Farmer's Wife - Finished

 I started working on the Farmer's Wife Quilt in July of 2011. That makes this almost a six-year project. Of course, I didn't know it would be when I started. Back then, I was just having a blast piecing little 6" blocks. I set myself a goal: use scrappy fabrics, and try to have something vintage or thrifted or upcycled in every block. I had a lot of little scraps and remnants from sewing projects, and I had a lot of worn/outgrown clothing that could be repurposed, and I had bags and bags of scraps... some my own, some given to me, some purchased at thrift stores or estate sales or quilt stores. It's hard to believe that when I started quilting I had very little in the way of stash. This quilt was the beginning of my realization that I need to be more intentional about acquiring fabric.

Almost exactly five years ago I finished the top, and styled it in a very similar photo-shoot.

Three and a half years ago I started the process of machine-quilting it, with the Megaquilter. I didn't force myself to work on it after the first few rows, and it sat almost entirely neglected for a full three years. This reflects my deep-seated anxiety about machine quilting and inner perfectionism, or something. Also that I was busy and stressed during those three years. But this year, as a kind of New Year's resolution, I began again, and rediscovered how amazing the progress is that you make when you work steadily!

From the back of the fence, this is the very first bit that I quilted. The feathers, Oh the feathers! I think they are lovely... but each individual feather is so very imperfect. Look at the big picture, though. When you put them together and step back just a little bit, I am very happy with the feathers. I did have to take the side and bottom borders off and resew them by hand, before machine quilting the feathers on them. I would have had major puckers and waves otherwise. I'm glad I did that, and the quilt lies flat!

Just because I have the sycamore tree in back and it has the branch that is perfect for quilt pictures, I took another batch of shots there. You can see the plum tree in bloom behind the garage roof.

I love these two blocks that ended up next to each other: "Gentleman's Fancy" with pirate and map fabric, both scraps from boxer shorts sewing projects: and "WCTU" (Women's Christian Temperance Union), with scraps from my WCTU-member grandmother's apron and her scrap bag. I love how the individual blocks have so many different colors, but "that blue" ties them all together. I love how, without really trying to, I incorporated many of the scraps from the Mom memorial quilt project (where I made a quilt for each one of us siblings with her clothing and scrap-bag scraps), so I've infused the quilt with memories of her. And it pays homage to my midwestern upbringing and the many farming ancestors who also passed along their thrift, their skill with their hands, and their love of family.

All that's really left is to make a label and put it on my bed.

Quilting update and Stash Report

So yes, I have not been blogging as frequently as in years gone by. But this year I have recovered a bit of the will to stitch, and I am modestly proud of progress made in both quilting and knitting.

The Farmer's Wife Quilt (of many years' duration) is now off the frame, and I chose to put Allietare on, of my backlog of tops needing quilting. Rather than the fussy feathers and custom-quilting each block I used for the Farmer's Wife, I am doing my standard, very do-able "squiggle-loop-star" quilting pattern, which goes quite fast.

In fact, if I hadn't broken off for spring break I would probably be finished by now. It's a good thing I'm not, because I'm still stitching the binding down on the Farmer's Wife. Tonight we watched two episodes of Man in the High Castle and it's close. 

 Another hour of tv watching will probably do it. I'm going to go ahead and count the yardage for the backing of Allietare, and the binding of Farmer's wife, in my ongoing tally of fabric used, to keep myself accountable for using things up rather than buying new. I'm guesstimating 8 yards total for backing one, and adding binding and hanging sleeve to the other.

 I haven't tallied any yarn yet this year, and it's time to start, since I bought some recently, and finished these three projects.

Stash Report:

Fabric tallied this week: 8 yards
Fabric used year to date: 16 yards
Fabric added year to date: 0 yards
Net fabric used: 16 yards

Yarn used year to date: 900 yards
Yarn purchased year to date: 1700 yards
I'm in the red with net 800 yards added, but I hope to finish an old UFO soon to change that.

Let's see if I can keep up with the creative energy I've rediscovered so far this year. It feels very good to be making crafts again and I have at least the desire to de-stash, organize and have fun in the process.

WIP Wednesday and Yarn-along

That's what I used to call it, right? WIP for works-in-progress, and there used to be a little linky-up thing? Wow, blogs are just so five years ago. Everybody else has probably switched to Instagram. But here I am, still plugging away. It's easier this year, not teaching. I am not regretting not teaching. My house is cleaner than it's been for a long time. Which is not to say it's, you know, CLEAN or anything. I have a series of pictures to share today.

