Works in progress

 Hi everyone! How are you all doing? Yesterday, while I was trying valiantly to teach a class to students who are seriously exhausted, several dump trucks came and dumped fill dirt outside the almost-finished garage. I was annoyed as all get out and happy as a clam at the same time. It was loud and disturbing, but it means that my garage only has one more step to go. So I guess my current mood would best be  described as annoyed-happy. Or maybe happily annoyed?

Today I just have a couple of updates on things I'm working on, a part of my quest to get back to blogging more regularly. We'll see how that goes, but meanwhile, here's one new start:

 

A little while ago, Preeti reviewed the book Diamond Star Quilts, by Barbara Cline, and she was kind enough to let me borrow it so that I could make something small and challenging. I know I don't need to do something challenging right now, but it's not that difficult and it turns out so pretty. The picture above is just a part, and now I'm busy cutting and piecing diamonds from some of my hand dyed scraps:

 

So far, it's fun and a nice diversion. No guarantees that this won't turn into a UFO, though Preeti's quilt turned out to be so spectacular that it's really inspiring me to keep going.

I'm also continuing to work on the fall colors quilt I showed a bit ago:

 

These are all the star centers, so now it's just about distributing the star points around the quilt top. I also think this one is going to be spectacular in its own way, though I admit it doesn't look like much now.

So, what does that leave? Oh, yeah, in between, when I get tired of stitching, I've been cutting these beauties:

 

These are all from scraps, which takes time to cut, and they are for the quilt I'm finally making for our bed. I love all of these colors, but I have a long way to go with cutting. This is about one-sixth of what I need, but cutting can be really meditative, you know?

That's what's happening around here, except for this very exciting development:

 

Did you know that people sometimes sell the things they no longer want, like sewing machines and stuff like this? Very exciting! Further updates to come!

Hope you all are having a good week. Hang in there, and don't forget to wash those hands! 

Sharing at Midweek Makers and Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

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.