WIP Wednesday, 4-8-2020

Welcome to WIP Wednesday.  Here's what happened this week:

I am part way finished on round two of the Unity quilt along with Bonnie Hunter.  I went with light colored grey fabrics for the square in the square on this round.  I also gave attention to the light/dark values of the neutrals this time.

I trimmed my yummy gingerbread man quilt.  I'll probably pick out a brown binding fabric.

I played with light and bright blue scraps for the RSC20 by making 4-patches and cutting HST for box kite blocks.



I finished cleaning my flowerbed for the most part.  My poison ivy is nearly healed thanks to Patty's suggestion of dabbing it with rubbing alcohol.



I selected my Short & Sweet (Kim Diehl pattern) quilt as my April OMG project.  I went to the house to longarm it, but it was still a little chilly in there.  If you look really hard you can see it loaded onto the longarm frame in the next photo.



Here's the current status of the "longarm room".  I'm almost embarrassed to post this photo.  It is what it is.  It sure could use some sorting of scraps.  I need to give my "helper" a job while I am quilting.  He LOVES to sort fabrics by color!

I took 40.  A Year of Blackwork, Peppermint Purple SAL (started 3.17.20 -- Coronacation distraction) off of my list.  I realized since we don't have places to go and I am not subbing at schools that I don't really have as much hand stitching time as I originally planned.

I currently have 68 on-going projects.    One finished this week...a new one was added.

Pieces Still Need to be Cut & Sewn

1.  Cheddar Jack cat pattern from Mama Spark's World 

2.  Digging up Bones (Owen's dinosaur quilt)

3.  Rock Island Campfire Quilt

4.  Picadilly Circle

5.  ...And Sew On BOM at Quiet Play (one block to go)

6.  Go Four It! -- Scrappy 4-patches started as leader/ender June 2017

7.  Patriotic Folk Animals (from Americana Quilts Book) -- hand work-- found the book 8/8/19!

8.  Parallelogram Strings -- 2019 String Along at Humble Quilts, started 1.31.19
9.   Leah Day Building Blocks QA
10.  Jelly Roll Rug
11.  Classic Meets Modern BOM
12.  Mod Mod QA (turning this one into a baby quilt) (from block Lotto, mostly circles w/lines)

13.  Owl's Well That Ends Well (RSC19 project started 1.26.19)

14.  Kevin the Quilter's Sapphire Stars Mystery (started Summer 2017) 

15.  Temperature QA (2019 block-a-day according to high and low temps--changed to table topper.)

16.  Kite Girl (RSC14)

17.  Amish Country BOM (from Lynn, Johnna's mom)

18.  Cabins at the Lake (from Fons & Porter Magazine) (only one house block complete.)

19.   2.5" Scraps from Dani making "cracker" blocks

20.  Sand Castles -- Bonnie Hunter string quilt started January, 2019 -- an RSC project

21.  Little Houses (3.5" blocks)

22.  Pumpkins & the Beanstalk (a second quilt.)

23.  Set of note cards and envelopes

24.  Simply Summer Sensational QA with Kevin the Quilter 2.5" blocks (started 6.27.19)

25.  Slabs with White Rectangle (RSC14 started -- need blocks each month)

26.  Bonnie Hunter Box Kite class from March, 2017 (Will make baby quilt.)

27.  Kevin the Quilter 2019 Mystery Quilt -- SSSSQ, 1.5" squares

28.  2015 Orange, pink, grey kite blocks (from Accuquilt die, RSC17)

29.  Maroon Sampler Quilt

30.  Gypsy Wife QA (started again with Angie at Gnome Angel, August 2017) (2019 QA)

31.  Kathleen Tracy’s 2019 Mystery Quilt -- Facebook QA started in March, 2019. 

32.  2016 Plus Blocks (from left over pieces of Soul Searching blocks)

