Design Wall Monday

My design wall still has this bunch of leftovers I'm piecing for a backing.

I have some more large pieces of leftovers from my sewing this weekend so I'll be happy if I can grow this big enough today. 

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This weekend I finished this little 12 x 12 inch candle mat.

I was digging around in my one  "leftover chunks" drawer and found a strip of 2.5" squares. I think they were leftover from sashing for one of my block a day tops.  I un sewed them at every 6th seam and put 'em back together. Well, it wasn't that straight forward, of course; a couple of the red patches were right next to each other no matter how I arranged them and I didn't like the look, so I did have to un-sew and move a couple of them-no biggie.

  I used a 12" bl-a-day block for the back.

I also finished the little Christmas 9-patch quilt I started a couple weeks ago.
I was just going to do 9-patches but I love the little pinwheel quilt

I made last February
using Kathleen Tracy's design from her blog.
So I made it again with just a little change on the borders to make it a wee bit bigger.

21 x 22

I "plan" on doing some hand quilting in the outer border, I don't like the puffy non-quilted look. The rest of it was just ditch stitched on my DSM.

I'm linking up to JudyL for design wall Monday and to spend a few minutes hours checking out other design walls!

fun times, fun times....Life is Good!

Block a Days and a FLASH!!

Here are my block a days 6/28-7/4.  Paul and I are going on a little bike trip from the 3rd -5th so I'm getting ahead again.  The 5 batik blocks are 12" and the 2 Aster Manor are 10"

Here are the 10" blocks  and Batik 12" I have so far.

So...I was planning on leaving up the 10" ones and maybe working on a layout for them and even going through the calendar and finding the next 5 blocks sized 10" and make them.  

But as I was looking at the batik arrangement (I had to take the 10" ones down for the picture) I had this FLASH!

****segway****

I've started another leader/ender project using 2.5" batik squares to make 80 9-patch blocks.  I'm doing  this as part of "The 9-Patch Project" you can read about it here.  Of course, making one 9-patch blocks a day is too slow and using the leader/ender method I get 5-6 done a day with out trying so I have about 50 made already

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ok back to the FLASH:

My brain said, "what if you take some of those 9-patch blocks and use them as setting squares in the border....

and what if you put plain sashing strips in....OR WAIT use 2.5" strips for the sashing.

  

I like the plain sashing better. I think.

So now I have another new project to play with.....cuz Hell-O do I really have time for this!!!!?

that would be "no".

Oh and I did buy a lot of the black batik when we were shop hopping but I'll bet dollars to donuts I'm going to need more!

I may have to go to a quilt shop today...what a shame.

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This has nothing to do with quilting stuff. 

While on vacation, I bought a 550 piece puzzle. It was very difficult. (partly cuz I think I need new glasses...) It took Meghan and I 3 evenings to complete. 

I used that Mod Podge stuff to glue it together and framed it. I never did anything like that with a puzzle before. From across the room and with me needing an updated prescription in my glasses the puzzle pieces blend real nice....

boo-hoo, I miss the Ocean. 

Actually the shore and the sound of the waves is what I miss...I'm afraid of the ocean and all the sharks and fish and lumpy things you step on when your 20 feet off shore in only 3 feet of water but your mind starts playing the theme from Jaws

in your head...

(Yes, I know, I'm 47. I should get over it already!)

Design Wall Monday Week 5

I have crumbs on my design wall!  This is the first time I've ever tried these.  It's fun. I didn't have a big pile of little crumb pieces so I think I'll get a few more made and then they will have to be put aside until I accumulate some more.
I cut each little block to 5".  I think I'm going to sew them together into 9-patch blocks as I have them on the wall now.

I finished the Scrappy 9-Patch

and I love it!  
The quilt finished 66 x 90. 

I just have to pack my bag and I'm ready for the Spooktakular Shop Hop Bus Tour I'm going on tomorrow morning.  I still want to make a list of "want to buy". 

Yesterday and today I worked on getting all our summer clothes away and all the winter stuff out.  I also got the flannel sheets on the bed.
 

I didn't do much sewing today, besides stitching the label to the back of the 9-patch quilt.  I gave the 2 pooches bathes.   They are exhausted.  Once again I look at them and think; if I were a dog, I'd want to be my dog!

 Oh one more picture.  These are 2 little candle mats I made a couple years ago.

2 String quilt

tops complete. I was going to wait to quilt them but depending on how the day goes, I could start them soon. I'm really happy with them both. I made the top one first with a dark blue strip for the center and really like that, but I love the elongated look of the diamond one, which has a solid black strip for the center. I really didn't think about the block arrangement, as I made them. I just put them on the wall, I may have flipped a block or 2 but mostly just let it go. I'm almost finished with my Scrappy 9-patch quilt....and I'm thinking I'm going to have a lot of the solid pumpkin fabric I used for the borders and sashing leftover and I may start another one using that for the center.