Spinster Quilt - Flowers, Winds, and Friendship

Four Winds

The North Wind doth blow and we shall have snow.  At this time of the year, I love talking to my family in Wisconsin and finding out how bad the weather is there.  It's cold and frozen and they are likely to have snow. Here it is mild(ish) and raining, but I will take rain over snow any day.  My Four Winds block is made of icy colors to represent the snow.  I also did my own version of this block.  I didn't like the secondary repeating pattern in the "official" block - that pattern was too random and off kilter and a little distracting so I removed it.  Instead, I have five windmills of light blue and one windmill of an even lighter blue.  So light that it doesn't show up on camera. Jack Frost would be so proud.

Friendship

 I made the Friendship block pink because when I was in Brownies as a little girl I was awarded the title of Best Friendmaker.  A title to this day that I think was meant to be ironic because of my introverted ways.  Still, I liked pink back then and this reminds of little girls being friends.

Flower Garden Path

Flower Pot

Here are a couple of literal blocks for you.  I cleverly used flowers to represent the path and the pot.  Also, the Flower Pot block literally drove me to drink.  As you can see, it required Y-seams which I did for the first time on this block.  It also required me to add a bit of a border to the top so that I wouldn't lose the points of my pot.  By the way, there has been a lot of concern about the size of these blocks on the Yahoo group.  My blocks basically measure 6.25 inches instead of 6.5.  I'm okay with this.  I figure that's why we add sashing strips.  I'm not entirely (at all) happy with the extra border I added on the Flower Pot so I might remake it at the end if I haven't grown to accept it.

Let's do this. Let's have a very good New Year.

Fussy Cut Christmas Table Runner.  Quilted and Bound.

A close up, featuring an ear.  

It was nice to finish a Christmas project on Christmas Eve.  I had a friend over for lunch on Christmas Day (in case you are wondering brie ravioli are the bomb) and I made sure to point it out to her and make her adore it.  I'm not entirely pleased with the quilting, but this was my first project that I quilted on my home machine and overall, despite a few puckers on the back, it looks more like a second or third project done on a home machine.   I'm sure my next one will be even better.

Smitten Block #4

Smitten Block #5

These blocks are fun to do and I'm pleased with how they are looking next to each other.  I've now used each of the Heirloom fabrics once and now I get to repeat them but paired differently.

Flock

Flower Basket

And, finally, a poor neglected Spinster update.  I've hit the flowers/friendship blocks so be prepared for a lot of pinks and oranges for the next few blocks.  I made the Flock Block (oh, that sounds dirty) purple to represent purple martins.  My grandparents in Wisconsin had bird houses for purple martins in their back yard.  I never saw any when I visited them so I'm not sure how successful the bird houses were.  I can only imagine my block is a good representation of them.

The Flower Basket block is missing a handle because I'm a rebel and accountable to no one.  Also, I don't want to make a handle.  You might say that it is too obvious to use flower prints on a Flower Basket, but why would you?  I mean really, we all need to work together here.  (Also, it took me four times to get the spell check on my computer to tell me that I had the correct spelling for "obvious.")

Playing around and a story about a food source I hadn't considered.

Smitten Block #3

Scout finds flannel fabric and immediately loses the ability to walk. 

Apparently, I have quilting ADHD.  I decided to crank out a couple of blocks for the Smitten quilt when I thought it would be fun to do some more wonky quilting.  After digging through my fabric to choose something appropriate, I spotted this baby fabric left over from a past project.  Having only 4 projects going right now, it seemed like just the time to start a baby quilt for a random baby yet to be named.  No, nobody I know is having a baby but that shouldn't stop me from being ready for such an eventuality.

By the way, I took a nap when I got home from work after eating an inordinate amount of very good food today.  The nap was interrupted when a cat (not the sweet girl pictured who was napping on my lap) mewed piteously and brought me a dead mouse that he was carrying in his mouth.  I assured him that I had enough to eat today, thank you very much, but that he was a very good provider.  And, that his friend needed to go outside.

