Squaring Up!

DH is working this weekend, it is cold, dreary and rainy and I cannot just settle down.  When I got up this morning it was too dark to try to do any quilting so I thought I would wander into my sewing room.

What was waiting for me?

The pile of farmer's wife blocks to square up.  I hate squaring up, I know a necessary evil, but I wish I could somehow miraculously be more accurate and not have to trim!  Blech!

I did buy some fabric for my farmer's wife though and it arrived Friday.

The navy I am going to use for the cornerstones, but I could not decide on the sashing.  It It is so difficult to get a true color representation when you shop online.  So I chose two tannish colors that I thought I may like. 

My completely scientific method of choosing.  I decided the parchment (the one closest to the navy) would be the "go with everything".  I still need another fabric which is used as setting triangles for the end of the rows.  I have thought about red, but then also maybe just an off white tone on tone.  Maybe a light brown shirting type print.  When I see it I will know it is perfect.  I will say that I love Thousands of Bolts online fabric shop for my solids.  They have great prices! 

I also have these to square up.

Thursday I had decided that I did not have enough blue color strips to get my 30 blocks I needed.  I counted, counted one more time, and counted a third time I was at 22, and I had 4 more blues left.  By my calculation I need 4 blue batiks because the colors in the Bali pop did not have any more blue left.  Now I have heard rumors that there is a shop in Maumee, Ohio called the Quilt Foundry that has loads of batiks.  So I set my GPS and off I went.  No I didn't take pictures, but imagine walking into this small shop with 2 rooms, one is totally batiks, the other prints and solids.  The batik room is stuffed to overflowing!  The Quilt Foundry had acquired the inventory of a couple of local online shops that had decided to close.  There were bolts of fabric everywhere, and these poor ladies were trying to separate them by color.  Batik bolts were stacked on rolling racks, stacked on the floor 10 bolts deep, on tables.  Did I find what I was looking for?  A most resoundlingly yes!

And a cute little chicken pincushion too!  I also picked up some fabric for one of the borders of my basket weave quilt. 

The color is called lipstick and seems to match a lot of the pinks. I had already purchased the backing a few weeks ago when I saw it on sale, it was from the same line as the Bali pop.  Oh and my calculations?  They were off.  I didn't need any blue batiks because obviously I cannot count that from set of two strip I get two blocks and I had 22 blocks already made.  You get the picture. 

I am still prepping for doing Bertie.  I decided to stick with the original colors of Bertie and the background so I ordered that from Fat Quarter Shop.

With that much fabric Bertie needed a project box!

 I also found some pink sketch to use on the Bonnie Hunter Grand Illusion Mystery which will begin at the end of the month. 

I also purchased a little bit of white on white fabric which has a sketch type look to it. 

I decided I would square up a few farmer's wife blocks, a few of the basket weave blocks, and work on the BOM I have been doing with a group from My Quilt Place. 

I sat down and calculated how many blocks I was going to do.  (We usually do a couple of blocks a month) Also how my layout of my connector blocks would work. 

My totally mathematical genius way of figuring it out.  I had 4 connector blocks made, I would need 25 in total.  Wait a minute.  I had one fabric which I was using for background on my blocks and connector blocks and how much did I have left?

OMG not much, about 1 yard, and I had calculated that I needed 5 strips which were 8 1/2 inches wide just for my  part of my connector blocks.  That did not include the 4 1/2 inch strips which I would need for the rest of the connector block.  I purchased this fabric earlier this year, and the one thing I will say about batiks which makes me crazy is that it doesn't have the name of the manufacturer on it.  Off I went to see if I could find the manufacturer and any shop which still carried it.  I skimmed through some online shops which specialize in Batiks, and was just about defeated when I found a shop which had it!  So I promptly ordered 3 yards, that should get me through my connector blocks and leave me extra for blocks. I have done 11 blocks, one I am not using it just doesn't work for me, and I am 6 blocks behind still! 

Finally I pulled out a project box with a UFO.  I am going to work on the yellow brick road quilt.  Again. 

After I work on some more quilting!