Sweet William Progress

If things were normal right now, I would be busy getting ready for quilt camp. But they aren't, so instead I'm leisurely binding my One Monthly Goal quilt (Cheddarback) and slowly working my way through my Sweet William applique blocks. And, (it goes with out saying) making masks. Sigh. 

Here's a few of the most recently finished baskets. All of my baskets have been set up with the applique so it's just a matter of stitching them down. I've been doing that in the evenings and can get at least one block done depending on how many pieces there are in the block. You can see that some blocks are much more simplistic than others. The good thing is that now I can put away the fabric bin for Sweet William (and Cheddarback if I'm feeling ambitious) to make room for something new!
I hope you are all finding things to do in your happy places!  

A Little Afternoon Delight

The Quilt Show released part six of the BOM mid-March in addition to part three  at the beginning of March. The idea is to give us some busy work since we are spending a lot of time at home.
And what is the busy work, you ask?

We now have the measurements to make the double nine patch blocks.
There are 64 blocks needed for the quilt. The block finishes at 6.75". My plan was to work on them at my spring retreat, but that has been cancelled. My new plan is to make the small nine patch blocks as leader/enders since I have all year to get them done. 

 Before I started cutting strips, I re-finagled my leftover four patches (from the shoo fly blocks I made in month one of the BOM) and pieced them into nine patches. Both the four patches and the nine patches require 1.25" squares, so  just needed to add more squares.

I was really itching to have more piecing to do and was so tempted to join Bonnie Hunter's Unity quilt along--I love me a medallion quilt!  But really--I just needed  something to work on at my sewing machine. I opted to stay focused (for now), and have been spending a little time each afternoon working on the little nine patches. I have 82 made and need a total of 320.

 These are all the applique blocks I have finished as of last week on the design wall. I'm glad I finally put them up there because I can see now that I need to add more pink and green. And yellow.

 I've made a template to help trim the blocks. The blocks need to be trimmed to 7.25" and this makes it pretty easy to situate on the block, mark around with a pencil and then trim up using a ruler and rotary cutter. 

Only one more April block left to stitch down!  

Amazingly, I have not purchased anything quilt related since our "lock-down" began. I admit to having spent a bit lot of time browsing online and filling carts, but have resisted pushing that tempting Buy Now button.  Soooo, this was a fun little package to get in the mail: a nifty shirting from sweet Janet.  
Thanks again, Janet! 

No progress to report on my April goal--I haven't been able to motivate myself to start quilting Cheddarback. I thought I was waiting for a sunny day to add better light to my sewing room, but today is beautiful and I'm still not feeling the urge--lol! 

April One Monthly Goal

I usually listen to an audio book when I walk my dog Willow. A lot of times my mind wanders and I have to back up a few minutes to hear what I have missed. Recently I won an audio download of My Dark Vanessa read by Grace Gummer. It was a disturbing and sometimes maddening story, but I never had to rewind it--haha!  Needless to say, Willow and I had some very long walks for a few days!
After finishing that book, I listened to The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. Derek Jacoby does an awesome job of reading this Sherlock Holmes take-off. Anthony Horowitz wrote some of the early episodes of Midsomer Murders, so I expected this story to be a bit more "cozy" than it was. There's a lot of despicable stuff going on but, of course, Sherlock neatly ties everything up in the end (I don't think that's a spoiler, as that's what he always does, isn't it?).

For my April One Monthly Goal, I had chosen a completely different quilt, but then the final parts for completing Cheddarback were released early. Gay at Sentimental Stitches has been posting the patterns as a block of the month for more than a year and now it's a little sad that we are at the end. 

Part 14
I did a little "pick and choose" when deciding which blocks to make for these last two sections. 

Part 15
I had already made the letter blocks and thought I better fit them in somewhere before I ran out of room. 

