2019 Finishes

Well, this was a shock! I felt like I’d accomplished a lot and had a bunch of finishes this year. As I went through my posts for 2019 I only found one finish that was posted. I do have other finishes so I will go back and post them so I can include them in this roundup.  I need to do a better job of posting my finishes in 2020.

I got 7 quilts back from a long-armer shortly before I left for the Christmas holiday and I already had 4 (I think) quilts waiting for binding. I’ve got 3 more ready for quilting.  I have one quilt at my primary long-armer which should be coming back soon because I need it for our quilt show in April. I’ve got lots of blocks ready to be assembled into quilts. One quilt is waiting for a backing so it is almost ready for the quilter. Another just needs borders sewn on and backing made and it will be ready. 2020 should have a bumper crop of finishes if I can keep up with the binding, backings and labels.

So, on to what did get finished in 2019.

The March Snowman, Going in Like a Lion, Coming Out Like a Lamb, from the Snowmen Will Melt Your Heart collection is the only one of the Snow people that was completely finished (no label yet, sigh). January, February, April, and May are ready to quilt. I finally finished the embroidery for June and it is ready for assembly. The July-December pieces are still waiting their turn for realization.

I Used to be a Layer Cake was finished in April.

Flying Home was finished in the first half of the year.

T for Two was finished in time for me to gift it when I went to Illinois in early May.

Mocha Meringue was finished in the fall.

Sweet Poison was finished sometime around mid-2019.

In the Pink was finished in late summer or fall.

9-patch blues was finished December 29.

String Weaver was finished December 28.

I think that’s it for 2019. I can’t think of anything else that was finished in 2019. I will try to post my finishes more timely in 2020.

Sweet Poison finished in 2019

My friend, Caren, said she would smack me if I gave this a “cause” name. Maybe she won’t notice when it’s hanging in our quilt show in April. All of the fabrics are high carbohydrate  foods. They may taste good but they’re all sugar in the end. The “leading” and binding are a chocolate bar print. I will be the first to admit that I eat way too much chocolate. But, as I once told my mother, life without chocolate and pizza isn’t worth living. I need to add ice cream to that.

This one was finished in the spring or early summer 2019. Sometime in 2019 anyway. It is 68″ x 68″.  I didn’t think it looked right with a border but I felt the binding should be a little wider than the .5″ sashings. I wanted to do 1″ but when I did the calculation for how wide to cut the binding (6 x width of binding + .25 for turn) it came out to 6″. That’s just plain ridiculous. The binding was cut at 4.5″ to finish as a .75″ binding.

This is a combination of two similar patterns: Kwik Krazy and Kwik Krazy II by Two Kwik Quilters. Would you believe I got them off the freebie table at guild? Half the blocks are from each one. They are available at kariejewell.com. I added the “leading” for a stained glass look. I see that she offers a similar stained glass pattern. The “leading” fabric is cut 1″ to finish .5″. I think my blocks came out to around 11″ inches or so with the addition of the leading. These are the type of pattern where you stack squares of fabric, cut them all, shuffle, then trim up to a common size at the end. I made two other tops with these patterns before this one although they are still waiting to be finished. That’s a story for another day.

Accuquilt offers a die with a similar pattern in a 10″ block (I think) for the Go! Big cutter and has just come out with one for a 6″ block that fits the Go! cutter. The patterns I used have 9 pieces per block. The Accuquilt dies have 10 pieces per block. I think I might get the 6″ block die to use for scraps but, in general, I think I prefer the larger one because you see more of each piece. I don’t have a Go! Big and no plans to get one so I’ll continue to use my patterns.

The back is more high carb foods. Gotta try to use up that stash. It’s not going to happen but I have to believe I can.

It was quilted by Maria O’Haver, Pangor Quilt Design Studio, using a candy kiss edge-to-edge design. I don’t have a picture of the quilting. Frankly, it’s very difficult to see because the prints are so busy. This quilt will be entered in our show in April 2020.

I seem to have lost the pattern. Perhaps it is with the label I chose that I haven’t made yet. I don’t know where it is, either. It will turn up. There are a limited number of places it can be. Actually I can think of only two. I haven’t looked there yet. I’ll come back and add that when it’s done. The quilt police are almost at the door.

 

When you fall off the horse …

Get back on. No, I haven’t been horse riding. The horse I fell off of was keeping notes about what I’ve done in the studio and writing about them. Even though I wasn’t keeping notes all the time, I’ve got a lot to share.

