I often wonder if I am the odd quilter. I find myself with more projects than time, then easily distracted by something “new and interesting” to work on. I have SO many UFO’s that I can not bring myself to start on anything “big”, so I trick myself into working on “new little things” if I feel like I can knock them out in a couple of days. My last big finish was my “Grandma’s Kitchen” in June, and since then, I have dabbled around with little projects. This week was no exception.
Tuesday was our Queen Bees gathering, and I took my bin with my “parts” for another cardinal block. I had lots of 2.5″ half square triangles made that needed trimming and enough cut to make an entire flock of birds. I got all set up to sew, and somehow pulled the end of the power cord right out of the plug.
No sewing for me! I spent the time at the Bee trimming and squaring up all those HST I had made the night before! Time well spent, and lots of fun conversations. Hubby fixed the cord as soon as I got home so my Bessie the Featherweight is ready to stitch the next time I need her.
On Thursday, I got a “heads up” about some UNICORN fabric at one of the local quilt shops, and I stopped by on my way home from the Assisted Living Sewing group. I found 2 different unicorn fabrics, and my hubby chose the one on the darker background. We picked out a fun fabric to pair up with it from the sale room, and yesterday afternoon I got busy sewing. My youngest granddaughter will be getting a pillow soon in her little toddler bed, and her mother asked for a special pillowcase. I had fun stitching these 2 up, using the “burrito pillowcase” method featured on Missouri Star’s you tube video’s. (I always have to watch the part about layering and pinning!)
The fun thing with this set is the little green piece. That fabric was in the quilt I made for my granddaughter almost 2 years ago. I hope there is “enough” coral and gray to please her mother with the room decor. I still have about 1 yard left of the stripe and I have a plan for it down the road. Just another “small” project!
The last week was busy with 4 days committed to sorting and dealing with Second Time Around stuff for the quilt guild. We have a meeting on Monday morning, and are featuring NOTIONS. My co-chair and I spent a couple of days just working on those items. I picked up more donations on Tuesday, and it was loaded with great fabrics and notions. I have enough buttons from another donation to keep me sorting for a month or 2. Only a few from the latest batch made the sort for this coming meeting.
I did manage to get in 3 nice bike rides with my daughter and young granddaughter after nearly 3 weeks off. We rode 7.8 miles on Wednesday evening, 7.6 miles on Thursday morning, and 8.8 miles this morning. It felt great to get some exercise again. I know I will be hindered from riding for at least a week or more following my first hand surgery this coming week. The weather was PERFECT and I enjoyed each of these rides.
When I got home from today’s ride, I packed up the SUV with all the stuff we have to sell on Monday. It is “packed to the rafters”, and we have items in storage at the church, so keep your fingers crossed for great sales for the guild!
Last blog post was Carolina Hurricane Quilts . Since that post, I got busy and set up enough pieces to make 14 blocks. I made 5 blocks today, and the other 9 are kitted up, ready for the next gathering of the Queen Bees. Those blocks will be our project as a bee, and I hope we get a lot made. From my standpoint, it was easy to make up some kits. I keep 5, 5.5 and 6″ squares in a container, so I pulled them out and sorted out the dark and medium blocks, and trimmed a bunch down to 4.5″ squares. I also had a stack of already made half – square triangles in a bin. These were leftovers from Addison’s Quilt I made in 2016. (Yes same granddaughter). I had that bin of leftovers out when I picked out the pillowcase trim, so I dug through it and pulled some of the half – square triangles that might work with the fabrics I had pulled out of my scrap storage. The only yardage I cut was some tone on tone white for the “light”.
Thankfully those HST had a variety of whites when they were made, so it makes my lights look a little more scrappy. I wanted to be sure and get a few made “just in case” I am not able to sew right away. I’m trying to decide if those turquoise HST look “too bright” . What do you think? The squares that look almost black are really a dark green with black print. I took the photo at night with no flash, and up close they are not so dark.
I feel as though a lot was accomplished this past week, though no UFO’s came off the list. I have a couple of other things I am anxious to work on before the middle of the week. One thing that can NOT wait is that darn garden. I have ignored it all summer because of the rain, the bugs, the heat and the total lack of interest! If I don’t do it tomorrow afternoon, it won’t get touched until February or March. Right now, it is knee high with weeds, so maybe tomorrow afternoon I might do a little digging in the dirt! I would much “rather’ work in my sewing room tho! I have a Christmas project left from a class last September ,Squareagonals project , that just needs quilting in the outer borders, and binding.
Priorities….and projects….decisions to make! oh look….fabric…………………….
Stitching Grandma 