Whirlwind Month!

The past few weeks have been just short of insane!  I definitely took a couple of tiny steps forward and a few huge leaps backwards as far as projects are concerned.  I managed to make a bit of progress on the last couple of steps of Frolic! before leaving town for a rug hooking retreat. I am working steps 7 & 8 simultaneously, trying hard to keep track of all the sets (this is definitely a time when chain piecing is NOT my friend).  The reveal was posted while I was away so I hope to have time to assemble a couple of blocks soon to see if all of these colors look cohesive in the final product.  They are looking like a bit of a hot mess right now....

And then there's my OMG goal - Maggie Macguire.  A complete FAIL!  I had set a target of getting 12 flowers done.  I do have more than 12 prepped, but I am slow at EPP and didn't have nearly as much time to work on them while traveling as I had hoped.  I only have 3 flowers to show for the month.



I had a fantastic time at the rug hooking retreat and made a lot of progress on my Fraktur Floral rug. I had been stuck on colors - the leaf colors completely died when I started adding background - so I was happy to be able to figure it out and move forward.  The retreat is attended by a great group of ladies and there are so many amazing rugs!  I will have to share some of my favorites from the rug show in a later post.



The dark green was exactly what this rug needed.  Looking at the picture now I think I will remove a bit of the dark that is surrounding that bubble on the upper left.  I am trying to bring just a little more of the dark into the top to balance the values...



So while I can report great progress on my rug (I actually filled in even more of the background since I took the photo), I offset my forward progress by purchasing two more patterns.  One I can sort of excuse as it is for a class later this year that I had previously committed to, but the other was completely new and not in my plans.

Then there were the new quilt project starts.  Irene Blanck will be returning to teach her new basket design in October this year.  She sent us the pattern for the center baskets in advance so we can get a head start.  I decided that I want to do mine in Japanese fabrics.  I completed two blocks and prepped a third. I also prepped my first two blocks for Afternoon Delight but didn't make any progress on getting them stitched.



Just three days after returning from rug hooking I was off to Ireland for work. I was busy with work all my waking hours there (other than dinner which was with my coworkers) so there was not much sight-seeing other than the rides to and from the sites.  Sadly the only photos I took were from the plane.



I did learn a bit more about Irish culture during the trip. Like the fact that they don't use much salt (at least not compared to the US) - they put the salt in the shaker with the fewest holes - and they have no idea what the corned beef is that Americans eat on St. Patrick's Day.  They have nothing like it there (which I think is brilliant because I can't stand it!). 

While I was traveling home a friend found an antique quilt on Marketplace that I felt needed to be added to my collection.  I picked it up in St. Louis on Saturday and it was much filthier than it looked in the pictures (to be fair, the description said it needed a good cleaning).  I set out to clean it, my first attempt at cleaning one myself (terrifying!!!).  I soaked it overnight in Retro Clean.  The water was disgusting!  I then washed it with a little detergent and spread it out to dry.  It has a rust stain that faded quite a bit but is still very visible - I may try to treat that next - but overall it came out great.  The binding is very worn and there are a couple of small tears in the outer red border but the quilting is amazing!  There is a small amount of sun fading on one motif.  Not sure how it was folded to only fade in one small area?



I hope that January will turn out to be my least productive month of 2020 and that February will be much better!  Now I just need to figure out what I want to focus on next month....

My Latest Obsession

I have been a great admirer and lover of antique quilts and quilt history for a very long time. I enjoy researching quilt history and have been a "member" of the Missourt-Oklahoma-Kansas-Arkansas (MOKA) group for years (dating back to the Yahoo Group days), but only this year actually started participating in meetings. I was so excited and inspired by the June meeting that I couldn't wait to attend the meeting this weekend in Harrisonville, MO, even though it meant a second long road trip in less than one week.

Fresh off the heels of Baltimore on the Prairie, with my anticipation building for the MOKA meeting, I suddenly got a wild hair to take up quilt collecting.  Maybe it was the pictures of Lisa Bongean's antique collection in the journal my friend Pat gave me at BOTP that pushed me over the edge?  Of course, when I start something I have to jump in with both feet....the UPS guy will be bringing three new acquisitions sometime today. In addition to shopping online, I decided I needed to visit the local antique mall. I don't think I had ever been there before.  It was dangerous....I found several quilts that really wanted to come home with me.

There was this fan with lots of blanket stitching:

And I really loved something about this one, although contrast was not the maker's strongest skill. There was so much work put into the piecing and you can barely see the blocks!

I circled back to look at this strip-pieced star three times.

But then finally decided that this gorgeous blue and white bowtie quilt needed to be the first addition to my collection.  I'm not sure of the age - the fabrics look very similar to antique reproduction fabrics I have in my stash. I need to do some studying on dating and value before I do much more shopping. I have no idea if I paid a fair price for any of my purchases.   

So then it was off to Harrisonville for MOKA.  All three of the speakers (Kelly Cline, Robyn Gragg and Barbara Brackman) were outstanding! I was particularly inspired by Kelly - she is an amazing long-arm quilter who perfected her custom quilting skills on vintage tops she purchased very inexpensively on eBay and in antique shops. Her thinking was that it was far less intimidating to work on a $10 top than one you had spent loads of time and money on. What a brilliant idea! She now does masterpiece-level quilting on vintage linens and is far beyond where I will ever be, but I am totally hooked on the idea. I have two tops that are ready for custom quilting but I have been afraid to start them. I spent Friday evening in the hotel room surfing eBay for cheap tops.  I was lucky enough to win one in the silent auction (more on my other auction successes later). Here's my $14 top that will be my first custom quilting project:

There were loads of beautiful quilts shared in the show and tell sessions. This one particularly grabbed my attention.  What a beautiful log cabin!  The black fabrics include a lot of silks which have deteriorated, but it was still stunning!

Back at home and in the sewing room yesterday I decided that I am really tired of looking at my tumblers sitting in the floor next to my sewing table.  I spent the afternoon watching baseball and sewing rows.  I managed to finish two rows I had started previously and to make two more. I ran out of time and didn't get all of the new rows added onto the second section, but I made it to 20 rows.

That's 20 of 47, so not quite half way there. By the way, I have a remarkable ability to randomly place the same fabrics adjacent to each other in rows.  There are some rows where it has happened three or four times, and some places where I managed to do it three or four rows in succession. I am thinking I should try to sew one row a day until this quilt is finished. Let's see I can put up with the monotony for 27 days....