Almost March

It seems like February just started and now it's almost March. Spring is on the way! Of course, here in Michigan we still have a chance of snow until May. Almost every year around Easter, we will get hit with a huge snowstorm. Hopefully not this year. With spring right around the corner I thought I would do some spring cleaning... in my sewing room.

It was a disaster before this. I'm piecing 3 or 4 quilts right now. The main two are on the floor and on the wall. I found old log cabin blocks as I was digging for Civil war fabrics, so I added those to my wall along with a star I had started years ago.

The corners needed to be added to the lone star and then a a border to bring it up to 24-1/2" so that I could insert it in the middle of my log cabin quilt. The two were originally going to be 2 separate quilts but I changed my plan. These old UFOs need to be completed...

This was another UFO that needed some work. Over the last year or so, I've been making hexie flowers...these I applique onto a background square to use as a border on this quilt. I finished up the last hexie flower this past week so I've attached the border and used random leftover blocks as corners. The corner blocks were designed YEARS ago for a quilt that I never made. I loved them and wanted to use them somehow. In the future I may release a pattern using the blocks.

So that's what I'm piecing (along with my monthly rainbow scrap blocks). This is my machine quilting project. I'll be FMQuilting it on my Pfaff....probably starting Monday.

And of course, this gets a litte attention every day. On Instagram, I joined the ladies that are doing #300daysofhandquilting ...This will help keep me working on it a bit all through the spring.

More farmers wife blocks

I finished up four more blocks for my Farmer's Wife quilt...three of them are here (missed getting a pic of the fourth one).

This first block, which is my favorite of the group and was the hardest, is called Silver Lane #79.

 This one is Night and Day #59.

And this last one is End of Day #30.

The one not pictured is Peace and Plenty #64. I'll try to upload a picture of that one tomorrow. One thing I'm finding with some of the blocks is that they work well as foundation pieced blocks. The one above, #30, and #59 are two that could be draw up in EQ. I printed off the foundation patterns for both....much easier and more accurate.

Playing around with some new blocks

The color doesn't show very well but these are 30's repros on an aqua solid. Lisa and I started a couple of blocks after visiting Yoder's. We picked up some paper pieces shaped like these rounded petals. The pack comes with 16 petals and 2 circles for the center. This gave us something to work on in the evenings in Shipshewana. Our fingers were itching to play with our new fabrics :) I think we bought about 25 new pieces of 30's fabrics.

Tomorrow when I get home I plan to post pictures of the quilt festival. We saw some wonderful quilts. The handquilting was AMAZING! While eating our lunch at the festival, we shared the table with some talented ladies. One was experienced in dyeing her own wool so she gave us lots of tips... she teaches a class in wool so I guess you could say we got a free class! We're back in lower Michigan now... Lisa is back home and I head back up north tomorrow... And we're both so tired (but happy!).