One Monthly Goal - January 2019

I am trying very hard to avoid being sucked in to all the various sew-alongs, mysteries and other wonderful initiatives I keep seeing online - that all-too-familiar syndrome Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts describes as a "New Year Flare up of Startitis".  I decided to do away with the list of 12 UFOs this year and focus instead on just sticking with One Monthly Goal. It's so much easier to make these decisions one month at a time!  I'm not promising that I won't fall victim to a sew-along or two (I've already caved on the Moda String-Along), but at least I won't disappoint myself by not working on the "assigned" UFO!

My OMG project for January is Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune mystery quilt. As I looked through my past UFO lists updating my blog it was interesting to find that I have consistently finished the mystery quilts within a fairly reasonable timeframe. Good Fortune is my 7th Quiltville Mystery.  I am not 100% caught up but fairly close - a little over half way finished with the step released at midnight New Year's Eve.

I am also working on my Schoolhouse Sampler rug, hoping to have at least the sampler portion completed by the time I head to a rug hooking retreat mid-month.

I'm dividing my free time between projects and a massive sewing-room clean-out/move. I started moving everything from my current sewing room to my basement over the holidays and must say that I'm a bit overwhelmed...the amount of stuff I have borders on ridiculous...but I am determined to get it all organized!

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal link-up for January.

Goodbye, 2018!

I have done a terrible job of posting progress this mystery season!  Thankfully I have been better at keeping up with the sewing - I am finished with all but one of the steps.

I have no idea how all of these pieces are going together but I am liking my colors a lot.  I opted to strip piece rather than string for those steps.



I am running dangerously low on my neutrals - hopefully we won’t need them in any further steps.  

And while I elected not to sting piece for the mystery quilt, I quite possibly have been sucked into the Moda String-a-Long vortex.  I stumbled across the blog post about the String-a-Long that included links to strip quilt inspiration on Pinterest.  It was there I saw this quilt:

I couldn’t resist giving it a try.  I found an ancient (2003) phone book and cut a page into a foundation for an 8” finished block.  I folded the square in half to try out the split light/dark block.  I struggled a bit with getting the split down the middle - I’m thinking that it would be better to sew those two strips together and align and pin the foundation paper to that to start.  I also found that I really struggled to sew a straight line when adding strips - I definitely need to do a better job of that!  This block will likely end up in the trash, but I do think I’m going to have to add this project to my “to do” list!

I am joining in on the Monday Mystery Link-up on Bonnie’s blog this week and will be spending New Year’s Eve finishing up the half square triangle step so I am ready for whatever comes next!

Good Fortune Week #2

A bit of a slow start for week #2...  I had a couple of other commitments this weekend so I didn't get as far as I would have liked on this step.  I did manage to complete the first step - I was so close that I figured it made sense to do so before moving on - and then got a start on the HSTs. I am using dark blue for Bonnie's blue so this step looks pretty much the same as her colors.  

Sadly I didn't get much else completed this week.  I still need to steam Floral #5 so I can get started on the binding. And while I have nearly finished my wooly tree (that thing took the better part of a day to do!) I still need to get all the branches attached to the trunk before I can share that one.  My "to do" list this week is getting longer by the minute!

Linking up with Bonnie's Mystery Monday Link-up to share my somewhat limited progress. I am amazed by the number of posts already - and how creative some of the folks are at arranging their pieces for their photos!

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!

Tumbler Frustration

As mentioned im my previous post, I decided it was time to get my tumbler project off of my sewing room floor and across the finish line.  Knowing that I had a nice quiet weekend ahead with lots of time to sew, I sat down Friday and started assembling rows. Row after row of 57 blocks each.

My little guy decided he would help with pressing...

I continued sewing rows all day Saturday until I noticed that the piles of neutrals were starting to look really low.  So I stopped and counted. I originally planned for this quilt to be 47 rows of 57 tumblers, or around 94" square. I had calculated exactly how many lights and darks I needed and I thought that was what I had cut back when I started this project a couple of years ago. I must have seriously mis-counted my cutting, though, as I found I was almost 300 tumbers short!  I have no idea how that happened.

I scavenged a couple more lights from another Kansas Troubles project and then threw in a couple of fat quarters that worked with the KT colors well and spent Sunday morning cutting more tumblers.  I then resumed row assembly. I kept at it until late in the afternoon, until I was down to this.




I counted and I have enough pieces left to make one more row. That gets me to 43 rows, 8" short of what I planned.



Luckily I have been assembling this thing in sections so I can distribute the new fabrics, but now I have to figure out how to deal with the shortage. There's no way I am cutting more tumblers!  So I decided I have two options.  One is to finish assembling the top, measure the length and lop off whatver I need from the side(s) to make it square (probably around 86"). The other option I am considering is to take three tumblers off of each row and build them into rows.  This would decrease the width by about 5" and allow me to build 2 more rows which should get the length to around 90".

Now to decide which of these options seems less painful....