woohoo--almost finished to flimsy!

Can you tell what was keeping me busy this weekend?

Yep, watermelon blocks for the August Joined at the Hip Button Up.  By last evening, the top was together minus the borders.  Borders and the applique elements were fused down today.  Of course, I will need to do some button hole applique to stick this all down.  I also will need to make the hanging tabs.  It is prepped but just not sewn yet so that is why I am going with the "almost" finished moniker.  I prefer my trusty Viking for the BHA but I am considering doing all those watermelon seeds by hand as it might be a bit of a pain in the neck stitching something that small down by machine.  That will mean swapping out machines since I was foundation piecing those watermelons with the Brother.

The preview is pinned in place.  I think it turned out pretty cute though my version is much lighter in tone with the backgrounds and the pale green at the top.  Got that green peridot, August birthstone thing going on, I guess. Oh, I could have gone with mixed tans like the cover photo but white on white went better with my border choice of fabric and tans did with their choice.  The tabs and binding will both be the same red as the cornerstones and lettering.

As I was working on this today I flashed to an old pass-around row quilt from a quilt list I used to moderate, aCozyQuiltBee. Parts of this were inspired by a pattern in Country Threads Quilt Shop Series from that patchwork place.   This would date back to the early 2000's though the book is old and copyright 1992.  The gals added their own touches though some of the motifs are in the book.   Back in February 2010 I had added the loose bird house block at the button and had pieced the flying geese sections for fill and then it went in the bedroom closet with the rest of the tops.  SIGH.

 The thought had occurred to me that this was about the width of one of the Button Up pieces.  I had already considered taking that button section off and adding it to another project.   So I did just that!  I'll plan on adding it to the Button Up collections even though it is NOT one.  It still says "Summer" to me!

So what do I  have planned for that bottom piece??  I figure that I can take those foundation pieced sections of flowers that I showed you on the design wall  HERE .  Add the mis-cut watermelon blocks and crow from last Friday's post and work that up into something for the kids.  Toss in a butterfly block or two and add some other fill block to bump up the width.  More abandoned blocks are on their way to me.  I even have a Pam Bono cat block around here that could be added.  I think it would be cute and a bit of a challenge too.  It measures about 23 inches across at the moment and normally we shoot for 40 wide x 60 long. I'll figure it out.

The only other thing that I did on the quilty front was do up a chart for the Farmer's Wife Sampler---mostly which blocks from the book I plan on using and which one were my substitutions.  I was having problems spotting them in the printout and many of them I can use the Marti Michell sets.  Thing is those were not done in order but rather by which template set was predominantly used meaning each grouping of about 10-11 blocks has some similarities in their grids.  All are components really of a 3 x 3, 4 x 4 and even a 5 x 5 grid which is not easy in a 6 inch completed block.  There are about 10 that did not have conversion to MM's templates but half of them I would not have made anyway. With the table I formulated I now have a better handle on whether I hand piece some, foundation piece some, conventionally piece or use the template sets and conventionally piece---less flipping through the book, my notebook etc to locate what I am looking for. 

As I said last week, this will be a busy week with a good bit of time away from home on quilty endeavors.  I am not even decided what I want to take to Belles tomorrow and still need to pick our some fabric, etc for the iron caddy deal for Friday or Saturday.  I can find fabric easily enough around here but need coordinated binding and shank buttons for the job.  I barely looked at the supply list and should since I will be out near Hobby Lobby tomorrow if there is something needed that I don't have----like elastic!!  "The Closer" final six episodes are starting back tonight so I have a feeling that some of my sewing plans for this evening will wait.   Oh, and the Home Run Derby is tonight too if I want to see how my Cardinal representative Carlos Beltran fares.

Must go feed the husband------