some finishes this week

ok.... so i said i'd blog about all my finishes... and i'm going to make good on that. although i don't remember if i blogged about the round robin i did, so i'm going to include it now and edit later if necessary.

first the smaller projects - bee blocks!

a little house for "bee pieceful"

this is the first of hopefully 2 blocks for sweetteamom. and i need to mass produce some little house blocks for the FB group this month. oh...i'm behind in schedule with all the QOVs!

little trees for the "scrapBEElooza" bee

greenink requested little trees for our october blocks. she is going to have a great little forest once october is over! i just might have to make tree blocks for me one day after i make all the zillion other projects.

and since i'm just going to post it now - the round robin for HMQG.

at our meeting last month, we did the first round of swapping our rows and center blocks for whichever robin we chose. i didn't blog about this now, did i? oops. i chose fi's tree center because it's brightly colored with fun prints and i knew i wanted this one first. there are infinite possibilities on what to make for a border and that just doesn't help me make decisions any easier. so for fi's block, i separated the initial block with a bold blue and then all the little HSTs to play on the leaves she appliqued. i really love this so far.

and last, but definitely not least.... a QOV top finish!!



you might remember previous postings of [k] and i working together on a QOV during monthly HMQG meetings. well folks, the quilt top is finished and i've put in the request for our longarm quilter! this QOV is a combo of civil war reproductions (the beige background and the blue border) and very modern prints and batiks (all the red). the pattern is "endless chain" from quilter's cache and i adore how it looks when all the blocks are put together. for some reason, the final look just hadn't entered my mind.

today has been fairly productive, even though i thought i'd finish most of this last night. kiddo is sick, which slowed me down yesterday, but after being home half the day today, i made up lost time. poor boo. his throat is completely swollen shut and the pediatrician tried to convince boo to have a shot of antibiotic instead of regular oral meds to get it working. boo did not go for it, so 10 days of medication it is.

weekend activities

this weekend was pretty productive for me. i took friday off to do a navy family picnic thing when all the guys had to do their PRT and i took my bike to the park. i haven't ridden in 2 years... bad me.... unfortunately, my trusty updated classic was having some mechanical issues on the updated part. a long-time friend decided 2 years ago that i could not keep riding with downtube shifters and installed his old set of STI. i was having issues with the STI - they would only shift to a bigger gear and not a smaller one and with this houston heat, i didn't feel like pushing myself that way. so i got 5 miles in. wow. just a warmup.

saturday was full of chores and running errands, including running into my parents at ikea. we got our new sofa cover and entry way table, lunch, mosquito spray for the yard (not at ikea) and made it back home in time for one of the most incredible hockey games of our time. red wings kicked some serious penguin butt!!! whew! but during it all, i worked on and finished my june swap blocks for the facebook group. this month - baskets. i'm not sure i'm a fan of baskets and especially those on pointe.

yesterday, lots of laundry...yardwork...spraying for the miserable mosquitoes in which they bit us while we sprayed. oh - and worked on my computer several times and went to buy a new power supply and fans. the idiot who decided my last computer was "retarded" and that his computer was better was surely wrong. i've had minor issues periodically, but in the fall when it died and my teriffic hubby opened it up to find 2 inches of dust inside it opened a can of worms. the old "friend" had installed several fans in backwards so it sucked in dust and didn't cool the power supply,etc. too bad we didn't check all the fans in the fall. power supply #2 replaced along with the burnt out fan yesterday.

BUT - i had a fantastic time working on my first every mini quilt!! i joined a few flickr groups, including the 6-12" mini quilt group. originally, the task seemed daunting. do an itty bitty quilt with no direction. (ok - so my other mini quilt is going to be more of a challenge once i get the charms) but i enjoyed every moment of it! so much so, that it's bound and labeled already. i'm thinking of adding a little more embellishment before i ship it out super early. i'd post a picture, but in case my swap partner reads my blog....so i'll do that later.

now - back to the daily grind of the small business.

next round of blocks

i've been taking a little break from QOV #2...it's tedious and i've had migraines, plus i need to finish up the gift quilt i've given peeks at. i need to mail it out along with whatever else i make/get for this person before the end of april.

for the last couple of days, i've been putting together these 2 sets of blocks for my "quilt guild" april block swap. we were given the task of doing any variation of a 4-patch using tone-on-tone plus white in any color we choose. on the left in orange: an old maid block; on the right in green: spool and bobbin. i'm early this time and i did 2 sets...that's fine since i need to get cracking on that quilt and the next QOV top. i just have to wait until the end of april to receive my new blocks. :(

but i did pin the next 2 rows of QOV #2 together this morning as well. it's not forgotten. and QOV #1 is being quilted this week - i heard from my long-armmer who told me she's finishing it when she gets back from spring break. i can't wait to see how it turns out! then it's making the presentation case, printing the journal and finding a receipient.

new qov and other stuff...

i started my next QOV last week. above is the fabric that i'm using and you can see it's another sailor based quilt. the quilt pattern is called "anchors-a-swirl" but i've found it's a variation of a roman square but arranged differently. my navy fabric will be added to it somewhere - possibly a border fabric. the first QOV is off at the longarm quilters still and i'm hoping to get it back fairly soon so i can make the presentation case and find a destination.

i recently participated in sew mama sew's fat quarter swap while they were celebrating a month of fat quarters in february. i got the last of my fabrics yesterday.

aren't they great?! our group was all "j" based for names. there was a joey, two jennifers, and a jessica. the green and brown fabric is wild! i can't wait to use them in a project or two.

above are the blocks produced in my first ever block swap. mine is the top left block. our task was to do any variation of a 9-patch using blue and yellow with an optional white. we had so many people join in that we're extending what was supposed to be a one-time swap into one every 2 months for now. the next one is due in april and it's a 4-patch using any color we want, but it has to be a tone-on-tone with white (light blue/dark blue + white, light green/dark green + white, etc.). originally when it was a one-time thing, i was going to make a table runner from my blocks. now that we're going to do them at least one more time, i want to make a lap quilt and i think i'll do two sets of blocks so i get 10 back. it'll be a complete surprise this swap though since we're completely open on the colors. i could have one scrappy quilt in the end.

my swap block

"eccentric star" pattern

this is my block for my first ever quilting swap via facebook's "quilt guild" group. i'm excited!! it's supposed to be a small one - 5 blocks total turned in and 5 returned, all with a blue/yellow with optional white theme and a 9-patch variation. we should be able to make something like a table runner with them and i've made an extra block so i definitely have one of mine in it.

looking at the photo - it looks all crooked and wonky. it's not, but the angle made it look like it. hmm...