It’s the “36-Ring Circus” designed by Joanne Lewis. The pattern and template kit are at Paper Pieces.
I am using Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society fabrics for the centers, pastel solids for the rings, and darker solids for the rest.
I now have three rows done after three years—three more to go.
But it seems I put off working on it to do other handwork on a regular basis.
It is an elegant pattern, for sure.
But it is hard and in many ways, seems tedious to me. Sewing the rings to the centers is…hard. I’ve found taping from the front and using a flat stitch on the back helps.
I have all the solid pieces cut and glued, so I will finish it someday.
I hope it doesn’t take another three years—one for each row!!!
I did organize all the centers for the 4th row, so that’s something. The first center is done, but not the rings.
Meanwhile, I seem to be more than a little interested in wedding ring quilt versions.
Here’s the funky one whose top is now done: from Freddie Moran and Gwen Marston’s book FREDDY AND GWEN COLLABORATE AGAIN: FRIENDS.
And Tara Faughnan’s Wedding Ring Quilt:
I’m ready to start sewing together the last and final row.
I took this little video several days ago, before we got another two days of rain. AC and I were over at the Snow Bowl so he could chase his ball. Listen to the wind whipping by as well as admiring the amazing clouds moving in fast.
This summer has been the wettest since we moved to Maine in June 2004—17 years ago now.
The lawns and gardens and fields are thriving—though harvesting hay has been a real challenge for the farmers this year.
We’ve had cooler weather, with temps dropping down significantly at night, which makes for great sleeping.
And for rising desires for warmer foods, like this beef stew I made in the Instant Pot. I cook the carrots and new potatoes separately—and the fresh green beans separately too.
The beautiful beef cubes were a gift from friend Margaret whose freezer went belly up earlier this summer. The carrots, new potatoes, and fresh green beans came from Farmer Tom’s Hope’s Edge weekly market out at the farm—which is a trip to which I look forward each week.
The Instant Pot cooks the beef in 35 minutes!!!! For my Histamine Intolerance, that’s wonderful as long cooking times create more histamine in foods. I saute the beef in the pot in some tallow or ghee. If I’m not in a hurry, I’ll remove the meat and throw in the chopped onions and garlic and saute those for a bit, but not this time. I added two cups of liquid, onions, garlic, herbs, salt and called it a day. I also added a limited amount of ketchup, whichI can eat in small quantities sometimes—and it added such flavor. When the meat is done I put the beef in a large bowl and add the warm, cooked vegetables and spooned out what I wanted to eat. The rest I saved for other meals.
This Dahlia is now three years old. Isn’t it gorgeous!
The first year I just saved the tuber after the first killing frost. But when I planted it in the spring, it took it all summer to get big enough to start blooming. Last year I put the dug tuber into a small pail with its dirt and roots intact and put it into the dry/dark/cool storage hold upstairs, and when the days started getting longer in early March, I put the whole pail in a sunny window. The Dahlia sprouted and started growing. Finally it was warm enough to put it out in the garden again, which it liked. It’s been blooming like crazy since early August, so I will put it back in the pail again this fall.
And here’s Tara Faughnan’s Wedding Ring quilt with THREE rows finished. I moved it up the design wall so I could get to the bottom row more easily. This quilt clearly wants to be called “Joyful!”
I will be making this quilt again very soon (this winter) as I’m obsessed with it. I want to try a more controlled palette with dark brown/black/dark grey/khaki/cream centers and rings that have a lot of the dark brown/black and cream rings—studded with pastels and a few pops of color here and there. Tara has a version that sparked my imagination, but I hesitate to show it here due to copyright issues.
I thought it would be good, for me at least, to review the work I did last year (season 3) in the online class (The Color Collective) hosted by Sewtopia (Amy Newbold) with designer Tara Faughnan (for six months of projects and fabric palettes) and with guest designer Latifah Saafir (for an extra seventh month).
The quilts are more or less in the order of the monthly projects. Tara gives us the pattern and the fabric (there are also helpful videos) and shows us her version of the project—then we have at it. Pretty much all of us make the project differently, and that outpouring of creativity is really fun to see and experience.
If you want to know more about each of my quilts, there are separate blog posts. You can search on the name of the quilt on the right sidebar.
