Thirties Thursday - On the Road Again. Are We There Yet?

 

I finished the last 8 fifteen inch Road to Lampasas blocks made in 30s reproduction fabrics.  (Well, they are in my 30s  stash bin but not might officially be 30s repros but what I thought when sorting stash was 30s repros). I have the 30 blocks I need for my quilt so I'm that much farther down the Road to Lampasas. But...are we there yet?   NO!

Soon I'll Be Covered in Chocolate

I've finished all of the "quilting" on my Crazy Cravings lap quilt. 

So today I hope to add the binding and finish this up.

Normally I think crazy quilts are tied. And I don't think they have batting.  But I actually quilted this with a running stitch here and there throughout the quilt. 

I've tried to make the running stitch part of the quilt by stitching around cupcakes and donuts which makes them stand out and puff up a little. 

Sometimes I stitched in the ditch under the seam treatment or I added a row of running stitch to the embroidery, or I stitched around a cupcake or I stitched on top of embroidery that was already there. 

I wish I could show the texture the stitching adds to the quilt. 

This is all hand pieced, embroidered and quilted.  In fact, the only time I've used the sewing machine for this is to sew the blocks together.   And I'll use the machine today to add the binding to the front but I'll hand stitch it to the back. 

And soon I will cover myself in chocolate. 

Join us today for Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

if you are working on something by hand.

XOXOXO Is Finished!

XOXOXO

60 X 72

I've finished my October goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes. 

I didn't think I was going to get this completed before the end of the month but a few blog readers cheered me on enough to get moving on it. 

I was #63 at the Goal Setting Party. 

When I made this my goal I only had 80 six inch blocks and needed 120. 

Then I blogged about how boring it was to make the blocks and felt I could not complete the quilt. 

That is when the kind cheerleaders stepped in and gave some words of encouragement. 

I quilted it on my plain Jane DSM with some loops, flowers and hearts (that sometimes look a little more like leaves). 

This is another UFO off my list. 

I started this in January 2013. 

My daughter wants some themed lap quilts to throw on her couch for each month of the year. 

This year for Christmas she will get a Snowball/9 Patch for January and this for February. 

Does Black+Pink=Blink?

51 x 63

Another UFO is finished.

Pink and Black Sampler

Blocks swapped in 2010

My August goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes  (#21 at the goal setting party) was to at least get a top made from those swapped blocks. 

Surprise! Surprise! I finished the entire quilt. 

(I was on a staycation last week - gardening, canning, sewing, cleaning- and got a list of things completed! )

I free motion quilted some flowers of light pink thread  in each square on my Plain Jane Janome.  

And I practiced some circles in the center  of the flowers (because I want to do some circles/snowballs on an upcoming quilt) and I like how they puffed up after a trip through the washer and dryer. 

 For the backing I had an old piece of  pink and black roses fabric in my stash but it was not enough so I added some ballerina fabric I had on hand. 

Churn Dash and Churn

Ok. So my blog post title today sounds like the name of a still life painting or something but I just couldn't resist taking a photo of my Churn Dash Quilt with a photo of my dusty old churn. 

Side note: I haven't ever used the butter churn but I have made butter several times with the grandkids.  We shake up cream in a jar with marbles - no churn dash - and love to eat it on homemade muffins or homemade biscuits. 

60 x 72

120- 6 inch churn dash blocks in Civil War reproduction fabrics. 

I swapped some of the blocks last year with members of Block_Swappers. And also last year I swapped CW Repro 2.5 inch fabric strips with members of Quiltville Swap.

I did some straight line vertical and horizontal quilting on my plain Jane Janome. 

I quilted each side of the center squares and then also quilted in the ditch between blocks. 

I don't really like to quilt in the ditch. It's kind of hard to neatly stay in the ditch when you can't really see the ditch all too well. 

But, it's a UFO and it's done. It's washed. It's crinkly soft. It's mine. 

And it will keep me warm this winter while I'm sitting on the couch in this old farm house (heated by wood) eating those homemade biscuits with homemade butter.     (Side note: I don't sit on the couch covered in a quilt to eat those same homemade biscuits if they are covered with homemade jam instead of butter. I end up covered in quilt and jam.) 

Just Like Grandma Used to Make

I've finally assembled the Butterfly quilt top. 

I've been trying to duplicate a quilt I inherited from my grandmother that is falling apart. 

And now I'm pinning it in preparation for hand quilting.  I may not get much hand done in the next few months because I don't have air conditioning in my house and so it gets a little too warm for me to have a quilt in my lap. BUT this summer so far has been rather cooler than normal...so we shall see. I'm anxious to get quilting. 

I finished the 12 inch Crazy Farm block I was working on last week for my lap quilt. 

We used to have geese when we first moved out here to our 18 acres. Maybe when I retire we will get some again. 

I have to say that Pansies are one of my favorite flowers.  I start them from seed every year and have pots and baskets and all other sorts of containers on my deck full of them.  I used to press them and use them on homemade cards. 

