Pencil roll tutorial

How to make your own pencil/or pen roll (finally) - makes a great birthday present (along with the pens &/or pencils and a nice pad of paper) for all those kids' parties...

materials:


* 2 pieces of fabric approximately 14x26" each (size is very adjustable - see no 1 below to determine precisely). The fabric chosen for the "inside" of the pencil roll will only show about 3-4" of fabric and will sit behind the tops of the pencils, so I like to use something quite plain so it's easy to see the colour of the pencils. I like to use a more dynamic feature fabric for the "outside" though I try to avoid directional prints as they will end up partly upside down.

* 1 length of ribbon, lace, etc approximately 30" long

* thread in a colour which matches (or not) your "outer" fabric

1. First, determine the size fabric you want for your pencil roll - I have given an approximate, but it's best to check your particular pens or pencils, in case they are unusually long (or short). To determine the height, lay a pencil on the fabric as shown in the photo, with the fabric folded up about 2/3 of the way along the height of the pencil. Leaving a gap of 1-2 inches at the top, measure the height of the fabric. As you can see in the photo, the pencil will require approx 8.5" height, plus about 5" for the folded part, so I decided to cut my fabric at 14" high. The width will depend on how many pens or pencils you want to include. Each pencil takes approximately 3/4" of fabric (though it's wise to check on a scrap first before you sew - more on that below), so you can base your calculations on that. If you want to use fat quarters of fabric, that's fine - you can count on getting enough space for about two dozen pens or pencils from a fat quarter's width, though of course it depends on the FQ. In this instance, I had a dozen each pencils and pens, plus a few extras and I like to make a larger space at the end for a small ruler or a pencil sharpener, so I cut my fabric about 26" long.





2. Lay the rectangle of inside fabric face up and the outside fabric face down on top of it (landscape orientation) on the table and pin a gap of 3-4 inches at the top left edge, 2-3 inches down from the top of the fabric (left above). Starting at one pin, stitch the two pieces of fabric together all the way around like a pillowcase or envelope, finishing at the other pin (right above). Backstitch a few stitches at both start and finish to secure the threads. The gap will serve to turn the envelope, and also as a place to put fasten the tying ribbon. Turn the fabric right sides out through the opening.




3. Once you have your fabric right side out, give it a good press, especially along the edges, to flatten the seams (left above).


4. Now lay the envelope with the outside fabric face down on the table, and fold the bottom up to form the pocket - use the tallest pen or pencil to gauge the required height (right above). I have found that plain pencils are taller than coloured pencils so if you plan to use both be sure to check heights so they don't stick out the top! Make sure that the gap you used to turn the envelope is at the top left.



5. Fold the ribbon, lace etc in half and insert the folded centre into the gap as shown; pin the left edge together and top stitch to close the gap and secure the ribbon. Fold, pin and topstitch the right edge as well. This gives you a single, very long and not very useful pocket. Don't forget that at this stage and later, when stitching the individual slots, the bobbin thread will show as well as the top thread, so pick something you like. Now all that remains is to make the individual pencil compartments.



6. Along the bottom edge of the pouch, mark intervals of approximately 3/4" (you may wish to make a test pocket on scrap fabric to ensure that your chosen pens or pencils fit in a 3/4" slot - if you are making a roll to hold artist's pencils or something, they may be thicker or wider...). I do this with pins; you could mark with a marking pen or pencil, etc. I tend to do about half a dozen or so at a time, but you can mark them all at once, if you like (left below).



7. Beginning at the top right as shown (which is actually the bottom left of the finished pencil roll), stitch a series of parallel lines spaced apart the width of your markers. Backstitch a few stitches at the start of your line, and sew up to just beyond where the top of the folded pocket is - and backstitch a few more times for security at that point. I then simply lift the needle and presser foot and move to the starting point of the next line; you could trim the loose threads at the end of each line if you like, but I have found it simpler to do this at the end of entire process. Once you have stitched all your lines and trimmed your threads, that's it - you are finished - ta da!




As you can see from the photo above, I like to put a few larger pockets at one end of the roll, for a small ruler or pencil sharpener, erasers and so on. Add pens, pencils, etc and roll up - and that's really all there is to it.

Drum roll, please...

Or rather, pencil roll! As it happens, it was a lovely sew-y day today - this morning I went to my little quilt group (and the weather was nice enough to go by bike, which is extra nice) and this afternoon, I managed to make two things, despite having the man come to do the annual service on the boiler and having my shopping delivered. My exciting life!

