County Fair is a Flimsy

What I had anticipated 10 days ago would be a quick finish of the Debbie Mumm County Fair quilt took a week longer, but now it's officially a flimsy, a completed quilt top.

It seemed that just when I thought the end was right around the corner, there were a few more steps.  All those big 24-1/2 inch blocks needed corner triangles (some in three different fabrics).  And since I'm the kind of person who gets antsy after an hour and a half of anything, even something I enjoy, it took, well, as long as it took.

I'm very happy with the end result, though.  Well worth the time spent.  

It's a big one, too, at 89 x 89 inches.  I had to climb over the furniture to get a good shot of it, taking up just about all the floor space available in the room.

I noticed while final pressing it that I had one little piece of fabric reversed so the back side of the fabric was showing.  Not obvious enough to take the whole block or section apart and redo, though.  I doubt anyone will notice, and word has it the quilt police are as easily distracted by squirrels as the rest of us, so no worries!

This quilt project was a kit that came to me via Jo's Country Junction, when Jo was looking for people who might want to finish and donate some of the things that came to her from her readers.  The reader who sent this to her was "Connie in Wisconsin."  Connie had most of the quilt already cut out and bagged according to the six block-of-the-month instructions that went along with it, and had begun piecing on some of the installments.  I was able to figure out where she'd left off with each bit and take it from there.

The copyright date of this quilt pattern was 2003.  It may have taken awhile, Connie, but we got it done!

The top and fabric for the backing and binding are now on their way to Ray in Florida, who will quilt and finish it for donation.  I love being a small part of the village of quilters busting UFOs like this for a good cause. 

 

Getting There on County Fair

I'm making slow but steady progress on the Debbie Mumm County Fair quilt.  The beehives block took awhile.  There are elements of both piecing and applique. 

For the bee skeps (beehives), you cut graduated sizes of rectangles in two different fabrics, then you round off the ends.  The instructions said to cut two identical fabric pieces, sew them together, then slit one of the pieces so you can turn it right side out, and press flat.  

Well, forget that!  That would make every appliqued piece double-thickness, plus the background it's sewn down onto, for a total of three layers of cotton fabric.  Nope, nope, nope.  Not gonna do it.

When I made my appliqued circles quilt in 2016, I sewed each circle to a very thin non-fusible interfacing type material and then turned and pressed it.  That sheer layer is easy to turn and everything lies nice and flat, no excess bulk to stitch through. 

So that's the method I used for these bee skep pieces.  The above picture shows the process from left to right:  Stitch a fabric rectangle to a piece of the lightweight stuff, trim seams, slit the sheer layer, turn and press.

Repeat 23 more times.

Later in the instructions, you're told to use fusible web for each of the black circles and bee wings.  Honest to Pete, I thought, the whole works could've been fused!  Ah well, live and learn.

So there was a lot of fiddling around on this block, but I really like how cute it turned out!

Here are the blocks I've completed so far on the design wall.  This is not how the quilt goes together; I just needed somewhere to put them for the time being.

Now I'm on to the final four large pieces (each one looks like a partial block; it'll all come together in the final layout).  Here is the first one of the four.  This. Took. Forever.

But the end is in sight!  The big blocks with blue backgrounds need to have corner triangles sewn on, and then the whole works gets sewn together.  

If all goes to plan, I should have a completed quilt top by the end of the weekend!

A Little Housekeeping on the Blog

As you may have read elsewhere, some of us bloggers are having to migrate our email subscriptions to a different platform if we formerly relied on Feedburner to do the job.  As of July 1, Google's Feedburner will no longer work for email subscriptions.  They are shutting that part of the service down.

That has left many of us scrambling for alternatives to handle sending our blog posts via email.  For me, it boiled down to two options that were free.  One of those options seemed a little easier to set up, and that was the service known as follow.it.

The important thing for you to know is:

• If you were receiving my blog posts by email previously, you will continue to get them by email from follow.it.  There's nothing you need to do.  The email may look a little different, but the content will contain the entire blog post, as in the past.
  
  
• If you have not previously signed up to get the blog by email, you can do that now!  Just enter your email address on the right sidebar near the top.  Be sure to confirm, if you're asked to do so, to make sure you start getting the posts.

Of course, you're always able to add this blog to your favorite feed reader, if that's how you prefer to keep up.  If you've already been reading the blog with a feed reader, such as Bloglovin' or Feedly, for instance, nothing will change.