My “Marrakesh”:
My “Pips”:
My “Splice,” and this one differs from Tara’s layout in that I laid out the strips to form that central diamond. I hand quilted this one with 12-weight cotton thread (Sulky).
My “Bokeh”:
Bokeh is a photographic term for the manipulation of the background to make it intentionally fuzzy.
My “Tenderoni”—which I called “Fractures”:
Latifah Saafir was the guest designer for the 7th CC month this year. She spread out her Tenderoni block by using plain squares of the fabric palette to make the Tenderoni blocks stand out—which of course made a lap-size quilt. I wanted to see how the Tenderoni shapes played together up close and I wanted a wall hanging. I hand quilted with 12-weight cotton thread (Sulky).
I made this wall hanging from the leftover “Offcut” quarter circle pieces and hung the two quilts opposite each other on the walls outside my quilt room. This one, too, is hand quilted with 12-weight cotton thread (Sulky).
I didn’t do “Hitch” (an improv project) or “Rex” (an appliqué project) this year. Both projects were very nice; they just landed here when I was really busy. There might come a day…. Both projects offer a lot of room for experimentation and play. These two projects are the only ones I have not made in the three years of the class—not a bad record for this class I think—for me or for Tara Faughnan.
I am so looking forward to Season 4, which starts November 1.
I’m sure that we’ll get an Indian Summer soon, but for right now, it’s jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, and sweater time. And more trees are turning.
AC has been swimming every day after he runs after his ball and gets hot. Over by the Snow Bowl, there are FIVE places where he likes to swim—two in the pond, one in a runoff pool, and two in a stream with some deep pools.
But now the cooler nights are making the water cold.
So he is being more cautious. These may be the last dips until next year as an Indian Summer warmer spell won’t heat the water enough.
Here is the pond over by the Toboggan Run—which is, actually, a lovely spot.
Then we backtrack towards where the car is parked, past the run-off pool and the two places in the stream, where he also swims, to the boat launch/swimming area.
Sometimes there are other dogs swimming and/or playing, and AC loves to join in.
Two of the 12 fabrics in this year’s palette of solids will be shot cotton from Windham’s Artisan Cotton collection, which Tara helped design.
Fabrics for the first project will ship in October, and the first pattern will be released November 1.
I have to say that I have been so engaged with the projects of the last three years, and it has been such fun to see where Tara takes these projects over time—and that has often been to award-winning quilts.
I have learned so much! It’s like learning to read: once learned you can’t go back.
I finished the scrappy wall hanging I have been making from the “offcut” quarter circles left over from the last project of this year’s The Color Collective season. The 7th and final month’s project this year was designed by Latifah Saafir. I loved her block (Tenderoni) and also loved her color palette.
I hung “Offcut Circles” at the entrance to my quilt room, opposite from its parent, the Tenderoni block wall hanging I’m called “Fractures.”
The small quarter circles in “Offcut Circles” comes from the way the small circles are cut and discarded from the Tenderoni block—replaced by a larger quarter circle that makes the math in the Tenderoni block work.
For both quilts, I quilted a grid with Sulky 12-weight cotton thread in many different colors related to the palette. You can buy this thread on small spools that cost under $2 a spool. They have plenty of thread on the spool for most projects where one wants lots of different colors. I get them from Red Rock Threads and order online.
I used the rusty dark brick color for the binding. The backing is just made from whatever I had in my stash that would fit. This time a warm paisley.
I made the circles using the template method Tara Faughnan taught us in our very first The Color Collective project in Season 1 and appliquéd them to the backing square. You know, in thinking about what I did, I don’t think I trimmed out the back of the background block after sewing down the circles. ???? I must have been resisting creating MORE CIRCLES that I would find hard to throw away.
Here’s the very first circle quilt from the very first project in season 1 of The Color Collective. I combined blocks from the first and second months.
The rainy days have finally stopped, and the very long lawn grass dried out enough for me to mow on Tuesday.
It was rough going as my little electric mulching mower was not happy with the long and damp grass, but we persevered, and the job is done.
There is so much moisture in the system though, from all the rain, so the hotter days (mostly 80s) are creating a lot of humidity. Fortunately, the nights are cool. I’ve been running the dehumidifier downstairs for many weeks now, and that has helped a lot.