 Here is my friendly nemesis, the Megaquilter. I have finished quilting all the blocks in the main section of my Farmer's Wife Quilt. This is the first time MQ has been bare of the FWQ since 2013, when I started off with quilting this epic project.

Seriously I don't know why I waited so long. I finished the bulk of the quilting (about 80%) in the last month, just by working half an hour at a time, 3 days a week. Though not perfect, it's some of the prettiest machine quilting I've ever done, with lots of free-form vines and feathers. I had a method for those little sashing strips and just kept at it. Everything else went much faster and I learned not to sweat the minor imperfections.

 But now we come to the part I couldn't figure out. The borders are wavy. Not so much the top border, which I quilted long ago and it stayed rolled up on the take-up bar for 3 years (below). It's okay, I think. But the other three borders are wonky, too wonky to lie flat and be machine quilted. I was going to try it with the bottom border (and take off the quilt and remount it so I could do the side borders in one pass at a time), but that bottom border was going to have so many little unintentional pintucks quilted into it it would have been a disaster.

 See, here's the (slightly compressed) upper border, next to the unquilted side border, which just had too much ease, just like the bottom border. So I took the whole thing off the frame. and I am in the process of unpicking and resewing those long side seams.

 Again, it's not perfect, but rather than struggle with feeding all this bulk and keeping the batting out of the seams on my machine, I decided to hand-stitch those long seams. It's not so bad. I got one long seam done today while watching 2 1/2 episodes of Call the Midwife and blinking away tears. I remember piecing my first ever quilt by hand, and I actually liked that a lot. I can ease in the fabric better as I go this way. And by sitting at the dining room table I can distribute the weight of all that bulk fairly well, and it looks like it will be lying much flatter when I re-load it back onto the MQ. It will need to have the white setting triangles quilted on the long sides, and the big feather border on the three borders that are being re-sewn. I'm okay with the occasional pucker on the white triangles, but I am optimistic that this will fix the problems with the blue borders and make quilting so much easier.

Wow, this shot came out blurry. But stitching by hand wasn't so bad at all. Memories of Ohio Star, my first quilt.

My most recently finished project in knitting is this pair of socks for Steve, from almost all of the "Bog Fritillary" Skinny Bugga yarn I bought at Sock Summit years ago. Fun fact: the last 8 knitting projects I have finished (in almost 2 years) have been socks. I'm glad the socks are popular, with the family, but I want to knit something fun for me now.

So, my solution is 4 skeins of Madeline Tosh Merino Light in "Cardinal" and a pattern for Manu, which I've wanted to knit for a long time, like, ever since it came out. I should really finish up my long-hibernating Mint Chocolate sweater to clear up some room in my knitting bag first. There's only the buttonhole band and some finishing to do. But if I get tired of hand-sewing long quilt borders, tomorrow I might find an excuse to wind yarn and make a swatch. 

I'm linking up to Ginny's yarn-along, where many other knitting projects can be seen. And I should talk about the books I've been reading lately: finished Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance... highly recommended. I've been reading the Penderwicks series of children's books, which are delightful and I keep asking myself why I never discovered these earlier, and then realizing they haven't really been around that long, they just seem like sweet vintage books about wholesome kids. 

Design Wall Monday and Stash Report

I think it's been about a year since I even attempted one of these. I'm determined to make 2017 a more productive year for quilting and maybe even knitting. (About 4 pairs of socks were knit last year; no quilts were finished).

But this year I've finished the En Provence top, and that clears room on my design wall for the APQquiltalong from (mumble) years ago. It's a low-tone Burgoyne surrounded and I never really gave up on it, I just didn't sew on it last year. I'm working on the 14th of 20 blocks and starting to get excited about it. It's really pretty!

For other people's Design Wall reports, see here.

 Finishing the En Provence top also made me face up to the Beast, that is, the Farmer's Wife Quilt that has been on the Megaquilter frame for 3 years, untouched, growing dusty, some of its fabrics fading from the sun. :(  But I am stepping back to the task and getting into the rhythm of quilting. For this there is so much stopping and starting that I need to keep my tweezers (for pulling up the bobbin thread) and scissors (for snipping the thread ends after about an inch of sewing) handy. It takes about 45 seconds start to finish to do one of those little vines on each sashing unit. The individual blocks are longer, but have to be broken up into two sections because of the fact the Megaquilter is not a long-arm. I was finished with 3 rows  (of 17) when I entered the 3-year hiatus; I just finished row 10 on Saturday. It was totally not worth leaving for that long, and I hope the quilting Erinyes will overlook my fault.

