Monday Making

To see what other quilters are up to go to
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Making my head hurt is my Medallion Exchange. My thoughts go from scrapping the whole thing to making a nice big quilt. The blocks vary in size from just under 12 inches to just under 13 inches. Some are not pieced well. 

This Medallion is a from a Round Robin I participated in years ago. It needs to be finished into something. I had always planned to use it to make a bigger quilt.

I have added frames to all the blocks and trimmed them to 14 inches. 

I am still trying to decide what to do. I have a few ideas. I like the sashing made from squares. I like the Flying Geese borders. I like the half blocks used in setting triangles. I feel like I should add some applique to tie in with the medallion. Hmmm. I will give it some more thought. 

I am making a mess. I have been working on my sewing/guest room for a while now. It still is not the way I want it. I don't know if I will ever get to that point. I have to move things around to open doors on cabinets, get to other things or find things. I  have decided that a lot of it just needs to come out for now and get reorganized. In order to do that I need to get rid of some things in the upstairs room so I can reorganize it and make room for things from the sewing room. I get discouraged by it all and then I go sew. 

Making me sad are the signs that fall is here, or very near. 

The days are shorter, it's cooler in the mornings, it's gray and cloudy, plants are going to seed and dying. Winter will be here before we know it. That makes me very sad.

While it feels like fall, harvest will not be happening for a while. Husband looked at his records from last year and saw that he hauled his first load - beans - to the elevator on September 5th. Notice how green the beans are today. 

The corn isn't near ready either.

Making me shake my head is the bull. Husband brought him back from visiting the girls. He is in a pen with a big round hay feeder.

The first day back here he lifted the feeder somehow and got inside. He couldn't get out so Husband lifted the feeder to let him out. 

I'm sure he was just playing, like a giant puppy, as he did it again, not once, not twice, but three times. One time spending the entire night in it. He also liked to push it around. Yesterday after we came home from our Sunday shopping Husband noticed the feeder against the fence. The electric fence. Husband suspects Bull may have gotten a shock when he pushed the feeder against the fence because he hasn't gone near the feeder since.

Making my heart happy is this beautiful Kalanchoe plant. 

 

We got it two weeks ago and it still looks beautiful. I have kept it inside since the leaves tend to burn easily in the sun. It will need to be inside for the winter anyway.

Also making my heart happy are these beautiful Echinacea Cheyenne Spirit. LOVE the colors. And, the butterflies like them too.

Planning

I have been wanting to work on my latest Exchange quilt. I have participated in four exchanges now and have not completed any of them. I brought mine home after the last meeting since all my blocks are completed because someone worked ahead. We have one more exchange, the end of this month, then everyone will have all their blocks.

I have been sort of challenged to get mine together before the next and last meeting for this exchange. 

I needed to make one more block.

I made Millstone. I found it at Patchwork Square.

So....

I laid it out as a straight set.

I couldn't get it all the blocks in without cutting some off so I took a picture of each half. My thoughts are to put a black border around the center medallion and black sashing between the blocks with a small final border of black and black binding. Another idea is to add an outside border all around with some applique similar to the appliqued vine border around the medallion. I feel like it needs some more applique. If I do that I will make the side applique borders the size of the border around the medallion and double the size for the top and bottom so the quilt becomes rectangular instead of square.

Then I put it on point. This was taken before I made the extra block.

I was browsing the internet looking for ideas when I saw these. 

 kit from Craft Town Fabrics

https://shop.mybluprint.com/quilting/article/medallion-quilt-pattern

http://suegarman.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html

There is quite a difference, up to 1/2 inch, in the block sizes so whatever I do I am going to have to figure out something to make the blocks all the same size. Did I mention that some of us had trouble getting our blocks together? I am wondering just how accurate the cutting/piecing instructions were for this projects.

I have gathered my graph paper, colored pencils, tape measure and all my blocks. Time to start drawing and planning. 

Sew Day

Yesterday was Sew Day at the library. They meet twice a month and everyone works on their own projects. Sometimes this group works on a certain project together, each person doing their own. Right now they are all making a basket quilt. Each meeting they have a goal of making a certain number of baskets which they show during the day. At the end they will all have a basket blocks quilt. I am not participating in this one since I didn't start going until part way through the project. The next project starts in January. They have decided to do Moda Blockheads (link to Amazon.com). I will probably get in on this one.

I got a lot done. I quilted a Star/Flower on the Blooming Stars runner.

And finished another purple flower and started on a peach one for the GFG quilt.

A good productive day and always interesting with all the different conversations.

Recipe Report

A couple of days ago I tried another recipe, Chicken Enchiladas, from Food.com.

Photo courtesy of Food.com

We liked it. The full recipe made eight enchiladas. We each ate two so I have a few more meals. 

I couldn't find green chilies at our local Aldi, which I thought was odd since they have a decent selection of Mexican food ingredients. I used half a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies. I am happy with the results. I will make this recipe again.