4/23 – I sorted the scrap bin from the garage. Yay! All the scraps have now been sorted and I have an empty bin to put to use doing other things.

I also completed the assembly of the fussy cut animal quilt body (i.e., no borders yet). I have since ordered and received fabric for the outer border and backing. Inner border comeing from stash. Hopefully, the piece I have is large enough. More about that soon, with pictures. Here’s a picture of the body sewn together.

4/24 – Linda, Patty and I went to the Blue House fabric sale in Westminster, MD. I didn’t find much, even at 40% off. They used to have a lot of grunge colors so I was expecting to find some of those. There was very little, nothing that interested me. The sale made me suspicious. Sure enough, a few weeks later Linda got the email that they are going out of business. Linda is sad because their fabrics were in her wheelhouse. Me, not so much.

4/25 – I had sweatshop with Polly at Spring Water Designs. I did the inking on most of my ship blocks.

When I got home that afternoon, I worked on the step-outs for my guild demo scheduled for May. The demo has since been rescheduled for August.

4/26 – Linda came over. I worked on prepping one of the Baltimore Garden bird blocks.

4/27 – Baltimore Garden class.

One of my ship blocks had bleeding from the ultra-suede. I took a deep breath and followed Vicki Welsh’s instructions and started the block soaking in hot water and Dawn (some clear version with no dyes or perfumes). The bleed did come out. Whew! Polly did like the idea of making the ship look like it was burning because the bleed looked like smoke around the masts. I’ll post pictures of all the ship blocks one of these days.

I worked on the hand stitching of the binding on the T for Two quilt.

4/28 – More work on the T for Two binding.

And, here’s where I fell off the horse. No notes for the next month. I was in Illinois for Dad’s 96th birthday so no sewing happened while I was gone. His birthday is Star Wars day (May 4th). I asked him if he knew that. He just keep saying, “Huh?” He’s extremely hearing impaired so it’s very exhausting to talk to him. Mom said she didn’t think he knew what Star Wars was. I said I’d wondered about that. He looks pretty good in this picture but he’s gotten quite frail.

Red Lobster is Dad’s favorite restaurant. He had been talking about the Red Lobster lobster fest promotion for a couple of months. He fretted because it was over. My brother and I kept telling him “if you want lobster, order lobster.” Usually he orders coconut shrimp, probably because that’s what mom orders, and then complains about the breading, insisting that it didn’t used to be so thick. Mom and I and the waitress always tell him it’s always been that way and to order something else but he never did. This time they had a new lobster and shrimp dinner so he ordered that and, as you can see, was quite happy afterwards. My brother and I also ordered it. It was pretty good. Came with corn on the cob and roasted potato wedges and some sausage. Too much for one meal but made for nice leftover meals.

My brother and the dog sacked out. Smokey is his last dog. Smokey has really declined in health since the previous dog died. Sounds like he may not last much longer. He’s the last dog because my brother wants to travel and he can’t do that with animals to care for.

I was only there a few days so Becky and I didn’t get to do our usual get together stuff. We met for dinner one night and I gave her the T for Two quilt. I wish I’d gotten better pictures of it but I didn’t.

 

A couple weeks later I was off to my guild’s spring retreat. Four days at the Black Rock Retreat in Quarryville,  PA. Actually, the retreat center is out in the country in the middle of nowhere. I took eight or nine projects just to be sure I didn’t run out of things to do. I didn’t touch two of them, which is fine. I try to take things that don’t require much thought because with 28 people in a big room, there is lots of distraction.

I assembled two smaller quilts the first day.

 

Ignore the extra bits on the left. I didn’t hang this straight enough to crop out the other project on the design wall. This 16-patch from strips from Genie’s scraps. It will be donated to charity as that is what her family wanted done with her fabric. Charity was a big part of Genie’s being. I’m calling it In the Pink.

I also assembled the Jacob’s Ladder blocks.

 

I’m working on the borders now. You can see a little of the inner borders on the sides.

The second day of retreat I assembled Sweet Poison. I don’t seem to have a photo of that. More on it when it comes back from the quilter.

I spent the third day making blocks for 9-patch Madness. I’d been using the broken dishes blocks as leader/enders the entire time. This happened.

 

It’s hard to see because of the dark fabric. This is a connecting corner square. I cut off the outer bit and then the following piece appeared out of nowhere.

 

Something definitely wrong here. This was my leader/ender. Where did it come from and why isn’t it square? Here’s why.

