The Honey Man Quilt

A while back I shared that our girl was telling me about an elderly gentleman that sells honey on a roadside stand 7 days a week and I just felt the need to make him a quilt. That very day, a bundle of bee fabric was showcased as the deal of the day at Missouri Star. Alas, it had metallics in it and I wasn't so sure about that, but I figured it was a sign that I DID need to make this gentleman a quilt. So when I found a bundle of honey/bee inspired fat quarters on Etsy, I ordered it. I added this burlap-honey-colored fabric

from my stash and asked our girl to choose from 2 patterns. This is the one she chose:

It's called Slice of Life and it's a Missouri Star pattern. I subscribe to their Block magazine and it's in one of their issues.

I cut out the fabric on a Monday morning before work. The pattern calls for a layer cake, but I edited the pattern to make the best use out of my fat quarters and began making the blocks. Instead of making the giant 9-patches with 10" squares, I used 8" squares and the sashing called for 2 1/2" strips, but I down-sized mine to 2". This is a fast and easy pattern and as a bonus, there are no seams to match:

I put the top together on Tuesday, as my friend, C and I, had made plans for a road trip to Texas and I was hoping to find a backing. I hit paydirt in the first shop with this fabric from the clearance shelf.
There wasn't quite enough so I added a strip of the sashing fabric down the middle to add the needed length

and I bound it with more of the sashing fabric

                          

The finished quilt is 50"x 62"

 Jackie quilted a pantograph that has flowers and bees on it...so perfect

And she loved this quilt and mentioned a sweet couple that sells honey and produce locally. The wife is a quilter and makes quilts for charity. I took my scraps to Jackie and her daughter made this quilt for the couple:

Isn't that great?! Jackie and Sandy are so clever and generous.

And we were back in the mountains this weekend so I took advantage of  my in-laws' deck to show off this quilt:

                                                   

I hope the Honey Man likes it.

                           

Our girl said he is quite the Casanova. LOL

                                           

Under the Needle - June

I haven't been spending any time in the sewing room lately. It's either feast or famine around here when it comes to sewing. I could have sewn a little on Saturday, but I think I needed a day to recuperate from those 19 hour days last week and I really needed to scrub my stove and floors. However, Sunday found me stitching up some blocks. Our Quilt Squad group is making this quilt:

                                               

We had our monthly meeting on Saturday, but I didn't make it in. We're all making 13 blocks using 30's prints. Yes, that's an odd number, but that's how many members we have. Our Captain 😊 told me that some folks are making extra blocks and we will exchange them in August. I'll probably make a few more too. It'll be fun to see how we all set our blocks. I know for a fact that I'll not follow the original layout. Not that I don't like it - I just want to play around and see where that leads.
Blocks complete:

 On Tuesday I dug back into my Scrap Dance Waltz project bin.These were put on the back burner last year, but I had a hankering to play with these 30's prints again:

                                          

I've also needed to come up with a backing for my Buckaroo Plus Quilt. The only fabric I had enough of is pretty dark. It's the top fabric in the photo below:

                                           

I looked around online, but I really want to use something I have and an idea came to me as I was washing dishes yesterday. I'll still use the dark print, but I'm going to mix it up a bit. For now, all you get is chicken scratch, but I'm hoping it'll all pan out.

                                             

 I also made the binding and stitched it to the front of the Honey Man Quilt today and will work on getting it stitched to the back as soon as the temps fall below 110°:

                                              

And that's a wrap from my sewing room for the time being. I'm missing ya'lls comments! I sure hope Blogger finds a fix soon, but I'll still reply to your comments if I have your email.

Sewing Again

On Sunday I had big plans to spend some time in the sewing room, but I was just too wilted after my week-long cooking marathon. I felt a lot like Skeet:

I cleaned like mad on Saturday afternoon even though I desperately wanted to take a nap, but I knew I'd never relax on Sunday unless everything was set to rights. There are enough leftovers in the fridge and deep freeze for all week and Sunday was nap day with a little laundry thrown in so I didn't feel like a complete slug. I curled up with some fun reading material  that arrived during the week:

DH is helping the neighbors 3 days this week so he'll have more trudging out to the barn to saddle up his horse in the middle of the night mornings. I get up with him and make his coffee although he tells me not to each morning, but I can't go back to sleep.

However, that does leave me time to sew! I have to go to work at the sale barn on Mondays, but there's a lot of sewing time between the hours of 3 a.m. when he leaves and 8 a.m.

When our girl was home a few weeks ago visiting a good friend and his dad, who was in the hospital, she asked if I had a quilt to give to his dad. Those hospitals are cold and their blankets leave a lot to be desired. Of course I had a quilt and Michael loves it! However, I only had one that was really suitable for a fella. That made me think I needed to make a few so I started browsing through my fabrics and patterns. This pattern from Sew Emma caught my eye a while back and I finally ordered it:

And I started pulling fabrics. I didn't realize how hard it was to procure a group of fabrics for a guy. I can easily pull together a western or patriotic or hunting/fishing collection, but a random grouping proved more difficult from my stash. I settled on blues and reds and browns. Many of my fabrics are tone on tone, but this seemed to need some fabrics with a little movement and I struggled to find 15, but I dug deep and pulled what I thought would work, I did pick up 1 red and another with all three colors in town to round things out:

And blocks came together quickly:

Looking at the above photo, I like the look of the red plaid and I think this would be wonderful in all plaids. Isn't it fun how we never run out of quilts we want to make? 😁 Hopefully I'll get this pieced into a top during the week as our girl told me about a dear 80-yr old gentleman that sells honey 7 days a week and I ordered a honey/bee collection of fat quarters:

I just need to decide on a pattern:

because I think the Honey Man needs a quilt. 😄