Busy Bee

I have been very productive with the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along this week. I want to use up my scraps and get a lot done before something sidetracks me or I run out of steam. I am really good at not finishing projects for me.

 Here is my progress. Blocks 1 through 24. I skipped #18 "a Century of Progress" because it looks difficult and I would rather breeze along and maybe come back to it.

I wonder how many of you can name the fabrics? A few are newer, but most are last year or older. Some are REALLY old. See that one with the gray and white triangles? "Broken Dishes" is the block name. That dark gray fabric was bought about 21 years ago! Some of it was in my first quilt!

 I've been following along with the flickr group. Have you? There are some very inspirational quilters in the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt-A-Long group! Some are doing each block in one color, some in only red and white, some in 1930s fabrics. It is very interesting to see what others decided to go with.

Don't be frustrated by all the little pieces! If you make sure you are cutting your triangles on the grain, and not on the bias, it is easier. And if you cut carefully, the angles on the ends of the templates line everything up perfectly. If you want to print and cut out the templates as you go, this link will allow you to print by block number. That is helpful, right? I have my templates in a large vinyl envelope I found at Office Depot. I printed them all out at once and now I just sort through the numbers til I find what I need. Whatever works!

I have been lugging a bin of scraps, fat quarters and yardage to work and home every day to keep going. If I weighed the bin, I think it would be close to 20 pounds. Making a dent in some of my scrap stash and putting my treasured older fabrics to good use feels good!

On another note, we have had tons of rain lately. We needed it! It is so wet and humid, mushrooms are sprouting up all over. Our usual summer weather is afternoon showers, then hot and humid after the sun comes back out. That means the mushrooms don't survive or even sprout most years.

This weekend is supposed to be drier (and hotter) but it should be perfect for another 2 days in the pool!

I hope you are staying cool and enjoying the summer! July is almost over and school starts up again here in about a week. The school supplies have been out at the stores for a month now. That always bummed me out when I was in school. Here you are enjoying summer and you go shopping and there it is, right in your face. Aghhh! School! Not yet!