FNSI - December part 2

Front and Back of the Fussy Cut Christmas table runner

Tonight I sewed my heart out and finished the back of my Christmas table runner.  I may or may not quilt it this weekend.  I'm thinking of taking my walking foot out for a spin, so that should be fun.  There's not a lot of room for error in this one - my backing is not that much bigger than the front in some places, but I kind of enjoyed just putting it together without getting too caught up with measuring.

I hope that everyone had a good Friday night of crafting and getting ready for Christmas.  I'm going to bake some cookies this weekend and relax before things get too crazy next week.  I am also shocked at the lack of eggnog in this house.  Shocked, I say.

FNSI - December Results

November

Another successful Friday Night Sew-In was had tonight, despite my best efforts to spend way too much time sitting on the couch with the cats.  This is the November block from the Sew Mama Sew's Modern Block of the Month quilt along.  I definitely like the blocks that have straight lines; I like the crispness that comes from that.

But for now, FNSI is over for me.  I'll check out how others did tomorrow and enjoy my full weekend off.  I need to go to the Farmers' Market tomorrow and get a wreath for my door.  This is just my preemptive strike and attempt to show some Christmas spirit so that three ghosts won't be visiting me this Christmas Eve.  Note to the ghosts: if you do visit, I will probably have cookies.

Fussy Cut Christmas

Tonight I finished the fifth and final square for my Fussy Cut Christmas squares.  I'm starting to think that they would make a nice table runner instead of a series of mini quilts.  And, if I make a table runner, I'll only have to bind one quilt instead of several.  Many thanks to Little Girl Cat for keeping the page open in my block book, minus a few points for sitting on the instructions.

Spinster Quilt - Farmers, Ducks, and Days

Get comfortable people, we've got a lot of ground to cover.

Darting Birds

When I was in the 6th grade, I wrote a research paper on hummingbirds.  I learned that their beaks are as long or longer than they are, they fly incredibly fast (you could say they dart about), they eat an incredible amount every day, and despite being delicate looking are rather vicious to each other when they need to be.  Needless to say, I fell in love with all things hummingbirds.  Sadly, when Sammy Davis Jr. Kitty moved in, I took my hummingbird feeders down.  He is too young and too good of a hunter and I don't want to chum for hummingbirds.  When he slows down, I'll return to feeding the little darting birds but until then they are welcome to hang out and not to linger.  This block represents the ruby throated hummingbird, because it and they are ever so pretty.

Duck and Ducklings

I don't know how I could do a block call Duck and Ducklings and not make it yellow orange like the cute little ducklings we get around here in the spring.  Seriously, I don't know how.

Economy

My first instinct with the Economy block was to make it black like our current state of the economy.  Instead, I chose to make it the color of money (albeit dark green money) in hopes that the economy is going to get better.  

End of Day

 I decided to go with this nice dark blue batik for my End of Day block.  I'm representing dusk here, which seems to set in around 4:30 these days.  Darned short winter days.

Evening Star

For the Evening Star block, pretend you are in your garden and looking at your flowers by moonlight.  Yeah, I can't see anything then either, but I imagine it would be something like this block.  

Farmer's Daughter

My grandmother (not the cups and saucer grandmother, the other one) was a farmer and a farmer's daughter.  She was a really wonderful grandmother and I miss her.  I really do.  She taught me simple crafts I could do on my own, she loved birds and flowers and made me my own quilt embroidered with each state's flowers and birds on it, and she knew the significance of the birth month flower and birth month gemstone.  She was born in February and the gemstone for that month is the amethyst.  So I made her an amethyst block.  I think she would like this.  I really do.  

Farmer's Puzzle

The only puzzle a farmer has is how to get the crops to succeed and how to keep the animals healthy.  Green crops lead to green money (see the economy above).  I didn't like the layout of this block in the book because it had a strong swastika vibe to it, so I switched it around.  Unfortunately, it now has a strong Blair Witch Project vibe to it.