Three Solstice Blocks

I've no real excuse for my absence from the blog.  I have fortunately been getting in a bit of sewing most days.  Evidence, in the form of three more blocks for the Solstice challenge:

Block seven was pretty easy.  I pulled in a new light from the stack and played with three different darks (green, red, and blue) for the stripes.

Block eight got nicknamed the "faithful companion cube" block.  All three hearts are hand-appliqued, which is a skill I'm relearning on this quilt.  The center heart is an outlier piece in the stack of thrift store purchase fabrics I'm using for this quilt.  But since it was in the stack, I decided to fussy-cut it and use it.

And block nine, at 32.5" square, exceeded the size of my mock-design wall!  It also required unsewing of several seams because I decided to use two lights and accidentally mixed up my directions.  Both lights are ones I pulled from my stash and added to the project stack, because I am rapidly running out of the three already in it, and there are still many more weeks to go.

Now, if my boys will let me, I am off to sew some more Ugly Fabric Nine Patch blocks for the exchange....

Storms and Green Pinwheels

We fortunately haven't been affected by yesterday's "worst storm to hit SoCal in at least six years!" other than my not needing to water the garden this week.  Lucky us!  And over the past few days of still-recovering-from-the-flu, I have got some sewing time in, resulting in my finishing off the nine Dutchman's Puzzle blocks for this month's Block Lotto draw.  They're actually really pretty and I'm hoping I might win this month!  Not gonna happen, of course, but I enjoyed the sewing time.

The constant green in the center pinwheel actually came from that bag of fabric I was given a few weeks back.  There was just enough for these blocks and a couple tumblers.  Win!  I also bundled up almost all the solids from the back and turned them in to the guild for the "50/50 draw" at this month's meeting - 50% of the fabrics to go to a raffle basket at the quilt show in a few months, 50% to be won by one lucky person (who fortunately was not me!) at the meeting itself.

This week I also finally figured out a sort of mini design wall: I took a bit of extra cotton quilt batting and draped it over the large quilter's ironing board my dad made me a couple years back.  Bingo!  The blocks stick to it without pins, making it much easier to photograph them.  This will make doing the handouts for Block of the Month so much easier.

I also cut and sewed block seven of Pat Sloan's Solstice challenge and sewed the base of block eight.  Now to hand applique those three hearts!

Notes from the Land of Lurgy

Ugh.  My hard round of the flu hit over the weekend, coinciding with Jazzy's, and man did that make for a couple of not-fun nights for the little guy, for me, and for Wonderful Husband.  Fortunately I think I'm on the mend, and I think Jazzy is too.

I did get to watch Quilt-Cam yesterday morning, and used the time to cut out the remaining HSTs for this month's Block Lotto block.  I've been working on those bit by bit yesterday and today and have got them sewn, pressed, and trimmed to the flying geese stage.  Tomorrow I start sewing the 72 rectangles to one another to eventually end up with 9 blocks.  And because I used the EZ Angle tool to cut both sizes of triangles from strips, I've ended up with something like eighty bonus triangles to sew into squares.  On top of the thirty-six HST squares from this month's block of the month for my quilt guild....

I obviously need to find a pattern to use them all up at some point.

I'm also pondering making a completely twee set of outfits for when we all go visit my sister and new niece next month.  A dress for niecelet, shirt for Squiddle, and overalls for Jazzy, all out of the same material, just so we can do one of those horribly embarrassing photoshoots. ^_^  Currently I'm leaning in the direction of some fine-wale dark turquoise corduroy that's been hiding in the stash awhile.

Still Here, Even If Not 100%

Blarg.  Have been under the weather since last Friday, when Squiddle came down with the flu.  Which the rest of us then caught.  Though he had it worst, poor kid!  And this after he and I had gotten the flu shot a few months ago.  Ah well, it's always a dice roll as to which strains actually go around.

Sewing-wise, I've plodded my way through all the samples and handouts for the guild's Block Party this month, as well as the two sets I'm turning in for the Ugly Nine-Patch Block Exchange I'm leading, and I also eked out two pillowcases for the Quilts For Kids group.  Phew!  Plus I've put together a bundle of solids plus a few pieces I'll never use but that aren't actually ugly, all for the basket/drawing at this month's guild meeting.

Plus I went to my first officer's meeting on Tuesday, even though I'm not an officer until next month.  I wanted to get a handle on what goes on there and what I'm expected to do.  We went over the budget.  Six pages!  My eyes were starting to cross with all the numbers by the end of it.

Hoping we'll all get some decent sleep tonight.  Last night... not so much.

Solstice Stitching

And the days just slip by between posts!  I've fortunately been able to spend a bit of time sewing most days, helping me keep my sanity in these trying political times.  I've also been forcing myself to work my way through my "Mount Toberead" pile of books at bedtime, because if I don't distract myself with a bit of fantasy or scifi before sleeping, I'm liable to just lay awake, worrying over things, until I start crying or fall asleep from mental exhaustion.

But!  Here's one of the things I've been working on:

These are the first six blocks from Pat Sloan's Solstice challenge.  They seem a bit disparate at the moment, but I'm hoping as I work through the remaining nineteen blocks from the same stack of fabric, the project will start to look more cohesive.

Also, somehow, my quilting hobby led me to getting a phone call today which summed up to "Hi, you don't know me, but I was given a bag of quilting fabrics and I'm never going to use them.  Would you like them?"  (I said yes, of course.)  She had asked at her local JoAnn Fabrics if anyone knew someone who would like them, and one of the fellow customers pulled out her phone and gave Shirley my number.  I'm guessing the facilitator in this case was one of my guildmates.  I'm wondering if it was Laura, who has in the past destashed a bit and given me lots of stuff.  In any case, the half-trashbag was full of lots of good stuff, from neutrals to batiks to some of the kinda-dated 1980s prints.  Almost all of it was quarter-yards or greater.  It included quite a lot of creams and whites, which I can always use.  So, yay!