Pincushions!

Two weeks ago, after I finished sewing the backings and bindings for the tractor crib quilts, I cleaned, dusted and covered my sewing machine. I didn't touch it for a full week while I fall cleaned my house. Well, my home is clean enough and we've finally had the first freeze of the year.  Autumn is definitely here and I'm ready to sew again.

Last winter I embroidered many little squares to be used for pincushions and needle books. This week I concentrated on the pincushions.

These embroidery designs are from Gail Pan's book Embroidery Loves Patchwork. They measure 4" by 6" and are filled with ground walnut hulls.

I've made 14 pincushions but only had enough hulls on hand to fill these 5. I'll pick up more filler and show you the rest of them in my next post.

Linking to Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Let's Bee Social,  Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished Or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Finish It Up Friday, Show Off Saturday

Quilting Pastor's Attic

I made it to the end of the first quilting row. 

I've rolled and now I'm starting on the next row. This has the border applique included in it. 

Stitching in the ditch around the applique makes it puff nicely. I'm not quilting the diamond lines through all of the applique. 

I prepped another block for Lucy this week but didn't get it sewn.

I have to admit I like the Lucy blocks when they're finished but this project isn't exciting me like I thought it would. Quilting is much more fun! I had originally said I was going to make 12 Lucy blocks and see if I was motivated to make more. I'm not motivated. The 12 block wallhanging is going to turn into a 6 block table runner. I'd rather quilt!

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, BOM's Away, Moving It Forward, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Lucy Boston & the Pastor's Attic Quilt

First I'm going to show you the photo of the block I made the end of September, you know, the one that ended up in the cyberspace abyss.

This block was completed this week.

You never know what the block is going to look like until it's finished.

I've also sewn several of the 4 patches that go in the corner of each section. I need to get the fabric cut for the colored squares. 

They're not all matching pieces but they'll do.

The priority project this week was to finish the marking of the Pastor's Attic quilt. That took awhile because I marked an allover diamond background. 

First I marked corners of the quilt with various stencils. I had taken a picture of this earlier which also disappeared into cyberspace so this is a retake. I forgot to tape it down for the retake. This is important because you do NOT want the stencil to slide while you are marking a quilt. Taping two sides of the stencil works for me.

When I was marking the diamonds, I put tape on the outside of the corner markings to keep from marking the corner design. 

You can erase the markings with a fabric eraser (the label on the eraser says FACTIS extra soft, purchased at my local fabric store), but erasing is hard on the fabric. That is another reason to mark lightly.

After I've marked the diamonds on the block, I remove the tape and carefully mark the lines to the edge of the design mark. Once the applique blocks are marked, I marked the borders.

For  years I have used silver pencils but I read on Sue Garman's website that she recommends Paper Mate Sharpwriter #2 fine point pencils. Supposedly the markings will wash out. I haven't tried it but I did test the eraser on a scrap of fabric. Don't use it, the crumbs are pink/red colored and you don't want that on your quilt, at least I don't. Use a Factis eraser, it's white and the crumbs easily brushed away.

Anyway, the quilt is finally in the frame and a new quilting journey has begun. I'm using a variegated YLI quilting thread and my new copper thimble. 

Wool batting stitches so nicely, the thread just glides through the layers. 

This quilt is going to be in the frame for most of the winter. I hope you all don't get tired of reading about it.

Here is a link to past posts about the Pastor's Attic Quilt.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, HQAL, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, BOM's Away, Moving It Forward, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Tractors Are Finished!

The tractor quilts are finished. I think the borders make a nice frame to the center. They measure 45" by 49".


They definitely look like autumn with the fall leaf fabric.

Again I took pictures in the cornfield.

They both look exactly alike but there is different fabric used for the 'mud'.

One of the quilts will be sent to Pennsylvania to be quilted for the grands school auction.

The other quilt will be long armed quilted and donated to a fund raiser at our church.

