Solar Eclipse and UFO's

 Apparently it takes a Solar Eclipse for me to get back to my blog!  David is starting to plant corn today.  He'll start with 12 rows of sweet corn.  We're conducting an experiment to see how being planted under a solar eclipse affects yields.  Mark your calendars for 81 days from today - June 28.  That's when it should be ready according to the packaging.  Of course, that means 71 days from today the deer will start munching and 75 days from today the racoons will take over.

I'm catching you up on the UFO's, appropriate for Solar Eclipse day don't you think! 

Indigo Way - this was the Bonnie Hunter mystery I started last on Black Friday.  It is huge.  David and Sarah are standing on chairs and have reached almost to the ceiling and it drags on the floor.  I made it bigger to go on our bed and hopefully no matter how much pulling of the covers David does, I'll still have some quilt on my side.  That's the plan anyway.

Vintage Christmas - was started last fall and worked on at our November retreat.  I really like this quilt and can't wait for Christmas to pull it out.  I may enter it in the state fair in the Christmas quilt category.

And all those trees yielded some leftover half square triangles, so this table runner was made from the scraps of Vintage Christmas.  Even the binding was cut from the leftovers of the backing of Vintage Christmas.

Log Cabin Scraps - the pattern is actually called Seven Fancy Sisters.  I made this from leftovers of my log cabin star quilt.  It made a cute table topper for summer.

Star Trails - I used 2.5" strips from my strip box to make this.  I really like it.  Purple is not a color I usually use, but I like it in this quilt.

And, after the quilt was done, I still had strips of squares left, so I made another Mondo Bag and lined it with red.  

And, if you're keeping track of the UFO list, that's 15 of 22 complete!  Only 7 left to go.  And, I have no new starts (that haven't already been finished) yet.  However, the ideas floating around my head are endless.

You may remember the Mr. Snow embroidery blocks I was working on.  I have the last one finished.  I have plans to use another Circle of Nines setting for these.

And no blog post would be complete without the cat parade!  Cici has been enjoying some sunshiny days.  She rolls over periodically to get things evenly bronzed.

Esme continues to supervise in the sewing room.  She was displeased by the number of things on the cutting table here and was thinking it was time to knock several items to the floor.

Of course, sometimes she knows it's her job to just keep the blocks in place.

And when it all proves to be too exhausting, she moves to her favorite napping spot.

Sarah was home for about 24 hours this weekend.  We walked over to the farm to see some kittens.  This one is Mo.

And this one is Molly.  

And since Sarah's cat didn't make the short trip, Esme had to endure some "love".

Well, stay tuned for the Solar Eclipse Sweet Corn report!

Christi

Morning on the Farm

 My morning started with the arrival of 1157 little pigs!  Yes, I know there are 1157 because I counted them and helped sort them into pens of 20.  

Actually this post is really about this quilt which I am calling Morning on the Farm.

This is done in a Circle of Nines setting.  You can see there are nine big blocks.  Actually it is a setting within a setting as there are nine panel blocks in each of the big blocks.  

Almost 2 years ago in June, the hubs and I took a vacation to Mississippi.  We stopped in Paducah, KY and I gave him directions to Hancocks of Paducah (he had never seen such a large fabric store - until we stopped at Marshall Dry Goods in Arkansas on the way back).  I told him not to let me buy any more panels because I had so many at home already.  While I was pushing my shopping cart with bolts of fabric in it he came up to me and pointed one out and said, "Isn't that a panel?"  My response was yes, it was a panel that I already had and I was just using that bolt to match other fabrics.  

Fast forward to almost 2 years later and I have finished the last panel in my stash!!!!!  This one was huge.  I'm pretty sure I only ordered a yard and they wanted to finish the bolt and sent me at least 2 yards.  There were 120 of the little panel blocks.  At one time, I thought to maybe just use the whole panel on the back of a quilt and be done with it, but then I discovered the circle of nines setting.  

I did custom quilting on it.  There are eggs in the border, half sunflowers in the setting rectangles, roosters in the corners, and chicken wire over the main blocks - to keep the animals from getting loose of course!

This only used 81 of the panel blocks, so I used 36 in a mondo bag and the last 3 were made into a little wall hanging for my kitchen.

