Apple Butter

This morning I started out picking apples from my sister's trees.  And once again I picked too much fruit.  When it gets picked I have a hard time just leaving it sitting there.  And it sure doesn't look like too much when it's in those two little baskets.  Thank goodness I didn't use the laundry basket that I took with me just in case.  I would still be canning.

There are apples from three different variety of trees.  Not too many red ones though.  And I'm glad I didn't pick any more of the red than I did.  They were too hard and took longer to cook.

First batch cooking.  It sure smelled good in my kitchen.  It smelled even better once they were cooked and squished through the sieve.  (Is that the right word?)  Then I added the cinnamon and the aroma was heavenly. 

And here is the sum of my day.  There are 19 half pints, 2 pints and the extra ready to go in the fridge.  I'm pretty sure I'll be making biscuits in the morning to go with my apple butter.  Yum

And there are yet another six apples that will be some kind of dessert for tomorrow.  NO MORE COOKING TODAY!

Julie

Sew Along Blocks

This morning Randy at Barrister's Block only had time to post two of the three Sew Along blocks.  I've lost count but I think we're pushing 50 about now.  These are the two blocks that I made this morning.  Not that I was waiting for the new blocks or anything like that.

The block on the left doesn't really go with the scrappy blocks.  So I'll just have to see if I need to remake that one.  I don't know if it was me or the pattern but mine came out really wonky.  I had to cut it down quite a bit so I'll probably end up losing some of the yellow corners.  I may need to remake it just for that reason.

The block on the right is just four square in a square blocks put together.  Randy had made hers using blue and white.  I decided to go scrappy and it completely changed the look of the block.  I like the way it turned out but I could certainly make it with just the two colors and it would look entirely different.   I may do that to replace the block on the left. Hmmmm

Now I need something to occupy me for yet another two weeks.

Happy Sewing,

Julie
 

Design Wall Monday

There is not a lot of activity under my needle today.  But this morning I did make the fourth block of the current b.o.m. for Quilting on the Square.  So I'll show you all of them together.  This looks like it may end up being a baby quilt.

And of course, while making the fourth block I was able to get another handful of 9 patches done.

I do have a couple of finishes to note.

A couple of weeks ago I posted on the iris block I made.  Well, I decided to make the iris block a little smaller.  So I cut the squares 1 1/4" instead of 1 1/2".  I didn't think it would make too much difference but boy was I wrong.

Here are the two side by side on the small cutting mat I keep next to my sewing machine.  Each block has 80 pieces. 

This is the Kindle cover I made my sister from the smaller block.  Her granddaughter's name is Iris Lee so I thought it was appropriate.  That will probably be the only block made from the 1 1/4" pieces.

                                                    Front

                                                     Back


And last but certainly not least.  I finished my bow tie quilt.

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out.  To see more pictures of it you can visit this post.

Be sure to visit all the great design walls at Patchwork Times . 

Happy Sewing,

Julie


 

Bow Tie Quilt Finish

This has been the view from my recliner for the last two days.  I don't know about everyone else, but when I finish a quilt I want to look at it.  There is always such a huge relief and sense of accomplishment and pride.  And as always I think this one may be my favorite.  No, really.

Here is a view of it laid out on the living room floor.  It measures 87" x 87".
The inner border is made from scrappy strips of purple and it is bound in one purple fabric.  This is the leader/ender project I have been working toward for several months. I made it my main project in July.

This is the way it will look on my bed.  Yes, this one is for me.  I named it "Fired Up".  Those that know me may get the hint that will always be there for me in that name.

Here is a view of the back.  The two fabrics are the same pattern.  They just are a light and dark version of it.  When it became popular to make a scrappy back I was thrilled to join the band wagon.  Buying a large quantity of backing fabric is always a huge expense.  But being able to "make do" is so much better.

This is a view of one of the corners.  It gives a view of my "mitered" corners and also of the scrappy inner purple border.

One big finish for 2012.  More to come.

Happy Sewing,

Julie



 

Current Blocks

Well, I have been getting a lot of sewing done.  I just haven't been posting about it.  Shame on me.  I've taken a few pictures along the way.  The intent is there.  The follow through is not.  Not right now at least.

The bow tie quilt is done.  Nope no picture right now.  Alas the camera battery is dead.  So once it recharges I'll get a picture or two taken and I WILL do a post on the latest finish.

I will say that when you're quilting you might not want to leave the bowl of pins too close to the edge of the table.