It’s been a busy week, but today and Friday are “open,” so AC and I will get out into the yard for much-need shrub pruning and weeding of one bed maybe. Other than the suddenly overgrown shrubs (they liked all the rain), the weeding is not out of control. The deer are though. They love my hostas.
Debbie Jeske, A Quilter’s Table blog, has been posting the sampler blocks she’s making. They are all done now but for the big center block that will come along now with this project.
I really like her blocks and her color choices. Take a look?
I really like all of Debbie’s work, actually. She is an inspiration.
And here is where I am with Tara Faughnan’s Wedding Ring pattern. This quilt is so much fun! And it is not hard. I will want to make it again with a different color palette.
The top two rows are done, and I’m working on the rings for the third-row centers. I think all the centers are now placed where they will stay now. This quilt is chewing up solid fabric scraps in the most pleasant way.
Enjoy this back end of summer before we head into fall. The seasonal wheel is turning here—the light has already changed a lot.
And here’s the rest of the Haskell’s crew who installed the new pump yesterday:
There was more drama, but more of the “usual suspect” variety.
Last night’s shower felt REALLY good.
We are getting “Fred” today—so I’m looking forward to a rainy day of sewing.
Here’s where the Tara Faughnan wedding ring pattern is now:
I’m still moving around color, but, hopefully, will sew the second row today. I just need a few more of the circles completed. I never how how they will look until I put them in place.
I realized earlier in the summer that the well pump has been in place for around 20 years. A call to Haskell’s water revealed that an average life span is about 10 years.
I decided not to push this pump further and have a failure in the winter—especially as the well is NOT in a flat location that is easy to access.
Yesterday, Haskell’s came to take out the old well pump, but two men couldn’t get it out. That well is somewhere around 300 feet deep!!! The hose and electrical cord are, obviously, that long—and something was stuck so the hose just stretched when pulled rather than pulling the pump up. The issue was to get the HOSE OUT more than the pump. They couldn’t install a new system (pump, hose, electrical cord) that would put the new pump deep enough if the old hose was still in the well channel. If they could get enough hose out, they could cut it and just let the old pump drop into the well pipe so that it would just fall to the bottom of the well. But, the pump was simply not moving upwards.
Two more men came, and four men couldn’t budge the pump either.
So, Haskell’s called a very nice man (“CT”) who came with big equipment that could go up the steep bank and try to pull out the pump. He got here late afternoon—with Steven, one of Haskell’s two owners. It took some time, and the hose broke once, but they finally pulled out the pump. I felt such relief when it came up.
Here’s the big equipment arriving on a flat bed trailer and preparing to go up the steep hill to the well head.
Here’s the equipment balanced on the hill after freeing the pump.
And here’s the equipment on the way DOWN the hill—so you can see how steep it is. You can see clearly that having the pump fail in winter with deep snow or ice on the ground would be a real problem.
And here’s what that stalwart pump looked like.
I am so grateful for the Haskell’s men and the very competent “CT” who came on such short notice to help solve this problem.
I decided to just start over with new hose, electric cord, etc. It does not make sense to me to take a risk with equipment that is somewhere around 20 years old. Especially with a well that deep, with our winter climate, and with the location of the well.
Obviously, I have no water in the house now. I filled containers from the house pipes when it became clear I would have no water for some time—but didn’t get much as I had been flushing toilets. It is a total reflex action to just reach back and flush a toilet. The Haskell’s men told me to empty the pipes from the downstairs tub, which makes sense given gravity.
So, I made a quick trip yesterday to Hannaford’s to get portable water—about 9 gallons, 5 gallons of which was in two big containers and all had to be lugged into the house from the garage. All the toilets can’t flush unless one adds needed water. And water has to be heated for dishes. Last night I just got those rinsed as well as I could and put them in the dishwasher and kept dinner to a bare minimum in terms of pots and pans.
I have a whole new respect for those people in Africa who have to walk miles to water and haul it back. It’s HEAVY.
Haskell’s has promised to come today to put in the new pump. This morning they will have to organize the new pipe/electric cord, I think. And they have other scheduled jobs. But rain is coming for two days after today, so I’m still crossing my fingers for a resolution and getting water back TODAY.
I won’t be taking water for granted from here on out.
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