blue week #2

It hasn't been a very productive week for me, quilt-wise.

I really tried last weekend.  It was crazy cold and the wind was blowing, but I told myself "once you have the iron going and you're busy, you'll not notice how cold your sewing room is today and the iron will help warm it up".  I made it through one block and realized the only time I wasn't freezing was when I was ironing.  And that only kept the top half of my body warm.  My toes were frozen!

But the block I made was for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so now I'm down to just two more for this month.  I still haven't touched my UFO Challenge block, but maybe once I get done here?

Here's block #6: balcony

I'm not entirely sure I like this one.  Some of the other colorways were a little less scrappy, but I'm trying to go with the way the quilt I liked best is constructed.  Maybe I shouldn't be?  We'll see how future blocks go.  But I am loving that I get to use scraps and placing some of my most favorite, dwindling scraps in key spots.

And so there's not just the one lonely photo, my rainbow cats from last year again!

This quilt is so awesome.  It was my first time doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I wasn't sure how it would all go.  I love this quilt so much, I almost thought about making another this year!

Chores are done, so it's off to find some lunch and then hope my sewing room will be warmer today!  We had a huge warm-up this week (50F on Thursday!!!!), but we're back down to the teens for highs (much more normal).  This old farm house had colder spots depending on which way the wind is blowing...but I love it anyways.

Happy quilting!

Katie

2017 in review

It's been a LOOOOOOONG time since I've blogged, so I've got a lot of catching up to do...

We'll start with photo collages, okay?  That should help speed things along and get me back to finishing the hand-sewing of binding on those last few UFOs for the year...

So there was the UFO challenge.  I put 13 quilt tops on my list, the first one being done just before 2017 started (the elephants).  Then came the other 12.  Some months I got behind, but in the end, they're ALL quilted.  Two still have the hand-sewing portion of the binding to be sewn down, but since it's literally 5 degrees outside, I'm happy to stay inside, under a quilt for a holiday weekend!

Some of the photos aren't great, but I wasn't good at keeping up with photographs either.  So the hubby and I went into the back room where there's a good amount of natural light, but also some junk and not a lot of room, so pardon some of these being less than awesome photos.  (There was also a lot of whining from the hubby - and the comment "I'm being REALLY good" was heard about a dozen times...)

What's on the backs?

In no particular order.  I had a lot of fun with backs this year!  (Well, most of them.  Some are rather boring...and that one that looks grey/tan is actually orange.)

Want to see some of the quilting closer up?  I'm getting more confident and a little better!

Some of these I blogged about and there are better photos there.  Some...nope.  (And where's that photo of the red and turquoise one?  That looked awesome...)

(oh there it is, hiding...look at my awesome swirls!)

(and while we're looking closer, let's look at the quilt that's been renamed "Nope" because it was so difficult and refused all the quilting ideas I had...

...Lexie is helping with this photo, but I really like (most of) the quilting I did!)

And hey, where's that turquoise quilt.  That quilting was kinda awesome too...

Okay, enough showing off...

And it seems I take a lot of on-the-longarm photos and post them to my guild's facebook group.  I snagged a few of those for fun...

(That last one there is a quilt on the longarm on the left, but the combine editor chopped it off, but I thought you'd like to see Emma helping.)

And since I had to photograph so many today, how about a photo of the aftermath?

Speaking of cats helping...

We adopted a 10-month old kitten this fall.  She's learning how to cat from her older brother and sisters.  Her name is Gabby-Don't-Eat-The-Pins.  Or Spazarella.  As you can see here, they all help.  (And I'm a little miffed that the one with the orange is chopped off cause that was a nice one of Emma and Luka.  Ah well, what do you want for free software?)

There were also four baby quilts...one of which I took zero photos...oops!

None of these are the quilted, finished quilts.  See - I was bad at the whole shebang this second half of 2017!  But these were all loved, three of the four were surprises, too.  (Though two of the recipients had gotten quilts for previous kids, I'm not as close to them as I was the first go-round, so I'm sure they weren't expecting it.)

