Laying the floor

Hi everyone!  So, I've had enough of the heat, how about you?  Ever since we got to town it's been in the high 80s and 90s and I'm pretty used up on it.  Maybe three weeks is all the summer I can stand. Yikes!  What if I'm secretly a cold-weather person and never knew it?  At least I'll have quilts to cover up in!

So, this week I am working on the Roman Floors blocks.

Oh, how I miss the fence!

I need 72 and have about 30 now.  I also got a really beautiful black batik to use for a thin sashing between the blocks.  Here's where I need your help:  I can't decide if I want a 1/2-inch sashing or a 1/4-inch sashing.  Here's the 1/2 inch: 

I measured and that is a half-inch between the blocks.  The blocks are large, so it could work, but it looked too big to me, so I tried it with a quarter inch:

I like this better, but I'm not sure how well it fits with those big blocks.  What do you think?  Maybe I'll just split the difference and go with 3/8-inch sashing.

Boring pictures, I know!  But while I was fooling around stitching the (many) hsts for the blocks, I decided to try another block based on this floor:

I did it in pink, not orange, but this is what I came up with:

I like this a LOT.  I think I made the center square too big, though, so I need to try it again with a slightly smaller center.  It's hard to see, but there is a wrinkle where I pressed the bottom left triangle away from the square, which is what leads me to believe it's too big.  But it was fun and easy to make, so that's a plus.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week.  I'd love to get this floors quilt done, because I think it's going to look spectacular.  Plus, I'll be wanting something cozy to cuddle up in later this year, won't I?  It really will stop being hot sometime, won't it?  Hope springs eternal!

Hope you get some good stitches in this week!  See you Friday!

Linking to Let's Bee Social, and WIP Wednesday.

Cutting, cutting, cutting

Good morning, everyone!  This past weekend was very exciting and tiring for us.  Our son and daughter-in-law finally moved into their new home after everyone put in a LOT of work to make it ready.  If you're selling a house, please clean it before closing.  It's just rude to leave piles of trash in every room for the new owners to deal with.  I'd put up a picture of the trash pile, but it was too ugly.

Also, please take care of your pets!  Here's a story that will break your heart--not only did the former owners leave behind a bunch of garbage, but they also left their cat.  Seriously, they took off his collar and left him outside. Let me say that again--they moved (to another state) and left their cat outside on purpose.  It was so sad--the poor thing was batting at the doors, trying to get into the house.  The neighbors finally explained why.  What an incredibly cruel thing to do! Thankfully, the kids like cats and the cat seems to like them, so I guess he's a bonus that came with the house.

But now that that's finished, back to sewing!  I usually cut things on the weekend, but I used up all that time painting and cleaning carpets, so now I'm catching up.  Look at these great colors for the Roman Floors quilt:

These are brighter than the original floors, but they're not 500 years old.  I also made a sketch to decide how many of each color I needed and how they might be distributed:

The blank blocks are already made, not actually blank in the quilt!

Boy, am I excited to get started on this!  I went back to the quilt shop and bought several more yards of the navy batik so that I have enough for a couple of quilts, because I may or may not have made a sketch of another floor.

Yeah, we'll see what happens with that one.  I bet it would look great in a rose color instead of orange.

I also finished cutting all of the remaining pieces for the Friendship Star swap that I'm doing with friends:

Ziploc bags are a very useful quilting tool!

These are just bagged up and ready to go so that I can make up the stars quickly.  They don't take long, but having the cutting done makes it even faster.

Speaking of swaps. . .I let a friend talk me into another swap where we will swap 50 sets of 50 1-1/2 inch squares for a postage stamp quilt. There are actually about 60 people in the group, so everyone will get different scraps. I am saving 1-1/2 inch squares for a quilt, so. . .

This sounds awful to cut , but it really isn't!  And since I'm clearing out many of the scrap colors that we've already used for the rainbow scrap challenge, some of them had enough to cut 50 squares and will go to people who will appreciate them.  Plus I'll get different fabrics for my own quilt--already cut! And they're out of my bins, so I'm happy!  I have a few more to cut and then will sort them into identical sets.

And finally--I cut apart my Marquette fabric and started cutting pieces for that quilt.

Cutting that apart was hard since I can't get any more of it, but I guess now I've officially started that quilt!  I need to go find some more white on white, though, because I don't think I have enough yardage for the whole thing.

Okay, time to put the rotary cutter down and go sew something together!  It's hot today and will probably rain, so no guilt about not doing something else!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, and WIP Wednesday.