I'm sewing the rows together as I go. I like to see the progress, it is slow progress, but progress none the less. I can attach one more row then the partial flimsy will be too wide for the display wall.
I actually had two monthly goals. The second goal was to finish a block for the Pastor's Album Quilt. I posted about completing that goal on the October 9th post.
Not all the projects on my list of 12 are BIG projects. This week I've crossed 2 projects off the list of 12. The first project are these little baskets. I had started appliqueing these blocks, completing two of them, before I left. I finished the other two Sunday evening.
I turned them in at the guild meeting Monday evening. Every year our guild makes and donates a quilt to the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale. These blocks are for the 2018 Relief Sale quilt. The pattern is Victoria's Garden from Blended Quilts by Marcia Makosky and Sharon Evans Yenter.
The quilt committee has put their own spin on the pattern. I think she is going to be a lovely quilt, different than most of the quilts in the auction. These blocks are maybe 6 1/2" now but will be trimmed smaller. I don't know the final size.
The background fabric is the same for all the applique blocks. There is an alternate pieced block between each basket block. Some of the alternate blocks were turned in Monday evening also, this quilt is going to be so cute.
This block is my favorite of the four I appliqued. The soft green batik leaves add a touch of color. I decided to take kits for the same block. Once I've made a block, the others work up fast.
The second project is this basket block. Every year each members of my guild make a quilt block for the past president. The past president selects the pattern and size of the block. Marie came up with this scrappy pieced basket block. I'll let her trim it. I know it looks like a spot on the fabric at the bottom of the basket. There is no spot, the camera just added it to irritate me. These two projects were on the pile of small projects to be made last summer. Neither one took very long but that pile was pretty big!
It felt so good to have sewing time this last week. Here is what I've accomplished, two whole Nearly Insane blocks and two half blocks. I could have pieced one more block this week, but I'm leaving for a week and decided this would be a good time to take my sewing machine to the shop for a cleaning. I'm not using any certain fabric line for my Insane blocks. Just a variety of blues and some yellow. I'm taking a short break from applique to work on another one of the 12 projects on my list. Not all of the 12 projects are start from the beginning projects.
The EPP flower garden crib quilt has been in progress for several years. This has been my go to project when I had no other hand work but now it is time for her to be finished. This week I finished sewing the rows together, then removed all the papers from the back of the hexies. Since I took this picture, the center has been appliqued to the border fabric. After I finished piecing the rest of the Nearly Insane blocks for this month, she'll be quilted. I'm catching an eastbound train and traveling to visit my Pennsylvania grands, and, of course, their parents too. I will be gone all week returning home on Sunday the 23rd. There isn't going to be much time for hand work so I'll take along my dishrag knitting. Linking to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, A Quilting Reader's Garden, Confessions of a Quilt Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Show Off Saturday
Another applique block completed, block 19, Cherry Wreath from the Pastor's Attic Quilt. Look closely, did you count them? There are 42, yes you read right, 42 cherries in this block! This block is lighter colored than I intended but that's OK.
Here are the last five blocks. The top three are all rather light, but they're not going to be next to each other in the final layout. I jumped around appliqueing these blocks. Normally I start with the first block and do each block in consecutive order, but not the last month. I just did whatever block I had prepped. The bottom 2 blocks will be next to each other.
And a picture of the fifteen blocks completed to date. I'm over halfway finished with the center blocks! Like I've said before, this won't be the exact layout of the blocks. This is all I have quilty to show you this week. The rest of my time this week has been spent finishing up the canning and I've also fall cleaned the house! I haven't posted about the garden or farm lately, so here is an update.
The garden is basically finished for this year. There are a few sweet pepper plants still growing, that aren't pictured. The butternut squashes are still growing at the west end where the field radishes have gone to seed. In the field on the side of the garden, you can the newly sprouted alfalfa. She's coming along good, lush and green. Hopefully the roots will grow deep enough this fall to prevent heaving during the winter freeze.
The hayfield has grown. We will be cutting this hay soon for a 5th cutting. It will be big baled. You can see corn in the background. It is still slightly green and it will be several weeks to a month before it has dried enough to be harvested.
We are planning on starting soybean harvest Monday afternoon. You can't run beans in the morning, too much moisture. They need sunshine to evaporate the dew. I'm always surprised how fast the beans turn brown and loose their leaves. They were still green a month ago.
Here is a close up of the beans. I didn't pull any of the pods to see how many beans are in them. They should be full, we sure had plenty of rain in August.
Block 13 of the Pastor's Attic Quilt has been completed. It is called Ruched Floral Wreath, but my red flowers are not ruched. I'm planning on hand quilting this quilt. I was afraid ruching would present a problem so my flowers are just appliqued. The red flowers and the forget-me-nots are backbasted.
The centers of the flowers were supposed to have embroidered french knots but I decided to fussy-cut black circles and use them. Now I'm think they are kind of creepy looking, like eyes staring at me. I did add the french knots to the center of the forget-me-nots.
The two Row By Row wallhangings are finished. The quilting was done on my domestic machine before I ironed on the horse and buggy. I don't do much machine applique, but I did these. The pattern is the 2014 Row By Row from Yoder Dept. Store in Shipshewana, Indiana. Another Christmas present and a spare. And two more Christmas presents are completed! Since I made the cute Sweetpea Pods for the granddaughters, I was afraid the boys would be upset they didn't get bags too.
I found a good tutorial on the Missouri Star Quilt Co. for The Zipper Pouch. They sewed up really fast; less than two hours! The zippers are different colors so the brothers can tell the bags apart. In the middle of October, I will be traveling to visit the Pennsylvania grands. I'm planning to take their Christmas presents along. These bags were the last project on the list. Now I can start in on my quilting projects. I made a list of all the projects I would like to work on this season. There were 12 projects on that list!