I kind of free form stem stitched a vine around the pansies and added some french knot and detached chain stitch wisteria. 

I actually do have apple, pear and cherry trees on my farm. I used to have a plum tree but it died several years ago. 

And below that I did some free form buttonhole stitches topped with some detached chain (lazy daisy) stitches. 

The butterfly doesn't show up as well as I wanted. Maybe later I'll add some stitches inside. 

I forget what stitch that is that I used for those green leaves. 

And finally there's a little lady bug button. 

Slow Stitching today? 

Join us for Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts. 

How's the Crazy Farm?

I've finished my March  12 inch "Crazy Farm" block for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project.  At the end of the year I hope to assemble all blocks into a lap quilt. 

Carrots, buttonhole wheels outlined with chain stitches and feather stitch and lazy daisies...

...stem stitches with french knots to sort of imitate the green fabric, cast on stitch pansies and the red are just straight stitches topped with a detached chain stitch...

...crocheted star flowers with french knot centers and a tulip in wrapped back stitch. 

And now it joins the other "Crazy Farm" block

And now that my March crazy quilt block is finished I will probably spend the rest of the month finishing up the final 10 applique butterflies I need for the quilt I'm making like grandma's. 

After I finish hand binding a quilt I'll be working on the butterflies for my Slow Stitching Sunday project.  If you are hand stitching today join the party. 

What's Happening on the Crazy Farm?

I just finished block #3 for my Crazy Farm lap quilt. 

It was really difficult to see the stitching lines for this lady her chicks but I guess I managed okay. She's all done in black back stitch. I wasn't sure how well any colors would show up on that egg background.  I used 1 or 2 strands of black DMC.  The seam on the side is done in feather stitch, detached chains and pistil stitches.  I used a variegated cotton floss that changed colors from deep purple to lime green. 

On this seam I used some variegated floss too but it was all shades of green. I added some leaves to the turnips. 

I stitched up this motif in outline stitch using two strands of different flosses. The center to the sunflowers are all french knots. That was a lot of french knots! 

This flower seam is also stitched in two (or was it three?) strands of variegated floss.  I cut the butterflies out of some fabric with about 1/4 inch seam all around and then first appliqued them and then did a blanket stitch all around in one strand of brown. The bodies are all bullion stitches. 

On that long top seam I first did some long running stitches and some x stitches in between. Then I alternated some lazy daisy stitches on the running stitches. I did some back stitching around the seed packets but it was in black so doesn't show.  A couple of short seams have some herringbone stitches and one has a few straight stitch stars/asterisks. 

And so far I have 3 - 12 inch blocks finished out of the 20 I want. 

Doing any hand stitching today? Then head on over to Kathy's Quilts Slow Stitching Sunday and join the party. 

If you are interested in crazy quilting visit Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2014 for some inspiration. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

In crazy quilt news...I've finished block 2 of Crazy Farm - my Crazy Quilt Journal Project for 2014. 

Every crazy farm needs a scarecrow.  (Note to self: doesn't look like I finished scarecrow pocket) And growing next to him is some crazy colored wheat (wheatear stitches). 

On the seam above the pigs I just did straight stitches thinking they might look like a fence.  You can see a poor lone strawberry. When I was thinking about seam treatments I was originally going to wind the strawberry runners up on the seam above it with some additional little strawberries but when I actually got around to the seam I forgot and instead added some bullion rosebuds because of the peach roses in that scrap of blue fabric.   One good thing about crazy quilting is there is no right or wrong way to do things, no pattern to follow...you can just go with the flow. 

Every crazy farm has tomatoes.  (On my real "farm" I grow Celebrity and a different heirloom each year and some cherry tomatoes.)  Seam above is fly stitch and lazy daisy and seam below is three rows of chain stitch. 

I crocheted some little flowers and gave them some french knot centers to imitate the daisies in the fabric.  I have lots of odds and ends of crochet cotton I've picked up from thrift stores so this is a good way to use those bits and pieces. 

This seam just has herringbone stitch that I did twice. First pass was in the lime green and second pass was in the darker green.  And I also added some french knots. 

Blocks 1 and 2 together. 

In other crazy quilt news I've got the rick rack stitched in the border on 2 sides. 

In embroidery news... I've got another fruit embroidered - Thursday pears.   Somehow I'm going to use all these embroidered days of the weeks fruits in my Tea Towel Challenge Quilt.  I think I have 3 fruits left to embroider. 

 Finally, in applique/embroidery news...Last week I had 10 butterflies appliqued. This week I've finished the blanket stitch around all 10 and now I need to ...

...finish up the other stitching.   After these I think I will have 32 butterflies and I think I need 48 in order to make a quilt like I inherited from grandma.  After I make my quilt I am going to try to repair hers. 

So that's it for my Slow Sunday Stitching projects.  Kathy's Quilts is host to the Slow Sunday Stitching linky party.  There's a lot of beautiful projects being worked on. You will miss out on them if you don't visit.