March goal roundup

Time to look at my March goals - I know I've not done well with these, though I don't worry about it, as I got a lot done in other arenas, which balances out...

• 5 Farmer's Wife blocks - didn't do any of these. I decided that I really like the idea of this quilt in principle, but in practice, it's not really me. I'm going to give it up.
  
• March blocks for block lotto - done. 
• at least one charity quilt top (again, if possible, using a piece from the 1/2 metre stash) - a couple of tops made. A scrappy strippy top (plus the blocks for another, which I will put together soon), and one made from scrappy HST units. Plus loads of scrappy log cabin blocks, which I have yet to put into a top (or several tops - there are lots of blocks!)
• circular flying geese block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. (Pink this month) - not yet, but it's on the list for the Easter holiday
• work on Cat Quilt some more - no.

As I said, though, I have made great progress in other areas, especially in clearing out scraps. I've now made about a jillion scrappy log cabin blocks, and cut about 3000 2" squares - lord knows what I'll do with those, but enders and leaders projects loom, I'm sure.

So, April.  I have high hopes for April, as it begins with a two-week holiday. There may be lots of sewing, especially if the weather stays a bit blah. Still, I am going to be reasonable about my goals

• April blocks for block lotto
• circular flying geese blocks for March and April
• at least one charity quilt top
• two baby quilts quilted

Cross-stitch update

I didn't spend a lot of time working on the cross-stitch this week, but did manage to get a fair bit of the light brown pavement filled in, and some backstitching in the windows. Slowly but surely. I've been so tired this week, with one thing and another, that a lot of nights I've just watched telly with no cross-stitch!

More log cabins

So, this weekend was full of more cutting of 2" squares (I now have 24 neat little piles of 100 squares - please don't ask what I intend to do with them all - I haven't got that far yet!) and more sewing of scrappy log cabins - this stack has 46 of them - doesn't include the ones I made last weekend!  There is actually an end in sight to the strips and bits, but there will be another good handful of cabins before I get there, as I have a stack of partially made ones on my sewing table...

Pinwheels instructions

A while back, Meredith asked about instructions for this block - unfortunately, her comments are set to no-reply, so I have no way to email her back, but perhaps if you're reading here, Meredith, you'll still be able to see this!

I don't really have a patter for this, per se, but it's easy to do.  What you need for each block is 8 rectangles 2.5x4.5" of the background fabric and 4 squares 2.5x2.5" of the pinwheel fabric.  Then you use the stitch across the diagonal method with half the rectangles and all of the squares - i.e. draw a diagonal line across the centres of the squares, place the square right side to at the top of one rectange and stitch across the diagonal - you can then trim and press so you have a rectangle with a triangle top - one "leg" of the windmill. Make sure you do all four with the same direction on the slant of the diagonal.

Then, just join one of these pieced rectangles to a plain rectangle and then join the resulting four square pieces into a windmill piece. It's all very straightforward and easy...  Hope that makes sense!

Cross-stitch update

As you can see, some progress this week, though I can spot an error in the purple outline of the leaf. I do enjoy designs which come along quickly!

Scrappy log cabins

My scrap basket has been bothering me, because it's been getting a bit full (not totally full, but enough) - at the start of the weekend, it looked like this.  OK, that's only about half full, but it only gets worse...

So, I decided to tackle it, in conjunction with a shoebox full of small, colour coordinated scraps (which are leftover from the last time I completely emptied the scrap basket)

and my box of scrap strips

which was looking a lot better since I made all those 12" strippy blocks, but which still had plenty of shorter strips in it. 

I decided to make scrappy log cabins, because it's a practical way to use most sizes of square and rectangle and because I like making log cabins. 

I also decided, while I was at it, to cut some of my smaller scraps into 2" squares. This is really the fault of a blogging friend, with whom I swapped some 2" squares - we each sent 100.  This may sound like a lot, but as those of you who have worked with 2" squares know, it doesn't go far. So I knew I'd need some more...

...though perhaps not 1600 more, which is how many I have now (actually, 1700, counting the ones from Indigo Blue) - each of those piles is 100, 2" squares. 

