Quilting Hollyhocks Around the Barn - Step 3 Leaves

 

Quilting the leaves on Hollyhocks Around the Barn Quilt.

All week, I've been thinking about how to quilt the leaves on this quilt.    This morning, I scrolled through Pinterest looking at freemotion quilting patterns for leaves.  Nothing seemed quite right for the hexagon shape representing leaves.  Nothing worked until I got out paper and pencil and started doodling ...

 

And then it came ...  so I drew it on a scrappy quilt sandwich and stitched it out.

Yes!  This will work, and it's easy to stitch out, too!

 

I know: It's not really anything like actual Hollyhock leaves.  These are more like plantains, but they are leafy!

 

 

 Here it is on the longer leaves.  Same but different.

 

There are a couple of oddball filler leaves that are a different shape.  I'll have to figure out what to do with them, but not today .... 

Next week, it's the flowers. Who-hooh!

Farmer's Wife Blocks - 25 Cups & Saucers - 62 Old Windmill - 105 Wild Goose Chase

 

Farmer's Wife #62 - Old Wind Mill

I finished the blocks early this week, working on them in the evenings after work --It was kind of a stressful week, so the quilting helps me unwind.  Whew!  Even better that there was no paper piecing this week!

This was another of the half-square triangle blocks.  Every time I show one of these to my husband, he squints and says, "Didn't you already do this one?"  Yeah-- but the colors are different, and maybe the arrangement of the colored triangles to make a new pattern is also different.   I don't mind these HST blocks.  They are soothing and satisfying.  ;-)

 

 

Block 105 - Wild Goose Chase

Another one not paper-pieced. Hurray!   It was made by cutting squares and rectangles, and sewing along the diagonals.  Most of the time, it worked pretty well.  There are a few wonky geese there, but that's true in real life too!

 

Block 25 - Cups & Saucers

I am starting to run out of blues and greens in the pile of fabrics chosen for this and other projects.   So I had to get a few new ones.   I rather like this combination.  ;-) 

I think each block takes at least 90 minutes to complete.  Some take much longer (as much as 4 hours!) if there are a lot of pieces, and precision cutting of unusual sizes for individual pieces.  The avg is prob. more like 2.5 hours per block.   The paper piecing takes me longer because there is always re-work involved for too short pieces.   If it were not for the pandemic keeping us home, I'm not sure I would have embarked on this project.   It has been good practice for some of these techniques I don't usually do (paper-piecing, half-square triangles), pressing so as not to distort the pieces (Some days are better than others!), and choosing suitable color combinations.  And every block is different in the end!   I must have 75 blocks completed by now.  Only 35 (or so) to go. There's light at the end of this tunnel!

Now I can spend the bulk of the weekend free-motion quilting the Hollyhocks Quilt!

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 24.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

Quilting Hollyhocks Around the Barn - Step Two - Egg & Carton

I started stay-stitching the edges of the barn wood rails.  I thought it would be a good idea to stitch-in-the-ditch.  It took me a few rounds to realize I should just outline the edges of the rails instead: Let the thread show! 

 

Now that the quilt is reasonably "stable with some stitching and the pin-basting, it's time to measure and mark out the egg and carton pattern along  the barn rails.

I'm using a fancy quilt ruler, but you could just as easily use a plate or other round object.  I am using taylor's chalk to mark the lines to be sewn.  It brushes off easily enough and will wash out.  

If I have the fancy quilting ruler, why not use that and just stitch along those hard edges?  Well -- It was with this very ruler that I essentially ruined one of my previous sewing machines, quilting with rulers, when the free-motion foot hopped up over the edge and (I think) threw off the timing or something.  I use that machine for parts now, and have not tried to quilt with rulers since then.  Sigh!  It seemed like a good idea at the time ...

 

Stitching the the rails.

After some trial and error with using a regular sewing foot and trying to follow the chalk marks, I realized it was just too much turning and twisting to get the quilt to line up to be under the foot.  So eventually, I switched to the freemotion foot that was more forgiving of how I maneuvered the quilt under the needle.   

 

All done with Step 2. 

Now it's onto stitching the leaves and flowers.

 Snow Man down the street.  Did I mention that I love winter?

Farmer's Wife Blocks - 36 Flower Garden Path - 74 Ribbons - 96 Tulip

Block 36 - Flower Garden Path

Believe it (or not): This one was NOT paper-pieced.  When I looked at this one last week, I considered skipping it, or substituting for some other FW Block that I liked better ...  but today, I was fresh, and motivated, so I started in on it.  It really wasn't as bad as it looks.  That said, it took about 2-1.2 hours to complete, but I worked through all the steps and gotter done.     