This is what happens when it gets pushed off.  This is nothing.  There were at least two hundred pins in there and they went every where.  I had moved the dining room table into the living room (so I could watch TV while quilting) and the bowl fell right at the edge of the two rooms.  They didn't spread far on the carpet but they exploded into the dining room. 

Lucky for me.  Jennifer had given me this nifty extending magnet.  It worked like a charm.  I just swept it under the hutch and I think it picked up all the stray pins under there.  If you don't own one of these I highly recommend you get one.  I am still walking around barefoot on the carpet. Hoping that if there is still one little pin there that I get it stuck in my foot and not in Grace's foot.

These are the current blocks for the Barrister's Block sew along.  I must have been having a red day.  I'm caught up again and she won't post anymore until next Wednesday. All of the 1" half square triangles are from other quilts. They are all bonus triangles.  The ones in the top block are from a quilt I made six years ago.  The lesson is to never throw anything out.

While I was making those three blocks I was also able to make seven more of my nine patch leader/ender blocks. 

Now I'm off here and going to make the b.o.m. I need this Saturday for Holton.

Happy Sewing,

Julie




 

Design Wall Monday

Here are the blocks I did this week for the sew-along at Barrister's Block .  Once again I'm all caught up.  The next blocks post this Wednesday.

The bottom block in the middle row looks great but it may be a little to much for the rest of the them. Only time will tell. Maybe there will be more that are similar so it will fit in better. The top left with yellow and green may be my favorite to date. However, I have vowed never to make that pattern again. 

Here is a view of all of the blocks.  All but a basket block that is STILL missing its handle.  Pretty soon there will be too many to lay out on my bed.  As of now there are 45 that will finish at 6".   I'm thinking that I may need to make less with yellow/orange and more with blue fabrics.  It's always good to lay them out every once in a while to see the progress.

Have a great holiday Monday.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Not a Block of the Month

It is already Wednesday, August 29th and I need to have two of my three block of the month blocks done by Saturday morning at 8:00.  I have made one.  It's the block for Baldwin City.  The center was supposed to have an anvil type pattern but I didn't care for that at all.  So I turned the black blocks around to give a friendship star pattern.  I don't think that's the first time I've done that.

This one has pretty wild colors but it will fit in with the rest of them.  As for the block for Overbrook.  Well, I have found the bag with the pieces but I got sidetracked. 

I've been going through old magazines.  This issue is from May of 1996.  Usually the patterns and colors are not something I would work with.  But this particular magazine had a block in it I just had to sit down and make.

It looks super simple and basically is.  But I decided to make it with 1 1/2" scrap blocks.  So it is a lot of little pieces.  If you click on the picture you can see that I used several different background whites and several dark purples. Just don't look at where my seams don't match up.  Using the 1 1/2" squares they should finish at 1" and the block should finish at 8" x 10".  The (old) magazine gave templates to use.  The templates don't show sizes on them.  But laying my ruler on the picture shows a 2 1/4" piece.  I used my Easy Angle ruler to make the 1/2 square triangle blocks. 

The last thing I need is another project to start.  But I will probably try making this again using 2" squares.  Sometimes you just have to jump into something or risk forgetting about it.

My bow tie top is done.  I got the back made and pinned it yesterday.  So I need to get my B.O.M. blocks done so I can switch my machine over to quilting mode.  And get in that mind set.  Maybe that's why it was so easy to talk myself into the Iris block.

Since the bow tie top is done I needed a new leader/ender project.  So I've decided to make scrappy nine patch blocks.

I started by just putting a light with a dark.  After getting a pile of them I added a light to the other end for the center strip or a dark to it for the outer strip.  Which should eventually end up being a pile of 9 patch blocks that will finish at 3".  Evidently, I am a glutton for punishment and just can't seem to steer myself away from the little pieces.

Happy quilting.

Julie
 

Wedding Gift

This is a table runner that I made as a wedding gift for a friend of my daughter Jennifer.  She and Jen have been friends since the second grade they are now 28.   Amanda spent as much time at our house as Jen did at her house, so her wedding was a special occasion for all of us.

I used the bright colors to go with this Fiesta Ware carafe.  It is bound in dark purple.  I showed this before with a scrappy border.  It looks better without it though.

In a previous post Kathleen asked me what issue of Quiltmaker the Monkey Quilt came out of.  It is the May/June issue of 2012.  You can check out a post on the Quiltmaker blog to see all of the different animal quilts they have come up with.  And I'm still trying to figure out my being able to respond to comments problem.

Have a great day.