Then there was the 40th birthday quilt that my hubby decided needed to be done about a week before the surprise party.  Thankfully I have a closet of tops, so we just had to choose the right one.  He picked this one:

And because I did such a great job of taking photos, here's the last photo I have of it before we gave it away.  It's actually a 13th anniversary of her 27th birthday party gift.

Yep, I'm awesome.

I challenged myself to make one dolly quilt a month for a charity my guild contributes to that gives out gifts to needy kids on Christmas.  Santa rides a fire truck around town on Christmas eve and visits the right houses.  Any young girls get a doll, a few outfits and some sort of blanket - knitted, crocheted, quilted.  My guild donated over 100 quilts, but it was in big part because I extended my self-challenge to any members of the guild who were interested.  Most didn't make 12, but even just one more than they might have made otherwise made a difference.  I ended up donating 13, but also gave away 4 to other little girls that I do know.

The collage below has a couple of the favorites I made, plus a good number of what the guild donated spread across the whole floor of our meeting room.  A floor that, when a king-size quilt is spread out on it, makes the quilt look small.  This was no small feat for my guild and I'm super proud of us!

I participated in a block exchange this year.  I didn't remember to take photos of all the boxes as they came to me, but here are a few:

I guess I'd better quick go take a photo of what I got back...I'll be back in a minute...

I'm owed one, but here are my blocks. I asked that each person make a house.  Any kind of house.  In whatever colors they wanted.  Whatever size they wanted.  The DQ (Dairy Queen) block cracks me up because the gal who made that one owns the local DQ and said that feels like home the months it's open because she's there more than her real house!  And the one below...that's an outhouse.  Bill is quite a character and his wife cringed at his insistence to make this block for me, but it's Bill.  100% Bill and I love it.  They're all so awesome.  These blocks are on my 2018 UFO challenge list to get them together into a top.  If I don't have the missing block when this number is called, it just won't be in there, I'm sad to say.

I also joined the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I decided I was going to make 144 cats.  Well, I didn't realize when I joined I was going to make 144 cats.  I decided I was going to make these cute cat blocks.  And then I realized how small they were and how many it was going to take.  But making 13 each month (December is put-it-together month) wasn't all bad.  Of course, I didn't make a dent in my scraps, but whatever.  I had fun.  And, for the most part, kept up.  Enough that it December, I did put the top together!

They made a big, pretty, rainbow-ey stack.

I had fun at my guild's sew-in in mid-December figuring out a layout (without the help of real cats, thankyouverymuch) and then worked my tail off to get the top finished.  I have 3-day weekends both this weekend and last weekend, so my goal was to have all the 2017 projects ready to quilt for the Christmas weekend and get them quilted.

This was the second quilt on the longarm for the weekend!

It's done!  The binding is about 1/4 done and that's where I'm headed soon - more binding!

(I did get all the 2017 quilts quilted and the machine-side of binding sewn on all of them!)

It's big.  Like 70x80 or bigger.  I L.O.V.E. it.

What's on the back?

I found this in a fabric (not quilt) shop in July.  I stood there, literally squealing over this, knowing exactly what I was buying it for.  My mom rolled her eyes.  I bought the bolt.  Bring on another eyeroll.  Guess what?  It was the PERFECT amount.  I did no calculation, just hoped and figured I'd make it work somehow.  (My mom believes in using leftovers and junk for quilt backs.  As you can see from my earlier collage, I do not.)

And then there was the squirrel.  Er, sheep...

And what's on the back of this quilt you ask?

More sheep!  (How could anyone seriously NOT buy this for this quilt?  I mean really?)

This quilt came together very fast.  I was motivated and absolutely love it.  It's on my couch right now and has been washed about a dozen times already.  It is AWESOME.

Some other projects?

I repainted my bedroom and hung the APQ Swap Quilt on the wall!

...well, I guess you'll have to imagine the swap quilt on that wall behind the bed because apparently I don't have a photo of that running around...I swear I had one...  But hey, you can see my Cherrywood quilt is getting used!  (And it's WARM!  I haven't used my electric blanket yet and we've had overnight temps in the negatives for about a week now - even in my drafty old farmhouse!)

