Flower Garden – Chopin – A Passionate Quilter From Texas

Good morning to all. I hope that your New Year is going well and that projects are coming along as you have planned. I was going to try to Blog each Friday – but oops, missed that goal! It is good ole’ Cedar Season here in South Texas and I wish they Cedar trees would just go away, but not that lucky! I am scheduled to be checked for Asthma on the 25th as the inhaler really has made me feel a lot better and more energy. If that is what has taken some of my stamina away the last 2 years it will be a blessing to find out and correct the problem!

I am happy with my progress on E. Sitar’s Basket of Flowers. I have completed 350- 2″ four patches (think about 50 too many but gives me more selection when making the baskets)! They are easy and fun to make. Sometimes mindless sewing is good for the brain to relax and no pressure. The pattern directions state to cut the strips at 1 1/4″ x 21″ but I always add 1/8″ or 1/16″ to the width when cutting in order to have some extra fabric to square my blocks and the shorter strips keep the strip sets even and less waste. Each 21′ strip makes 8 Four Patches.

Strip Sets for Basket 4 Patch — Strip Sets 1 3/8″ x 21″

Next step is to cut the strip sets in the same width (1 3/8″ or add a 1/16″). I am keeping the four patches in individual bags (plastic snack bags) for 2 reasons – control clutter on my cutting table and allow me to work on other projects. Since I tend to work with “controlled” scrappy projects it also makes it easier to work with the selection of colors for each basket. I “accidentally” purchased the bags and thought I would take them back, but then realized I could use them for small projects like this one.

Lots of 4 Patches — Bags of Four Patches

I wanted to see how my colors would look for the baskets – not sure how the “scrappy” will take shape, but here is a sample. (without the pedistal).

I finished the 2nd Christmas place mat. Hopefully I will be able to finish the preparation work for the Table Runner. It is a quick needleturn applique project. Heck – should be able to have this one completed by Thanksgiving if I work faster (LOL).

I have one diamond block completed for E. Sitar’s Flower Garden and the remaining 5 cut out and ready to sew to the hexagon paper pieces. There are a total of 6 diamonds for the quilt center of the quilt. I am using Betty Cutchian’s Eliza’s Indigo. I ordered a few fat quarters and then ordered the “bundle” This has worked out great because I can use the same fabric but different colors for the hexagon stars.

Flower Garden Medallion B1 — Flower Garden Hexagon Diamond

A note on the Farmer’s Wife 1930 Sampler. Laurie Hird contacted me this week and advised that there are 4 more corrections coming from her publisher. They are for the diagrams only. I am glad that I brought the issue to her attention because she was unaware that a problem existed. She is working on her third book and is appreciative that I advised her about the problem and is instituting safeguards that this will not happen to her again. It must be so frustrating to send one’s work to a publisher only to have them make mistakes when publishing the book. I admire Laurie for checking into the issue for me – I am beginning to feel now that I may just work on this project later in the year.

Today will be trimming the remaining Four patches and hopefully cutting out the pedestals. I would also like to finish up preparing the Xmas table runner and bring out Segment 3 of Stonefields. Have a great sewing day. Enjoy Life.

Happy New Year! We arrived home in Texas on Christmas Day. We made a mad dash for home with the El Paso Blizzard following us. We left Whetstone, Arizona on Christmas Eve and spent the night in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was cold! We left at 8AM and we were scheduled to spend the night in Fort Stockton, Texas on Christmas night and head for home on Saturday. But when we realized that we would arrive by noon and just sit there until Saturday morning, we kept on going and arrived at home at 7:20PM – a 651 mile trip pulling a 36 foot 5th Wheel that was probably overloaded.

We were very blessed on this trip home because when we went to unload some things out of the 5th wheel on Saturday morning we had a flat on the Dually! No wonder the truck acted like it was dying on the last 50 miles! Now a week later, we are now back to our normal routine. The weather here in our area is dark and dreary and raining. For me I love the weather like this – Cold, Wet, and 100% quilting weather!

I have made myself a promise now that we are settled back into our normal life that I will Blog each week with updates on my projects. Since my last post I have finished Segment 2 of Stonefields and started a Christmas Table Runner and Placements – YUP – bought that pattern and fabric 2 years ago so now it will be ready for Christmas 2016…. why be in a hurry? If I finish this in the next 2 weeks it will be the first time I will have a nice table runner and place mats for Christmas!

We had a wonderful trip, but will not go back to Arizona for the winter again. We have been doing this trip for 15 years and it is time for a change. We have decided to do shorter trips during the year and stay put for winter time in Texas. I can hardly wait to go to Durant, OK for a good gambling trip!

Here are the blocks for Stonefields, Segment 2:

The top two blocks were really difficult to achieve perfection – so I did them twice. The second time I used my EQ7 software and redid the block pattern. They came out perfect the second time. The original pattern was not drawn to scale and it caused the stars to be off-center. The lower left blocks with the little flowers were fun to make, although when I realized the hexies were 3/8″ I thought they would be the most difficult to do, but they turned out to be the most fun! Here are the blocks close up.

Blue Hexie Flower Block — Blue Hexie 3/8″ Flower Block

Christmas Placemat — Christmas Place Mat

I purchased the pattern in Durant, OK in 2013 on the way to Arizona. The Table Runner has 5 candles with the Christmas Balls and has a shadow fabric for the back of the candle which is really neat. When I finish that I will provide the pattern information. Fun and easy project for Christmas 2016!

I have an impossible list of projects for 2016 – none of which will be on-line BOMs. They served their purpose for me last year, but that was then and this is now! Here is my list (hum…..) wonder which one’s will be finished this year?

1. Civil War Bride (There are 3 (maybe 4) Ladies who will be doing 2 blocks a month starting in February or March and I will be posting the progress of all each month! If you have the pattern and would like to join, let me know). There are no set rules or time constraints with this project.

2. Brinton Hall (Quiltmania Project)
3. Flower Garden (Edyta Sitar’s Handfuls of Scraps Book)
4. Baskets of Scraps (Edyta Sitar’s Handfuls of Scraps Book)
5. Dear Jane (Brenda’s)
6. Stonefields
7. Stars and Sprigs (Kim McLean)
8. Sweet Surrender – Australian pattern (waiting for the mail impatiently)

There is a “maybe” project – 9. Farmers’ Wife 1930 (There is a BIG maybe on this one – there are issues with the .pdf files). As I previously posted, I purchased the book and all the fabric, so I have already invested a lot of $ for this project. My friend Cathy sent me 3 books on 1930’s fabrics for Christmas and they are great reads. They will be a great help if I decide to use the fabric on another quilt.

I also would love to start on Di Ford’s 2013 Mystery Quilt but of course who knows. I realize that there is no way to complete all, but I am going to at least get started on all of them and do not think I will get bored. This will be the first time I will run projects concurrently – should be fun or I will slide into oblivion world of “ex-quilters”.

My friend Jaydee, sent me a piece of fabric of Peacocks. She was working on The Morrell Quilt and had a couple of the birds left over. When I received them I immediately could see a Medallion coming down the road… The birds are so pretty.