OMG February Finish report

My February OMG was to set the Moda Blockheads blocks.  I did that early in the month and posted this photo on February 4.  The flimsy is now in the hands of the longarmer.

I had a secondary goal of beginning my niece's wedding quilt. I had an idea of what I'd do, but I think I've changed my mind.  It's almost time to set the March OMG! 

Click here to see other bloggers' reports on their February goals. 

Weekly update: Blockheads assembled and lots to do

I went full steam ahead on the Blockheads!  I finished the flimsy at the end of our TV watching Sunday evening. (We saw the final minutes of the Super Bowl in between PBS programs.)

I added 1.5" (1" fin.) sashing and cornerstones to give the blocks some breathing room.  (I ran out of Kona Snow for the sashing, but before I went out to buy more I looked again. There was a 5-yard piece that I bought in late December. I do not remember buying it but I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I checked.)

No sashing

By the time I'd done all that piecing I decided on a plain border made from a black-on-tan woven plaid.
It's 74 x 90 and I calculate 6-1/2 yards, all from my stash.

(The Moda Blockheads Facebook group has photos of many interpretations (color, genre) and clever settings. The 6" blocks were a real skill-builder with all their tiny pieces.  Here is the link to the entire sew-along.)

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Zion Woman's Club meets at noon tomorrow.
Quilt Guild meets Wednesday evening.
I leave for the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver on Thursday morning. I need to read committee documents, finalize my schedule, pack -- and choose a handwork project to take along.

Monday link ups:
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
 Oh, Scrap!

February OMG

Here are the final three blocks from the Moda Blockheads  .I have enjoyed making the 48 6.5" blocks using homespuns. It's been fun to see how each of the six designers made the blocks (chronicled in weekly blog posts). There's a FB group for participants to show their progress (such a variety of fabrics and colorways). 






My February OMG is to assemble all the blocks using chain blocks as alternates. (I posted this photo in December (block #42).)  I'll need to figure out a border, too.









My secondary OMG is to get started on my niece's wedding quilt. The wedding is in late May. She and her fiance are WWII reenactors which made that the obvious theme. I have Eleanor Burns' Victory Quilts and Sue Reich's World War II Quilts (a historical survey).  What I think I'm going to use are blocks from Rosemary Youngs' Quilts from the American Homefront. They're 6.5" (I've had lots of practice with the Blockheads) and some are very tricky.  My initial plan is to make 50 out of the 121 in the book and set them on point.  (Surely I can find 50 that aren't so complicated!)  I'll include the book with the quilt.

Thanks in advance to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for hosting OMG. Here's the link!  OMG February

Weekly update: a luncheon, a finish, and progress

Heidi Stevens and Waukegan Area Branch members

Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens was the speaker at the AAUW Networking Luncheon on Saturday.  Her talk was an extension of her column, "Balancing Act":  Identify your core values and apply those to making the world a better place. She cited three examples:
*  the Jackson Chance Foundation that provides parking passes for parents with NICU babies at Prentice Hospital in Chicago
*  the Cook County judge who provides books to juvenile offenders . (She asked one teen if he ever read books. He had *one* book at his house which he had read over and over. Now she provides shelves of books for the taking.)
*  Marly Dias who launched  #1000BlackGirlBooks when she was 11. Now she's 15.

I was fortunate to be seated at Heidi's table.  Over lunch she talked about changes in newspaper publication, reporting, and editorial/opinion/balance.

This was the 35th networking luncheon. It's a nice opportunity to see AAUW friends from the north and northwest suburbs.

Oh, and the quilt?  That's our branch spring raffle quilt. (I realized at 8 a.m. Saturday that the luncheon would be an ideal time to sell tickets. I rushed to print tickets and a small poster, attach a hanging sleeve to the quilt (which is documented in this post), and grab the display stand. $70 sold!)

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From start to finish in a week: Hoytyville is quilted and bound.   I dipped into the 3.5" 9p box for the spacer row.  I sewed the top pieces together in a straight line. How did that curve occur?

Set 5 in front of sets 1-4

I finished the fifth set of 48 HeartStrings blocks in as many months. The new batch has a 2" center strip and 1.5" (rather than 2") side strips.  Narrower pieces take longer!  I'll send the blocks to one of the HS sew-ins for the group to assemble and quilt.