Julie

Design Wall Monday

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my last post.  I would love to respond to each of you but I still can't figure out how to change my blog settings to let me see your email addresses.  This is my fault for not having my settings right.  If anyone can share how to fix this I would appreciate it.  Blogger tells me that the "default mail client is not properly installed".  So I will again love your comments but if I don't respond now you'll know why.


Once again I am working on my bow tie blocks.  The 12" blocks are all finished and I am mulling over yet another layout.

                                            

                                                  On Point

This layout is having the blocks set on point and creating another block to fill in the side triangle areas.  I thought this was the one I was going with since I already gave it a name (as yet to be mentioned)  but when I went to make the small triangle setting blocks it didn't look the way I wanted it to.  I made a couple of string blocks and cut them apart for the triangles.  If they had been in a larger area it would have been great but as they were a 5 1/2" block cut into four sections they were just too small and unnoticeable. 

This picture shows it with the string setting triangles.  I could also use plain setting triangles from the dark quilt fabrics?  But they also would be the same size and quite small for the size of the quilt.

This post shows the other setting options .   So after messing with the setting triangles I am leaning toward the barn raising option??????  Too many choices and I've just given myself three of the enormous options available. 

Happy Quilting

Julie

Design Wall Monday

Taking up the challenge given out by Bonnie Hunter, I have been using 3" bow tie blocks as my leader/ender project.  This month they have been my only project. (Other than 3 b.o.m. and a sew along.)  I make a bunch of 3" blocks while putting together a few (16) to make a 12" block.  So they have become a leader ender for themselves. 

Now comes the time to make a layout decision.  I am leaning toward the diagonal rows and not the barn raising.  The lighter blocks get lost in the barn raising layout.  And it seems really busy.  Almost hurts to look at it.

                                              Diagonal layout.

                                             Close up view.

                                           Barn Raising layout.

                                            Close up view.

I only have half of the 12" blocks done.  And still need to make 170 3" blocks. But as of now I am able to see it all coming together.  But I will need to make a decision.  The barn raising would need a border put on it.  If I go with the diagonal it won't have a border.  Hmmmmmm.

Be sure to check out all of the great design walls at Patchwork Times .

Happy Sewing.

Julie

The Monkey Is Done

For some reason I rarely post a finished quilt.  Okay, maybe it is because I rarely finish one.  I make a lot of tops but quilt very few.  This one being a gift for great-nephew Leland Daniel and being crib sized made it much easier to make it to the finished stage.  Be sure to click on the picture so you get a larger view.  I love the way it turned out. Even the quilting part went just fine.

I'm now up to eight complete bow tie blocks. I keep telling myself that I have to make more bow ties than blocks.  Since there are still so many to be made...down to about 350 now.  Of course, since the bags of counted blocks have all been opened I'll have to keep track of the new count and pretty soon sort and count again.  But they actually make a pretty good leader/ender project for themselves.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Bow Ties

I, of course, joined the Bow Tie block challenge that Bonnie Hunter sent out.  But I must say - I'M SICK OF BOW TIES.  It would help if I would go back to using them as leader/enders.  But for the last two weeks they are all I have been working on. And I haven't been working on them much.  There are over 500 made. I'm pretty sure that it will take nine hundred to make a queen size quilt out of the 3" blocks.  So the fact that I am just over half way does not make me a happy camper.

This is my drawer of blocks.  They are packaged 50 blocks to a bag. 

These are the stacks that are cut into sets.  I'll need more neutrals before I can make much more progress.

And here are my first four 12" blocks.  I finally broke down and started to put together some of the blocks.  Otherwise I was going to put that drawer full of blocks back into its place, close it, and call it a day.  It takes 16 of the bow ties to make one 12" block.  That should help put it into perspective.  I haven't decided on a layout yet. I've looked at several different layouts and will make a decision after I've made a few more blocks.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Peaches

This has been an incredible year for plant growth.  It doesn't seem possible after we had such a dry winter.  But I guess since it was also a mild winter it helped along the way.  Some of the real boomers were my sister's fruit trees. And since they said I could help myself, I did.

Yesterday I picked peaches.  And it was only a pleasant 97 degrees.  Luckily the fruit was all within reach. So I had my baskets full in about 40 minutes.

Aren't they pretty.  And you might notice a few plums in one of the baskets.  The picking was the easy part.