33.  RSC16 Folk Art Birds

34.  Waffle Blocks (August 2019) RSC19

35.  Kevin the Quilter 2019 Mystery Quilt -- SSSSQ, 2.5 " squares

36.  Gingerbread Men pattern by Edyta Sitar started November, 2019

37.  Linen & Threads Mystery SAL, Started 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go bag.

38.  Dresser Scarf (my grandma's printed WIP from the 70's) 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go bag.

39.  Veggie Patch (from Katie Mae Quilts)

Blocks Still Need to be Made

1.  Bluepatch Mystery Quilt

2.  Scrap Crystals (working on blue pieces for RSC15)

3.  We Can Do It Skill Builder Sampler

4.  Drunkard's Path Variation baby quilt

5.  Finding Nemo Scrappy Trip quilt (my seams don't match Julianne's seams...)

Blocks are made but need to be sewn together (and/or some sashing)
1.  Block Swap Adventure Orange/Yellow Sampler (2011-2012)
2.  Cruise blocks won from Libby
3.  Orange/Blue Fish Blocks (that I won)
4.  Split Stars (blocks won from Block Lotto; October, 2012)
5.  African Violet baby quilt (Block Lotto inspired)
6.  Tall Fly (blocks won from Block Lotto, February, 2013)

7.  Fortune Teller (RSC14 started)--It's not long enough...needs 4 more blocks

8.  Sonja's Windows string quilt 

9.   Block Swap Adventure (2013) Churn Dash Blocks 

10.  Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks (New QA starting 5/7/17 Gnome Angel)

11.  Flower Baskets (blue and white with some applique) Block Lotto win 10/1/18

12.  Pre-printed cross stitch pillow sham (May, 2018 sew-to-go bag)

13.  Bonnie Hunter Garden Party (started 3.18.17.)

14.   Cathy's CRAZY BY DESIGN.  It's the Dot Dot Dash Bag. (new to the list April, 2018)

Quilts back needs to be made (tops are done) 

1. Card Trick (pink and blue) HUGE charity quilt for local quilt guild
2. Hunter green large (bubbly -- will be a challenge to longarm) charity quilt for the local guild
3. Bubble Gum pink and navy charity quilt for local quilt guild
4. Good Fortune -- A Bonnie Hunter Quiltville Mystery started Thanksgiving weekend, 2018
5.  Soul Searching -- Julianne sent it to me 8/29/19!!!

6.  Wings of Spring -- Block Lotto win 3.31.19

Ready to longarm

1.  O - H - I - O quilt 2.5" blocks

2.  Blue & 4-Patch Customer Quilt (CM)

3.  Kim Diehl's Short & Sweet from her book Simple Charm (Started August, 2017 for to-go bag.)
4.  Gingerbread Men (a slow stitching applique project started October, 2019.)

I'm linking up with Susan at Quilt Fabrication for Midweek Makers

Slow Sunday UNStitching

  I'm getting antsy to just have a finish.  I machine stitched around the gingerbread men.  Yes, I know they would have probably looked nicer hand stitched, but I wasn't in the mood.  Now I am SLOWLY UNSTITCHING the basting that I put in the the longarm back in November or so.

I received a happy text this week from the recipient of one of my slow stitching projects!  I LOVE it when I give someone a baby quilt and I get to see it being used!!!

I'm linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

We're Ready for Guests

I put the hummingbird feeder out this week.  My sister-in-law LOVES hummingbirds.  Every year she tries and tries to attract them.  She ends up giving me her feeder.  I put out my hummingbird feeder that is by the window of my sewing machine. 

My SIL told me that the hummingbirds have been spotted in Cincinnati, Ohio.  That's four hours south of us.  I only put out one feeder for now.  Once I see them at this feeder, I will put out the other five feeders that she has tried.  Location, location, location...

RSC20 -- Scrap Happy Saturday -- Light & Bright Blue

It's beautiful outside today.  Right now it's 65 degrees.  I cut a few sets of HSTs for box kite blocks (a Bonnie Hunter pattern.)  I also made just a few light and bright blue four patches.

