Clearing the deck

Three things to be happy about:
(1) a clean slate
(2) leftovers
(3) NOT shopping on Black Friday

Today, at last, the new Quiltville mystery has started!  I've been looking forward to this day, to the extent that I've been taking little pot shots at  doing everything under the sun, it seems. 

I managed to get another batch of the little churn dashes finished, they work up very quickly.

Two rows added to my design floor, giving me a total of 70 finished.  Hmmm, I see a couple fabrics that I won't use again for this project...

Still don't know what the final setting will be, but I have time.




But in the middle of all that, yet another sew-along caught my attention!

Aren't these just the cutest paper pieced scrappy triangles you ever saw??

These are the ones I've already made, I'm doing a great job of keeping up! 

Leila over at Sewn by Leila will release a new pattern every week on Tuesday, for a total of 52.  I placed a button on my sidebar if you want to check it out for yourself.

Grandma's Kitchen?  Well, now that the mystery has started it's on hiatus (for me) for awhile; my priorities will be the churn dashes and the mystery, with a scrappy triangle thrown in for good measure.  I think Grandma will understand!

Soon as I get back home today I'll jump right in, can't wait to see what the first clue looks like!

Sew forth and sew on

Playing catchup

Three things to be happy about;
(1) gorging on Hallmark channel Christmas movies
(2) catching up
(3) following a good plan

I do it every year; I've seen some of those Hallmark Christmas movies any number of times but I always find myself tuning in anyway.  They always follow one of three themes - girl meets boy through her job, is indifferent to him until she gets so full of the spirit of Christmas that - oh joy! - they fall in love.  Or girl leaves home, becomes a huge success, returns home, finds the spirit of Christmas and discovers - oh joy! - the boy she left behind is the perfect one after all.  Or girl has no Christmas spirit in her heart at all, goes to an obscure little town that's either called Christmastown or Christmasville where all the locals are laughing and jolly, helps them put on a Christmas show and - oh joy! - discovers she has the spirit of Christmas in her heart after all.

I watch that stuff every year!  I guess by now it's a tradition, eh?

Playing catch up on the Grandma's Kitchen sew along!

I had to take this shot to prove to myself that I'm actually getting some sewing done.  I've been so distracted lately with this, that and the other.

I'm using the Simple Folded Corners Ruler that I bought from Bonnie Hunter's shop a few months ago; trust me, it makes sewing accurate diagonal corners so much easier!

I always had trouble with sewing the "scant" or one thread to the right of the drawn line on those angled corners.  It was a good investment!

You have to "stay woke" though - one of these is not like the others!

I cut the corner at the wrong angle on one unit and created a spare for my parts department.

I refuse to call it a mistake - it's a spare to be used later.

So these are the new blocks I finished - Kitchen Table, Sticky Buns and Mending Basket, the latest one.

The one on top - Mending Basket - is my favorite so far.  When I started doing these I just chose some fabrics that were handy, which happened to be black, white, and red.  I added yellow/gold later but I think I like the ones without red a little better.

I'll be linking up with Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen sew along page.  Sew forth and sew on til later...

Just a bit more

Three things to be happy about:
(1) Chinese takeout
(2) Monopoly
(3) a dust-free surface

I wouldn't know about the third one, LOL.  I've been sorting through my fabrics a bit at at time; pulled out one container that had dust on the top!  How long since I was in that bin??  It's kinda hard to do a lot at a time because, as you can imagine, a plastic bin full of fabrics is very heavy.  On the other hand there's no deadline, so I'm doing okay.

I made block #18 ("the Fridge") of Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen sew along. 

When I saw blocks made by some others I liked the idea of placing half-square triangle units in the corners.

This was the first layout I tried, it made the block look so muddy!

Turning the corners around made all the difference.

I'm linking up with Pat's page so you can check out what everybody else is doing.

That's it for now, have a great Saturday, sew forth and sew on...

Bits and pieces

Three things to be happy about:
(1) freebies
(2) grab bags
(3) swag bags

Same thing, right?

I was reading someone's blog and I noticed she was doing Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen sew along.  Somehow I forgot Pat does a lot of sew alongs.

The names of the blocks are cute and they look very interesting, so I thought I'd jump right in!

Because I'm a bit late to the party, I started with the newest one and I'm working my way backwards.

"Game Show & Soaps" finishes at 12 inches; "Loose Change" and "Pantry Goods" are both 10". 

Just to get it moving I just chose black, white, red, and yellow for my color palette.

I coulda chosen another way to make that center block in the top one, eh?  Lots of points coming together in that one!

Finished a few more of the little churn dash blocks.

I used the same fabric that's in the large block above, I like the way it looks in the churn dash.

A few spider webs for Halloween, even though I don't "do" Halloween!

This time I paid attention to the direction of that wavy striped fabric, it does make a difference - but at the same time it doesn't matter.

You know what I mean?  Sew forth and sew on...

A new thing

Hello everybody, especially new followers!  Well I did it - it's been a week since I posted!

What have I been doing since my last post?   'Ount know.

I notice there's a new blogger interface, I tried it and didn't care too much for it, so I switched it back, thank you very much.

And here's another new thing I noticed - a new sew-along! 

It's a Crumb Quilt Crumb Along at Jo's Country Junction.  (Try saying that three times fast!  Once, even.) 

It started this week and here's what Jo says:  "Each and every Tuesday for the next ten weeks, I’ll be giving you ideas on fabric requirements, block construction, layouts and the like. You’ll have a week to make 2-10 blocks a week depending on your preference and your schedule..."

Since I do work with crumbs, this should be a good sew along to try (along with my other stuff that I'm not sure what I'm doing)... why don't you all jump in, it looks like fun!

Sew forth and sew on til later...
Linda