And I know those pink flannel sheets with bunnies on them make you all jealous of my decorating abilities!

I got some awesome new shoes...

And I quilted a quilt for my mom to give to my dad for his birthday:

He liked it.  You know, for a guy.

There were a few other tops worked on and a few of those made the 2018 UFO list...

As you can see, one quilt in particular is getting a lot of months.  Because paper piecing.

But you can also see I'm planning to do the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year.  I'm going to make the Patchwork City quilt. The one done in all brights.  I've got it broken down into colors and have a few extra months to catch up.  There are only 75 blocks this time around (yes, I'm laughing at "only 75" too), but many have templates and all sorts of new challenges, so I figure a few extra months to catch up can't be bad.

And finally, the Bird Seeds quilt I started this summer needs almost all of the seeds appliqued.  If I do 2 a week (which isn't really that hard - it's the prepping of the applique pieces that is the real task), I'll be done by the end of the year.

Lofty goals?  You bet.

Can I do this?  You bet.

What if I don't?  There's always the 2019 UFO challenge!

Happy new year and happy quilting!

Katie

PS By my count, that's 20 large quilts (plus the Boy Scout one) completed this year.  Plus I think 17 dolly quilts.  What a year!

a lot of ground to cover

I've been sewing.  Not as much as I could.  Not always as much as I want, but I've gotten a fair amount done.  And I've been thinking about blogging, but that's REALLY fallen behind.  Again.

So there's a few linkies going on where I want to share my progress.  And I know I should have posted more frequently to keep it simple.  But, you know, life.

So I'm going to try to cover them all in this post!  If you're here for the linkies, hang in there.  For those of you who read my blog more regularly, well, probably nothing is going to be all that different!

First up: UFO Challenge!

My #7 Science Geek Hexie quilt top.  This quilt all started because my quilty friend Linda sent me a message about science geek fabric at a local-ish quilt shop.  All other things were stopped and I drove, in a flying frenzy to beat closing time, to said quilt shop and purchased fabrics.

This was 2014.  Yeah, 2014.

You can see the hexie ruler I purchased for this project in there, too.  I already knew what I was going to do with the fabric.

It took a while to get to the project and cut those hexies (I remember doing some at our quilt show in 2015) and get them layed out on the design floor...

After watching a few tutorials on sewing hexagons (I didn't want those half-hexagons, as that loses the design in the fabric more than I like), I was ready.  I think.

Okay, this is going fairly well.  Onward!

It seems I never posted a photo of this top on the blog, but here it is.  I'm not sure when it was finished to this point, but this photo is from 2015, so there's that.

And then it sat.  I love it.  I want to finish it.  I knew, even, how I was going to quilt it.  Did I quilt it?

Nope.

I put it on the UFO list for this year.

I bought back fabric for it in March - at the same time I bought fabric for the UFO for that month - because I found something so absolutely perfect I couldn't NOT buy it.

Its number came up this month, so I jumped right in and quilted it, right?

Ha ha ha ha.

No.

But last weekend it was cooler and I decided I was going to tackle it.  The lights on my longarm light bar produce a lot of heat, so using it in summer weather isn't always comfortable.  (In winter months, I shed clothing while quilting because it gets warm enough for just a t-shirt...and I'm perpetually cold!)

So I did.

On the longarm, ready for another pass.

I chose a fairly simple overall pattern (simple, ha!), so it went fairly fast.  I still need to decide if I'm going to lop off those angles and make it square or tackle weird-angle binding.  So technically it's not done yet, but again, it's fairly warm and with no whole-house air conditioning, sitting under a quilt to bind isn't exactly high on my list.

A closer look at the quilting (and the back):

The colors are really washed out here, but for a day that's not raining or overly windy, I'll take sunshine for my photo shoot!  The quilted circles are maybe 2" across for the largest.  I love it.  Molecules!  (But my pebbles, as these are at their most basic, aren't perfect.  They got better as I went, though.  Sometimes.)

