more stars

 I've been sewing!  Stars, to be exact.  Blocks 8 through 12 have been completed - though I surprised myself this morning, thinking I had made only 10 and there were 12!

This puts me just about halfway - I'm making 25 blocks.  I'm pretty excited!  These take about an hour each to construct and, since they're scrappy and fabrics are matched as blocks, I can't mass-produce them easily.  That's okay.  There is a fair amount of geese trimming that has to go on for each block, so it's better to have that broken up - my arm thanks me!

I also happened upon a quilt along that Pat Sloan is doing for the "Bringing Home the Christmas Tree" quilt from Lori Holt's "Vintage Christmas" book.  I've looked at it a few times and wanted to make it, but talked myself out of it.  Her blog is a little confusing to me and somehow I missed this (I do follow her on Instagram) until last week, so I'm a bit behind, but I can catch up, right?  Having deadlines helps me get stuff done, so I'm in!

But I needed about 5 yards of background fabric.  That seems like a lot, but if I choose wisely, leftovers won't be a problem.  So while the hubby and I were out doing a few errands yesterday, I snagged some!  And some fabrics for a couple of seasonal masks...

I'm pretty sure you all can determine which is background and which will be masks!  I got the background washed, pressed and folded for cutting yesterday, but the other fabrics need to wait for some like-colored fabrics to get their turn in the washing machine.  That's okay.  (But I am a little excited to wear the vampire fangs!)

I also forgot in my last post to mention that my niece is pregnant!  If you remember about a year ago, she "ran away" from home.  At 21 years old, I think it was more like moving out without advance notice.  But...she moved in with her boyfriend, who then became her fiancee and then, at Christmas, became her husband.  Now, 8 months later, she is pregnant.  It's early yet, so the gender is not known.  I'm not sure if she will find out, but you KNOW that little one is gonna get a quilt from me whether we know ahead of time or not!  But I'm going to wait a bit, just to see if she finds out, before I go choosing a pattern and buying fabric.  Being a great aunt makes me sound old, but I am so excited for her that I just don't care.  I already raided the summer clearance baby clothes at work and have a stack of adorable onesies of the Carhart and John Deere variety (what else would you expect from a farm store!) to send - all but one are free of pink and, well, that one was too cute to pass up.  I'm sure this won't be the first shopping trip to result in overbuying cute things...

That's all the news here.  I'm thinking ahead to next weekend for my at-home quilt retreat and so is the hubby.  (While I'm planning projects and thinking about getting stuff cut ahead and meals to prep, he is thinking about where to hang out during the day...  I haven't told him he can't be here, but I guess he just decided that for himself?)

Off to do some sewing.  Or cutting.  Maybe I'll work on the new cars and trees sew-along, since I'm a chunk ahead on the stars?  Hmmm...

Happy quilting,

Katie