The canning was the hard part.  Do you have any idea how slick a ripe peach is when you're trying to peel it.  SLICK.  I have since mopped the kitchen floor and wiped many surfaces down.  That from all of the peaches that shot out of my hands like rockets.  And HOT.  Wow, the air conditioning couldn't keep up with all of the boiling pots.  I don't know how I ever did this 15 years ago in a 100 year old farm house with no air conditioning.  I guess I was 15 years younger too.  But look at all of those pretty jars.  On the left is peach jam. Yum!  And on the right is peach butter.  And there is one jar already in my fridge.  And yes, it tasted great on my toast this morning.

The only bad part of all of this is...........................

There is still a basket of peaches that I have to do something with today.

Have a great day.

Julie

Wedding Gift

I started this about 2 hours ago.  Apparently it IS a quick quilt pattern.  I'm not sure I've ever had one go together faster.  Actually the pattern is out of the current issue of McCall's Quick Quilts.  They had it as a throw quilt.  I just wanted a table runner that would go with a Fiesta Wear vase.

This will be a gift for an August wedding. Now it needs to be sandwiched and quilted.  Maybe next week.  Click on it to get a better view of the colors.  Wondering now if I need to take that border off and just use one color? Hmmm

Julie

Caught Up

Well, I'm caught up again on the sow-a-long blocks from Barrister's Block . Once again I am just loving these blocks.  They go together so quickly.  And if I don't like how they turn out I take it apart and put in a different color.

                                 These are the five newest blocks.

And here they are next to the last five I made.  There are also some of the bow tie leader enders blocks.  I spent an hour this morning cutting more pieces for the bow ties.  I need what seems to be a never ending supply of them.  And then it is as if I haven't worked on them at all.  I have less than two hundred of the nine hundred I want to make. 

Happy sewing !

Julie

On The Wall

                                          Less blurry shot.

I have actually been working on a few projects.  The monkey is a pattern from Quiltmaker magazine. This picture was taken about 5:15 this morning.  Since then I have added the inner border. And laid out the leaf blocks for the border.  That means I'll be ready to get back on it when I get home from work.  I was not impressed with the pattern directions. There were just too many odd ball sizes to cut. For one thing the squares are 2 1/4".  It would have been much easier with them cut 2" or 2 1/2" and then to have a narrower or wider border.  I guess since I follow Bonnie Hunter and her scrap savers system those 2 1/4" just didn't fit in with my scraps.  It is turning out great though. Just as cute as I was hoping it would be.  I was a little concerned about making the mouth with a satin stitch but it worked just fine.

The blocks on the side that I didn't get pictures of today are a block of the month and two of my sew a long blocks from Barristers Block.

Well off to put in my 8 hours at work so I can afford to sew in the afternoons. Have a great Monday.

Julie

LATEST BLOCKS FOR THE SEW ALONG

These are the blocks for this week.  I impatiently waited for 8 hours today at work to get home to make these.  The block on the top right and the bottom two blocks are what Randy posted today.  The top left was a mistake that I made on an earlier block.  It just so happened that it went together perfectly for another 6" block.  Be sure to click on the picture to get a close up of the fabrics.  I actually bought some more neutrals last week.  I have done really well at using what I already have but this quilt just deserved something NEW. 

I have been doing quite a bit of sewing.  I just haven't been posting anything lately. 

Last Thursday I cut out the blocks to make a Mario Bros. quilt for my son-in-law Zach.  I did have to buy a flesh/peach color for his face but the rest of the fabric came from my stash. 

The color is not right in this picture.  His face is not yellow.  It's actually almost too peachy.  The fabrics are all pretty dark.  The top nine rows are sewn together. The bottom nine are sewn in rows but not together.  This is the way it looked on Sunday morning.  Right now it is folded up and on the Christmas list since I missed Zach's birthday.  Hopefully, I'll get back to it soon and get the top done.  The pattern came from a google search that directed me to Cutting Table Blog where there is a free pattern.  I cut my blocks 4 1/2".  They could actually be done in any size.  I was going for a lap size but ended up with it too big.  Oh, well.

Now off to make some dinner.

Julie

ALL CAUGHT UP AND READY FOR MORE

Here are the blocks I finished today for the sew along at Barrister's Block . These all turned out great. Be sure to click on the picture so you get a larger view.  These are all going to finish at 6".  So lots and lots of small pieces.

Here are some of the 24 blocks that are already made. As soon as I get this post done I'm going to take that red/green block from the top row and change that red for something else.  Today is the day to fix that issue.

This is another section for the flower panel quilt top.  It is sewn together and ready to be added. Tomorrow I'm planning to lay it all out again and get another section done.  You can see it here .

Well off to fix that block.

Happy sewing.

Julie