FWQ 1

Tonight I made my first foray into the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt. I know I'm well behind the bandwagon on this one, but...

Block 1: Attic Windows

 

I'm going for a navy and neutral color palette so that in the end the blocks will coordinate.

 

Should I continue that on the back too? I have a red fabric I really like... I might just take on another traditional quilt at some point. What do you think?

Guilted

Hello again.

Lately, I've chosen to sew rather than to write about not sewing. It felt like I only had time for one or the other.

A charm pack project:

My newest project

Planning to send this to a friend who is having a baby girl in Feb.

A scrap project:

Scrap swap challenge for the MadMod QG.

Patchwork jean purse - for the inside pocket I reused a back pocket!

My grand finale:

I always think of the opening lines in Aladdin when I look at this quilt.

H-H-H-Happy Birthday! - Gus Gus

My parents are visiting this week, so my husband and I have the futon in the living room. I think I'd need to stay in bed at elast 12 hours to get enough rest. Instead, I feel a bit more like a zombie every morning.

I'm glad they're here though. They did some exploring on their own while we were at work Thurs/Fri and then yesterday we took them to the farmers market (they loved it) and the arboretum (left after the sunset rather than stay for the entire tour - too tired). Between those two outings, I took my mom to a couple local quilt shops. I enjoyed that; she seemed to too. My friend Wendy met us at the first one so I could introduce her to my mom - surprisingly, none of us found fabric we felt we had to buy there (a first for Wendy and me). At the second one, I bought 1/4 yd more green veggie fabric to finish a second grocery tote. That reminds me, I haven't posted a picture of the first yet although I've been using it for several weeks now... I also bought some Cindy Lou Who to add to my mom's Christmas present.

She loves the Grinch. We always watched it around the holidays when I was growing up. I already had some of the red on red stripe and these grinches with trees to make a pillow and was considering getting a couple yards of Whoville to fussy cut for a quilt. I think I should. I suggested it to her and she was pretty enthusiastic. I didn't buy it yet though.

In other news, I've been making more progress on the quilt I'm tenatively calling Agrabah.

All the thread ends are tied in now.

 

I would be working on the binding, but when I laid it out to trim the edges, I decided the corners were too wonky for my taste and ripped out a few places.

Eat organic

If I haven't mentioned before, we signed up for a CSA this summer. Every week we get a box of organic produce delivered. Last week, I also ordered an additional amount of basil - 12 bunches - which amounted to a full second box!

It took me all weekend to pick the leaves off the stems and turn it into pesto. I did it in batches in my food processor between trips to the grocery store when I ran out of one ingredient or another. (Can't say I did very well planning ahead...)

Anyway, the freezer is now stocked. (Those are new containers too.)

Shopping therapy

Hopefully I'll be setting aside more time for sewing soon as I've purchased quite a lot of fabric in recently! I went on half a shop hop, well 7 of 12 shops.


Acquisitions

I tried not to buy anything without a plan:
- solid navy (on top) is to go with some scraps for a small sprocket pillow
- bright blue was free and thus did not need a purpose
- yellow, orange and blue dots will work with my rainbow charms
- pink checker board was also free
- black and white stripe will become binding
- second navy blue actually has cute moons and stars though it appears near solid in this stack
- ants would be perfect for a picnic quilt but were more of an impulse buy
- spider webs (hardly visible below ants) will probably be a pouch lining or something for halloween
- red presents might become stocking lining or be part of the outside
- grinch stealing trees (also hardly visible) and red stripes will be a pillow for my mom because we always watched that cartoon at Christmas
- notebook paper will probably become a book cover or pouch
- purple with flowers was free
- blue/ white/ off white (bottom 6 fabrics) will be used probably for farmer's wife blocks

My most expensive impulse buy adds another quilt to my queue.

Have you ever seen Simply Shabby Chic bedding at Target? The designer is Rachel Ashwell and I think her style is so pretty. (We currently use a white coverlet from one of her lines on our bed.)

Anyway, these colors seemed to me like a slightly edgier version of many fabrics she uses. I have to come up with a suitable pattern - something more traditional than modern I think, although Rachel's currently available quilts seem to be either simple patchwork or whole cloth. Obviously, I can't do the latter with what I bought.

I'll probably seek out some other neutrals before making my mind up on these - plenty of time for suggestions if you have them!