Light White Fun In The Summertime Quilt

Bright sun...Warm breezes...Fragrant flowers...Blue skies...Sips of cool lemonade

Fire Flies at night...Marshmallows...Giggles...Rainy afternoons...Picnics on the 4th of July...Walks in the meadow......with Goober the dog! 

WHAT?  It all sounded so soft and dreamy until Goober the dog came into the picture!  HA!

This quilt was extremely hard to photograph.  It's very light/whitish in color and the details are hard to get focused, but maybe you can get the jest of it here. I have found if you CLICK on the photos to enlarge they look better!

I came across these blocks about a month or so ago, about 9 of them I had left over from this quilt here.   They are 11" in size and the 9 of them together would be the start of something good.  I got busy pulling out more white and light strips and strings and paper pieced and paper pieced until I just couldn't stand it anymore!!!  After all, I had just finished another strippy string paper pieced Victorian Spider Web here.

The 9 blocks I started with from the other quilt project had more dark creams and tans mixed in, but I wanted this Summertime quilt to be on the lighter whiter side.  I scattered the darker blocks in among my newer light blocks and I think the mixture turned out ok. 

It's scrappy strippy and Shabby but Chic!

It takes 2...8 1/2" paper pieced blocks to make 1 of these 11" blocks.

Finished quilt size is 75" x 65"

I plan on quilting it on both sides of the 'X' seams shown here and on both sides of the seams where I sewed the rows together.

OK....now where were we?  Oh yeah...........Poofy white Clouds exploding in the sky...Floating in the Boat across the still Lake...Butterflies bouncing from flower to flower.........

GOOBER!......leave the butterflies alone!!!!!!

Spider Web Quilt

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y............yes, I finally finished my vintage Victorian style Spider Web. Notice this quilt has 3 paddles or kite shapes instead of the usual 4 we see today in a lot of other Spider Web designs. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this quilt....BUT....let me just tell you, this one is not for the faint of heart!!

LOTS of paper pieced diamonds going on here......
and here...........

MORE papers to deal with. Now you have to tear it all off. (I secretly really truly adore paper piecing !)

I ran out of background fabric. The bottom fabric is the one I ran out of, it was 2 yards worth. I thought "OH NO"....whatever will I do? The quilt is not in a good size/shape to be finished! I was astounded when I dug through my stash and found a fat quarter in the top fabric! Wow, what luck. I determined it was close enough to use. After all, this is a VINTAGE design and isn't that what they did in the old days? Just used what they had on hand. I bet if you clicked on the top photo for a close up you will have a hard time finding where I used the fat quarter pieces.

In the end, after I sewed and sewed Y seams until I thought I would croak I was VERY happy I had used up A LOT of terrible UGLY fabrics that have been hanging around here w-a-y too long.

You can click HERE......HERE.....HERE and HERE for more looks at this quilt style. If you are interested in what all you can do with the diamond shape, go HERE to Kate's Empty Field blog for a look at some fabulous diamond shapes.

Leaders and Enders Flimsy Finish

YEP.......I've added another one to the PILE!!! I used Bonnie Hunter's Leader/Ender method to finally get this little flimsy created. It is her Basket-Weave-Strings quilt. I started this project way back HERE and I gave the instructions and a little tutorial on how I started it. This is a GREAT way to use up those pesky little strips and strings left over from other projects. I threw in a little bit of everything as I've shown in the following photos. I used a paper piece for my foundation and these blocks measure 5 inches.

This green strip is a LETTUCE print Mr. Brown Dirt bought me a Christmas or so ago. I did point it out to him that I was indeed using some of the fabric he gave me.

BUTTERFLIES outlined in some garish gold. The white with the blue design next to them is some cut up mens boxer shorts! Har har har!!!
OINK! OINK! Mr. Porky Pig jumped right in too!!!

I'm not sure how/where/when I ended up with this little tad of PINK FLAMINGO! Notice the AFTERNOON TEA selvedge in the upper right hand corner!

A-N-D these UGLY EASTER EGGS!!!!!

So SEE, this is an EXCELLENT way to get some OR ALL of those numerous and UGLY strips and strings out of your way!!! It's like getting a quilt for FREE!!!!! It was easy and mindless and I plan on doing another one or two. I could control the colors in the next one....Maybe RED WHITE and BLUE!!!

As I mentioned in the beginning about adding to the PILE, yes, I went through and rounded up ALL my Q.U.I.P.S......that's Quilts In Progress. I was amazed when I discovered how many I had. I should be ashamed!!! Do you care to make a guess as to how many I have PILED in the closet???? There might be a little prize if you guess it right!!

COTTON HARVEST is in full swing. Mr. Brown Dirt is already anxious for it to be over and I think he'll get his wish. Last year we harvested around 1800 bales of cotton and this year with the drought we will harvest only around 500 to 700 bales. Quite a difference indeed, but never fear, we always have CROP INSURANCE. Read about how we HARVEST right HERE.

Just to keep you informed.....COTTON PRICES are around $ 1.00 a pound right now. Mr. Brown Dirt says it will probable fall some before the year end. I WONDER if those FABRIC PRICES will fall some this year too???????????

I HATE borders

........WEll......sort of........seems I dread doing them! I have several tops that would be finished if only I would just add the borders. It's not that I actually HATE the borders......borders add soooo much to a quilt. The main issue is WHAT I have to go through to add them. I don't have a table or counter long/large enough to accommodate laying out the whole quilt so I can measure and fit the borders to my top.....sooooooo.....here's where my love/hate for borders begin. Push the living room furniture aside.....drag out the vacuum and vacuum ONLY an area big enough for the quilt top....after all, I'm into borders at the time and NOT into vacuuming the whole room......spread out my top and THEN.....AND THEN.....this is when all the bending and squatting starts.....crawling around getting carpet burns on my knees......struggling to keep the GOOBER dog off the top so everything stays flat and smooth. By now I am working up a sweat and I turn on a little fan close by to help keep me cool and calm AND THEN the fan keeps blowing up my quilt top....SOOOOO, off goes the fan......LOLOL.....by now my fat butt has been up and down so much it's ridiculous!!!! BUT I REMAIN DETERMINED!!! The photo above is a close up of one I am working on today.....look at all those tiny pieces......these are called PARALLELOGRAMS!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this border but I HATE HATE HATE the process of getting it attached!! Those borders are getting added to this top. I participated in Bonnie's latest mystery quilt she featured over at her website Quiltville. This one is called Roll Roll Cotton Boll.....AND being a farm gal married to a guy who farms COTTON I figured I should do this one. I used up ALL of my white/off white scraps and strips. It felt good to get that bin emptied so I could freshen it up with some new prints! I didn't make mine as large as her instructions but I think mine will be plenty large. I have already been crawling around on the floor today adding a 1 3/4" bright green inner border with tiny white dots that is not shown in this photo. That tiny green border really made the top pop.....that is when I REALLY decided I liked the quilt. OK....I'm off to grunt and groan some more.....my plan is to get ALL the outside borders sewn on today. And if I'm NOT TOO SORE maybe I'll tackle the borders on my BUTTERFLY quilt. Does any of the above sound familiar?......WHAT DO YOU do when it's time for you to add your borders???