So, at the end of the weekend, I have the 16 log cabin blocks shown above (they are 8.5", to finish at 8" and are not sewn into a top yet - I'm just accumulating blocks for now), plus about 2 dozen more in various stages of creation, but not yet with enough rounds to reach the 8" mark,

a shoebox full of log cabin starters (2- round and 3-round blocks) and a lid full of small log and some centres, 

a strip bin which has fewer strips in it (you can see the bottom of the bin, in the top right hand corner of the photo), and...

an empty scrap basket. 

I will finish off some more log cabins, as long as I have strips to make logs from, but I'm sure I will have more starter pieces than I need to go with the number of logs I have - that's fine, though, I will just hang on to them to use with more scraps, as those accumulate - which I'm sure they will!  I have a basket of slightly larger scraps I can go through as well, if I feel the urge...

Strippy scrappy

Last weekend I spent a bit of time sorting out my strip scraps and using up a number of them to make this quilt top, using 12" squares - I have another 12 squares as well, which I will assemble at some point.  A quick way to use those spare strips.  Once I'd made those two dozen blocks, I didn't have any strips left which were more than 12" long - and I have plans for some of the rest of the box, later this weekend... more on that tomorrow! 

Once again, this quilt top will go to Project Linus.

Cross-stitch update

Very little work this week - just some broen around the planters, really. It's been one of those weeks!

More scrappy HSTs

Here's what I did with (most of) the rest of the HSTs from the block lotto blocks. The larger HST units use a fabric which I had some awkward shapes of - they were large triangles (sort of) and must have been the offcuts of setting triangles or something like that.  Anyway, I managed to use a fair number of those up, which is great. This is another one for the Project Linus pile, though I might use this idea again in future if I want to do some more scrapbusting and need a baby quilt -I think it works really well.

Scrappy HSTs

This month's block lotto block is a 3x3 scrappy half-square triangle unit block (with half the triangle units in a constant of white or WOW).  I made 9 for the lotto and have something else in mind for using up the other half of the units (I could have used them in the lotto, but wanted to use more scraps, so I didn't). 

Cross stitch update

Back to the wildflower this week - making good progress; the pieces with sections of the same colour always go faster than those with loads of changes...

Feb Goal Roundup

I keep forgetting that we're in a new month (repressing it, perhaps!) and that means a goal review and new goals to set.  So, here goes - what was February like?

• 5 Farmer's Wife blocks (hope springs eternal!) - didn't get any blocks done on this project. Partly this was due to being busy; partly it was due to not really wanting to work on the next block I picked out of the pot.  But you never know, I may get to it someday!
• February blocks for block lotto  - done.  The month was a heart sampler, in orange, pink, cream and grey.
• 1st Round for Cotton Robin - done. Technically done in March, but so what, it's done!  Can't show it, though I did show a tiny peek on my blog yesterday.
• at least one charity quilt top (this time, using a .5 metre piece from stash) . Done. I made three scrappy tops: a red scrappy rail fence which used up lots of little bits of red, a green stripey scrappy top, and a free-form, stack and whack four patch, which also accomplished my goal of using a 1/2 metre piece from my stash.  
• circular flying geese block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge (not sure of colour yet) - the colour was green; the block is done.
• work on Cat Quilt some more.   Nope. maybe next month.

So. Goals for March:

• 5 Farmer's Wife blocks
• March blocks for block lotto
• at least one charity quilt top (again, if possible, using a piece from the 1/2 metre stash)
• circular flying geese block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge. (Pink this month)
• work on Cat Quilt some more

Cotton Robin - first border

Here's a tiny peek at the border that I added to the centre block I received for the Cotton Robin - I can't show the centre block and although I could in theory show the whole border if I blacked out the centre, I think it's more fun to keep it secret (though I did remember to photograph for later, to blog when the round robin is completed).  Head on over to the Cotton Robin website if you want to try to figure out which centre block I received (you might be able to guess, but I promise you, this little sneak peek will give you no idea whatever of what my border looks like!)...  The centres are all shown in these posts:

http://cottonrobin.blogspot.com/2012/01/sneak-peek-1-5.html

http://cottonrobin.blogspot.com/2012/01/sneak-peek-6-10.html

http://cottonrobin.blogspot.com/2012/01/sneak-peek-11-13.html

http://cottonrobin.blogspot.com/2012/01/gangs-all-here.html