The tricky thing about this one was the inset seams.  I've done them before, but it was good to get the reminder about marking the 1/4-inch dots and stopping there, not sewing off the edges.  It worked!  Here is Jinny Beyer's short video on how to do Y seams.

 

Block 74 - Ribbons

This one was paper-pieced.  I worked on it Friday evening after work.  It seemed simple enough, but boy, was I swearing last night.  No matter how much extra fabric I add to the sew-and-flip piece, it seldom covers the space required for the block.  More often than not, it comes up short -- wastes fabric and time because I have to pick it out and do over.     This one, too, I cut the dark blue pieces with the points going the wrong way.  If you look closely, you'll notice that 2 of the are right side up, and 2 of them are wrong side up -- because when I cut the points, they were pointing the wrong way for the flip step.   Grrrr!    You would think that after all this time, I'd say half the blocks in this project are paper-pieced, that I'd have the technique figured out.   But no ---    All I can say is that this one is done.  

 Block 96 - Tulip

This one was paper-pieced.  It was the last one I worked on today from this set of 3.  I cut the fabric pieces way oversize, and had plenty of fabric to work with -- No shortages on this block.  Paper-piecing went well.  I guess I must have done some processing in my sleep to figure out how to do it right?    This one came out surprisingly well after yesterday's trials.

 

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 23.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

 

Quilting Hollyhocks Around the Barn Quilt - Step One - Have a Plan

Hollyhocks Around the Barn

I finished this quilt top probably 10 years ago ...  and sandwiched it sometime since then.   All this time, I've been thinking about how best to quilt it.  I think I finally have a plan!

 

I like to use an app like Doodle Pro to draw on a photo of the quilt top.  This way, I can audition free motion quilting designs to figure out what might work best.   And it lets you undo your lines without damaging the real photo underneath. 

This gives me an idea of what to do with the leaves and the flowers, as well as the barn rails.   

Working up the designs on the app gives you a chance to learn the patterns and give you some muscle memory for wne it comes to drawing it own with the needle.  

That center rectangle of barn wood needs a different treatment, too ...  Back to the drawing board! 

And the egg and carton pattern will be lined up better on the real quilt.  Here's it's just sort of a placeholder. 

Here's a photo of the enter of one of the hollyhocks growing in my garden one summer.  

I would like to work in that star pattern somehow ...  Real hollyhocks have 5 petals.  The flowers on the quilt only have 4 ...  Can I put a star at the center of each flower?  How is that going to work?

I'm just thinking out loud now ...  Still lots to work out, but I'm getting closer to being able to sew!

Farmer's Wife Blocks 38 Four Winds - 68 Postage Stamp - 106 Wild Rose Square

 

Block 68 - Postage Stamp

No paper piecing this week! Yeah!  Just a lot of little squares.  Tedious, but not unpleasant.  

On Friday after work, I needed a break, so I started picking bits and colors from the scrap pile and cutting them into 36 separate 1-1/2 inch squares for the postage stamp block.  It came together faster than you might think.  When it came to stitching it all together, I did it by chain piecing and then nesting seams to keep things reasonably square, and limit the wonk factor.  It went better than I thought it might.  ;-)

 

 

Block 106 - Wild Rose & Square

The hardest part was cutting the squares an odd-ball size: 1-11/16th inch.  When it came to trimming the HSTs, I finally cut a square to the correct size and used it as a template.  It was too hard to line up that odd-ball in-between (just a hair past 1-5/8) measurement on the ruler.  The template worked better for me in that respect.  

 

 
Block 38 - Four Winds

I will admit that when I saw this block, I considered skipping it.  Just "too many sh**n little pieces," as my Gramma would say.  But when you break it down, it's just squares and half-square triangles.  Tedious, but not impossible, and not unpleasant to work through.   But it took a while.  

The light blue and the purple were the abiding colors in the blocks this week.  No greens (not counting the postage stamp scrappy block).   

 

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 22.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

 

Farmer's Wife Blocks - 33 Farmer's Puzzle - 65 Peaceful Hours - 110 Wood Lily

 

Block 65 - Peaceful Hours

This might be my favorite block from the whole project so far.  It's nicely balanced between light dark and green.   This one reminds me of the earth with the oceans and clouds.    Or a book my kid had when he was small, about when Big Mama made The World. 

 

 

 Paper piecing this week.  I did pretty well on judging how big to cut the fabric with this one.

