A Prairie Home Quilts

I won the OttLite Giveaway that Joan @ Quilting on a Budget was having!  I’m soooo excited!  I cannot wait to get this!  Thank you ladies for your well-wishes.  *smile*  Oh, and thank you OttLite!  I’ll post more about the lamp when I receive it.

I’m off again for more house sitting.  No computer access again, still, whatever.  I am getting some quilting done so it’s a good thing, I think; but not having computer access is putting me farther behind on some computer work I need to get done.  I’ll share more about the quilty things I’ve accomplished hopefully this weekend.

Last week while I was house sitting, I was able to use 2 of the Ottlites that Sonia has in her quilt studio. WOW! What a difference they make in being able to SEE. There are many things I do with a magnifying light but I was able to do some of those things without the magnifier using the Ottlite. I can’t afford a new one on my limited budget at the moment; but as I was hopping around quilter’s blogs today, I saw a giveaway for one! There’s still time to enter the drawing at Quilting on a Budget’s Ottlite giveaway! Apparently Ottlite generously donated the lamp for the giveaway. How cool is that? Hoping to win. . .

This is the pattern I laid out in EQ5 after joining the Great Hexagon Quilt Along. Some of the quilters there are doing a diamond hexagon mosaic quilt based on this antique one. [Click on the picture there to see the larger view of this quilt!] The pattern name for this mosaic hexagon quilt is Martha Washington’s Flower Garden according The Quilt Index.

I like to name my projects so I’ve decided to name this one I’m Not Martha. The most obvious reason is that — I’m no Martha Stewart. [shocking, I know.]  My children can attest to that. My mother would probably chime in there too.  Do my kids care that I’m not more like Martha? Nah.  Do I want to be more like Martha?  Nope.  [There is the whole biblical Mary vs. Martha analogy working into the naming of the quilt, but I'll save that for another time. . .]

In the spirit of not being like Martha Stewart and also as a reminder for me of times that we currently find ourselves living in, I decided to see how frugally I could make this quilt.  I want it to have an antique look  as a  reminder or link to the past also [definitely not as 1930-ish looking as the EQ5 drawing!] so I’m trying to go with as many vintage-looking and reproduction fabrics as I can.  And since my Field of Flowers hexagon quilt is .75″ hexagons and pretty much from scraps, I decided to make this one with 1.25″ hexagons which requires bigger pieces of fabric.  There will be no looking in the scrap bins for suitable fabrics for this one.  I’m sure for some of you this wouldn’t be much of a challenge because you could just go shop your stash, but my frugal ways and being a single parent of 4 has not allowed for large stash building.  What will probably trip me up is needing a certain color of fabric and not having the money at the moment to be able buy any, but I will persevere.  *smile*

The challenge then for this quilt is to spend as little money as possible, give it an antique look, have it be a controlled scrappy quilt by making 7 diamonds each of color — red, blue, yellow, green, orange, and purple, use gray around all the diamonds, use black fabric for the center of each diamond, use 1 red fabric as a connector in the center of each of the 6 diamonds and find a special fabric to use as the flower in the very center.  I have my work cut out for me!

I have pulled the fabrics from my meager [and I do mean, m-e-a-g-e-r] stash that will be suitable to use and started printing hexagons for the diamonds.  I will definitely need to purchase or swap for fabrics to coordinate with what I have.  I plan to purchase only fabric that is on sale though.  I have yardage of a gray muslin-like fabric that I bought several years ago to use on my original GFG quilt design that I’m not using anymore because that design morphed into  my Field of Flowers quilt.  I’ve got that fabric cut and have printed some of the 550 hexagons that go around all the diamonds.  Oh, and did I mention that I want to do 1 hexagon diamond a week with the goal to have this top together a year from now??  So far I’ve spent $12.  I purchased 6 FQs for $1 each and spent $6 on 3 FQs for $1 each plus shipping.  I have 1 yellow diamond hexagon done.

I decided on this quilt [and on I'm Not Martha] to challenge myself to complete so many sets of flowers per week in hopes of having this quilt top together a year from now.  Hand piecing 10 flowers a week seems reasonable.  *smile*

The first ten flowers sewn together.

This is the reverse side showing the pressed seams. (My apologies for the blurry photos!)

These are pieced using a running stitch so the seams need to be pressed to lay flat.  I’m pressing as I go so that I don’t end up with an overwhelming ironing job at the end.

I’m house sitting for a week starting next weekend and I plan to do a bit of sewing while I’m there.  I won’t have computer access so I’m just going to enjoy my time working on quilting projects — sort of like a quilting retreat only I’ll be the only one there.  LOL   I’ve got the next 2 sets of 10 flowers for this quilt ready to be pieced.  I need to get a few more hexagons cut and marked for “my retreat.”