Jolly Tree Farm 3: Feelin' Pine & Dandy

Feelin' Pine & Dandy is the Week Three block for the Jolly Tree Farm Mystery quilt offered by the Fat Quarter Shop. It is made from the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. Once again I strove to make all the houndstooth face the same way as I did in the previous week. I set myself an additional personal challenge to minimize visual interruptions in that polka dot fabric and to orient other prints uniformly. 

Cutting

Starting out as is my norm, I cut out my pieces and labeled them with my Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips on my melamine tray. For the houndstooth on the two sawtooth stars, I made sure to cut two F rectangles horizontal and two F rectangles vertical for each star. The two background B rectangles are both horizontal and the two D rectangles are both vertical. In the tree section the D rectangles are vertical and the two C rectangles are horizontal. The Feelin' Pine & Dandy block measures unfinished 12½"x 20½". It is the largest section so far.

Sawtooth Stars
The coral colored sections of the stars happened to have a directionality, just as the houndstooth print did. I was careful and planned ahead to assure a uniformity in direction of those prints. Since these pieces were all square. I did not have to adjust their cutting direction; I could orient  each ""correctly at time of assembly.

Tree Section
The tree is essential a top, middle and a bottom tier, each tier made up of two rows. Laying out the tree pieces ahead of time helped me visualize the orientation as I sewed together six rows, two at a time, to form the top, middle, and bottom tree tiers. Then they are joined with the trunk to form the tree.

The upper row of the second tier and the upper row of the third tier had the polka dot print broken up and I did not like the look. To avoid that seam I cut three additional M pieces in the place of six N pieces, and changed my assembly method. I did not see an easy way to make those dots into uninterrupted diamonds, but I could at least eliminate that vertical seam between two flying geese. Besides, a horizontal line helps distinguish between tree boughs. 

Here are the steps I took to use rectangles instead of squares to build the top half of the middle tier followed by an image of the completed middle tier with lower row attached.

I repeated the process to build the the top half of the wider, lower tier. Success! No vertical seams in the polka dots. Continuing to build to the right, this row is then attached as the upper row of the bottom tier. The polka dot triangles are not interrupted in either row. 

Here is the completed tree of week three. I too am feeling fine and dandy.

When the star section is added to the top of the tree, week three, Feelin' Pine & Dandy is complete. Please notice that I managed to get the prints which were directional — two corals, one green and the houndstooth — to face consistently the same way.

Here are the pinwheels I managed to salvage from the cut corners of the flying geese blocks. The high contrast ones are my favorite (either end of top row). Some pinwheels are not as endearing as others but I do have my rules. A pinwheel must have two or four either light or dark the same. If the lights or darks are different they must all be different or have a partner with which to pair; there can be no one man out. I incorporated two HSTs from week one. I have two HSTs left over from week three. Following my self-imposed rules, here are what I salvaged from the scraps.

• two with four identical darks and four identical lights ( left column)
• two with two different darks and four identical lights (middle column)
• two with four different darks and four identical lights ( right column)

Here is a running list of my blog posts thus far for this wall hanging.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (this post) 12½"x 20½" 

Jolly Tree Farm 2: Rejoice Fir-Ever

This is the block for Week Two of the Jolly Tree Farm Mystery quilt offered by the Fat Quarter Shop. It is made from the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. I set myself a personal challenge to have the houndstooth background all face the same way. The instructions do not go to that level of detail so I carefully figured out myself how to orient the pieces for cutting.

I start out as I always do, cutting out my pieces and labeling them with my Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips on my melamine tray.

The first section to sew up is the sawtooth star. The lower and upper houndstooth rectangles were cut horizontally while the side houndstooth rectangles needed to be cut vertically. When I positioning the corners on the houndstooth rectangles I double checked before flipping to be sure the houndstooth print was not "upside down". When assembling the star from the flying geese components, I checked and double checked the orientation on them as well at this step. My paying extra attention paid off. All houndstooth print pieces faced the same way.

On the tree section, the rectangular background pieces needed careful thought before cutting to determine if the rectangles need to be horizontal or vertical in order to orient the houndstooth consistently. Rectangles on either side of the tree boughs needed to be cut vertical. Rectangles on either side of the tree stump needed to be cut horizontal. It was not rocket science — just took a bit of time to pause and think.

The tree bough section yielded me six bonus HSTs. I'd make up four into a pinwheel and save the other two to perhaps use with the scraps from another week. Note the houndstooth print spins within the pinwheel.

Here is my completed Fir-Ever block and bonus pinwheels. Personal note of pride: the houndstooth fabric is all oriented the same way. I hope I can keep this up for week three and week four.

Week Two's unfinished size is 8½” x 11½”. It is not very big, but the cuteness is densely packed in. Week One's unfinished size had been 11½” x 18 ½”, the same height but wider. Here is a running list of blog posts thus far for this wall hanging.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up  8/31/26

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (this post 9/14/26)

Jolly Tree Farm 1: Spruced Up

The Fat Quarter shop was offering a Mystery Christmas quilt over a four week period. The Week One introduction, titled Spruced Up, caught my eye as being especially cheery and I loved the fabric selection. It was shown in the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. To me it was red and green Christmas with a playful tweak of corals and lime substitution. The pattern was a four issue free download release weekly. I religiously downloaded the patterns and came to the realization I really did want to make this 31.5" x 36.5" wallhanging. It was no longer a mystery since I peeked ahead before starting. I refrained from buying the kit —rare restraint on my part. I did however, buy a layer cake of the prints I so loved, along with some white houndstooth fabric for the background.

