I could have sworn I'd posted something this month...

 Apparently that's not the case at all.  I wonder what happened to all those posts I wrote in my head?

Anyway.  Remember when I had that squirrel running through?  Well, it made another pass.  The diamonds that I'd made and set aside kept catching my eye.  I liked them, but I really wanted more purple.  I started scrumbling around in my 1.5" strip bin and pulled some colors.

I like this one a whole lot better.

And since those previous diamonds were just lying around taking up space, I set them around the new star just to see what would happen.  (The lime isn't quite that limey in real life, but it is a bit bright)

And then, because I've never been one to let well enough alone, I pulled some fabrics to audition for borders.

Then I had to pick it all up and hide it from myself because I'm trying to work on this:

(That's the first 20 blocks done.  I'm actually up to 26 done now, with the red lozenge parts done on seven more)  (Remember that part about writing posts in my head?  Apparently I'm also taking pictures in my head)

And then, because I can never let well enough alone (see above), I had an idea for borders that I had to try.

Running those stringy bits all the way around the perimeter of the quilt is generating an awful lot of extra work for myself, but once I saw the effect I was a goner.  Right now I'm thinking of sewing together red squares for an outer border, then binding in either red or black.  Or maybe I'll just take an easier way out and run another of those narrow black borders instead of the squares.

Ah, dithering.  My favorite part!

I must have left a window open

 Because a squirrel seems to have sneaked in...

I'd been admiring Ann's Lone Stars for quite a while,  and Angie recently made one into a pillow.  

How could I resist the call of the star?

Of course, I constructed the diamond sections from memory instead of hunting up a reference to work from.  And being me, I needlessly complicated it by making the points of them different colors.

But here I am with diamonds to play with. 

Trying out different layouts.  Yellow to the inside, or purple?

Or why not both?

And now that I've got that out of my system, I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

(I have no idea what I'll use this for.  Maybe a center for a medallion quilt?  Ah, well, that's for the future.)

Even my squirrels are procrastinating these days

Though even my tangents are starting to develop tangents, I think.

I did get a few more Jacks blocks sewn for the RSC.  Since I'm cutting out red squares and triangles for Sand Castles 2 anyway, it's easy to just cut a few extra and make another Jacks.

I really need to get the Jacks bin down and count my blocks, though.  Seems like I decided long ago that I had enough blocks, but here I am still making them...

While I was scrumbling around in my fabric looking for RSC candidates, I came across the bacon fabric I got for the back of my dad's quilt.

 It just hooted and waved at me until I agreed to make a cake stand with it.  Who can argue with bacon?

My other sewing time pretty much went to sewing more 4-patches for Sand Castles 2,

and I've started string piecing the corner triangles for the blocks, figuring it will be less onerous a task if I get a head start on it.  (My method is here.)

In my typical mingy fashion, when I have strips that are too short, I just sew them together to make a longer string.

And then this squirrel came out of nowhere and I ended up watching a metric butt-ton of rulerwork quilting videos.  I have a bunch of quilts that I want to get quilted where working with a ruler would be perfect. (Especially as wobbly as my free-motion non-skills are...)  Had to give it a try!

I was smart enough to keep it small scale.  I cut two 10" squares of scrap fabric and backed them with squares of batting.

My first experiment was on this fabric where the quilting wouldn't show.  (Am I not wise in the ways of quilting?)  I didn't mark anything, just practiced sewing along the edge of the ruler.

For side two, I actually made some marks to keep me in line.  (That's what those little flashes of orange are - a washable marker)

You can see the quilting better from the back sides where I'm marking darts.

And ta-da!  For my practice piece, I actually made something useful!  A microwave bowl cozy, which is something that I'd been coveting all along!

And since it was a practice piece, I won't even mind if I spill gravy all over it!

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  I'm late to the parties as usual, but come see the fun!

Well, maybe just one new project. Or, umm, two...

Did anyone else accidentally start Bonnie Hunter's new leader/ender challenge?  (Well, some of you might have started on purpose.  I just sort of seem to fall into these things without really noticing...)

