Tuesday... midget appliqué progress.

I have been busy with my needle and thread attaching these 2 inch blue strips to the midget applique blocks. I have 7 rows of 3 and the rest are twosies. I figured I'd better make seven sets of three so I don't have all sets of 2 and then need to remove some of the strips to make my rows work. Hopefully I am spreading out the colors....

These two were sitting on this at the same time and staring at me! Silly girls. Yes, I forgot to put away those two little Christmas trees. 

Hand stitching.....on Slow Stitching Sunday.

Quilt Square Along Blocks

I finally started on my UFO for the month and have sets of two blocks all sewn together. The hand stitching on the back was interesting yesterday but worked fine. I think on future quilts I will use more than a 1 inch strip to connect the back. It was a little tight. I used this tutorial for this QAYG. The last two blocks are in the sewing room for a fix.

backing hand stitching the connecting strip

I also trimmed up my midget appliqué blocks to 6.5 inches and cut out a 2 inch blue sashing to start creating my rows. I hope to add lots of stitches this week to this project.

In between prepping snacking foods for Greg's birthday gathering today I plan to put a few stitches into one or both of these projects. Maybe even a few stitches will get put into the Hugs and Kisses Quilt... I turned the second corner last night! All set to start on the pink tonight after I move the hoop.

Head on over to see what others are slow stitching today.

RSC Saturday in blue.....

Other than someone in my household turning 50 on Monday (hubby!), I am hoping for a much quieter week next week. You know... so I can actually get my holiday cards in the mail finally! And SEW!!!!! Monday is a very special day... my niece Kristin also has a birthday and will be 23! I remember that because she turned 14 when Greg turned 41.

I took a little time to take stock and look through the drawers I have in the sewing room that I store projects in. It was quite a list of projects in process or at a top stage. 22 was the count and I have a sneaky feeling I would find more if I looked. Other than the sentimental stitches appliqué project I don't think I will be starting anything new (other than the RSC row along of course!). Darn it, left off the 16 patches from last year to make into the Goodnight Irene quilt. See - I didn't go through all the other storage bins... just the drawers!

I pulled out these 6 blue blocks that measure 8 inches. I think I will make some more - one of the top row ones to have 4 the 'same' and new ones.... to make a little wall hanging. Who knows... it might get more blocks and be made into a little throw. That will be on tap this week - to find and make some fun blocks with the piles of blue scraps tumbling out of the scrap bins all over my floor.

I also plan to add some BITA (Birds in the Air) blocks today in blues. I just love the header quilt and plan to make another one since that one has been gifted to my nephew and his lovely bride. I was smart enough last summer to take stock, make a plan for the layout and how many blocks I needed, and what I had. I have a nice list of how many blocks to make in each color. Mental note to self..... do this with all my projects as it makes it so much easier to pick them up later.

I'm linking up with Angela over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge today... and Oh Scrap tomorrow. I'll be visiting the other links this evening. Hopefully I will have lots more to show next week and that scrap bin will stop multiplying at night while I sleep.

C'est Fini......

Well, the appliqué blocks are completed! The last one ended up being a repeat of one in a different color flower. Now there will be a special trick to the quilt top - find the two that are the same pattern in the 49 blocks. I found my square up ruler and am all set to trim them to a unique size and then the blue sashing will commence.

A picture of the last two blocks I did this week with their yellow all set to get applied while waiting for my Mammogram this morning. Have you been squeezed this year? Always important to take care of you!

Gosh darn it!

7 days... I was good for 7 days this year. Then... I checked e-mail this morning and saw one from sentimental stitches . She has an 1857 album quilt that she won that is gorgeous!

1857 Album quilt from sentimental stitches.com

She is offering 3-4 free blocks a month over the next 20 months to recreate this beautiful quilt. I love her patterns.... I started with the midget blocks (Jill, Angela and Ellen drew me into that one!) and have a stack of them sitting in a drawer hoping to be put together some day. Those were free on her website at one time and there are still a bunch out there for free. Then.... I purchased the midget appliqué blocks as a digital download. That was my hand work (or one of them!) last year and I have one block to make and then I can set them and get it to a top stage. And now...... darn it all... I saw the quilt and she drew me in again!

Deep breath..... it just gives me motivation to really finish off the blue sashing on my blocks this month so I can get to work on the NEW project =) I am going to swap out the red and cheddar in the quilt to be purple and yellow I believe. I think I have nice stacks of those colors on the shelf to fill in for this quilt. How is your willpower? Will you be joining in too?

RSC in blue...

I have not really started thinking about the RSC Challenge too much yet but I do know I will be playing with this blue fabric this month.  It will be added as sashing for my hand appliqué midget blocks I worked on all last year. Yes - I have one more block to go... which I will prep and take with me tomorrow to a conference in Orlando. I hope to cut out some sashing strips and with a ruler and herra marker I should be all set to start stitching them. Since this has all been done by hand so far, I will continue on with the sashing. I think I need to pull a darker blue for the cornerstones....good thing I have a very nice stash of fabric!

Head on over to SoScrappy and the 2016 RSC Challenge and see what the plans are for the year. My bread machine just beeped to tell me the cinnamon roll dough is ready to be formed for it's second rise before baking. That will be breakfast tomorrow morning =). 

Cinnamon Roll Recipe.

Happy New Year!

Quilt Square Quilt Along - Lori Smith 2012 UFO

It has been a very lazy morning in my jammies doing... well, not much of anything. Grandma had the kids overnight and will be returning them soon. I really need to tackle cleaning more of the house and put the Christmas tree to bed until November. First on the list.... update the blog and decided on my UFO list for the year. I decided to pull out my Quilt Square Along blocks this month and see where I am and what needs to get done. I have 16 blocks completed =
12 inch blocks made and hand quilted. I am planning to do these as a quilt as you go top.... you know back in 2012 when I started them! I checked the three packets of patterns by Lori Smith and I have 2 appliqués and one pieced block to go. Now the decision. Do I say 16 is enough and start sewing these together into a nice 4x4 setting with sashing or continue on? Yup - I'm going to call the 16 blocks a 'quilt' and maybe make the other two or three blocks as individual 12 inch little blocks. I have a spot in the dining room above the bookcase of cookbooks that the little 12 inch blocks would look perfect in. Ok, decision made. Sorry for the bad photo - my camera is protesting it is full and won't let me take pictures.... so I had to go through the blog and find this one.
Now to find that tutorial on how to put these little buggers together in the quilt as you go method!

Edited. I am linking this post to the OMG - One Monthly Goal for the month of January. I guess I better go find that tutorial again and pull the fabric for the sashing and start getting this baby into rows! I really want a finish this month in my UFO tab.