 

Block 110 - Wood Lily

Hmmh--  Paper piecing on this one.  You can tell by all the extra fill-in piecing in the blue blocks that I royally misjudged how much fabric to cut for each section.    Looking at it now, it feels like there's too much blue, which makes it too dark overall.  I considered re-doing it and making the blue triangles closest to the center a different and lighter color like purple.  But this block took too long to do, and I'm not willing to start over, or tear it down just to replace those 4 triangles.  I'm just going to live with it and be done.

There was an option to strip piece the chevron sections -- which is what I did.  That worked out pretty well. 

 

 Block 33 - Farmer's Puzzle

Looks like a leggy spider, crazy legs rolling along in some horror movie, or just a nasty symbol.

Either way, it's this week's fu-bugly block. 

 

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 21.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

Quick and Easy Wrist Warmers / Fingerless Mitts in 60 Seconds Flat!

Take a gander at my brand new fingerless mitts / wrist warmers.

 

 

They were upcycled from a really nice pair of wool socks that had gone through the wash a few too many times, and were now too small for my feet.   Too nice to give them away or toss them, I devised a brilliant plan. 

See-- They really did start out as socks that morning.  Just a few simple modifications:

1) Cut off the toes.

2) Cut a little slit in the heels for a thumb.

3) Roll the cuffs for wrists.

4) Roll the toes back over your fingers.

I'm not worried about finishing the edges to prevent them from unraveling.  These socks are sufficiently felted to stabilize any raw edges.

The heel works out remarkably well for the thumb slits.   Strategically placed.

In fact, I am amazed at how well this little experiment worked!

It took all of a minute to transform them from socks to mitts.

We are expecting below-zero temps this weekend with frigid wind chills.  If you find yourself wishing for your own woolen hand warmers, give this little experiment a try.

Stay warm!

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered a friend doing something similar a few years ago ...  So Thank you, Samara!  It worked beautifully!

Plans for The Red Barn Quilt #3 Redeaux

Lately, I've been using this blog as a "live journal" instead of my paper journals.   It's a place where I  can jot down some ideas and intentions for supplies and patterns or techniques, before I loose track of the materials and what I had in mind for them.

Raspberry Cordial Quilt.

A few years ago, I made 2 Red Barn Quilts. My intention all along was to use a dark gray -- like oxidized/ weathered barn boards -- for the background color.  But at the time, I couldn't find any fabric that color, and people were encouraging me to use brown instead, even though I didn't know any barns that color, and neither did they!  So that's what came out ... subject to the materials at hand.

But it's been bothering me, and ever since I've been wanting to make the quilt I had intended all along ... with a slight twist in the pattern.

Ruby Days Jelly Roll by Wilmington Prints gives a wonderful selection of "barn reds" and textures.

 

 

 

This is a swatch of what I had in mind for the barn wood -- currently on order.

This is what I settled on to simulate weathered barn wood.   I have very specific memories of the barn on the farm where I grew up.  It was never red in my lifetime, but it might have been once ...

 

 

The Coins Quilt with a little Pizzazz

from Jenny Doan at The Missouri Star Quilt Company.

Mending Broken Warp Strings

I am not very happy with this alpaca/silk mix for warp.  It's just not as strong as I hoped it would be. As far as tension, the warp is relatively loose, and I'm being very gentle beating the weft lines in -- so much so that the circles in the pattern are becoming elongated.  Perhaps I'll have to start beating this by hand -- like a tapestry?

The photo above shows the T-pins in place to hold a repair warp thread.  I'm getting very good at it by now!   On the last pass (not shown here) through the pattern repeat, I broke 3 strings.  I finally removed 2 of the rods in the angel wings at the back.  That seems to be helping now.  2 remain ...

Even though I'm babying it, still the warp strings pull apart ... one at a time. Usually it's down by the weaving.  I can see it happening before it completely breaks.  I guess that's a plus in that I can follow it back so I know what reed slot and heddle needs to be re-threaded.

This last round I had to stop 3 times to fix broken warp strings. I'm getting smart about it now.

I use a chip clip to mark my place in the treadle pattern beads -- Sucks to lose my place in that series!  [Been there; Done that!]  It's a 72-step treadle pattern, and the mere action of moving the beater forward to work on the heddles can disturb the separation in the beads that usually marks my place in the sequence. 

I use another chip clip to mark the heddle to be re-threaded.  That makes it so much easier to see once I move to the back of the loom.  And it helps to keep the other heddles out of the way.

I've also learned that I can't weave after work. I need to be fresh enough to take on fixing a broken warp string -- and I need natural light to see.  The task lamp isn't enough for that operation after dark.   Sometimes, I'll even use one of those headlamps when I have to get into the guts of the machine to re-run a repair warp thread.