 

The bottom triangle is the piece I cut off the 9-Patch Madness block shown earlier. My leader/ender got caught up and sewn into the 9-Patch Madness block. Sigh. I’ve probably made every mistake in the book over time but this is a new one.

The last day of retreat is really only a half-day and not much work happens. Around 10 or 10:30 we have show and tell where we go around the room and everyone shows what they worked on. Then, it’s mostly pack up and leave because we have to be out of the room by 1 p.m.

Nothing to do with quilting but this happened. My handyman finally came over to install the ceiling fan in the living room. It’s the weird looking round thing – a bladeless fan. I also had him help finish assembling the dining room chairs.

 

He also attached my design wall to the wall. It’s no longer just leaning against the wall. I’m beyond thrilled. I did have to move a heavy piece of furniture though so the design wall didn’t block the outlet. Bless whoever invented hand trucks and those furniture slider things. I was able to move the cabinet all by myself.

 

I must have done other things but no idea what they were. Actually, one is the project on the left of the design wall. More about it at another time. The one on the right is the May snowman.

Last Friday Linda came over. I realized at one point that she had stopped working and packed up her stuff. I was wandering around trying to find something to focus on. I had a brainstorm and said, “I’ve got something we can do!” Here’s the result.

 

We placed all the embroidery hoops I’ve been collecting for the last several years. Some I had, some came from guild freebie table, some from silent auction. Now, I have to choose fabric to fill them.

5/25 – Baltimore Garden class.

5/26 – Sew and Tell meets at my house. I cut and fused pieces for the June snowman. After S & T, I assembled the April and May snowman tops. So, during my not taking notes, I must have cut and fused the April and May snowmen pieces.

5/27 – I finished assembly of the April Snowman. No picture of the April snowman right now.

I made the back for the Genie 16-patch quilt. Was going to use a bunch of different blue fabrics but found this backing yardage, so used it. It’s an old Jinny Beyer print.

 

I also cut up the leftovers from that yardage. Some squares for the guild’s love quilts. Some for my pre-cut stash.

I started the back for Sweet Poison.

5/28 – Finished the back for Sweet Poison. Stay-stitched the edges of the top. Will have piectures when it comes back from quilter.

I nailed the hangers in the wall for the embroidery hoops. The picture I showed earlier was after this happened. When we were arranging them they were held on by blue painter’s tape. That made it easy to rearrange them until we were satisfied.

I filled two of the smaller hoops with scraps from the Sweet Poison backing.

I traced the four carrot embroidery sections for the June snowman. Selected the thread and embroidered one of them in the evening.

I cut the inner border for the Jacob’s Ladder and attached the two long sides. It occurred to me after I cut the two side borders that maybe I should miter them so the corners look better. The perfectionist in me wishes I’d done that but I’m going to live with butted corners.

The house cleaners just left so I’m going to get a late lunch and, maybe, head to the studio. I really need a cook. I’d be in hog heaven then.

 

Rite of Spring

Everyone has been asking how it got to be April already. Count me in that group. Didn’t I just report my January progress last week? I feel like I haven’t done much but I’ve been really busy doing it. Saturday I completed that annual requirement of filing income taxes. I was quite agitated by the time that was done. The Republicans’ so-called tax cut resulted in an increase in my taxes of $4500 over 2017. Yikes! I headed to the studio to calm down.

A couple of years ago I matched my floral fabrics with greens and cut strips for 16-patch blocks. It doesn’t pay to do anything but simple sewing when I’m upset so I got out the bin to finish up the blocks. There are enough blocks for many quilts. Here’s the result. These are just plopped on the way as I finished pressing them. They’re not sewn to each other or arranged or anything like that. I was much calmer after finishing these.

 

I took the previously finished blocks out of the bin and discovered that stack wasn’t just finished blocks.

 

The pile on the right is the finished blocks. The pile on the left is the blocks waiting to be completed. Oy vey! Here’s what came out of that pile on Sunday.

 

I was thinking that there were lots more finished blocks so I went digging in the UFO closet. Found this bin of completed blocks. Now, that’s more like it.

 

 

Now that ALL the blocks are finished and won’t fit into one bin, it’s time to sort them into the blocks for my quilt (all my favorite blocks, of course) and the blocks for donation quilts.

Here are random shots of other things I’ve done since the early February report.

