Sunday Something

"The Lord your God is with you,

He is might to save.

He will take great delight in you, 

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing."

Zephaniah 3:17

Farmer's Wife Friday-Progress Is Our Watchword

Century of Progress and Hovering Birds are the two blocks accompanying the farmer's wife's letter this week in the Farmer's Wife Quilt-along. The author, from Montcalm County, Michigan tries hard to convince her readers that "The farmer's wife does not have a monotonous life. Every year, every season, every month, every week, every day, every hour she has something different to think of, so her mind ought not get rusty."

 Apparently, she has been told that her city sisters have pity for her and she asks her fellow farmers' wives to straighten their backs, throw up their heads  and shout, "Don't pity me!"

 Lastly, she announces, "Progress is our watchword, so watch out, for we're going on as fast as we can. This world must be made safe for the farmer's wife. Let's-start-now!"

 In the same vein, I can attest to progress made on putting my blocks together a little more safely this week by, again trimming down larger half-square triangles for the one, and using paper-piecing techniques for the other.  Here's how I made my world safer for creating  the Century of Progress block.....photo copy machine, rotary cutter and ruler, plus glue stick .......

 They all came together to make the 8 segments used to make up this block of odd shaped triangles.....

 Add in some strips of fabric in three contrasting colors and an altered color placement....

 Paper-pieced and joined together to create a block that went together relatively painlessly.

I hear the farmer's wife say, "We are no longer hayseeds. We are of some account now, so we are glad, glad, glad to work." Hopefully, like me, some of her work involved creating some fun quilt blocks like these! Cindy's blocks look fun as well....check them out!

If It's In a Book.....

then it has to be correct. Right? Hmmm....does the color placement on this block look sort of strange to you?

It did to me, so I started playing around with the color of the shapes to see what it would look like if I changed a couple of them like this.......

 Using my handy dandy gridded paper and some new colored pencils that I just bought, I then created a little mock up of the what it would look like with 4 blocks set together in a quilt. My idea to change the lower center triangles to dark brown (above) seems to make a more logical repeat of the pattern as you can see in my drawing below. (The dark brown triangles are yellow in the drawing.)

 It makes sense to me, anyway, and I had fun playing around with my box of pencils. I just love this time of year when many stores are starting to stock up on new school supplies. Every year the notebooks and folders etc. get prettier than ever! Love them!! I'm sure I'll be buying myself some new folders in the next few weeks...can't help myself!

 Anywho, back to the block at hand.....I've picked some fabrics and am going to give it a try. Now to figure out how to do it without templates....

 I wonder if I could paper piece it.

Come back Friday to see my block and if I end up using templates!

Sewing for Lula

Saturday was Lula's 3rd birthday.

She wanted a Strawberry Shortcake party. Did you notice the vintage "Strawberry Shortcake sheet turned tablecloth" in the picture above? So cute!!  I never knew there were so many Strawberry pink influenced toys until she started opening gifts! Lula was in heaven! Besides giving her a baby doll with hair (her other love)

 I made Lula a few gifts for her big day......pillowcase dresses for both Lula and her baby sister, using this tutorial and my favorite Sherbet Pips print, Swings.

 Lula's dress features the cream colored fabric with a light pink border around the bottom and blue doggies for the tie. The ties turned out to not be her favorite fashion statement, so after the third time of asking me to cut them off, we went up to the sewing room and got out the scissors. ( I don't think anyone noticed the raw edges!)

 Jane's dress is the opposite color scheme and she didn't seem to care about the length of the ties. 

 Lula's mommy even organized a craft for the children...decorating sunglasses. 

Lula was very intent on getting hers just how she wanted it. Red heads love to make things, I  think!!

A few months ago, I ran across a small piece of vintage looking Strawberry Shortcake fabric and I knew right away that it would make a cute dolly quilt for the new doll I was going to give Lula for her birthday.

 Molly tried it out before the party to make sure that it was just the right size.....

Having a summer birthday will certainly have it's perks through the years with many outdoor celebrations just like this one at Lolly and Grandad's house!

On Sunday, Lula wore the other gift that I made for her...this cute easy jumper made from Metro Market fabric by Robert Kauffman and Butterick #3772. It was a cinch to sew and looks so pretty with Lula's beautiful hair.

Now, I think I'll go rest up a bit, and maybe eat a strawberry!

Sunday Something

"Whatever your hand finds to do, 

do it with all your might"

Ecclesiastes 9:10a

Letter #3: City Life Holds No Glamour

Welcome to Farmer's Wife Friday! This marks my third week of working through the 111 blocks and letters in the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt with Cindy of Live a Colorful Life.

Be sure to stop by and see Cindy's renditions of this week's blocks. First up is an easy block, called Flock.......

 Making the blocks a little larger and then trimming them down to the correct size made Flock come together quickly and without any problems. It's fun to compare my bright block to the Civil War reproductions used  in the book.

 Hill and Valley is the other block accompanying the third letter, City Life Holds No Glamour, by Mrs. A.B.D. from Park County, Wyoming.

 The author, who had grown up in the city, says, "There is no space here to tell of my love for the panorama of ever-changing beauty that unrolls from my cabin on the hilltop."

 I'm finding that I like how the white backgrounds offer such a nice contrast to showcase the small pieces in these 6 inch blocks. Again, the Easy Angle ruler came in handy for cutting the pieces instead of using the templates included in the book.

My six blocks are looking quite happy together, I think. Maybe I'll use some yellow in one of the next blocks. Y'all come back now, ya hear!

Quilts for Rwanda in 2011

These five quilts will soon be flying to Rwanda and into little hands at New Hope Homes, a home for orphaned and abandoned children in Rwanda. 

 In 2010, the Quilters4Hope made and sent 30 lap size quilts so that each child had a quilt to call his own. Now, another house is being built and ten more children will soon have a bed to sleep in with a pretty covering that will be a sign of love and comfort from quilters far away.

 These first three beautiful quilts were made and donated by my friend, Robin Askins.

 Robin's sense of color and workmanship are so lovely. Look at that quilting!

 The back side of this quilt is as cute as the front, making it truly reversible.

 I love this modern log cabin quilt in dramatic blues.

 The center of each log cabin is wonky....isn't that fun!

 I'm donating these next two quilts which have been just sitting unused in my quilt cupboard for quite a few years. This first one is a Stack and Whack kaleidoscope pattern which I remember was a lot of fun to create.

 And this last quilt was created as a Mystery Quilt that I organized for my quilt guild. It is hand quilted. I haven't done that for a while now!

I'll be saying a prayer for God's blessing on the little recipients on the other side of the world.