books!

I was chatting with a friend yesterday, commenting on how I should blog more often.  That way, there's not SOOO much to share in one post.  So I'm going to try.  (But secretly I wanna go sew more books right now!)

Tuesday was pretty much a bust as far as sewing.  By the time I got done with everything that needed done, it was late and I knew I was going back in to work Wednesday morning, so I just decided to chill out and head to bed early.

BUT...

Wednesday I worked a short shift.  I came home at noon, enjoyed lunch with my hubby before sending him off to work and then headed up to the sewing room!

I'm just winging it in my stash, digging through this pile or that, so the first fabric I found that was appropriate becomes the next block...

...it took me a few minutes to narrow down which colorway of bicycles I wanted to do.  I have four, but at this point, I'm being selective.  My stash has a lot of hidden gems and I want to make sure they all get a fair chance at being in the quilt.  If I get to the end and need more, I can always go back, but for now, these bikes stand to represent all the colorways.

And then this one...

...my sister-in-law gave me this fabric for my birthday and I love it.  But what to do with it?  OH!  A book is prefect!

And this fabric was also in the stack of fat quarters I got with the science fabrics...

...this one I also have in a much more yellow colorway, but decided this one showed of Kevin the minion best.

Kevin thinks this photo shows off Kevin much more effectively.  (And Freddie is mildly terrified of Kevin, which is hilarious for a cat that is so chill about pretty much everything else in this house!)

And one last block before dinner...

...more bikes!  I struggled and struggled to find a turquoise to match (there are like 40,000 shades of turquoise, you know) and then looked up and sitting right there were some strips left over from the Pantone quilt and whammo!  Perfect match to some of those little flowers in the basket!

Lexie wants you to know she helped better than Kevin...Kevin's farts aren't even toxic like hers can be.  Also, he only holds down what you tell him to hold down.  Lexie is much better at improvising what needs held down.  Like this block.  It was obviously going somewhere so she stopped it.

She was none too happy when I told her she had to wait a few more minutes for dinner so I could snap a shot of all four blocks.  Emma was more vocal, but equally annoyed.  She was also less than impressed that I needed to pick it up off the floor.  Probably because it meant she had to move AND I wasn't petting her.  Because all the hands in the world were made to pet Lexie.  All the time.

I expected to watch some Netflix with dinner and see how I felt about continuing to sew.  We've hit summer temperatures this week (up almost 20 degrees on average from just last week - I hate that sudden change...unless it's from below freezing to above, then I'll take a 20 degree swing!) and my sewing room gets hot with the iron running all the time.

But Netflix was misbehaving.  And I decided I should go sew more blocks because sitting in front of a fan, playing games on my phone is such a waste of time.  And I'm trying to break that habit.

Who doesn't love sock monkeys?  In my head, remembering this fabric, the monkeys were smaller and closer together, but I did my best to fussy cut so there were at least a few (mostly) whole little guys on there.  Perhaps it's okay.  They look a little mischievous and if you get them too close together, shenanigans are likely.

And foxes!  This was left over from a quilt back and I absolutely love these guys.  It was hard to choose which one to truly feature and not feel bad about cutting apart the others to get him centered-ish.

But at this point, it was starting to get late.  And my sewing machine managed to feed the pointy edge of a triangle piece UNDER the feed dogs.  Of course, when you're doing paper-piecing, you're feeding fabric in without being able to see it well (unless you cut it WAY oversized!), but still.  I had to get out the seam ripper and rip threads below the needle, between the presser foot and feed dogs!  That was a time-consuming task and helped me decide it was time to go read.

Remember that stack of books I came home with when left unsupervised in a book store?  I started reading the first of them, but haven't been reading much.  Again with the phone games.  I need to stop!  So, I went and snuggled the kitties and read until the hubby returned home.

This morning I awoke to the sound of loud machinery.  Turns out the neighbors are having their driveway redone and the crew (and their 47 vehicles that literally spanned about a half mile down my side of the road) showed up bright and early to remove the old asphalt.  You would think their driveway was enormous with what all showed up, but I'd say 150 yards maybe?  I left for a doctor appointment before it was all removed and I fully expected to return home to another step in the process, but they were all gone!  I guess another crew will be here to put something in the long, skinny, shallow hole they made?

So the doctor appointment is over and lunch is over and the clanging and banging that had my cats on edge is over...time to sew!

But first...happy mail:

...this is the pattern (book) for the 100 blocks in 100 days quilt-along.  Shipping estimates had it due here tomorrow, but it arrived today and I am beyond excited.  I work tomorrow, so I would have had to wait all the way until 4pm to get it.  This way, I can drool over it all afternoon!  Between constructing book blocks, of course.  (I'm only 11 behind now...)

Happy quilting,

Katie