 

First block for Baltimore Garden class still in progress. For the March class we were supposed to have the block ready for the flowers. The block is ready to have the first part of one of the flowers stitched. I got a start on the freezer paper pieces for our April class homework. I don’t think I’m going to be ready to sew a bird’s eye by class time.

 

4-patches from 1.5″ squares.

I laid out blocks I made a couple of years ago at retreat. I laid them out at retreat and had one left over. Someone said I had to make more to finish another row. So, I brought it home and made the blocks but it sat. I neglected to take a photo of it on the design wall. It’s now packed up to go to retreat next month for block assembly. I’ll save the border work till I get home from retreat.

 

4-patches made from the leftovers of the blocks I forgot to take a picture of.

 

Some string blocks.

 

More string blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

Blocks for the checkerboard top.

 

Laid out the Sweet Poison blocks and trimmed them to size.

Made some pink 16-patch blocks.

Got the borders on Mocha Meringue and made the back with leftovers and some added fabric from stash.

Assembled these 9-patch blocks and added a border. This started with already made blocks from the freebie table at guild. I made a flannel back for it so it’s ready for the quilter.

 

Went to Target this morning and got some Command picture hanging strips so I could get my memo boards up. This door is at the bottom of the stairs so I will see it first thing when I go into the studio. My Target is being renovated so everything has been moved around. While I was looking for what I needed, I found those cute hexagon wood magnets and the pins with hooks. Do I need the hooks? Beats me but now I have them. I must have dry erase markers somewhere but Target had these neat ones that have a magnet and eraser built in. The dry erase boards are magnetic so that’s perfect. I’ve already filled up the bottom board with things that are pending just laying around the studio waiting for a turn. The top board contains the tasks that need to be done next. If the boards stay stuck to the door I’ll be a happy camper. In the process I discovered that the door doesn’t latch securely so pressing on it pushes it open even if it is closed. Have to get my handyman on that next time he’s here.

Things I don’t have pictures of: February snowman is fused. March snowman is ready for binding and needs the coal pieces added. Haven’t started April and it looks like maybe it’s going to get skipped for now.

Clown school: I made a list in January of tasks to do each month and lost it. I did get the background pieced. That was so hard. Cut 2 pieces of fabric and sew them together. Now I need large pieces of fusible web. I think I bought a roll of the long stuff so I need to find it and see if it’s big enough.

Ladies of the Sea: I did get the final ship done. Discovered that I used two stands of floss for some of the embroidery then got confused and switched to one strand. I have to go back and redo about 3 bits on one of the sails so they all match. Polly thought I could leave the big sail as it is since it has two rows of tell-tails. I realize y’all have no idea what I’m talking about but it’ll show up here one day.

Looks like I’ve done more than I thought. Now that the memo board is up I can make notes about what I’ve done when leaving the studio.

 

 

Good Fortune: Clue 4

This week Bonnie asked us to do string piecing. I love string piecing but I don’t have much in the way of orange strings. I need orange strings because I want to do Bonnie’s pumpkin quilt. I decided to go with the  strip piecing option for the mystery quilt. As I cut each fabric with my Stripology ruler I used the straightening cut as an opportunity to cut strings for the pumpkin quilt. I also cut 1.5″, 2″ and 2.5″ strips for my strip stash. I have a new addition to my fabric room for storing these. More about that in a future post.

In order to get a scrappier look I cut them into short strips to get 1-2 segments from each strip set.

The strips are laid out, ready to combine into strip sets. I think I should be able to get strip sets that are all different combinations, theoretically. However, I suck at being random. I got what I got so it will have to do.

All done. This was a very quick clue to make. I cut the strips Friday afternoon and finished sewing mid-afternoon on Saturday.

I wasn’t ready to stop sewing Saturday after I finished the clue so I put the borders on this string quilt. I told you I like doing string piecing. I’m calling this one String Weaver.

I also finished the last of the Sweet Poison blocks. They are the ones on the left. The ones on the right were done earlier but not shown yet. Now that project is ready for layout.

Along the way these leader/enders were sewn.

As well as these 16-patch blocks.

That’s the end of my machine sewing for the year. My two Janome machines are going in for maintenance and repair on Monday. That means the next time I can work on a mystery clue is January. I hope she doesn’t do a rapid finish this year. I’d like to catch up before I know what the final result looks like.

This week will be spent getting ready for the holidays. If I find time maybe I can make myself work on one of the Ladies of the Sea blocks.

Thanks for visiting. I’d love for you to leave a comment.

