those long nights of sewing...

we're in that time of year for us where the garden work is done and *mostly* cleaned up, and it's still not time for butchering- turkeys and pigs. does that mean I have *extra* time? no, not really {haha} but there have been lots of evenings where I can work in the sewing room, piecing away..

I felt like I had so many brown scraps, but I was able to get these 19 crumb blocks pieced in one evening: see above {those long nights of sewing...} from caramel to chocolate, all the browns are there...

can I say just one more time: these Kona indigo and the COM are my favorites? I say that every month... and I say that I say that every month...

I'm concentrating on getting some of my RSC16/17 blocks pieced into tops for our Great Quilt Gifting in early December, so these indigo 16 patches will have to wait until Christmas time-ish to get pieced into a top. BUT: they're at the top of my list- can't wait!!!

 

colors: (not in order) honey, sable, earth, pepper, chocolate, expresso and ???.

 

the 16 patch LV blocks are all done- and getting ready to be sewn into a top. I wasn't sure how I'd like them, but so far they're looking great. (sneak peek here) 

and a few (16) lonely pinks to add to the crumb stack. my {tallish] crumb stack is from RSC16 and RSC17. I have an idea how I'd like to piece them into tops; I'll start that project in the New Year. but I think I'll take a break from crumb blocks next year... (not that I'm running out of crumbs or anything... they're having babies up in the sewing room as. we. speak.)

 

speaking of RSC18: (18?! how did that even sneak up on us?!) I'm planning on participating again next year, but entirely uncertain what my blocks/projects will be... I'd like to do something that uses LOTS of my 3" squares from my suitcase of squares, but I'm not sure what I'd like. I want to do something a bit more multi-colored, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of RSC, right? I'll keep pondering, but I'm open to suggestions...

falling for brown...

fall finally seems to be here; brown is a good color for fall! I have some brown, but not an overwhelming amount... that's good, since I still have some pinks to piece into my crumb blocks...

my browns seem to be a nice mix of monotone chocolate browns, and colorful browns to make blocks pop. (this is my 4th year of RSCing, and the scrap jars, bins and drawers never seem to get any emptier...)

 

one lonely low volume plus block for the browns, and  I have a few 16 patches I'm hoping to get to today. lots going on in the sewing room- secret projects, memory quilts, Christmas preparation- good thing the garden is done!

 

linking up to so scrappy- go see what everyone else is doing- and it's that time of year when all the blocks start getting sewn into quilts, too- woo-hoo!

My first green of May!

well, in the fabric department, anyway! we've been super, super busy on the farm. (you can find us on facebook at "by the bridge")  we have most of our crops planted, the first round anyway, and even the tomatoes in the high tunnel are blossoming! lots of green going on, and not much time or energy to sew! I did sneak in a bit of sewing this week for Scraps2Wraps, our church sewing circle. BUT- I've not even made it up to the sewing room to begin digging through all my green fabric and 3" squares!

maybe tomorrow... I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet afternoon at home!

I showed you the little stack of tumblers that I cut with a friend's accuquilt cutter. we cleaned out the cupboard of smallish bits of fabric, and I was able to cut a stack about 32" tall of tumblers from fabric that had been waiting and waiting to be used....

after cutting and cutting, came the counting and counting. I need 95 tumblers of 2 colors to make a quilt that's about 60" X 80", which is the size that MCC prefers for their quilts. I have all my tumblers paired up into complementary colors, and enough to make about 16+ quilts! I brought my little featherweight out, and set it on the schoolroom table. that way, in the evenings when I'm too tired to go upstairs and sew (and I can't very well go to bed at 6PM, now can I?!) I can sew downstairs. and there might just be a little bit of Netflix and Call the Midwife involved, too....

and here's another thing that happened this week: our Icelandic sheep, Helga, had her baby!

a sweet, tiny and healthy baby ewe was born on Tuesday morning. (that was a really crazy day!)

we're still deciding on a name for her (my first choice of Sally was outvoted..) and I think we're going to call her Katie.

 

I'm looking forward to clicking on over to Angela's blog, and seeing all the other green bits and bobs that have been sewn this week. on the weeks that I don't get much RSC sewing time in, it's especially nice to see what everyone else is working on.

 

O! I almost forgot! this is my 500th post! I started this blog 8 years ago to chronicle the remodeling of our recently purchased farmhouse in the country. our life has changed drastically in the last 8 years, and this blog has, too! for quite awhile I did keep the blog fairly current with our family adventures, and the progress on the house. there were even a few years where i blogged regularly about our gardening adventures, and the transition into farming and starting a CSA. however, the blogger format made it very difficult to upload pictures, so that's when we switched to facebook, and our own farm page.