 The kitties rebuke me for leaving them on the rollers so long.

 This is the sad state of my "accessory box" for my 25+ year old Viking. I think they made it with plastic hinges... otherwise very sturdily designed. I am sad I will have to use it as a free-arm from now on. I loved all that cleverly-arranged on-board storage.

 And I mentioned before that I've been following along with the 365-day declutter challenge, so today I tackled my cookbooks. But the shelves they were on were really dusty and dirty, so I had to clean them, and then I was way past my 15 minutes. So I put back the really essential ones and later I will start ruthlessly evaluating 60-year-old homemakers' pamphlets, 15-50 year-old church and civic organization cookbooks, and cookbooks that were all the rage but their time has gone. Seriously, someone must want a guide to Knox Gelatine from the 1950's, or the Once-A-Month cookbook?

Stash Report:


Fabric used week/year to date: 8 yards (estimated for En Provence top)
Fabric added year to date: 0 yards (and I aim to keep it that way)
Net fabric used: 8 yards

Yarn used year to date: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 0 yards (and I am on a yarn diet as well)

For other stash reports, Judy L. has them here.

My main knitting project at the moment is a pair of socks from Sanguine Gryphon yarn I bought at Sock Summit 5 years ago. I am turning the heels now so everything is looking up. And if I get some time to do some quilting and knitting both this evening, after cooking and eating a healthy meal, I couldn't possibly ask for more from a Monday.

Updates

I would need several days of blogging to catch up on all that I've missed, so I'll just share some of the highlights from our mid-January snowstorm and the sewing I have been working on. I'm sure there will be more left for a randomday post tomorrow.

 About 13 inches of heavy snow in 12 hours tested the bendy-ness of our birch trees.

 We took a walk across the street. In all this year there have been 8 snow days for Tertia and 9 for Quarta. They will have extra days in the summer.

Trying to shake off the birches a bit.

After an hour or so outside it was nice to come inside and sew. I monopolized the family room floor for a day or so. The snow turned to freezing rain and Portland shut down; I just kept sewing.

 Outside the gutters overflowed with freezing rain and the icicles just got longer and longer. The back porch was covered with an inch of very slippery ice... we didn't go out that way.

 I finished the En Provence quilt top and the sun came out just in time for this photo shoot on the old sycamore tree. The front fence would have been too snowy.

This is embarrassing... I have a rather extreme backlog of the 2013-2016 mystery quilts now waiting to be quilted. Plus a few extra...

 Front to back, En Provence, String Star, Allietare. On the frame (for more than three years!), Farmer's Wife. Not pictured, Celtic Solstice and Grand Illusion. This was the picture I took to goad myself on to start machine quilting Farmer's Wife again. It worked! (Pictures of that maybe another time).

I enoyed the mystery quilt this year: it managed to give me the kick start I needed to at least attempt to get back into my neglected quilt corner. My everyday Viking machine is in working order this year, although it just suffered breakage of the "accessory box" and now only functions in free-arm mode. I hopped back into the APQ quilt-along of a low-tone Burgoyne Surrounded, also from about 3 years ago. I've been cutting many strips for my Scrap User's boxes and binge-watching Call the Midwife, and I may very well have yet another finished top if I keep up at this rate. I hope I do, and I hope I manage to get some much-needed house cleaning and organization done as well. And knitting, and spinning. It's really quite amazing what is possible when I'm no longer teaching every day. In a small way, of course... I'm not claiming the house is neat or anything! And there is no denying I need to have some serious purges of excess stuff.

In previous year's I've tried to do various things to keep me accountable to work on UFOs and WIPs. I haven't been blogging enough to make that realistic this year, but I will try to do periodic updates on progress. It's what I originally enjoyed about blogging years ago, and it gives me an incentive to keep on. So here's to keeping on!

Works in Progress - Farmer's Wife Quilting

Well, I finally got back to the quilting machine and did a row of sashing and blocks on the Farmer's Wife Quilt.  It really didn't take too long.  Now I have 30-something Latin final exams to grade so I shouldn't take too long blogging about it!