Visit Bonnie Hunter’s blog to see what other mystery quilt makers are sharing.

Back to Ringo Lake

Some time ago I sat down and designed my back for On Ringo Lake. For Bonnie’s mystery quilts, my habit is to blow up a block from the front to make the back. I was so pleased that it went so smoothly. I cut the first pieces, then had to set it aside for other obligations. I was excited to get back to making the back today.

My draft of the block with measurements.

My cutting list:

I finished cutting the pieces and put them on the design wall.

It went together very smoothly. Everything fit perfectly and it was sewn in no time. I was puzzled that it was so much smaller than I expected. On Ringo Lake is a big quilt. This block was supposed to fill most of the back expect for slab borders around the four sides.

My sketch and numbers for the back:

The numbers are all accurate except for the ones in the sketch. The correct numbers are the size of the quilt top, rather than the back. Somehow the block that I expected to be 69″ was only 39″. How did that happen? It looks like I somehow expected  3 x 13 to result in a 69″ block. Needless to say, it doesn’t. The block turned out 39″ finished as one would expect for a 9 patch where each square is 13″. I have no idea what I was thinking.

Would you believe I have a math minor? That’s pretty much a joke because I wasn’t particularly interested in math. Somehow I got to my senior year in college without thinking about a minor and discovered that I needed as many hours for a minor as a major. Something I didn’t have and couldn’t get before graduation. The solution was to find two subjects where the hours added up and go for a split minor. That’s how I got a minor in math.

So, here I am with a block that’s 30″ smaller than expected. Sigh. But, no lasting harm done. I just have to make more borders to fill out the size needed for the back. It might be more interesting that way.

I also made a couple more Sweet Poison (modified Kwik Krazy) blocks.

And more leader/ender pieces.

T for Two off to the quilter

I finally got the borders on T for Two and took it to the long-arm quilter this afternoon. Yeah!

T for Two at guild for show and tell. I couldn’t get the whole thing in the picture because there was a table in front of it. I didn’t feel like making the effort to put it up on my design wall at home at this point. I’ll take proper pictures when it is finished.

My original thought for the back of this quilt was to reflect Bill’s interest in the Civil War and Becky’s love of books. When I laid out the fabric, I realized that idea wasn’t appropriate for a bed quilt. I realized it would be best to have Becky pick out a fabric she loved for the back so she can use the quilt either side up.

When I looked at assembling the back, I decided that I had to match the print as best I could. Pretty good job, even if I do say so myself. It’s hard to see from the picture but it’s a very delicate metallic filigree design.

Here’s how I matched the print. It takes patience but wasn’t at all difficult.

I decided the match point should be the center spine of the design. I folded one of the fabrics at the chosen point closest to the selvage and pressed it.

Then I laid the fold on top of the second piece of fabric, matching the print as best I could. I used Easy Piecing seam align glue to hold the fabrics together. It worked very well for this and for matching the border print pieces on the front of the quilt.

I unfolded the top piece and carefully carried the fabric to the machine. The glue isn’t permanent so will pull apart if much pressure is put on it – this is by design. I then stitched in the crease of the fold. Toward the bottom of the picture you can see that the fabric isn’t fully opened to show the crease. That is because the glue went through. I just gently pulled it away to reveal the crease. After the seam was sewn I trimmed it to .5″ seam allowance, pulled the seam allowances apart and pressed open. After the 3 panels were sewn together, I trimmed the top and bottom so they were even (I hope).

Now I have to figure out what to use for binding. I’d like to find something that works for both sides but may end up making a two color binding.

While I was dragging my feet on the borders I accomplished these items.

Checkerboard leader/ender. Some sets of four 4-patches, some 4-patches and some twosies ready to be 4-patches.

16 more blocks for Sweet Poison. Pattern is Kwik Krazy and Kwik Krazy Too, modified to add leading strips.

My friend Caren said she’d smack me if I gave this quilt a statement name. Tough. Sugar and carbs (sugar in disguise) are poison so Sweet Poison it is – unless I come up with something I like better. While I was working on these blocks the potato chip fabric looked so good I could practically taste them. I resisted for a while but finally succumbed and bought a bag of chips to get that craving out of my system.

Now that T for Two is off my plate for a while, the world is my oyster. I can work on anything I want without feeling guilty. Yes! I have so many things to work on I almost can’t decide where to start. I’ll keep on with Sweet Poison until the blocks are finished but switch off to other items. I’d like to get On Ringo lake to the quilter before the next mystery starts the day after Thanksgiving.

