Midget Block 39 and 40

I found some inspiration today to pull out my Midget Blocks.  They got seriously pushed onto the back burner when things got busy with the new job.  This one is called Pine Bur.  It is block #39 and has 65 pieces. 

It is paper pieced (easy but slow) and then sewn together with inset seams (impossible for me to do well for some reason).  Sewing by hand is the preferred method for inset seams, but I didn't want to take the backing out, and I'm definitely not hand sewing through foundation paper.  The corners are a bit puckery, so I may try to straighten those out a bit.  

#40 was sitting finished in the binder already, I skipped ahead just a bit to have some hand sewing on our Thanksgiving car trip. It looks fine to me now, but I remember spending some quality time with an iron convincing it to lie flat.  I cut the pattern out of freezer paper with no seam allowance and trimmed around each adding in the extra quarter inch.  Then I just sewed along the edges instead of taking the paper off and marking the seam allowance. 

Anna's dress rehearsal for the ice skating mother's day recital was this morning.  She is John Darling from Peter Pan.  I popped out the Goodwill yesterday to find her an extra large men's shirt to use as a costume.  I found a bagful of blue shirts while I was there which will make great quilt fabric at some point in the future.  Then she went to her play tryout.  There were only 32 kids for 50 parts, so I think her chances are good. Most of today was spent sitting by the porch watching the kids swim.  Summer is in sight and it is looking good.