Resurrected

I hear there are people who work on one project until it is done before starting another. I’ve never been that person. Ever since I received my first embroidery kit at age 7, I’ve had unfinished projects. When I told Mom I was making them a 50th anniversary quilt, she immediately started asking if I was going to finish it before she died. I did – that project only took me 3 years from conception to finish.

Recently I found myself pulling some old projects from Area 51 (the UFO closet). Sharon’s Leftovers only needed borders added. I had even selected a fabric for the border before putting it away again. But, when I got it out, it became apparent that my friend, Genie, was right. The fabric I chose wasn’t right. This time, with it displayed on a proper design wall, I found a better choice. This quilt is being delivered by the long-armer at guild tomorrow night. Yay!

Going Green (the magazine pattern title) only needed a backing and the scallops marked on the border before going to the quilter. I simply couldn’t make the scallop template in the magazine pattern work. I finally gave up and used the new Creative Grids Scallop ruler designed by Krista Moser. No math, very little fussing. I didn’t get as many scallops as the pattern called for but I can live with that. It’s ready to go to one of my two long-armers.

The backing fabric:

Then there is this BOM from 1999, Home Sweet Home. I remember choosing not to buy the sashing chosen by the store. Somehow I ended up without the fabric kit for the sashing and border applique pieces. I do have the finishing pattern so I’m not sure why I don’t have a fabric kit. I hope it isn’t stashed away somewhere masquerading as scraps. I finished the applique blocks sometime in the last 5 years. The pieced blocks were made in 2021. I set this aside waiting for a shopping trip to Lancaster county, PA because I knew I would be more likely to find compatible fabrics there than at any of the somewhat local shops. That shopping trip happened at the end of June when a friend and I went up for a By Annie event. I bought two possible sashing fabrics and some pinks for applique. One of them even resembled the original photo in the pattern. I can probably come up with the necessary greens from stash and maybe the reds.

I put the two sashing fabrics on the design wall and laid the blocks over them. Looked at them for a week or so. One day I liked one fabric, the next I liked the other and another day I didn’t like either. Linda and Patty come over to sew on Friday afternoons. Linda agreed with me that neither one did anything for the blocks. We decided that this green tone on tone, though very conventional, was the best choice. I got the sashing pieces cut last week and assembled the rows.

Ignore the leaves showing from underneath on the right side – that’s a different project. Row 4 of Home Sweet Home is the top row. I started too low on the wall when I was assembling the rows.

There’s a lot of applique left to do. 25 cornerstones with applique plus 4 borders. The 4 corners have basket blocks that need to be made yet. 13 of the cornerstones have a heart. Those can be sewn before the horizontal sashing is assembled. The other 12 have layered flowers and leaves that extend outside the cornerstone. Whoops, I just realized that the parts that extend are green leaves. That could be a problem with the green sashing. I found the leaves for 10 of the flowers were already prepped for applique. Well, that’s a problem for another day.

In an effort to not created more UFOs I sternly told myself that if I ordered a kit I had to start it right away and keep on it till finished. Wouldn’t you know that two came the same week. One was ordered months ago – Tula Pink’s Nutty Quilt using the Tiny Beasts collection. I’ve made all the acorn blocks, the border leaf strips and finished all the cutting. I still need to sash the acorn blocks and assemble them, make the 4 corner blocks for the borders, assemble the leaf strips with the stem between them and put the borders on the body. Although there is a ton of piecing in this project, it went fairly quickly. The only picture I have taken is of my first acorn block.

The other kit is Pumpkin Carving Contest from Primitive Gatherings. It’s one of their summer block of the weeks except they’re doing it as a row a month because of shipping costs. I’ve got the first row ready to assemble. The second row came earlier this week so I’ll start prepping it in the next day or two. It is wool applique on grunge as the background. So much fun.

The temperature quilt gets worked on regularly. I’m up to date as far as the daily blocks go. I am behind in that I haven’t finished all the cutting of the background. I need to get on that so I can sew the first 6 months together. Need to cut the sashings, borders and more squares for the daily temp blocks. The class is intended for it to be quilt as you go but that’s not going to happen here. I’ll be sending it off to be quilted so I need to get caught up on the assembly. I had the first 6 months up on the design wall this week but I guess I didn’t take a photo before I took them down tonight. You got a peek at them in the Home Sweet Home photo – it’s the leaves on the gray background.

In other news, a guild member died last year. Her family is giving her quilting stuff to the guild. We finally got the go ahead to start clearing it out. She was a hoarder so masks and gloves are the uniform of the day. Even with the AC on, it is hot work given that the temps are in the 90s here. We’ve had several work sessions so far. Last week we finally got to where we could pack the fabric. Right now my car is full of boxes of fabric waiting to be transported to the temporary storage. I expect to unload it tomorrow evening. The church where guild meets is letting us use one of their classrooms for 6 weeks or so. We still have a bunch of boxes and plastic bins to transport from the condo.

Tags: Going Green, Home Sweet Home, Nutty, Pumpking Carving Contest, Sharon's Leftovers, temperature quilt