I did get my big perennial bed cleaned out for the most part.  Thanks to Patty's advice to dab my poison ivy spots with alcohol on a cotton ball most of my poison ivy is to the red scab stage.  That's a really good thing.  I do have a new spot from working in the flowerbed again, but it's under control.

Immediately someone took advantage of the situation and stacked STUFF in front of the flowerbed.  Guess I won't be digging in there much in the next few weeks anyways.  I can still access it.

Here's a better view...  The bushes got trimmed waaaaaaay down.  They'll grow back.

This flowerbed is in the shade most of the day.

The daffodils are almost blooming.  There's all kinds of perennials in here.  Different times of the year produces different pretty flowers.  Most of them were given to me by someone or I dug up from the house I had before we were married in 2003.  There's yummy asparagus in there and herbs too.

My husband has been doing some work with the items that he has.  He put a new culvert in at the end of the driveway.  I'm so thankful he's so handy and knowledgeable with this.  He loves being home.

He stopped for a bit to play "safer" lawn darts with us.  He kept saying, "One more..." because I was beating everybody.  My son and I are quite competitive with games like this.

The new "normal" at our house is the delivery of groceries.  It's a weird process for me.  I haven't let our son go into a store for about a month.  He touches EVERYTHING.  For now this (and Amazon) are the two safest ways to get supplies...

I've been shopping online and having things delivered to our door. When items arrive I am the only one allowed to "touch" them. I wear gloves. I wipe everything down with diluted Clorox.  It's about an extra $25 to have things delivered on an app I use called Instacart.  So I try to make it worth our while and order about $200 worth of supplies (food, soap, staples, batteries...)

I try to order ahead so that I can put things in "quarantine". I have a couple of boxes of supplies stacked in the back of my truck. These are things such as a pack of batteries, a pack of soap, a few cans of soup... Luckily our stores around here that deliver things are making it so that you can only order a quantity of two of each thing. This helps the availability for others.

I mark the items by box on my calendar and the date when they come out of "quarantine". This may be a little of overkill on my part, but all three of us are considered "at risk" at this point. When the box comes out of quarantine I let our son open it. Who would have thought that this could be like Christmas for a kid?

Here I am in the kitchen in the house we live in taking a photo of the red delivery car at our house in progress.  I've never seen this person before.  There was no contact whatsoever with the person.  Thank you to those that work jobs like this and those on the front lines.  

I watched him gently unload all of the groceries and supplies onto the porch.  My husband's job was to keep our son occupied so that he wouldn't touch anything.  My job was to wipe down everything and put it away or to the next "quarantine" location.  I put things we aren't going to use for two weeks in a "holding tub".

Our son's birthday is June 12th.  Yes, I ordered the ice cream now.  Now I know I have it.  There will be Gatorade and orange pop that week too.  Shhh.  He doesn't know we have that.  

Things that I have ordered via Walmart.com has really slowed down.  I haven't received stuff I ordered over too weeks ago.  I'm not ordering any more from there for now.  I got oddball things like keto-friendly sweeteners and trash bags and pretzels and chips.  The things like flour and sugar and pudding and beans have not arrived.

I have been having luck with some items on Amazon like vitamin supplements.

I still haven't found out who delivers chicken feed.  I'm good until about the end of May.  I'm making the chickens scratch for their food now and letting them free range.  That helps a lot and also makes the eggs better in quality and flavor!

I'm linking up with Angela's blog for the RSC20.

April OMG -- Short & Sweet

My April OMG is to finish my table topper called Short and Sweet.  Here it is when we last left off.



This table topper pattern is from Kim Diehl.  It is called Short & Sweet.  It is in her book Simple Charm.

I last worked on this quilt on November 10, 2019.  I loaded it onto my longarm frame and have not been able to quilt since then due to the cold weather.  Yes, it has gotten warmer here in Ohio, but our house is insulated well and it's still cold in there.  When the head of my longarm is cold it tends to skip stitches.  I really don't want skipped stitches on anything.  Patience...