I do want to point out a couple things about the emails from follow.it.  Because I chose their basic free plan, I have less options for controlling the look and functionality of the emails.  For instance, there may be links that follow.it adds to the bottom of each email.  These have NOTHING to do with my blog and I have no control over them.  I'm trying to think of a nice way of describing them, but I can't, so I'll just say it:  To me, it looks like click bait.  If you like that kind of thing, click away.  My suggestion is that you simply ignore those links.  That's what I'd do.

To that end, you will note that I've now added my signature at the end of my posts.  If you're reading the post via email, when you see the signature, you'll know you've reached the end of my content. 

If you wish to view the blog post directly from the email, or if you wish to comment (and I love comments!), click the "Continue Reading" link directly below my signature in the email.  That'll take you directly to the blog.

Note that if you hit "Reply" to the email from follow.it, your reply will not reach me.  It goes to nowhere land.  Your best bet is to click through to the blog and comment there.  Or email me directly at thewayisewit at gmail dot com.  Again, I do not receive direct replies from the blog emails.  If I would upgrade to a premium plan, I could control that and other things; but since I make no income from blogging, the free basic plan is the best option for me at the moment. 

* * * * *

And now I'll leave you with a little quilty goodness.  I went to a local quilt show last week and saw some gorgeous log cabin quilts!  Here are some of them. 

Thanks for hanging in there and reading!  Feel free to ask any questions or leave any comments.

Progress on County Fair Quilt

You may recall I'm putting this Debbie Mumm County Fair quilt kit together.  It was a UFO sent to me via Jo's Country Junction to finish and donate.  A couple weeks ago, I started looking at what all this kit contained and found that a couple of the large blocks had been started.  The first block I finished up was the big barn, which I mentioned in the previous post.

Block 2 was sunflowers.  I cut and sewed this one from scratch per the instructions.  I love how it turned out.

The instructions for each block include the option of making a wall hanging, table quilt, or lap quilt from that block.  If I have enough scraps left over or can find something suitable in the stash, I may go back and make another one of these for a wall hanging.  So cute!

Block 3 was apple baskets.  Some of the apples were already pieced, but I took them apart and resewed them.  The thing about these big 24-1/2 inch blocks is that if one portion of the block turns out too small, it throws the whole thing off.  Ah, the importance of the scant 1/4-inch seam on stuff like this.

I skipped Block 4 temporarily and went on to Block 5, which was the corn.  About that time I remembered to take some process pictures.  Here are the ears of corn sections.

And the final block all sewn together.

Block 4 is what I'm currently working on, which is a beehive block.  Some parts of this block are pieced and others, including the beehives themselves, are appliqued.  Some of the pieced sections were already done, but I'm in the process of redoing them due to the variance from what they should measure.  Sometimes you just know you won't be able to fudge it enough in the seam allowances no matter how hard you try.  

It doesn't bother me to unpick or recut and redo when there is enough fabric available.  I think this is a really neat quilt that deserves a little TLC where it's needed. 

* * * * *

I was baking cookies yesterday and went to find a piece of newspaper to put underneath the cooling rack on the counter to catch crumbs.  I happened to pick out a page from the classifieds section and glimpsed the title of one ad that read, "Selling Sue's Stash!"  Well, that got my attention!

Dear Sue, rest her soul, had apparently gone to the great sewing room in the sky, and her family and friends were now selling the contents of her earth-bound studio.  Fabric, thread, notions, books, batting, cabinets—you name it, it sounded like Susie probably had it.

I looked at the clock.  The sale had started six hours ago.  Would there be anything left?  Only one way to find out.  Forget the cookies (they never even made it onto the cooling rack), I was going to this sale right now!  I grabbed my purse and my trusty companion (hubby) and off we went.

Friends, I could have spent some serious money and time there.  I don't know how much stuff they had begun the day with, but there was still loads of it left, taking up an entire two-plus car garage.  From the vehicles parked up and down both sides of the road, I imagine they'd been doing a hopping business all day.

As it turned out, I spent not quite all of the $30 or so in cash I happened to have in my purse.  Didn't want to get too carried away (but I could have!), since I'd just gotten an inflow of donated fabric recently.  Something about bringing the hubs along helped me stay focused (even his patience has a limit for this kind of thing) and within budget.

While I riffled through the fabric, he spied a like-new June Tailor 60-spool wooden thread rack for two dollars.  I needed one! Good eye, dear!

Among other fabric, I bought several yards of a perfume bottle print fabric to use as a backing.  

I also picked up a quilt kit for $5, which I'll probably finish and donate.  There were quite a few kits, but this one caught my eye with its mini sampler blocks scattered among the chevrons.  It would lend itself to being scrappy, if any of the fabric is missing from the kit.

The estate sale runs through Saturday morning.  What do you think, should I go back then to see what's left and if they're entertaining offers? ;)