I'll just make one block, I told myself.  You know, as a sample.  

You can see where this is going, right?

Bonnie is calling this "Easy Breezy", but my brain insists on saying "Easy Peasy", so I guess I'll be sticking with that.

Because it sure was easy peasy to end up with a whole plateful of blocks cut and ready to go.

In RSC news, I got another catch-up block done for PSP20.  (I completely deny this was so I had an excuse to sew some new leader/enders together.)

Now I've just got January's light green to do and I'll be all caught up!

And you know how in my last post I showed you I was a winner?  Well, I'm an even bigger winner now - Sally T drew my name for her Table Scraps giveaway and sent me a huge stack of solids.  (You know how Joy's middle name is Whoosh?  Sally's middle name is Enabler.)  I see a lot more postage stamp blocks in my future.  (And maybe zippers) (and cake stands) (and maybe friendship stars?)

And then apparently Molly decided to add a few scraps of her own, so I've got some lovely kitty bits to play with, too.

And since the fabrics were all just Right There -

I may have to stop kidding myself about whether I've started that Cake Stand quilt or not.

Sally's last laugh was this print -

just to make sure I don't run out of squirrels.  (I think that one might make a good background for when the RSC gets around to red month.)

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday, and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come enjoy the scrappy fun!

Logging loonily away

I've been chugging along with my little log squirrels cabins, accumulating a nice bunch of them.

Since I'm just making log cabin blocks for the heck of it, without a clear plan, it's unclear how many I'm going to need.

Of course, since I had bits left over -

I might as well keep going.

And I did.  I've got thirty done so far.

(Or rather, I've got 29 and 11/13ths blocks done.  If you look really carefully at the one in the upper right corner, you'll see that the last two dark pieces are missing.

Gonna have to cut a few more bits.  Or a lot more bits.  It's still a toss-up...

Since I don't have a plan, how will I know when I'm done?



Linking with Julie's Log Cabin Loonies!  Come see all the fun!

In a Pickle!

Ya know, Cathy is such a good bad good bad good bad ...umm... strong influence on me!  She says 'squirrel' and I commence to chasing.

Because look what happened...

I got pickled.

Now I've got some decisions to make.  Continue with paper piecing like I did with this pickle?
I'm not wild about the detritus.  I'd definitely go back to my usual freezer paper technique.

And I'm not so sure that hand piecing wouldn't be just as fast (or even possibly faster) than machine piecing.

I'm also thinking I might want to go a little bigger...

Since it's pink, I'll be linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday!  Come see all the fun!  There might be pickles!  And squirrels!

Holy crap! I finished something!

Yes, even I can manage a finish now and then.  Well, mostly then.  But for once, now!
Yeehaw!

Usually when I'm hit by a squirrel, I want to start something new.  In this case, the squirrel wanted me to grab an old project and see it through.
Remember this  project?  I had a sudden urge to quilt it (but not to photograph the quilting process), which I proceeded to do yesterday and today.
 

And I even tried out a different kind of binding that I'd been wanting to play with. 

I made a flanged binding, using the yellow/orange dots as a constant fabric for the flange, and a variety of orange prints for the main binding fabric.  (There are lots of tutorials available for this binding.  Here's one now.)  Since this was for a relatively flat table runner, I made my strips narrower - the yellow was 1.5" and the oranges were 1.25".  It worked perfectly!

Normally when I get ready to sew a binding on, I compulsively measure it and remeasure it to make sure it's long enough.  This time I decided to just let it be a surprise.

Phew!  It was a happy surprise!  Plenty left over.

You can sort of see the quilting here -

I used green thread and straight lines in the background, spacing them randomly 1/4" to 1" apart, then free-motioned curved "pumpkin ribs" in orange thread on the pumpkins themselves.

And here's my finished Pumpkin Patch.

 Complete with the required toes...

Gotta go mark it on the calendar, now: "Feb 28, 2017 - actually finished something!"