This quilt is, um, probably about 60"x50" or something.  I didn't measure, but it's a nice couch-size quilt.  If you're not 7 feet tall like my hubby.  (Okay, he's only 6 feet tall, but I feed him well, so he needs his couch quilts to be extra large.)  It's my design, if you can call throwing a bunch of hexagons together at random any sort of design.

And then, while I had the longarm up and running and was feeling good about it and the weather was cooler, why not load and quilt a second?  (This was my plan all along, if we're being honest.)

Sheeeeeeppppppsssss!

This one was started because I'm a fool and thought I had enough green to do this with the rainbow scrap challenge last month (May) when the color was green.

Wanna know how much of my green stash I used to make this quilt?

None.

I also did not use any florals in my stash (because I don't have any because I'm not a girly girl like that and don't buy stuff with flowers unless really I have to).

I did use stash fabrics for the cornerstone blocks and the brown ground strips.

So yeah, not much of a stash-buster.

But so cute!

Load it up! (Sorry, no photos here - story on that soon.)

The colors are a little washed out here again due to sunshine, but you can really see the quilting!

The sheep still need legs and I should probably have done those before quilting, but that epiphany did not happen until I was taking the photos today and realized how much fun it's going to be to try to not embroider legs onto the back of the quilt.

And the back?

Sheeeeeppppppsssss!

When I found this fabric (while shopping for fabric for a baby quilt - more on that soon), I bought it.  Seriously?  When is this NOT the right back fabric for a floral sheep quilt?  It's flannel, but that just means it will be better to snuggle under in the winter.  You know, when I'm actually cold.  Not today.

I still have to figure out what I'm going to bind this with - maybe the leftover florals from the sheep?

The quilt blocks are from the Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt.  And though the blocks are different, it's actually the Picnic Quilt layout from the book.  It's about 70" square.

While I was finishing the science geek quilt, my parents showed up.  We store their boat in the winter and it was about time they retrieved it!  (To be fair, there was a family reunion happening mid-June, hosted at my parent's house, so that sorta took a lot of extra energy and time - now that it's over they can go fishing.)  My mom walked in and handed me a bag of quilt part.  "This is a quilt I made for your dad.  You're going to quilt it." went the conversation.  I'm WHAT?  I don't usually quilt for others.  And when I do, I offer after careful consideration of the quiltmaker and the situation.

Well.

I love my dad and since it's for his birthday (I had a week and a half at drop-off - his b-day is this coming Thursday), I suppose I'll do this.

(And since I was unloading Science Geek and loading Sheep while all this was going on, that's why there's no longarm photos of the sheep quilt.)

I think it's okay to share here, as I don't think he reads my blog.  I'm not even sure he knows I have a blog.  Does he even know what a blog is?  Hmmm...

(Dad, if you've found this and read this far, look away.  Or don't tell mom.)

He's very involved in Boy Scouts.  He wasn't much as a kid, but he saw both of my brothers through earning their Eagle awards and has continued to be very involved as an adult volunteer in his retirement.  He's done a lot of cool stuff (ice climbing anyone?) and seems to have a lot of fun in all his adventures.  I believe my mom told me he was awarded an adult Eagle award not too long ago.  I'm not sure what that's all about, but I did go to the Silver Beaver ceremony (a super-big deal adult volunteer award) a few years back.

So my mom made this for him. It's a panel in the middle with a few borders around it.  She told me to quilt it however I wanted.  So I did flowey-water-like stuff in the borders and stars in the center.  Fairly simple, but getting from one star to the next without overlapping proved harder than I though it would.  Apparently I left my brain at work yesterday?

(I quilted this early today - trying to stay ahead of the heat!)

It's as tall as my clothesline, so probably about 70" long, but not quite square, so maybe 60" wide.

(See how well I measure things?  I do measure before I buy backing, but I never remember what those numbers were later.  And this one I didn't buy any fabric, I just made sure the back was big enough before I started because that's happened when I quilt for others!)

