Hello all! It’s Sunday again.
The scrappy quilt top from Bonnie Hunter’s 2025 Leader/Ender FREE block, released in July each year, is done and will go on the longarm next. This top is the 2-inch version and finishes at 6 inches. It is 60 by 60 and will be a donation quilt, though I LOVE IT. Once I made a few of these blocks, this quilt immediately turned into a primary project. Note that there are alternate settings suggested that involve sashing–and that Bonnie used only two color families that alternate for the diagonal rows. So, lots of room for differences in this project, including not making it scrappy at all.
Leader/Ender projects are meant to be…slow…with block pieces to be sewn instead of sewing on a little scrap between the sewing on your primary quilt project…or instead of breaking your thread. I’m addicted to this block and will next make another gift quilt with the 8-inch finished version. It is already started, LOL.
Here’s a link to to Bonnie’s “Four Patch Fun” leader ender project. ***Pay attention to how to feed the block parts through your machine so that you can “swirl” the joins in your units AND so that ALL the seams butt up to each other. Bonnie’s patterns always contain tons of “how to” pictures and other information.
2025-leader-ender-challenge-four-patch.html
Scroll for printer friendly version.
The third and last of my quilt series using the large and small Cat’s Cradle rulers and this fabric palette is off the longarm, trimmed, bound, and is now my nightly tv watching and hand sewing project. These three quilts are so handsome.
Taking the place of “Four Patch Fun” is “Stacks.” This Tara Faughnan pattern and design dates to her first “The Color Collective” year (2019 I think). I made a big one for a wedding gift, but had a lot of cut pieces and a lot of fabric leftovers. I put them all in a big bag when I moved to South Carolina from coastal Maine. I still like this quilt a lot. Since this picture, I added two more rows to the length. So it will measure 63 by 67.5. ***This block would lend itself to prints. Of course it would. And I’m wondering about making the main part of the block in neutrals, as I have a lot of those in my stash still. I will try that idea soon maybe as it could be a good leader/ender project.
Believe it or not, my stash fabrics are diminishing in places, but there is still a long way to go. And occasionally I do buy fabric for backs and sometimes will buy for specific colors or patterns that I need. Some of my stash colors are now…limited.
One of our local quilt shops is switching from Kona solids to Northcott–and they put their remaining Kona on sale at 30% off. So as I was there, I did get some of the sale brights to add to the Log Cabin on the design wall. (But, let’s just say I also have alot of colors in the solids now.)
Northcott is fine. It has about the same density as Kona. But it does not have as big a color selection. I am sick about this store change (done as Kona has had some recent supply problems), but I will now be getting my Kona online. This local store was the only one with a big Kona solids selection.
Here’s a pic of the hibiscus plant I’m fighting the Mealy worms to save. That situation is better but not yet cured. It required daily attention. The front porch plant had to be dug up and thrown out. It had a big ant bed nearby, and though I have poisoned it with pellets twice, the damage was done. Ants “farm” mealy bugs for their sugary “honeydew secretions.”
The ants: the escapees just move to a new spot and are a real problem here. These ants can produce a HUGE ant hill in what seems like overnight. And if they bite your bare feet when you don’t see a hill that has emerged overnight, the pain is intense. Maybe with my Histamine Intolerance issue, their chemicals are stronger. Maybe this pain is why these ants are called “fire” ants, if that is what they are. In my case, it takes both lavender and Purification essential oils to stop the pain. and I have little blisters for days afterwards.
I am now savoring the last Jan Karon book in her 14-book Mitford series.
I will truly miss these characters. Mitford is likely meant to be somewhere in the North Carolina mountain area–and maybe is meant to be a smaller town, but something like Asheville, NC.
We have a hurricane that is now a category 5 moving toward our coast named Erin. Projections are for it to NOT hit the coast, but it is huge and the wave action will be intense.
I’m hoping that he models will be correct and it will stay out to sea.
Yesterday we had what I call a “gully washer” thunderstorm. The rain gauge said almost 4 inches in about 2 hours. The front ponds are now full again, and the fountains are working again.
Have a great week everyone! Find joy in the small moments of your lives and pause to drink them inside fully. This morning when I checked the rain gauge outside, I could her a bee buzzing on the roses, the locusts singing, the frogs calling after yesterday’s rain, the crows talking to each other, a slight coastal breeze moving the spectacular clouds–all a moment celebrating summer so I paused to let it all happen.
I will recall it this winter.
Louisa Enright's Blog 