(This link will tell you more about HeartStrings.)

I got behind in the weekly Moda Blockheads . Last evening I made  #43, #44, #45. I'd like to get #46 and #47 finished before the final block -- #48 -- comes out this Wednesday.

Monday link ups:
Oh Scrap!
Main Crush Monday
Monday Making
Design Wall Monday
BOMS Away

Change in Christmas plans: time to sew!

The plan was to fly to Jacksonville this past Wednesday.  We were going to rent a car and drive to  Tybee Island. On Friday we'd go to Savannah to begin a Road Scholar course. On December 27 we'd head south to Jekyll Island for another RS course over New Year's. Home again January 3.

Alpha Gam squirrel and Bowdoin polar bear 

It didn't turn out that way.  My husband came down with the flu. He was miserable on Tuesday and he'd be in no shape to fly on Wednesday.  I thought about going by myself. I thought about waiting until Thursday and if he was better we'd drive. I thought about waiting until the weekend and driving just for the Jekyll Island trip.  No, none of those would work.  So I called all the places we'd made reservations to cancel them. We had to forfeit 50% of the Road Scholar fee and the deposit for the Tybee hotel.  We can rebook the airline tickets.

I channeled the energy of my disappointment just as you'd expect:  a little shopping, a lot of sewing.

Most of my nutcracker collection has been acquired at TJ Maxx or Marshalls.  I went to several stores this year and didn't find any. I was delighted to find this guy at an antiques mall this week.  Tag price was $110 but the dealer had a 50% off sale and I bargained it down some more. The label says "made in German Democratic Republic" so it's pre-1990.

I have finished all the units for all the clues of On Ringo Lake. I predict that the next step is block assembly.

Find the weekly ORL linkup at Quiltville
here !

The Stashbusters are having an Irish Chain Challenge.  The challenges for me were to select one chain design and the fabrics.  I see chain ideas all over the place!  As the Moda Blockheads nears the end (12/20 was block #42 out of 48) I've been considering ways to set my homespun-and-neutral blocks.  Why not combine them with chains?  Here's the rough draft. 

The guild challenge quilts are due in March. This year it's "quilt your initials" -- the block name is one initial and the colors are two initials. Mine are NEBH so I am making New York Beauty in Eggplant and Blue.   

These NYB blocks will be 6".  I'm going to make a bunch of arc units and then choose fabric for the other pieces. (That's a lesson I learned with Stars in Her Crown, the NYB I made two years ago.)



Friends have invited us for brunch today.  I'll cook the Roast Beast for supper.  Merry Christmas to all!

Update: more holiday happenings, ORL Clue 4 and tying up ends

Yesterday's Christmas play at church was such fun! This year there were four skits: "It Wasn't the Hilton, You Know," "If We Do It, It Will Work" (featuring God and the initially-dubious Archangels Gabriel and Michael), "Christmas Eve at Angel School," and "Census Takers in Bethlehem" ("they told me to count the sheep and I fell asleep").   The fellowship hall was filled at the potluck that followed.

In the evening we went to the Lake County Symphony Orchestra concert. There was a concerto for strings, a pops medley for brass, and "Amahl and the Night Visitors."  One family (music theater professionals) has been in Amahl for many years, she playing the mother and he playing a king (this year Balthazar). Their young est son played Amahl this year.  The older two both had that role in the past. This year one was the servant and one in the chorus.

You may remember Amahl from TV.  I did, and from a children's book, but I'd forgotten the story until LCSO revived it.  (Here is the backstory: Amahl )

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I had half the center of Brooks' I Spy quilted when the Pfaff broke down (mid-November). I quickly got the hang of FMQing with the new Janome (I like it!) and now the quilt is finished and labeled. The baby is due in mid-January.


I practiced applique and some more FMQing on this snowflake mug rug.














Here's the next installment of the guild round robin. I added the red and blue flying geese units.

 Moda Block Heads #39, #40, #41.  There are seven more blocks in the series.
The bird-on-a-branch pattern is called Cardinal. I made a red bird for an earlier block so I changed this to Blue Jay.