I have so many little canisters hanging off the back of the loom now ...  I thought I had plenty, but then I had to get some more at Hobby Lobby the other day.  It will take extra time to unwind these strings when I need to advance the warp. 

I'm only about half-way through the first scarf.  I may not even attempt the second one. 

I'm still not quite ready to cut it off and start over though.  At what point will I be so frustrated and disgusted that I just cut the line and move on to some other project?

Farmer's Wife Blocks 22 Corn & Beans - 80 Single Wedding Star - 98 Waterwheel

 

Block 22 - Corn & Beans

 

No paper-piecing this week!  Hurray!  

With this block, I finally learned how to make those no-waste flying geese blocks.  I'd seen those tutorials before, but it just never made sense to me.  Turns out I was missing the part where you add the 2nd side of the sky.  Now it makes a lit more sense. 

 

In my planning, I wanted to make the inner-most green triangles purple.  But where the tutorial had us start, I thought I was working on the rows of double green triangles.  Once I had that inner quad done, I didn't want to go back and re-work with the purple triangles.  This is good enough for me! 

 Block 80 - Single Wedding Star 

Nothing much to say about this one, but that I like how it has some motion to it, with the star spinning.     I love that mottled leafy green print, too.  And this was the last of the purple.  

 Block 98 - Waterwheel

 If I were to do this one over, I think I'd have chosen a lighter blue for those corner blocks.

By my calculations, I think I have about 60 blocks now.  That's about halfway to the 111 total needed. 

 

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 20.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

 

Heart of Winter Quilt Top

Heart of Winter Quilt Top

Finished this quilt top over the weekend.  It was a kit at Going to Pieces Quilt Shop in Appleton last September I couldn't resist the chickadees, and the metallic fabrics.

 

 

Heart of Winter - detail 

I was thinking about also adding a red cardinal, as that is also an abiding sign of winter in Wisconsin.  I even found some bird fabric that included cardinals and other birds in spring.  But as I thought about it, I decided that I did not need to add an actual bird.  It would be enough to add a pop of color in this otherwise while, silver, gold and gray quilt.  So there it is ...  a single square simulating a cardinal in winter.

After my mom died last summer, someone at work gave me a meme about the sight of a cardinal being the spirit of the dearly departed. Yeah ok--I'll go along with that. 

 

The pattern is Eloquent by Jenice Belling.    The Quilt Shop made a few small changes, and I added the red square.

I bought a batt and backing fabric this weekend, so hopefully, I will have it done and ready to hang before winter is over!  Yes--destined to be a wall hanging.  I still need a plan as to WHAT to quilt on it. 

Farmer's Wife Blocks 28 Duck & Ducklings - 40 Friendship - 64 Peace & Plenty

 
 

Block 64 - Peace & Plenty 

 This was the last one done today.  No paper piecing-- so there's a triumph!

The new thing this lesson was a tutorial for a dog-eared (3-piece) triangle.  It was a little tricky measuring 11/16 squares.  Eventually, I figured out it was just past the 5/8 mark on my rulers.  

Using up some of my favorite green and blue batiks.

Block 28 - Duck & Ducklings

I don't really have anything to say about this one, except that I love the batiks involved. ;-)

 

Block 40 - Friendship Block

This one came out a little too small.  I trimmed off some bits that I should have left.  It was tricky ding the math to get the right sized squares.  My old brain is a little rusty with fractions, but eventually I figured out that 11/16 is just a little past 5/8.

I think this one might be a candidate for the re-do pile.  With a different center focus and possibly blue or green accent triangles.

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 19.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.

Farmer's Wife Blocks - 8 Bouquet - 23 Country Farm - 24 Country Path

 Block 8 - Bouquet

All the blocks this week were paper-pieced.  And  for the most part, it actually went well.  Only a minimum of ripping  our stitches and do-overs. It seems like the Handmade Karma duo might have been getting tired of the project at this point too?  We're almost half-way through.  I say that because some of the paper-piecing templates were missing the seam allowances. 

Block 23 - Country Farm

 Nothing to say about this one.  The green in the photos looks a little funky.

Trust me: It looks better in real life.

3 different greens this week.  6 different blues and 2 creams.

 

 Block 24 - Country Path

 The blocks this week took more than 4 hours to complete.  Yikes!  I know: I'm thinking it too.  Why in the world did I embark on this project if it takes up so much time every week?  Well-- That may be exactly why I took it on.  The pandemic continues so our options for concerts or going places is still pretty limited.  Meanwhile, I have "free" time to fill, and something like this makes me feel productive.  In the end, I'll have a quilt to show for it!

Tutorials from Handmade Karma for Week 18.

See Handmade Karma's full set of Farmer's Wife blocks and tutorials.