 Block #93, "Swallow." I outlined the yellow pieces and made a feathered whirligig on the center large square.

 Block #20 - Churn Dash.  Basic outline quilting.

 Block #29 - Economy.  I did another of those feathered whirligigs in the central square and some scallopy things in each corner.

Block #88, Star of Hope.  I outlined the peach triangles and made another feathered whirligig on the big square, but you can't see it very well.

 Block #65, Peaceful hours.  Outlined the yellow and the center octagon.

 Block #43, Garden Path.  I outlined the lighter striped path and the center green four-patch.

Block #104 "Wild Geese" - I outlined the geese as they form arrows pointing into the center.

I've started seaming the Celtic Solstice blocks together too, but no picture there. And... that's it for now!  Someone rescure me if I'm still grading in 5 hours.

Design Wall Monday

On my design wall -- er, quilting machine -- is the second row of blocks in my Farmer's Wife quilt, which I quilted last week.  Left to right, these are #48, Homeward Bound; #51 Hovering Birds; #59, Night and Day...

#32, Farmer's Daughter; #68, Postage Stamp; #24, Country Path.  You can't really see the quilting detail on any of these though.  On to the next bit of sashing and then row 3!

Steve dropped off 6 of Grandma's quilts at the charity she donates them to today.  6!  I can't imagine finishing so many quilts at a time, let alone being willing to donate them.

Tomorrow is the last day of school this week and I hope to get some sewing in as well as cooking over the Thanksgiving break.  It's been pretty bleak around here lately.

No yardage to report for stash report, again this week.

WIP Wednesday and Argyles

I'm finished with the top row of blocks and almost with the 2nd zigzag row of sashing. The Megaquilter is behaving well, if a bit wobbly.  I wonder if the plastic rods are degrading again, or if it's just my mediocre quilting skills.  Either way, one row down of the Farmer's Wife.  Many more to go.  Linking up to WIP Wednesday for this, the only progress I've made in sewing for awhile.

I started a new argyle socks project, for Secundus.  I'm liking it so far.  I sized it up to a total of 70 stitches (2 selvage plus 68 stitches on a 34 stitch base rather than a 32 stitch base like I used for mine.  The tricky part comes when the diagonal line intersects the brown diamond, and there's an ambiguous stitch: it needs to be the diagonal line, but then the next row is confusing.  I think I've figured it out though, after one rip-back.  There is no yarn-along today; Ginny at the appropriately named Small Things has a new baby boy!

Fred the phantasmagoric pumpkin is looking very creepy indeed with the slugs crawling in and out of his eyes.  He needs to be composted.  By the way, did you know that "phantasmagoric" is a Proto-Indo European word?  I have asked for a P.I.E. grammar and dictionary for Christmas.  I think that would be ultimately cool.

It is a busy week with sister Beth coming for her yearly visit after I give (and maybe grade) 49 Latin final exams tomorrow.  Secundus is going to State with the varsity cross-country boys, as an alternate; Tertia is singing a solo opening line of "America the Beautiful" at her school's Veteran's Day assembly tomorrow, Steve and Secundus are even now taking Francesca the derelict pickup in to the shop for a brake job and other necessary and doubtless expensive repairs, and Quarta is under strict orders to have all the Legos in the guest room picked up so Aunt Beth will not hurt her feet when she comes.  I'm glad for a little tiny bit of stitching time squeezed in between the craziness.

Design Wall and Stash Report

Grandma came over Saturday for Secundus' birthday and brought a couple of quilt tops for me to pin:

Winding Ways, I think?  It's so pretty.  I don't have the patience for all that curved seaming at this point in my life.

And a Spider Web.  Grandma said that is her one paper-pieced quilt, and she's moving on to other things now.  Ironically, I find paper-piecing soothing and comforting, and I don't mind the fiddly work of pulling out the paper afterwards.

 Farmer's Wife Quilt #107, Windblown Square.  In my very slow progress through the machine quilting process, I'm almost finished with the top row.  It's kind of a pain doing only half a block at a time, but that's the way it has to be on the Megaquilter setup.

 #23 Country Farm.

#47 Homemaker.

Stash Report:  No changes from last time.

Fabric:
Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 53 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 49 yards
Net used for 2013: 4 yards

Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 10,900 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 5800 yards
Net used for 2013: 5100 yards

Also linking up to Design Wall Monday.