Mystery quilt progress:


I made 96 of the 218 units for On Ringo Lake #4.

Each week's units gets its own Snapware box.

I'm still not content with my array of "light neutrals" so I bought some more. The salmons  caught my eye.  Eight quarter-yards.



We leave for our Christmas/New Year Road Scholar trips on Wednesday.  Next blog post will be in 2018!

Monday link ups:
Mystery Monday
Design Wall Monday

OMG finish for November

My One Monthly Goal for November was to make all the blocks (so far) in the Moda Blockheads weekly quilt-along and to keep current as each block is published. I began the month with #1-#12 on the design wall.  #38 came out November 22.  I met my goal: here are all 38.

The blocks are 6.5" unfinished.  I am using homespuns from my stash and cream solid.

There will be 48 blocks in all.  There's a FB group for the Blockheads. What a variety of interpretations -- colorway, fabric genre, setting ideas!

I'm linking up to the OMG November page  here

....There's lots more going on in my studio. Stay tuned for updates!

Midweek #2: two quilting upates

Here's the border I made for Linda's round robin block. I love the intense colors!  Her block is 15" and the border is 3".

And here is Blockheads #37.

I'm joining the link up at
Needle & Thread Thursday

P.S. The quilting and sewing worlds remember Nancy Zieman, who passed away on Tuesday. She was a pioneer in instructional TV and an entrepreneur.

Midweek: caught up

Would that I could say "all caught up" in other aspects of my life . . . but I can brag that I have finished blocks #31-#36 of Moda Blockheads

A new block is announced each Wednesday.  My One Monthly Goal was to get current. Now it's  to stay current.  I'll have three more to make in the coming weeks.






The guild BOM this year features blocks from Missouri Star.  I'm using homespuns and cream-on-cream.  Here are the September, October, and November iterations.  They begin with 10" squares and are approx. 11" unfinished. That seems so big compared to the 6-1/2" Blockheads!

I am giving thought to two upcoming projects -- I find that cogitation is conducive to productive quiltmaking, and some projects require a lot of cogitation. Neither one will involve homespun plaids, however.

Linking up with Midweek Makers .

Weekly update: Blockheads progress

Here are the Moda Blockheads blocks 15 to 30.  My OMG is to catch up and stay caught up.
Block 36 will be published this week, with 37, 38, and 39 by the end of November. 

Monday linkups:
Design Wall Monday
Monday Making
Main Crush Monday
Oh Scrap!

November: stash report and a homespun sampler

Halloween was sunny but very chilly. We had few trick-or-treaters so there's lots of candy left over.

I remembered to say "Rabbit, rabbit!" when I woke up.  (Here is the reason.)

The stash report for October:
January-September in:  376-1/2
October in: 40-3/4
Total in: 417-1/4   ($1407.26, avg. $3.37/yd)

January-September out: 417
October out: 45-3/4
Total out: 462-2/4

Well, that's more used than acquired. Though the total expenditure is high, the average per yard is about 28% of retail.

From rabbits to squirrels:  I volunteered to be  Pearl Sister to one of the new members of the Alpha Gamma Delta provisional chapter at East Carolina University. (Provisional chapters used to be called colonies. There are no initiated members to be sister-mothers (big sisters) so alumnae are invited to do that.)  The chapter will be installed November 11. I made this mug rug for my Pearl Sis.

(Alpha Gam colors are red, buff, and green. The mascot is Skiouros the squirrel.)

On Monday I posted a photo of homespun fabric pulled for a new project, my One Monthly Goal for November.   In March Moda began a block-of-the-week called Block Heads. Six designers are taking turns with a block they've designed. Each one is making all the blocks in different fabric colorways/genres.   Here is the Moda blog with links to all the blocks.

Blocks are 6-1/2" unf.

My OMG is to catch up on Block Heads.  That meant starting with the first block!  I'm using homespun plaids and plain muslin.  As of last evening I finished #1 - #14.  (This morning block #35 was published.)

I store the homespuns on the bottom shelves of the big bookcases behind the cutting table.   I've pulled them out and dumped them into these big tubs for the time being. Maybe I'd turn to them more if they were easier to reach.

(The de-boned shirts are in another box.)

Linking up with
One Monthly Goal
Midweek Makers