Hi There

Not much sewing going on this past week (or two).  I've been much busier gardening and working on house projects.  May always seems to be busy.  I have:

- made a tiered planter using Positively Splendid's tutorial (last month but never shared - I kind of want to add some ORB grain sack stripes later)

- planted flowers for my brother's wedding in August - I'm going to be the florist.  Wish me luck; I'm just praying all the seeds and such that I've ordered will sprout and grow properly.  I think I have every coral/orange/pinkish flower known to man.

- planted our vegetable garden.  Everything is in except a couple Roma tomatoes (sold out everywhere) and some peppers I started from seed.

- begun working again on our basement bedroom.  It started like this . . . (only before picture I have of this room, weird).

Ah, another before from the opposite side.

Spent almost a year (from last August to this May) like this . . . (well, the walls were primed and painted, but there was no trim on the walls and wood and tools stacked everywhere).

And as of this evening looks like this . . .

Still a long way to go, but at least I am working on it.

Well, it's 9:30, and my toddler is not in bed yet, so I should be going.  Priming some more boards for the bedroom is up next on the list.

Oh, and this is the best picture - my almost-86-year-old granddaddy helping Sam on the pedal tractor at a recent picnic.  He has no business doing that, but he's a farmer (they just can't sit/quit) and I know one day this will be a very special memory. 

Revamped Photo Plaque Tutorial

I was finally able to do this project - the pieces have been sitting around for a good while.  I revamped an old art plaque I found at the thrift store.  It's not really worth a tutorial, but here's what I did.

Find an old art plaque at the thrift store - I forgot to take a before picture, but this square one was $0.75, and the one I used was $0.55.

Dampen and scrape off the art.  Mine was a card stock type material.

Sand lightly to scuff, and spray paint the color of your choice.  I used flat black because  my photo was black and white.  Distress if desired.

Cut photo to fit plaque.

Apply a layer of Mod Podge to the plaque and to the back of your photo.  Place photo on plaque, smooth to get rid of bubbles.  Apply Mod Podge over top of the photo and plaque to seal everything.

I'm one step closer to finishing my gallery wall!

Half a Farmer's Wife Quilt Top

I'm SO excited!  It's so pretty and is coming together really well.

Of course, the quilt is too tall for my clothesline, and the breeze was not being cooperative, but it makes me so happy.  I started working on this quilt on January 4th, so I've averaged almost a block a day since then.  I'm to the point now where I am putting together rows and just making the block or two I need as I need them.  

I got the binding fabric yesterday, which provided another little push to get it done.  I'm going to hand quilt it since I'm terrified of ruining my hard work with bad machine quilting.  This quilt definitely isn't perfect, but I've learned a lot with all the different blocks and tiny pieces.  This will be my 12th quilt, and the biggest. :-)
I love these kinds off photos . . . pretty stained glass effect through the back.

Off to work on a bunch of little projects on this pretty Saturday!

It's been awhile

But for good reason - my hubby got a new job!  So we are finally all living together in our new house!!!!  Can you tell I'm happy?!?!?!  No more driving to see each other on the weekends, just being together every day. 

We've been working on settling into a routine and doing some spring maintenance around the house (read: lots of mulching and starting the veggie garden), so there hasn't been much in the way of progress on the house (just the opposite - boxes everywhere now).  I have been sewing, just not quite as much as I had been. 

The Farmer's Wife quilt is coming along.  Here is the latest . . .

Just 10 more blocks from the book and 16 extras to complete the top!  

When I get annoyed with the blocks, I piece together parts of rows.  So far, I've pieced together the top left corner - 4 rows!  It makes me happy to see the top growing after piecing blocks almost every day since the beginning of January.

It's such a pain to keep things lined up on the design wall, especially with the sewing table butted up against it.  I have to finish some other projects first, but I am working on plans for the sewing room and will hopefully be working on it sometime this year.

Here are some glimpses of the mess - I spared you the boxes and scariness.  My sewing area all set up and surrounded by Farmer's Wife paraphernalia . . .

 Pile of Flea Market Fancy Legacy waiting to be ironed and put away

 Baby quilt waiting to be sandwiched and quilted

 I'm hoping to get back into a more regular posting schedule over the next bit - even if it's just once a week.  And I'm going to try and start putting together some before and afters progress pictures of our house, if for no other reason than to keep me from sinking into the depths of renovation despair.

Farmer's Wife

More progress - I'm up to 82(83?) blocks.  Some of these were the pretty/ugly ones, but I'm over that phase,and from now on I'm concentrating on making each block as pretty as can be. 

I also started laying out some blocks on the design wall to see how they look in real life.  I will say the white cornerstones make all the difference . . . before I added a couple I wasn't so sure.  I'm not assembling the top as described in the book - I'm adding sashing to the right side of all blocks, and then adding sashing plus a cornerstone to the top side.  And then I will probably assemble in rows, but at least I won't have a tiny sashing row to match up points with.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Progress

I am up to 61 blocks on my Farmer's Wife quilt!  Just about halfway.  I started adding sashing to one side of the finished blocks as leader-enders while I continue working on more blocks.  I also found the extra 16 block designs I needed since my quilt will be 128 blocks instead of 111.  The backing is purchased and waiting - it keeps me going every time I walk past it.  So far I'm still in love - I think each block being different helps. :)

Farmer's Wife Quilt progress

Two (plus?) years after getting The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, I've finally started it.  I did a couple of blocks a while ago, and they sat on my design wall, but then these last two weeks I finally recovered from Christmas sewing, and the book called to me. 

I've made 18 blocks so far.  And just yesterday I finally found some repro-feel yellows and neutrals to help me get a few more blocks going. 

I've been trying to stay true to the original block colors, but I want this quilt to go in our bedroom, so on some of the wilder-colored blocks I have been substituting in more reds and browns.

Here's an EQ6 drawing that shows the blocks where they go in the quilt.  They aren't all rotated properly, but I realized I need to start keeping track of colors and fabrics and make sure the lights and darks are spaced evenly throughout the quilt.  I also added an extra row to make the quilt larger (in between a queen and king), but I'm following the original layout and adding extra blocks to the last row.

So far I've enjoyed working on the blocks - I don't mind the templates at all, but most of the ones I've done so far have just been rotary cut (easy math).  I did print out templates for several blocks on freezer paper today so they are ready to go.  Martha Pullen has free downloads of the templates by block rather than by template.

This isn't going to be a dedicated project (I have some curtains to finish and a baby quilt to get quilted), but for the moment I'm enjoying focusing on it. 

Here are the blocks individually (I cropped them so they'd appear as finished).

#111 - Wrench

 #34 - Flock

 #21 - Contrary Wife

 The log cabin is one of the extras I came up with and added.

 #11 - Broken Dishes

 #70 - Prairie Queen

 #69 - Practical Orchard

 #4 - Basket Weave

 #41 - Friendship Star

 #73 - Rainbow Flowers

 #76 - Sawtooth (this one is rotated funny)

 #61 0 Northern Lights

 #18 - Century of Progress

 #27 - Darting Birds (I trimmed the body of the birds a little funny, but I wasn't about to redo it).

 #1 - Attic Windows - also rotated funny

 #3 - Basket

 #14 - Butterfly at the Crossroads

 #2 - Autumn Tints