My top is all put together and loaded onto the quilting machine. You can see a peek of my "Cheddar-backing" in the above photo. I had pieced the backing and made the binding last week in anticipation of being so close to the end, so I am  ready to go!
My goal for April is to get Cheddarback quilted and bound. 
Linking with One Monthly Goal HERE

March One Monthly Goal finish

My One Monthly Goal was get my abbreviated version of Smith Mountain Morning (pattern by Bonnie Hunter) quilted and bound. 

I found this large blue and brown floral fabric I used on the back at Grubers' Super Bowl tail gate sale. I was thinking a plaid would have made a better backing, but when the floral fabric is $4 a yard it becomes the  perfect fit!

I already had this blue buffalo check in my stash and decided it would make a fun binding. 

I also have a second finish this month--Smith Mountain Morning's baby sister.
I'm calling it Breezy Point Afternoon--lol!
It was made using SMM leftovers.

I used up a lot of brown fabric from the stash for the back. 

The binding was a newer purchase from Hobby Lobby. It was forty percent off on the day I was there shopping. I bought a half yard thinking it would come in handy and it did!
I'll be stitching on my labels later today. 

Linking with One Monthly Goal HERE

Sweet William: My New Project

I own several historical quilt books and have always admired this basket quilt from the 1800's.
In 2014, I was browsing the internet and came across Ingrid's Supergoof Quilts blog HERE . She was making some of these blocks. 

Oh my, I was completely smitten and I loved the yellow she was using for the alternate block. Then I found out that Ingrid was working from a pattern called Sweet William by Susan Smith. 

At that time, I was still working at the quilt shop when this Riley Black yellow check came in. I bought a ton of it along with some quilter's linen by Kaufman that I thought would make a nice background for the baskets. 

Like I said, that all happened six years ago. Late last year, I decided it was about time to get started on Sweet William. I found those fabrics I had purchased right away but after searching my sewing room high and low I just could not find the pattern. I started to wonder if I had actually purchased one!

Thankfully, my dear friend Karen (logcabinquilter) rescued me by kindly sending me her pattern and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for that!

If you have ever used a Susan Smith pattern, you know they are not for the beginner. Instructions are minimal. This is the pattern for the basket which (per the pattern) is hand pieced using templates you draw up yourself from this diagram.
Not happening here--lol!

I did some figuring and worked out the measurements to rotary cut and machine piece the baskets to speed things up--I was so excited to start the applique!  

It ended up being very easy once I figured out that adding a flippy corner to the large half square triangle would make the basket bottom. 

My first basket filled! The pattern says to make the block and then do the applique. I was very worried about raveling and shrinking, so did this test block. It all worked out fine, so I'm going ahead with piecing before applique. 

I re-figured my calculations so I could make 2 blocks at a time--that way I do not end up with extra triangles. 

Here's where I am so far.
There will be 36 basket blocks in the quilt. They are all cut out and half of them have been sewn--and half of those have been filled--so fun! 

 I haven't deviated from the Susan Smith applique patterns--yet. If you take a close look at the original quilt from the 1800's, some baskets have pine trees, a rooster, deer and even giraffes! Thankfully Susan didn't include those blocks in her pattern--lol! 

So far, my favorite is the strawberry block but there's a cute tiny bird coming up soon! 

Keeping up

March is an easy month for the Cheddarback blocks.
This is the twelve inch block. 
The rest are the five inch blocks:

We've done this star earlier in an earlier grouping as well as this month.

I did this one using the Magic Eight method X 2. 

A tiny bit of applique on this one.

I used ticking instead of a shirting for this simple block. 

I've been distracted by another new project I started (!), but finally got around to prepping the March Afternoon Delight blocks. I'll be stitching these while I binge some things I have been hoarding on my DVR. I recently discovered Lark Rise to Candleford (not sure how I have never watched this series before) on the BYU channel and have to start clearing off episodes before I run out of room for new stuff!  

March One Monthly Goal

It only makes sense that I am going to make Smith Mountain Morning my One Monthly Goal for March--it's already loaded on my HQ16! I'm pretty excited to have this one finished, so as soon as I can make up my mind on a thread color, I will start quilting.
Linking with other One Monthly "Goal-ers" HERE