I'm linking up at Elm Street Quilts for April OMG.

Unity -- A Sew In Place QA with Bonnie Hunter Part 1

This morning I couldn't sleep.  No, not because of the problems of the world, but because a certain 12 year old was up and walking around the house with his flashlight because the bulb burnt out in his Spiderman light... 

I got up for a bit and finished sewing the medallion center of my Unity QA quilt with Bonnie Hunter.

I have decided that I'm not going to pick fabrics or worry about color placements so much on this quilt.  I am working from my neutrals scrap bin.  I did use the same fabric to frame the medallion center.  I love it already!  That's what matters.  I know I'm adding a new project to my long list, but I am just being tugged to play along with this QA.  We're all in this together.

You can find the instructions for this on Bonnie's blog, Quiltville's Quips & Snips.

WIP Wednesday 3.31.2020

Here's what happened this week.  I finished putting the Sand Castles quilt top together.  This is a pattern by Bonnie Hunter in her book, String Frenzy.

I decided to start the new Bonnie Hunter sorta mystery quilt called the Sew In Place Unity Quilt Along.  I am going to make an all neutral quilt.  I will using the scraps from this bin that is in my sewing area.  I'm not going to stress about picking colors.  All I need are pieces that are large enough.
I'll press the scraps, throw them on my Accuquilt dies, crank and sew.  That's it.  Little thoughts...

I will most likely use the Bonnie Hunter pieces above as leader/enders for my SSSSQ (with Kevin the Quilter.)  I started that project at the end of summer in 2019.  It's time to continue.  I finished this instruction this morning.

Here's the pieces of the SSSSQ that I had done that were stored in this cute hat box.

I made a few more stitches on Grandma's dresser scarf.

My chickens have been super happy that I am home because they get to free range when I can watch them and keep them safe from predators.




My husband was wearing a shirt I bought for him at Goodwill yesterday.  Our son took this picture.

Every day for 2020 someone in our family takes a picture with an older camera with an SD card in it.  Here's the picture from yesterday.  Our son is getting better at taking pictures than I am.  :)

It was warm on the weekend.  Sunday it was 72 degrees.  I had time to work in my flowerbed.  It much colder (in the mid 40's) on Monday and Tuesday.  Brrr again.






I currently have 69 on-going projects.    One finished this week...a new one was added.

Pieces Still Need to be Cut & Sewn

1.  Cheddar Jack cat pattern from Mama Spark's World 

2.  Digging up Bones (Owen's dinosaur quilt)

3.  Rock Island Campfire Quilt

4.  Picadilly Circle

5.  ...And Sew On BOM at Quiet Play (one block to go)

6.  Go Four It! -- Scrappy 4-patches started as leader/ender June 2017

7.  Patriotic Folk Animals (from Americana Quilts Book) -- hand work-- found the book 8/8/19!

8.  Parallelogram Strings -- 2019 String Along at Humble Quilts, started 1.31.19
9.   Leah Day Building Blocks QA
10.  Jelly Roll Rug
11.  Classic Meets Modern BOM
12.  Mod Mod QA (turning this one into a baby quilt) (from block Lotto, mostly circles w/lines)