Oops, I did it again!

What did I do? Let’s leave that for later.

Here’s the view from my driveway yesterday. They’ve started construction on the final group in my development which happens to be directly across the street from me. The next few months are going to be even more annoying than the last few since they’ve run out of space to store their supplies. These are the forms for the concrete walls. They poured the footers last week.

I expect to see this again tomorrow. The many, many concrete trucks line up along the street and one by one hook up to the red device which is a crane sort of thing to reach all the way to the back of the lots. It pumps the concrete into the forms.

In the meantime, here’s what’s been going on lately. I went to my guild’s 3-day fall retreat at Pecometh in Centreville, MD.

Maria, my long-arm quilter, showing what she did during the retreat.

This pile is not everything Maria made during the retreat. We decided her Indian name is “Sews Like Wind”.

Pat is testing the fit of the apron she made on one of the other attendees.

I caught this beauty resting on the sidewalk while I took a break from the sewing room.

 

The American Quilt Study Group had it’s annual seminar in Bethesda, MD. I volunteered at the bed turning where I saw this stunning quilt.

Antique quilt with crumb pieced border

Close-up of crumb pieced border. More colorful than it appears from a distance.

I got there early so got to see a lot of the quilts while I helped lay them out on the tables. There were 6 different tables. I neglected to count how many quilts were on each table. The quilts are laid one on top of the next. As the presenter finished talking about the current quilt, the helpers folded it over to stack on top of the others at the end of the table. The next time through the quilts were unfolded from the pile and talked about until all the quilts were laying flat. Repeat that process until the end of the event.

Here are some of the botanical quilts that caught my eye.

I also served as quilt police in the antique quilts made in Maryland exhibit. No, not that quilt police. This was the real quilt police to make sure none of the quilts went walkabout, keep people from touching them, no photos of the prohibited ones, etc. The pictures of these are on my camera and I haven’t downloaded them yet so no photos of them here. If you want to see some, go to Barbara Brackman’s blog.

On the home front, I finally finished this block from Anna’s Blue Baskets/Jo’s Floral Album. I don’t like this block at all. Don’t know if it’s the design, my fabric choices or both. Whatever.

The shipyard work stoppage ended and I got the embroidery done on The Golden Hind. That rigging was a pain in my be-Hind. I haven’t done the inking on any of the ship blocks yet. Polly was threatening to have me keel-hauled if the shipyard work stoppage continued.

The Golden Hind from Ladies of the Sea by Sue Garman.

Got the first border on T for Two.

While I was dragging my feet on the borders for T for Two, I got the following done.

 

On Ringo Lake. I still want to add a 3″ aqua/turquoise border to finish it off.

Leader/ender 4-patches.

Triangle gatherings 7-10, probably not in that order.

So, what was the title of this post referring to? I started yet another project. I have a whole closet full of UFOs/WIPs. The last things I need is another project. In my defense, there will be some things that just need borders and/or backs moving to the long-arm quilter as soon as I get the remaining borders on T for Two.

I picked up Kwik Krazy and Kwik Krazy Too patterns from my guild freebie table a few years ago. They are stack and slice crazy quilt blocks. I really enjoy that type of piecing. I decided to do a test block to see if it would work if I inserted a 1″ unfinished strip between the pieces for a stained glass look. Turned out surprisingly nice considering I just grabbed fairly random scraps.

Kwik Krazy test block.

I have an astounding collecting of food fabrics. I cut 36 squares from high-carb food fabrics (no repeats, of course) to make 18 blocks from each of the two patterns. I’m using unwrapped chocolate bars for the lead strips. Had to ask my friend Google if I could get more of that since I only had a half yard and it’s a few years old. I have 4 yards coming. Hope I calculated correctly so I have enough for the blocks, sashing between the blocks and binding. I’ve made the first 7 blocks. Discovered that I forgot to make sure all the fabrics were right side up before I sliced the squares up. So far, one fabric was upside down so I have to cut new pieces as I go since I started with a fat quarter and don’t have enough to cut as a square.

Blocks from Kwik Krazy Too. The blocks haven’t been trimmed to size yet.

Writing this post was yet another way to avoid putting the next border on T for Two or putting things away so the cleaners can clean tomorrow. Procrastination should be my middle name. Sigh. Hopefully I’ll feel guilty enough soon to go downstairs and cut the strips for the next border.