Centered and quilty

 Hello all! How many quilts are you sitting under right now? It is seriously cold here in Maryland right now and I'm just sitting here crossing my fingers that someone moves our upcoming big work meeting to Zoom. Too much to hope for? Well, today I shoveled snow for the first time in literally two years, so I'm feeling entitled to hope for that.

I just have a couple of updates today. I know I told you about the Stay at Home Round Robin by Quilting Gail and Friends, and it starts this week! You can get more information about the whole project right HERE if staying at home and sewing sounds pretty good to you. The first step is to choose a center block to start with, and here is mine:

Okay, that's more of a center panel than a block, but I'm using it anyway. I made this a long time ago and I had so many ideas for it, but none of them ever got done. So why not use it now? And can you tell I was really, really motivated to take an outdoor picture? Look at that snow! This block measures about 19-1/2 by 28-1/2, which is kind of big to start with. The rounds don't have to go all the way around, though, so I expect I'll be putting a few on the top and bottom and not all around. Some will go all around, though, don't worry!

The other thing I've started working on is the Dot to Dot Quilting Challenge from Angela Walters at Quilting is My Therapy. Unbelievably, the videos and some of the extras are free, and you can get all the information right HERE. 

Angela is selling a couple of practice panels, but I have a ton of medical bills to pay from this past year, so I pulled these two pieces out of the closet:

 

 

These have a lot of the same shapes as her panel and are good sizes for me to handle (the bigger one is about 36 inches square) so I think they'll work out.  I basted them and was brave enough to quilt in a couple of triangles so far, and I'm pretty pleased. I figure I'll get some practice and learn a few new things, and get a couple of pieces out of the closet as well.

That's life in the sewing room around here right now. We're going to get more snow, so I had better locate that heating pad and be ready to shovel again! Stay warm, wherever you are!

It's a little windy as well as snowy!

Sharing at the SAHRR linkup at Quilting Gail.

Centering a block

 Hi all! How is your week going? I've been getting ready for the start of classes, so I've had a lot of computer time. And today I requested like a dozen books from the library, so I had some fun in there, too. Not all of them are fun books, some are for work, but some are for reading on the sofa on a rainy January day.

For the last couple of years, Quilting Gail and some friends have run a fun project called the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR). The idea is a lot like round robins, except you work on your own quilt and don't mail it anywhere. There are different borders to work on each week, and it does require some creativity to interpret the border for that week. I'm not explaining it well, but you get the idea! I wasn't sure I was going to participate this year, but it's fun and interesting, so I am jumping in. Here is my center block:

Wow, it's a big one! It's about 20 inches square, I think. For the last couple of years I've started with a printed block and the quilts turned out great. (Check them out HERE and HERE.) I have had this panel for a long time and it's time to get it used up. This was part of a kit that I never made, though the fabric was quite pretty. I'm going to use this lovely pile of scraps, which coordinate pretty well:

Not my usual colors! But I have the fabric, so I might as well use it, right? The other two quilts were donations, so I hope this one becomes a larger-size donation quilt. There is a big donation event coming up later in the spring, if I remember right.

The other thing I'm working on is is getting that blue bin emptied. This is where my pieces are right now:

I'm almost to the end of that bin! Hurray! Hope you're all having a wonderful week, and getting some stitches in. Classes start pretty soon, so I better go and get my stuff ready! 

Sharing at Quilting Gail for the SAHRR.