Between all of this nonsense, there's been the rainbow scrap challenge.  (See, I said I'd get there!)

The color this month was yellow.  My yellow stash is fairly pathetic.

But I had plenty enough for the cats!  Just not so much in the variety category.

I thought I used yellow a lot and should have lots of leftovers.  I guess not?

13 more cats!  They don't look too spectacular here on my funky ironing board, but that's okay.  They'll look spectacular in my quilt.

(I also bought about 5 yards of fabric for part (all?) of the back of this quilt, but no photo yet.  I finished the bolt and can't wait to finish the cats so I can use the back!!!!)

There's also been dolly quilt construction:

I was hoping there'd be enough of the sheep flannel to just keep rolling the big quilt and quilt this one on the longarm at the end.

Nope.

I'll have to piece some backing and quilt it later.

These blocks (aside from the 2" squares across the bottom) are also all from the the Farm Girl Vintage book.  It all started with the grey sheep I made to test the sheep quilt pattern and see if grey was going to be okay and then decided they NEEDED to be floral sheep.  This little guy languished a short bit, but he's happy now surrounded by his patchwork garden.

This quilt is 24" square.  Larger than most dolly quilts I've made, but it's SO CUTE!  Part of me wants to keep it.  But what for?  No, some little girl is going to be so excited to get this for Christmas.  It's going to the fire department for their program.

And last but not least is the current baby quilt.  I shared a fabric pull in my last post, but that's been edited a lot.  And a few new fabrics purchased.  Here's the start of sewing to show the final decision:

Lexie helped with the design floor layout:

(She's so cute!)

This quilt doesn't lend itself well to mass-production, so there was quite an argument with not only Lexie, but Emma as well, regarding my use of the design floor and that I should be feeding or petting the cats because this is NOT a design floor, but the place where heavily neglected cats pace when they decide that not having been fed in 4 hours or petted in the last 10 minutes.

So once I could, I picked it up...

(Colors are truer with Lexie.)

It's ready to sew into strips, but this is where it's been since Sunday.  Work has been a little crazy and it's been hot upstairs in my sewing room in the afternoons, but we'll see how the rest of the weekend goes.  I have to work the 3rd (Monday), but do have Tuesday (the 4th), off...

New news?

The UFO for this month is #12.  That's the Whirlygiggle quilt:

I'll need to dig this out and measure so I can buy a back.  (And then promptly forget how large it is so I have to make something up in the blog post where I share it finished.)

And the color for my cats this month is blue.  I have a LOT of blue.  I was just thinking to myself the other night that I need to make a blue quilt to use up some blues.  Perhaps this blue project, if it gets off the ground, will NOT require me to buy most of the blue that will go into the quilt...as the green sheep project did...?

If you've made it all the way through, congratulations.  (I tried to keep it full of photos to at least keep you interested!)

Now I'm going to go figure out what to feed the hubby for lunch.  I've been snacking all morning, knowing he was going to be home around 2:30 and hungry.  This way we can eat together.  Or maybe I'll drag him out quilt back shopping with me?  I'll feed him as his reward!  (And maybe we'll hit Harbor Freight - his favorite tool store - and see if we can find something quirky for my dad for his birthday, since I don't think telling him I quilted his quilt is enough.  And I'm pretty sure my mom would be angry if I gave him the whole quilt from me!  Maybe I'll let the hubby buy a tool, too?  If I tell him just one, it's a game to find the most expensive thing in the store, though...)

Happy quilting!

Katie

i was on track for a half a day!

Friday, after providing you with a fairly sarcastic post, I headed to my sewing room.  I still had a few hours to spare before the hubby returned home, so I could listen to music OUT LOUD (the kind that I like) and talk to myself with no help from the peanut gallery.

I started unsewing the pink leftovers seen at the end of my last post:

...and started sewing them together again - in the other direction.  Turns out I had a few extra yellow strips that had gotten into my actual stash, which helped this along, as they were about 10" and most of these are more like 4".

By the time I'd sewn them all together, I had a small mountain.  I wondered if this was going to make another throw-sized quilt?  It seemed like a LOT, but I kept going.  Remember I have the extra pink I purchased in case things go awry.