Ok, here's a photo WITHOUT a cat in it!

And here are a few of the panel projects that I have worked on in the past...........

And guess what?!  There are no more panels in the stash!!!!!  

Guess we'll have to go shopping!

Christi

Where did February go?

 I can't believe we are at the end of the month!  Well, I guess we'll get our Bonus Day tomorrow.  I do have a couple of UFO finishes to share.

This little table topper was made from leftover squares I had from a Christmas quilt.  There were 84 squares left and I used ALL of them.  The squares finish at 1 inch.  I quilted it on my domestic machine.  

And I finished this Christmas quilt.  The pattern is called Dauphin Island.  It goes together fast and had been hanging out in the TBQ closet for awhile, but now it's complete!  I showed both of them at the quilt guild meeting in February.  

We are starting a Block Lotto in guild this year.  Every month, there will be a certain block assigned and you can make as many as you want.  You bring them to the next meeting and your name goes in a drawing for each block you made.  One person will be drawn and receive all the blocks to make into a quilt!  This was the first block.  It will finish at 9".  

I have actually made 10 blocks, five with the green and creams like the one above and 5 with them in the alternate positions.  I'll be entered 10 times!  It should be fun to see all the blocks!

Esme found all this block sewing exhausting............

Last week was extremely busy.  Nine of my sixteen piano students had conflicts and we had to reschedule lessons, and the hubster took me to Margaritaville Resort for the Missouri Pork Expo.  We attended the banquet and fundraising auction.  This was the dessert.  I love chocolate, but this was so rich that I couldn't eat anywhere near all of it.

 

We did a little exploring around Lake of the Ozarks while we were there.  We even went to a quilt shop, but I only bought some more soft and stable to put on the back of my embroidery blocks.

I have a couple more things quilted and will post about them as soon as I get the binding done.  I did get Star Trails to the flimsy stage.  It was kind of a pain, but I really like this quilt.  I'm already thinking about making it again in another colorway.

Well, that's a short catch up.  Hopefully it won't be quite so long in between posts next time!

Christi

It has been eventful............

 It has been eventful recently and we're waiting with anticipation of the Super Bowl in an hour or so.  Go Chiefs!  Even Willow is ready.

She got another bath at the self-grooming place in Sedalia and they were passing out Chiefs bandanas.  Of course she was much more excited about the McDonalds cheeseburger we picked up for her on the way home.

Also an event.......

David got a new truck.  It's so pretty and clean.  

I think he's enjoying it. 

He also got hearing aids and made a comment about the bells and whistles his truck had that he hadn't heard before.  Of course, now I have to be careful because he can hear what I say and I've been used to him not being able to do that!

And the pig weathervane has been attached to the top of the garage.  AND, we found out who left it on our porch!  Some friends from our old church had it.  He had worked at Tyson Foods and it had been out there (long time ago).  They were cleaning out and decided it needed a new home!

And something we don't have photos of..............

The person living in the apartment next to Sarah discharged a firearm at 11:45 pm on Jan. 31st.  Sarah was asleep, but it woke her up.  She didn't know what it was, but was checking to see what her cat had knocked over and didn't find anything.  In the morning, she found lots of damage to the walls in her bathroom and spare bedroom.  So, she spent the day talking to the police, apartment personnel, etc.  The bullet had entered the spare bedroom, exited the opposite wall into her bathroom, scraped the ceiling, and lodged in the wall above the shower.  All damage has been repaired, the person evicted, taken into police custody and the gun confiscated.  

In the midst of all that chaos, Sarah got a new project at work and will be traveling about 75% of the time.  It will be a change for her.  But she'll be building up frequent flier miles and hotel points!

And in the sewing room..........

A little heart patch was added on both sides of the quilt to cover up the holes from quilting.

Each time it's washed, the fringe will fray and curl a little more.

I dug through the stash and came up with some fun fabrics to make pillowcases out of.

And I dug out another UFO and got it sewn together.  I had to cut some borders for it and had to watch that I was only cutting fabric, not fur!

But now this little table topper is ready for quilting.  I had these little squares left from a quilt and thought it would be fun to use them in a project rather than just toss them in with the other scraps.

Well, I best sign off so that I can get ready for the Super Bowl.  Let's go Chiefs!

Christi