The trees initially start out as nine flying geese blocks. From those cut off corners I made four pinwheels with two HSTs leftover.

These nine flying geese were further transformed into triangular boughs of trees with the addition of white background on the corners. These corners that I cut off were more complex now and they had a handedness. I also was exceedingly careful to have all the houndstooth face the same way. I know that this was an unnecessary challenge that I placed on myself, but so be it. 

I had nine HSTs with red on the right and nine HSTs with red on the left, all with green on the bottom. I joined them into two pinwheels with green centers and two pinwheels with red centers.

There were two simple orphan HSTs  and two complex HSTs that did not make it into pinwheels. Maybe they will go with other HSTs from later blocks. 

Despite my distraction with the "leftovers", I did complete the first of of four sections. Spruced Up measures 11½" x 18½".  See? The houndstooth all faces the same way. The block as well as the extras are shown in the second photo.  Also notice there is about the same amount of fabric in those cut-offs as in the finished block.

October Flying Geese and Pumpkins Completed

This post continues my work, many my FMQ, on the October banner from the Pieceful Patchwork Banner for October from Shabby Fabrics that I assembled in my previous post. "Quilt as Desired." That phrase used to strike fear in me but not so much now. I break down these wall hangings into sections and try something different in each area. I also mix up ruler work with free-hand, not just for variety in the quilt, but also for my own sanity adn skilll building. 

Flying Geese
For the orange and black flying geese bodies I used Angela Walters' shape by shape inspiration and her ruler Slim to denote direction. I wanted the pointed angularity to give a sense of motion and to echo the V-shape in the sky of migrating geese. I would address the cream speckled sky later. I used this same ruler in the pumpkins, leaves, and stems. It is my very favorite because of the convenient hand-held size, the light and dark lines, and the 45° guidance indicators.

Pumpkins Proper
For the pumpkins I wanted to call attention to each central sawtooth star so I echoed around its outer edges. I planned to go ½" apart but I goofed and so was committed throughout to ¼" spacing. That was a lot of dense quilting that I felt obligated to repeat in the second pumpkin. I chose not to go so dense in the pumpkin center. I've been told that one of the rules of quilting is that there be equal density throughout, but I flaunted that guidance.

Leaf and Stem

The grid fabric of the green leaf seemed to call out for a grid quilting. I explored that option at first, but then decided I preferred a veined approach for the leaves. For the adjacent stem, vertical lines could have been appropriate like the stem on a real pumpkin. Instead, I chose to echo the diamond from the pumpkin center below. I auditioned my options on a clear page protector with a dry erase marker, then overlaid them on the top itself for the final decision.

Thin and Wide Borders
Using an orange thread in the thin inner border, I stitched a zig zag using the concave right angle of the Handi VersaTool. 

For the wide outer border, I stayed with the orange thread and used the HQ Wave E template, the steeper wave side. The curvature seemed to work out well with the scale of the haunted mansions in the border print.

Background and Sashing

For the background and sashing I switched to a cream colored upper thread but left the orange in the bobbin. I reasoned that even if my tension did stray, tiny bobs of orange peeking up in the speckled fabric would be OK. Orange top stitching would have been a distraction. By the time I got to the background and sashing I wanted to give my ruler concentration a rest. I did my standard arcs free-hand in the background triangles of the flying geese blocks. The arcs are hard to see but they do give texture and do not distract from the geese. I did loops in the striped sashing using the wide black lines to guide my spacing. 

For around the pumpkins, meander at first came to mind, but that is still not my strength. The theme of loopy tendrils at the top of pumpkins gave me the inspiration for doing a meandering loop. The meandering loop is in the same thread as the background so the imperfections are not obvious. Non-smooth glitches are still there but they are passable while I continue to practice my meandering.

The non-smooth glitches show up more clearly on the backing as well as my slightly imbalanced thread tension. Uneven tension bias was intentional on my part. I'd rather cream bobbles on the back rather than orange bobbles on the front. The next two photos are front and back close-ups of the same area of pumpkin. The stem can serve as a source of orientation. I need more practice to get smoother.

Labels

My grosgrain labels were black thread on orange grosgrain ribbon read DIC_OCT_2026 and FLYING_GEESE_AND_PUMPKINS. As is my tradition for these banners, the OCT stands for the theme month and not my month of completion. Here are the labels before and after attachment to the quilt corners.

 

Completed Banner
The completed banner measures 31" x 31" and will be hung outside my sewing room doorway come October 1st. For completeness I have also shown the back with the hanging sleeve.

Here are my completions thus far for this series from Shabby Fabrics.

• JAN    Snowmen and Snowflakes (2/10/26)
• MAR  Shamrocks and Irish Chains (4/6/26)
• APR   Bunnies and Carrots (3/6/26)
• MAY   Roses and Pansies (9/11/25)
• JUN    Strawberries (9/6/25)
• JUL    Flags and Pinwheels (6/24/26)
• AUG    Bees and Sunflowers (9/21/25)
• SEP      Log Cabins and Schoolhouses  (8/5/26)
• OCT    Flying Geese and Pumpkins (this post 8/26/26)

Three more to go. I am really looking forward to the November banner, which has acorns!