I was really looking forward to the seams getting longer, though, by this time.  I know I whine and moan about sewing the long seams to put quilts together, but after about 4,000 2.5" seams, I was ready for a change.

Sew, press, cut, sew, press, cut, sew, press, cut...

I got to a point where the strip set was about 17" wide and realized if I just cut it in half, I'd have two nearly-square dolly quilt tops!  And 16x17" is a pretty darn good size.  I've decided that these will be quilted on the longarm while I have the larger quilt loaded - there should be a fair amount of extra backing so why not!

I also made another tiny pincushion...

...and sewed together most of the green and yellow leftover pieces to make binding for the true-square dolly quilt.

And with these projects finally coming to a close, this is what I have left:

Yep, three pieces of green.  I feel pretty good about this small amount going back into my stash.

But wait, the rainbow scrap challenge color of the month is GREEN...maybe they won't go back in the stash after all?

Before bed, I pulled my entire stash of greens...

(pardon the lint roller and assorted junk on that window ledge/shelf behind there...)

What an assortment of shades.  Previous months, the colors have been a little more limited.  I worried in March that I didn't have enough contrast in my reds.  My selection of purples was fairly limited and none were super dark.  I've got the whole range here - everything from pale, pale green to nearly black.  But green is a good color.  It can go in baby quilts, grown-up quilts, flower quilts...it's so versatile, yet this is exactly what made this set of cats hard.

It's time for bed anyways, so maybe sleeping in it will help?

Saturday morning dawned and I woke up excited to sew.  The hubby was at work and I knew I had at least until 10am with a quiet (turned noisy by the radio again) house.  Emma made sure I was up early, though not early enough for her.

First up - get that dolly quilt of true squares quilted.  Done.  Machine sew on binding.  Done.

Shower.  Just in case the hubby comes home sooner than expected.  (He doesn't really care, but gives me a hard time if I'm still in my pajamas too late into the day!)

Still having trouble pondering those cats.  I don't remember any other month giving me this much trouble.

But oh, look, there's some now-too-large scraps in my recycle-the-fabric bin.  Hmmm...those grey and peach scraps trimmed from Arcadia Avenue blocks would make a really pretty tiny pincushion...

Seriously, though, this is the first of these that I have truly made in procrastination of another project.  (And sadly, I'm procrastinating a project I'm excited about...what the heck?)

And then there's those two pink quilt backs I bought that aren't going to sew themselves together, right?  So let's sew those together.  Another task I dislike, but, well, when procrastinating, any project will do...

About this time, the hubby returned home.  Just about on time for his original prediction, but I know how his job goes...he's usually hours later than anticipated for these special weekend projects, but thankfully, this time everything went smoothly and he came home on time.

He took me to lunch.  At a place just a few doors down from a JoAnn Fabrics store.  After lunch, sitting in the car while he screws around with whatever it is he does before driving (he takes forever to get going in the car...it's not the seatbelt, mirrors, and starting the car...it's the sunglasses and getting crap out of his pockets and I don't know what all...I'm in the car and moving in about four seconds!) we have this conversation:

Hubby: "Do you need to go to JoAnns?

Me: "Nope."

Hubby: "Are you sure?"

Me: "I don't need anything."

Hubby: "Are you sure."

Me: "Yes, I'm sure.  I could probably find something, but I don't need anything."

Hubby: "I can take you there.  I don't want to drive up here again tomorrow."  (It's about a 20 minute drive.)

Me: "No, I'm good."

Hubby: "I don't mind taking you over there."

Me: "Okay, fine.  Take me there."

Seriously?

What I didn't tell him is that I've been wanting to make this quilt for a while now.  It's the sheep from my Farm Girl quilt.  The pattern for the setting is in the book, as are the corner stone blocks.  The actual quilt in the book using the setting is very different, but it's all there.  But I knew I had other projects I should be working on, so I was trying to be good.

