Big Sigh of Relief

All of the blocks for Orca (Flamingo) Bay are officially done and ironed!  I got the last of the geese units sewn today and then went on a big ironing marathon.  My design wall isn't big enough to hold the entire quilt at one time, I think I'll take over some floor space in the morning and put all the pieces together.  I feel like it has been ages since I've finished anything.  The border is still looming, but I'll feel lots better when the rest of the top is complete.  For tonight though, I reserved two redbox movies  and dinner is just finished with the dishwasher doing its thing. 
 

Mini Nine Patches

These are made from one inch strips.  With the seam allowances on either side, that leaves only half an inch of fabric in the middle square.  I'm not sure what I'll do with these, but for now I'll set them aside with the plan of adding some more colors as the months go on.  I worked a tiny bit on Flamingo Bay this week, but didn't have much time in the evenings.  I have quite a bit of school work this weekend, but I'm not quite ready to jump in this morning.  For now, I'll head back to sew for just a tiny bit.......

ScrapHappy Saturday

Feeling scrappy today?  I've had a frantic week at work, but this is a three day weekend for us and I am looking forward to spending a bit of time in the sewing room today.  I was dreaming last night about nine patches.  I don't know why, but I'm going to go and play with some to see just how small I can make them.  What scrappy happenings are going on around your house today?
I'm hoping the link up works better today than last week.  My membership was ready to expire and I thought I had renewed and upgraded, but somehow I goofed it all up and the pictures disappeared on me.  Hopefully today it will work with pictures and links as well. 

Tiny Tuesday - Pride of the Prarie

This is Midget Block 65 which is called Pride of the Prairie. It was simple to make, though I didn't follow the directions exactly.  I went ahead and cut squares in half, but then glue sticked the freezer paper prepared pieces in place temporarily.   Then I took them to the machine to sew the parts back together again. That left everything well secured and allowed me to carry it along to hand sew the edges without worrying about exposed bias edges.  The little circle was put on top of all of that, leaving LOTS of layers that I will have to cut away from the back at some point. 

I switched up the color arrangement just a bit, I like the alternating blue and green in the background. So, block 65 adds 20 pieces to the quilt and was freezer paper pieced along with machine sewn subunits. 

Design Wall Monday January 9, 2012

 My design walls seem to be Bonnie Hunter patterns all the time these days:)  First up is my Orca Bay so far.  I finally was home long enough to get some work done this weekend.  I'm still in the process of putting together the pink string geese, but all the parts are there, so it is going fairly quickly.  My version is called Flamingo Bay for Florida. 

Next up are my cheddar bow-tie blocks.  I am loving this setting and color groupings, now I just have to figure out how big it wants to be so I know when to stop.  I think Bonnie is having a link up for the bow-ties on today and Judy always has her design wall on Mondays, so be sure to stop by and see what everyone is up to.

Step by Step

It was a day of incremental steps.  The string blocks for Orca Bay finally got finished up last night in the wee hours.  Instead of following the directions for the order of trimming I decided to try something different.  Without squaring them up first, I just cut them in half.  

 The nice thing about doing it this way was that I could control the little corner triangles and avoid tiny little pieces on the ends.

I'm still working on getting the corner triangles sewn onto the string blocks, but I wanted to get at least a few blocks put together to see how it is going to look. 

Then I felt like I needed to spend some time working around the house, I decided to tackle the downstairs linen closet.  It has been on my list for while now

Tiny little islands of order make me happy.  If not for the job and the three kids and all the quilting, maybe I could make my whole house look this neat and tidy?  Well, maybe I'll just enjoy the closet for now instead of getting carried away. 

RS12 - ScrapHappy Saturdday

January has been devoted to the color red.  I've already seen some red projects showing up out there.  As for me, I'm still percolating and trying out red projects.  I've been pondering lots of tiny log cabin blocks in all of the colors of the rainbow.  These little guys finish at 2.5 inches.  They seem to be a bit labor intensive (7 blocks in about 2.5 hours), but boy do they do a great job of using up even the tiniest of scraps.  What are you up to on this red letter day?  Use the linky below to share your own progress so far. 

Tabs

Check out the tabs at the top of my blog.  I've moved some of the margin lists to their own individual pages. 
Did you see the Moda Bakeshop pattern for today?  It is a Barn Raising layout done in 1930s solids.  I am not imagining doing it in solids or from a jelly roll, but wouldn't it make a great leader and ender project?  It is really just a nine patch done with three lights and 6 dark or mediums.  Wouldn't it be super cute done with scraps?

Guess Where We Went?

We tried to keep the cruise as a surprise for the kids.  In the process we hardly mentioned it to anyone.  We are home again though, and if there is anything better than going away on a cruise, it is getting back home again.  It was just a short cruise to the Bahamas.  We left New Year's Day and stopped in Freeport and Nassau before heading home again. 
A cold front moved through while we were away.  We felt it come in on the boat.  It was so windy when we landed in Nassau that we broke two docking cables as well as a tug boat and ended up bumping into the dock where we busted off at least three of the posts that were supposed to be holding us in place.  It was almost exciting in a very slow motion/wonder what is happening kind of way.  Other than that, it was a very calm trip.  The kids loved eating in the fancy restaurant each night and getting pizza and ice cream 24/7.  They bounced in and out of the planned activities leaving Kurt and I with a few pieces of quiet time. 
I'm not sure what to do now that we're all back again.  Tomorrow is a work day, but I could spend a few minutes sewing before then I think.  I suppose I should think about unpacking, but right now I'm sitting under a quilt waiting for the heater to warm things up a bit.  Maybe I'll just check out a few blogs and see how everyone else started the new year. 

Tiny Tuesday - Maple Leaf

My first Midget Block of the new year!  This one is called Maple Leaf it is #54.  It has 65 pieces and was traditionally pieced (using really small pieces).  It seems like it should be a red block.  In green it looks more like four leaf clovers to me.  

By the time I was done, my 2 inch leader and ender blocks seemed HUGE by comparison. Isn't it funny what starts to seem normal after a while?