Race to the finish!

It's still raining, allowing me to sneak in a little more project time before actual spring field work begins.  I am on the verge of emptying three of my project boxes, which I intend to fill as quickly as possible!

I showed the red and white porch quilt in an earlier post. That was the first box that I emptied this winter.  Yesterday morning I finished this quilt which I call "the green spool quilt".  I admit, that this is frivolous, but the fabric was on sale and it was sewing themed, and my dear friend Beth, who is always planting ideas in my head, suggested that I should buy the fabric and make sewing themed quilts for quilt retreats.  So I did!  I finished "the pink spool quilt" quite some time ago.  I'm happy that "the green spool quilt" will be ready for fall retreat! Box number two emptied!!

Green spool quilt!

A little closer look at the spool block and the border.
 

The pink and white spring quilt that has been living in a pink project box for a couple of years has emerged and is taking shape quite nicely.  This wasn't on my winter sewing list, but since the rain keeps falling, I am taking a chance on finishing this before tractor time.

Photo of the pink and white spring quilt.

To make the nine patch blocks you cut strips of each color and sew those together.

Then you cut those long strips in to shorter strips.  This is a much faster process than cutting a whole bunch of 2 1/2" squares and sewing those together!

Then you sew those smaller strips together,  This method is called "clothes line piecing".  When you have a lot of the same thing to do, you can just sew in one continuous line, and then snip apart at the breaks.  Again, a real time and also a thread saver.

Here you can see the pile of strips that I have sewn, collecting under the sewing desk.

And, I have been obsessed with wool applique the last month.  I'm almost finished with the first of 12 blocks for wool bee quilt.  This ended up being a little bigger project than I originally thought it would be.  No matter, eventually it will be complete.

This is what the wool bee quilt is supposed to look like....kinda!

Almost finished with block #1.  I like it!

I made this wool pumpkin piece for my friend Claudia.  We both bought this kit in Ephrata two or three years ago.  It was an impulse buy for both of us.  But, it turned out really fun!

Claudia's pumpkin piece.  This went so fast and was super fun to do!

This is mine that I had framed.  I love it so much that I keep it up all year!

And finally, I bought this pattern at the Buggy Barn sale because, like I said, I'm obsessed with wool applique.  This winter, when I was hanging some pictures in my project room, I decided I needed to dig out this project, finish and frame in and add it to the wall by the rest of the ABC type stuff already on the wall!  My goal is to finish this before I have to sit on a tractor for the next six months!

The colors in this are nicer than they came out in this image.  I really really like ABC stuff!

We have one last big equipment project that we hope to finish before the fields dry enough to be worked.  All those harrow teeth that Reynald hard surfaced need to be put on to the harrow.  The harrow will work as is, but it would do a much better job if we got the teeth changed.  The rub is that the field where we need to work on it, is terribly muddy and wet right now.  We haven't given up on the project yet!