 

now, my blog is mainly chronicling my sewing adventures. (even my mother-in-law doesn't read my blog anymore!) i really enjoy the time I'm able to spend sewing, and with so many other blogs out there, it's hard to "compete", especially if i don't have time to post everyday. i have many blogs that i enjoy following (and we all know it's the ones that post daily, or nearly so, that are the most interesting to follow...) so thanks for stopping by, and thanks for reading my sporadic and all quilty related posts!



as brown as the mud... (or should I say soil?)

hubby worked late every night this week, so I feel like I got a lot done in the sewing room. 3 more brown granny squares started off the week.

 

 

I took the time to sort out all my white(ish) low volume squares, and made them into little piles of 7, for my low volume plus quilt. that way it's more certain that the fabrics will be mixed more evenly throughout the quilt. (I'm pretty picky about stuff like that- don't know why, as I'm probably the only person that would ever notice...)

here's the blue and brown row of my plus quilt. notice there are only 7 pluses in the browns, not 9 like the blues?  well, there were only enough browns to do 7 blocks! can you believe it?! I couldn't scrounge up 10 more blocks to make 2 more pluses. I already knew my stash of brown was very, very low- but still... I'm sure before December i'll be able to find 10 more brown blocks...

 

you can also see my RSC15 sampler on the floor. I've gotten that back out, and plan to finish it into a flimsy this month. I was having trouble with the alternate blocks, until I figured out the pattern, and now it's going a bit more smoothly. I'm happy to see how nice it's looking as it comes together!

 



this is not a RSC project, just a leftover bits and squares from another quilt I made. I thought it was especially appropriate to finish it during the changeover of blue to brown.

linking up with Angela- go see what everyone else is creating!

it's hip to be square!

in-between my other sewing, I've still been working on my 16 patches, and they're slowly coming along. I still have lots of the blacks and greys to do (I used those 2 colors in place of the indigo)

there is something so endearing and addictive about these humble and simple little blocks- they are certainly one of my favorites!

with so many different fabrics and backgrounds to choose from, I could never decide which one is my favorite block of them all... and it's good that I don't' have to choose: I have almost 200 at last count! yikes!

I do plan to make 2 quilts from these 16 patches- one for my table at farmer's market (using all the veggie fabrics) and another for the dining room table for family holiday meals. these 16 patches finish at 10"; just a nice size.

 

 

here's a picture of the whole top of the Bethlehem Star that I pieced last week. it's 72" X 80", but it sure looks dwarfed in this picture! scroll down one post to see what else i've been up to while I was absent from the RSC link-ups. and be sure to click on over to angela's to see all the RSC goodness for this week!

 

PS: did you see that the colors for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt came out this morning? I'm so excited- the color combinations are FANTASTIC this year! who's planning on quilting along? 

Everything is turning Brown!

after butchering all our (150+) meat chickens last week, I thought this week wouild be much less busy. ha! I could not have been more mistaken!

 

I did a *tiny* bit of canning and freezing this summer, but the huge bulk of my canning seems to have taken place this week: plum jelly- from our own plum tree (10 pints, plus some for gifts), 9 bushels of apples for sauce- (for 3 families) we got about 60 quarts, jalapeno jelly (14 pints, plus some for gifts) and green tomato relish (16 pints).

 

it was a week of chop, chop, chop. can, can, can. boil, boil, boil. phew! but now I'm almost done- just need to do the sauerkraut and stewed tomatoes.

 

I did have a chance to sew late Sunday afternoon and evening, and made some good progress:

I'm second guessing all my brown RSC15 blocks (are they too dull?) but am forging ahead anyway...

but: I love the sawtooth stars for the sampler! I'm WAAAAAAAY behind on the connecter blocks: as in have not even started them, but i'll get to them soon. ( I have the Kona white blocks cut; does that count?)

and here's Millie: my furry sewing room companion!

now go see what everybody else is doing with their browns!

just a little bit of a sneak peek...at my amazing powers of deduction...

this week I was able to get a couple nights in the sewing room. I decided to work on my zig-zag strips, and got the orange ones done. and since I'm extra perceptive these days (ha!) I decided to go ahead and do the brown ones while I was at it...

 

and here's another amazing idea of mine from this week: while the girls were working on their school at the school room table, and I was (very) attentively supervising them as they worked on math, science and language arts I also spritzed, pressed and cut the zig-zag squares. normally i'll drink coffee and surf facebook and/or instagram (follow me @ jlcap69), but I realized that I really could (and should) use my time better, and get some stuff done. I'll often have plans to go to the sewing room in the afternoon when my work is done (ha!) or in the evening if I'm not too tired. (ha! again).

 

so that was a win/win for us all. I have a very little pile of the D4P at the table to work on, and also the red and black zig-zags to get pressed and cut.

 

next week is super, extra busy with 2 days of butchering the meat birds, sewing circle at church, our last (regular) CSA pickup on Thursday, and a field trip to Genesee Country Village on Friday. then, the last Farmer's Market is on Saturday.

 

I'm whooped already!