Good Fortune Week #1

Oops - I'm a little late to the party!  I was up to my eyeballs yesterday catching up from being out of work a couple of days and totally forgot to post my week one progress.

I finally decided to go with blues to accompany my gray and black. As I was pulling fabric I ran across a fat quarter bundle of one of Edyta Sitar's lines that I had picked up at the first Missouri Star Academy a couple of years ago (her standard blues and neutrals) and many of those pieces have made their way into this pile.  

Bonnie's first step called for the reds and neutrals.  I am using the gray in place of her red. I was a bit uncertain about putting gray and cream together and almost pulled those from the pile but I think it is working and I'm pretty sure I will like the variety in the final product.

The light in my sewing room was poor by the time I took a picture of my progress on Sunday evening.  I had a busy weekend so I didn't get as far as I had hoped, but I am off to a good start. I need to find a little more time in the sewing room to get the rest of this step finished before Friday.

I finally got my "new" pie safe set up last week.  I am not sure how people manage to get all of their quilts folded into the same size - I kept trying with these but finally just gave up. I was surprised by how many quilts I was able to fit into it.  It's quite the mix, with everything from one of my grandmother's quilts (the butterflies) to the antique quilts I have purchased to new ones I have made, (including a couple previous mystery quilts). It's hard to see in the picture but the third quilt from the top is a signature Dresden plate quilt I picked up from Cindy's Antique Quilts a couple of weeks ago.  The signatures are all embroidered and initial research shows they are from Missouri.  I plan to look into the names when I get a little time and will post detailed pictures.



I'm linking up with Bonnie's blog to share progress along with 140+ other participants.  I can't wait to see the next step!

Best Laid Plans....

I intended to end work a little early Friday and hit the sewing room before dinner, but then YouTube happened.  I needed to find something for our applique group to do at our Saturday meeting and ran across this video on making wool feather trees: https://youtu.be/Eo1dYNrqI2g.  I've seen these around the past couple of years and had no idea how they were made. The process isn't nearly as complicated as I thought it might be - and looked like fun - so instead of sewing along with the FNSI folks (Sugarlane Designs) on Friday I was on a mission to assemble supplies. After a quick run to JoAnn's I dusted off the dye pots and started playing with some greens.  It's been ages since I did any dying so it was really a lot of fun.

Here's the group hard at work on their trees.  We didn't have time to finish them so I am excited to see how they turn out.  I need to dye more wool so that I can work on one (or two?).

When I finally did get to the sewing room on Saturday the first order of business was choosing colors for the Good Fortune mystery that begins on Friday. I want to use blacks and grays but am still trying to decide on the rest of the colors.  I have three finalists that are still in the running - blue and red:

Blue and green:



Or ditching the whites/creams and using black as my neutral:



And a couple of other combos that I ruled out right away.  I didn't even consider red and cheddar as that would be too similar to Alietare from a couple of years ago.





Right now I am leaning toward the blue and green.  Looking at the photos as I write this, though, I am pondering using a light blue instead of the green....I will have to take a look at that tonight. That might just be the winner.....

I did manage to get a little sewing done after covering my floor in piles of fabric.  I finished this month's Super Scrappy Log Cabin blocks. I love making these and am so excited that I have managed to keep up for seven months now. I can't remember if this one runs 12 or 18 months but I can't wait to see all of these put together.  They are fun to make!



It will be a busy week with the kids coming home and lots of cooking but I am SO excited that it is almost mystery time.  Just four more sleeps!

Time Flies....

I can’t believe that it’s been over a month since I last posted!  I've had quite a few adventures over the past few weeks but apparently have been having too much fun to remember to get photos! I need to get back in the swing of posting quickly...only eight more sleeps until the first Good Fortune clue is released!

Since my last post I did manage to conquer the tumber quilt. It ended up being 43 rows of 54 tumblers, 2,322 tumblers in total.

I decided to try the Baptist fan pattern and although it has a lot of back-tracking (which I usually try to avoid) I really like how it turned out.



Irene Blanck was in town for a three day workshop. It was fantastic!  We had a great group. While the smart move would have been to continue working on my Mosaics quilt, I decided to start Auntie Green.  I have had that pattern in my collection for quite a while now and couldn't resist. I didn't get very far.  Only the basket and some of the stems are stitched.  Another project for the ever-growing UFO pile!

Irene was supposed to head to Kansas City to teach after our workshop but they cancelled her so she decided to hang out here instead.  We took a quick afternoon trip over to Homestead Hearth so she could see the shop on Monday, and then Tuesday she had her first rug hooking class with Nola. It was great having her here to visit for a few extra days.

Last weekend I headed over to Kansas City for Janice's and Julie's annual Birthday Bash.  It was crazy crowded but increadibly fun (as always)!



Most of us were working on projects already in progress.  There were a couple of finishes over the weekend. I loved this version of Floral No. 7 (looks like the border has been permanently changed to the vines):



And this is an old pattern of Janice's that turned out really beautiful in blues and greens:



I worked on my Floral No. 5 pattern that I started with Jayne back in July and made great progress.  Lots and lots of background work. 



I've been able to get a bit more of it hooked since returning home and am hoping I can finish this one off, binding and all, by the end of the year.

I did eventually succumb to temptation and ended up planning another rug before leaving.  I was being SO good but then someone moved a pattern to the end of the rack where it was in my line of sight all day Saturday and I just couldn't resist. It is Janice's pattern, Floral Fractur No. 2 (I think it was the name that got me - I now feel the need to fill in the blanks and have florals one thrugh seven) and I am planning to use a gray-green background with soft pinky-apricot flowers and yellow-green leaves.  I don't think the colors are very true in this photo but it gives the general idea - very soft.



The next few weeks promise to be pretty crazy with the mystery quilt kicking off plus new flooring and a sewing room move/redesign in the works, not to mention the general craziness of the holidays.  I will be back soon with mystery quilt fabric choices.  I am very excited to get started!