When I saw the quilt, I thought I'd do it with the green Rainbow Scrap Challenge month.  So when green was called, I went after this photo again.  And looked closer.  That green?  It's all the same green for the sashing.  And all the same green for the background.  I don't have that much of any one green.

So what did I buy at JoAnn's?  (I bet you can guess!)

The floral is for the sashing (it's a gingham-like print in the original, but I couldn't find any and thought this read, from a bit of a distance, similarly).  The green dot is for background.  Sadly, I don't much care for pin-dot dots.  I know, I have a dot problem, but this particular version just doesn't appeal to me.  But I wanted a matchy green and this was the only one that read solid enough to be a background the way I wanted it to be AND matched.  So I'll survive.

This fabric went into the washing machine before I even had my coat off upon returning home!

While it was washing, I dug into the greens to make cats.  I needed to just get started and hoped that would get me over my troubles.  I did sort the greens into a pile that I wasn't likely to use (too dark), so that helped some.

But just dig in, right?

Before I knew it, I had made 13 cats!

See what I mean about the variety?  But I think I managed to get enough variety in there that no one color is really sticking out too much.

But what's that in there with the cats?

Another mini wonky star.

At this point, I'm having fun (though there is a strong urge to dig through the recycle-scrap bags and cut as many 1.5" squares from those before I really recycle them (into paper maybe?...wherever the recycle place sends them) and I'm fighting it) and wondering if maybe these could become a block-a-day project that will become a quilt.

Last night, laying in bed before I passed out from exhaustion, I did a little math.  A queen-size quilt is about 90" square.  These blocks finish 3".  So that means about 30x30.

900 blocks.

900 blocks?

Maybe a throw quilt will be better.

You know, one that will be done before the next millennium gets here.

So by now the hubby wants dinner.  He doesn't want leftover chili.  He rolls his eyes when I suggest chips and cheese (it started out as a serious suggestion on a night we weren't particularly hungry, but knew we should at least eat something better for us than half a bag of mini Snickers and now it's just a thing).  So we ran to McDonald's.  Healthy, right?

And then it was time for SHEEP!

I know, I could have been figuring out borders for my UFO quilt.  Because that's technically an assignment this month, but it's only the 6th, right?

I DID clean up my greens and put them back.  Mostly because they were taking up half my cutting mat and to do much of anything (other than teeny blocks), I'd need that space.

So I pulled greys for the sheep.  The original has them in cute florals (another type of fabric I never thought I'd find myself wanting...), but I thought maybe my greys would work.  I have a variety of shades and thought some light with dark faces and some dark with light faces might be cute.

I cut a few sheep parts and then stopped myself.  I want to be sure I LIKE the grey before committing so much fabric to it.

Sew!

He'll get some little spindly legs embroidered and needs a strip of "grass" under his feet, but for now, it serves the purpose of trying it out.

I do like it, but I also know what the original looks like and worry that those cute florals are what truly drew me to the quilt and I'm going to hate this quilt because I know what else it could have been.

So I'll sleep on it.  Share it with quilty friends for opinions and see what happens.

(And this guy saw a fair amount of reverse sewing, as it was getting late and I clearly wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing.)

So what do you think?  (You'll have to click the link above to see the original, as I don't have permission to copy it here.)

Today I haven't gone back to the sewing room.  We have a birthday party for a niece later today and I've been busy making her a Wonder Woman cake (photos to come later, as it will require some assembly at the party) and getting groceries to feed the hubby this week.

I'm hoping after the party I can find some time to sew, but we'll see.  Rumor has it the birthday girl is getting a tablet and since we have unlimited internet at our house, guess who gets to host the after party?  (She's 5.  What did you all have when you turned 5?  I'm sure I had NOTHING as fancy as a tablet at 5.  Honestly, I don't remember having anything that fancy until I bought a laptop computer in college - a used laptop, with my own money - but this tablet is likely far more sophisticated than that laptop I purchased in 1994!)

In the meantime, I'm going to contemplate purchasing florals and whether my UFO for this month truly needs dark purple/blue borders.

Happy quilting,

Katie