Happy Quilt Festival

I decided to celebrate the online Quilt Festival by making some wonky star blocks. They started with a 3.5 inch base square and then I double sewed the corners to make 2.5 and 2 inch base squares. I think I'll float all the blocks in a wide white sashing and mix all the sizes together. Another column should make it about twin sized with a dark border of some sort. I'll make a few more tomorrow I think.

This morning we ended up double booked with Ice Skating and the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. We had to pass on the chess tournament, but it's hard to be so many places at the same time. Anna passed her test to go to the next level of skating and Ryan won in his age group at the Pinewood Derby. Even Sydney took 2nd place in the sibling division. His den took the first three places overall and will all be headed to the next level of competition. We all came home happy and spent a nice relaxing afternoon at home.

I'm supposed to run in the morning, so I'd better get some sleep before it is morning. I hope everyone else is having a happy quilt festival weekend.

Pinewood Derby

Tonight the Cub Scouts came over to work on their pinewood derby cars. Kurt got the garage all set up with tools (pardon the chaos, unfortunately, this is how our garage usually looks). He doesn't have a bandsaw, which he thought was critical for optimal curve cutting, and so asked our neighbor if we could use his garage for that part of the process. The kids all had their designs planned out ahead of time and after tracing them onto the wood blocks, we all traipsed down to do the cutting and then came back again for the sanding and painting. The boys seemed to enjoy the painting and decorating more than anything else. The dads seemed most concerned with getting the cars as close to the 5 ounce weight limit as possible and spent lots of time drilling holes in the cars and filling them with birdshot and candle wax. Sydney and Anna both wanted to make cars as well, and painted them many shades of purple and pink. It was good that we limited the fun to the garage, because lots of glitter seemed to be part of the fun (for the boys as well as the girls).

I spent most of the day getting the top done for my pineapple blocks quilt. Actually, putting the top together took about 1o minutes first thing this morning. Getting the %$#@* paper off of the blocks took the rest of the day. I will definitely find a more efficient way to handle that part of the process next time I try a foundation block. I am thinking that water soluble stabilizer might be the way to go. I'm trying out applique flowers now, so maybe tomorrow I'll have some options to show.