13.  Owl's Well That Ends Well (RSC19 project started 1.26.19)

14.  Kevin the Quilter's Sapphire Stars Mystery (started Summer 2017) 

15.  Temperature QA (2019 block-a-day according to high and low temps--changed to table topper.)

16.  Kite Girl (RSC14)

17.  Amish Country BOM (from Lynn, Johnna's mom)

18.  Cabins at the Lake (from Fons & Porter Magazine) (only one house block complete.)

19.   2.5" Scraps from Dani making "cracker" blocks

20.  Sand Castles -- Bonnie Hunter string quilt started January, 2019 -- an RSC project

21.  Little Houses (3.5" blocks)

22.  Pumpkins & the Beanstalk (a second quilt.)

23.  Set of note cards and envelopes

24.  Simply Summer Sensational QA with Kevin the Quilter 2.5" blocks (started 6.27.19)

25.  Slabs with White Rectangle (RSC14 started -- need blocks each month)

26.  Bonnie Hunter Box Kite class from March, 2017 (Will make baby quilt.)

27.  Kevin the Quilter 2019 Mystery Quilt -- SSSSQ, 1.5" squares

28.  2015 Orange, pink, grey kite blocks (from Accuquilt die, RSC17)

29.  Maroon Sampler Quilt

30.  Gypsy Wife QA (started again with Angie at Gnome Angel, August 2017) (2019 QA)

31.  Kathleen Tracy’s 2019 Mystery Quilt -- Facebook QA started in March, 2019. 

32.  2016 Plus Blocks (from left over pieces of Soul Searching blocks)

33.  RSC16 Folk Art Birds

34.  Waffle Blocks (August 2019) RSC19

35.  Kevin the Quilter 2019 Mystery Quilt -- SSSSQ, 2.5 " squares

36.  Gingerbread Men pattern by Edyta Sitar started November, 2019

37.  Linen & Threads Mystery SAL, Started 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go bag.

38.  Dresser Scarf (my grandma's printed WIP from the 70's) 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go bag.

39.  Veggie Patch (from Katie Mae Quilts)

40.  A Year of Blackwork, Peppermint Purple SAL (started 3.17.20 -- Coronacation distraction)

Blocks Still Need to be Made

1.  Bluepatch Mystery Quilt

2.  Scrap Crystals (working on blue pieces for RSC15)

3.  We Can Do It Skill Builder Sampler

4.  Drunkard's Path Variation baby quilt

5.  Finding Nemo Scrappy Trip quilt (my seams don't match Julianne's seams...)

Blocks are made but need to be sewn together (and/or some sashing)
1.  Block Swap Adventure Orange/Yellow Sampler (2011-2012)
2.  Cruise blocks won from Libby
3.  Orange/Blue Fish Blocks (that I won)
4.  Split Stars (blocks won from Block Lotto; October, 2012)
5.  African Violet baby quilt (Block Lotto inspired)
6.  Tall Fly (blocks won from Block Lotto, February, 2013)

7.  Fortune Teller (RSC14 started)--It's not long enough...needs 4 more blocks

8.  Sonja's Windows string quilt 

9.   Block Swap Adventure (2013) Churn Dash Blocks 

10.  Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks (New QA starting 5/7/17 Gnome Angel)

11.  Flower Baskets (blue and white with some applique) Block Lotto win 10/1/18

12.  Pre-printed cross stitch pillow sham (May, 2018 sew-to-go bag)

13.  Bonnie Hunter Garden Party (started 3.18.17.)

14.   Cathy's CRAZY BY DESIGN.  It's the Dot Dot Dash Bag. (new to the list April, 2018)

Quilts back needs to be made (tops are done) 

1. Card Trick (pink and blue) HUGE charity quilt for local quilt guild
2. Hunter green large (bubbly -- will be a challenge to longarm) charity quilt for the local guild
3. Bubble Gum pink and navy charity quilt for local quilt guild
4. Good Fortune -- A Bonnie Hunter Quiltville Mystery started Thanksgiving weekend, 2018
5.  Soul Searching -- Julianne sent it to me 8/29/19!!!

6.  Wings of Spring -- Block Lotto win 3.31.19

Ready to longarm

1.  O - H - I - O quilt 2.5" blocks

2.  Blue & 4-Patch Customer Quilt (CM)

3.  Kim Diehl's Short & Sweet from her book Simple Charm (Started August, 2017 for to-go bag.)
4.  Gingerbread Men (a slow stitching applique project started October, 2019.)

I'm linking up with Susan at Quilt Fabrication for Midweek Makers