Here is a picture taken further back so you can have a better perspective.

This corn was planted late in the growing season, the first of June. We were concerned we might have an early frost but that hasn't happened. Now the corn has matured so, let it frost!

The outside of this field was chopped and blown into the silo as silage to feed the cows this winter. The rest of the corn will be shelled and used in the cow feed ration.

Linking to Finished Or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Let's Make Baby Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Show Off Saturday, Monday Making

Green Tractor Crib Quilts

Yes, I'm still working on unfinished quilt projects.

In November 2016, I made a John Deere crib quilt for our youngest grandson. I wrote about the start of that quilt here and the finished quilt here. If you want to see the pattern, go to the first link.

Last winter I cut fabrics for two more green tractor crib quilts. For our grandson's quilt, I had added the JD 42/40 because that is the size of one of our tractors but that isn't included on the actual pattern. I certainly don't want to end up in a lawsuit with the John Deere Corporation over copyright issues since these two quilts may end up in auctions.

For a really great photo shoot, I decided to clothespin the quilts to leaves on the corn stalks since tractors are definitely farmerish.

I think they need borders before they are really finished. Right now they measure 35-1/2" by 39-1/2" which is kind of small.  I'll use fall colored fabric to finish them since the soil and mud are brown fabrics.

The farmer also critiqued the quilts, he says the pattern has the smokestack pointing the wrong direction. I'll change that if I make anymore quilts from the pattern.

I took a picture of our JD 42/40. I'm sure you can see the resemblance even though the real tractor is sitting in the opposite direction. And yes, the smokestack has the thingy on the side towards the cab.

Also, just for your information, the old time JD tractors have yellow seats. The modern JD tractors are not. I used yellow for the tractor seats because that is what our tractors have. Just thought I'd share that in case someone out there is a purist.

This is not a hard quilt to make but it is extremely important to label each piece you cut. I numbered the rows on the pattern and added the row number to the label of each cut piece. 

Just for fun I took a picture of the tractor with gravity wagons. They're waiting for the combine to come and run beans (soybeans for you non farmers).

Linking to Let's Bee Social,  Needle & Thread Thursday

More Lucy Blocks

The title of this post is More Lucy Blocks and I did complete two of them this week. I took pictures of them both and some other items too, but when I downloaded them from the camera, only one picture was there! I guess the other pictures are somewhere but I sure can't find them.

So here is a picture of the surviving block, next week I'll show you the other block.

You're probably wondering why I didn't just take another picture of the other block. It's because it's the middle of the night and I couldn't sleep so I'm writing the post now instead of waiting until tomorrow morning. Photos taken at night just don't do well.

Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, BOM's Away, Moving It Forward, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

4 X 4 Quilt

Last week ago I showed you a scrappy quilt made using leftover 9 patches from Scrappy 9 Patches. The next project was making a flimsy from extra squares used in the border of Sweet Surrender.

I knew I wanted to strip piece the Sweet Surrender border, so much easier than sewing individual blocks together. I also knew there would be a lot of leftover squares. In my mind, I had been casually thinking about what to do with the extra strips and squares. 

The first thing I do every morning, while sipping my coffee before heading out to the barn, is check the Missouri Star Quilt Co. website and see what the daily deal is for that day. One day I checked and the 4 X 4 pattern was a free download for that day's daily deal and, it used squares, perfect!

Here is my version of the 4 X 4 quilt. I arranged the blocks differently than the picture on the front of the pattern.

Since I was using leftover strip pieces, I didn't make my blocks like the pattern said. A lot of seams were pressed open. There were enough leftover strips to make the majority of the quilt which was very nice.

My quilt measures 56" by 64" and will be long arm quilted. I'm not sure who or where this quilt will be gifted but it's nice to have a finished quilt ready to go when you need a gift for a special person.

Linking to Let's Bee Social,  Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished Or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF, Show Off Saturday, Oh Scrap