and a fail.  Remember how I wanted to do four a week?  And remember how I said that I had to make 34 extra blocks to make this a king sized quilt?  I had this "brilliant" idea last week that I was come up with different blocks instead of duplicating what was already in the quilt.  34 blocks shouldn't be that hard to come up with in a year, right?  And I thought, hmmm, I'm doing a kaleidoscope quilt.  Maybe I can shrinky dink down the quilt block that I'm doing over there for this quilt.  So I did the math (obviously not my strong suit) and I reduced that pattern.  And I cut.  And I thought I came up with a pretty cute block (if you don't pay attention to how the points don't all line up in the center).  But it looked a little. . .  little.  I measured that baby and I have a 5" square.  5".  Which would finish at 4.5".  Probably not going to work with my 6.5" squares unless I put a border on it.  (There's a thought - if I can get past those wayward points.)  So for now, I'm calling it a fail.  We'll see if there is some life in that girl down the road.  Without further ado or explanation, here is my submission for the week -

11 Broken Dishes

12 Broken Sugar Bowl

13 Buckwheat

Fail (but isn't she cute anyway??)
xoxoxox

Bags! and blocks

Ok. So it's really just one bag, but it's cute! I think I love bags now and want to make lots - because I have so much free time. . . This one was a free pattern I found here. Super easy. I had a fat quarter of this awesome Jay McCarroll fabric (love you Jay!!) and I wanted to do something special with it. This seemed like the perfect little bag. The pattern calls for a little decorative button detail but I scrapped that and went with piping instead and I'm pretty happy with that decision. And this was my first project with pleats! And a magnetic snap! (The snap I used was WAY too heavy for this fabric so I've ordered some smaller ones and think I'll probably end up doing some deconstruction and repair when they arrive.) The only change I would make to the pattern - and I sort of knew this going in - is that I would add interfacing to the handle. I thought about this and added canvas as interfacing to the body of the bag to give it sturdiness but completely forgot to do anything when I got to the handle. I may have to correct that when the snap switch happens. Overall, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

On to the Farmer's Wife blocks of the week -
Still loving it. Here are last week's blocks. I think I've determined that I need to do three blocks a week to finish close to everyone else. And for the next few weeks I think I'm going to aim for at least four to make up for the time that we'll be away next month. My fave from last week is the ninth one called Box.I thought I was outsmarting the pattern my making those prints one big triangle instead of two smaller ones, but that's what I get for thinking. I had to do a tricky bit of work to get it all seamed up properly but I think it worked out ok. I'm happy with it anyway. I'm ready to tackle this week's blocks, even if they seem to be full of little fiddly bits of triangles. But I'm having lots of fun digging through my stash and finding fabrics that I'd forgotten that I owned. Oops. . .

xoxoxox

7 Birds in the Air

8 Bouquet

9 Box

10 Bowtie

Farmer's Wife Sampler - reporting for duty

I sat down last night for a good long time at my sewing machine (probably too long) and whipped out these little babies - three for last week and three for this week.  Now I'm all caught up.  I know that lots of people are hopping around but I'm going in order.  I figured I'd just take the crappy ones (like the two with curves) as they come and work out fabric choices along the way.  The original sampler quilt is pretty scrappy so I figure mine will be too.  I'll just choose whatever makes me happy in the moment and hope that the sashing ties it all together in the end.  Here we go - 

#1 - Attic Windows

#2 - Autumn Tints

#3 - Basket

#4 - Basket Weave

#5 - Bat Wing

#6 - Big Dipper

xoxoxoxox

I've lost my mind.

It's not like I don't have 10 more quilts to finish before the end of the year, one of which is for a baby that's due any day now.

It's not like I don't have 6 more hats to finish (start) knitting before we go to South Africa - five weeks from today.

It's not like I don't have these lofty goals of making a shirt and a skirt for this summer - my first garments.

I've now decided that I want to join two - TWO!?!?!? - quilt alongs that are starting up soon. What am I thinking? I'm not entirely sure. I can tell you that I have scrapped my block of the month quilt. My crushing failure on March's block took any joy out of that quilt. Or maybe ever using a pattern from that book again.

So here is what I'm signing up for -
1.  The kaleidoscope quilt along (nifty button thing above). This may be another baby quilt. Maybe not. Haven't decided yet but I'm really digging the other kaleidoscopes I've been seeing around other blogs. And I think I may feel like a real interwebs quilter if I start linking up to things like this.
2.  The other is the Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt along blogged here and here. This one has 111 blocks (I think 143 for a king size so you have to duplicate 32 blocks, which I think I may do) and the goal is to do two blocks a week. Totally - I think - doable. We'll see. I may need to do three a week to make up for South Africa and to get to my king size goal by the time everyone is getting to the smaller number.

Phew.
xoxoxox

Love

Don't know why it's taken me days to post this because I am seriously in love with this bag. I had hoped to get better pictures but I just don't think that is going to happen any time soon. And I've been dragging this bag all over town with me. It's my new fave. You may remember this as my "let's give hexagons a go" project. Rousing success, I say.

I finished this on late Tuesday night - or maybe early Wednesday morning. So it was either my last finish of May or my first finish of June. I had a hard time deciding on the fabrics to finish it. Didn't want anything that would compete too much with the front of the bag. I was going to do the sides, bottom and back in linen but that seemed too tame so I switched it up and used the fabric I was going to use to line it for the back instead.

Hello Ventura!!! I love this fabric. I bought it about two years ago knowing that the right project would come along. This seemed like the right one.

So I used a good portion of my stash of this awesome Valori Wells fabric from the Del Hi collection. I may have to restock that for my stash. I heart it a bunch. I'd be sad to use it all up. And then I thought that crazy polkadot - also from Del Hi - would be great for pockets. My only mistake here is that the pockets ended up on the inside of the front of the bag instead of the back. Not a big deal at all, just wasn't quite what I imagined.

Hope you all have a good weekend. I'm sewing with some friends tomorrow. Happy.
xoxoxox