The first thing I did was another pencil roll, and yes, I DID remember to take step-by-step photos, so look for a tutorial soon, probably next week. It's not hard, but pictures do help.

The second thing was another star for the birthday block swap, this time for Bonnie, who wanted bright bright stars on a black background, with enough black to make them appear to float. Can't believe there are only two more months of this swap - and finally, finally, it's going to be my turn - I am no 11 (i.e. April) in one group and no 12 (May) in the other two. So, less work and more post, yippee (though I have signed up to make a couple of extra blocks to replace early dropouts, so I still have a few to do in my months).



Also got a couple of purples in the post - the one on the left from Barb, the one on the right from Annette. Annette's doesn't photograph very well, due to the angelina flowers, but it's a fun card nonetheless.

Lots o' things

So, today I have finally had a day where I did some work - for one thing, I had a nice, long, uninterrupted length of time to do stuff; for another, I just felt more in the mood. So I started with a birthday block for the block swap - or rather, 16 of them. Becca had asked for stars in 3, 6, 9 or 12 inch blocks with cream backgrounds and the star fabrics in chocolate covered cherry colours - any combo of chocolate brown, burgundy and pink. I decided to go for a slightly different take on this one than my usual 12" block (or the occasional 9") and make some three inch blocks. In the end, I decided to make 16, as that's the number that cover the same area as a 12" square. The colours are somewhat more varied than in the picture - there are two different browns, a burgundy, several pinks and one colour which is a kind of purple burgundy which may or may not work for her. Anyway, it was fun.

On the right, from Leona, some brown and pink fabrics which arrived in the post today. These are in lieu of making an extra pineapple block, as she's very busy at the moment. They're pretty gorgeous.

Below, my cards for the Something starting with O swap on Arts in the Mail - I couldn't decide what O to do - all the obvious ones seemed, well, obvious. In the end, I decided to go with "orbit". I think they work...

And here's more of what I got in the post today - well, technically, I got the Purple Haze card, which is from Leah, yesterday, but who's counting... The card on the right is from Priscilla and is from the February Challenge on Arts in the Mail - the one fabric, one thread challenge. It's fun, isn't it.

Hawaiian giveaway part two

So, I've decided these will be this week's giveaways - these are 8 blocks which I made while trying out various blocks for the Hawaiian shirt quilts, which in the end I decided not to use. They are all 12" blocks - four are framed HST units, the other 4 are four patches with a narrower border around them. Although I may well be making other things from the rest of the Hawaiian shirt fabrics, I decided that I'm not mad about either of these designs, so I wouldn't be using them anyway. Maybe someone out there can put them to good use!

Anyway, most of you know the drill, but if you are new to my giveaway, all you have to do to be enterred into the draw is leave a comment on this post before Sunday.

Laugh & Log Cabins

Nothing to show of my own (I had an hour or so again today, but just didn't really feel like focussing on anything, so I read email for a little while then went back to school to sort some stuff in the library and uniform shop) but I have lots of fun things to show from the post. First, yesterday's treasure - I knew this was coming - I ordered it from Nikki Wheeler's new etsy shop as a present for a friend. Isn't it lovely?

And today, I got this parcel in the post. Remember a few days ago I got a couple of brown, black & pink pineapple blocks in the post? Well, here are the bulk of the ones that were made for me back in the autumn when Sophie started organising the project. Sophie's original intent was to put them together into a quilt and have it quilted by a longarmer friend, but with her ongoing health issues, the project had been temporarily set aside (more blocks were needed to make a larger piece), so I suggested she just send the blocks to me as they were and I will at some point put them together in some way - at the moment I am waiting to see if anyone else sends blocks along, as some women in the groups have offered to send a few more.

I also got this great brown & pink backing fabric (and coordinating pink piece) and the signature blocks from the women who made blocks for me. I'm really bowled over by them - they are great blocks (see me avoiding using the word "lovely"? I know I over-use it) and I look forward to working with them.

Blog (not blog)

Not much to say - and it's late here - will blog tomorrow with what I received in the post today and the giveaway for this week. Need to work out what it will be from the pile I still have waiting... No work done in my free hour today, so nothing interesting to show, really. Except what I got in the post, which unfortunately, isn't for me to keep anyway...

Giveaway winner - with irony! and a tag (or not)

Now, I have just used a random number generator to draw this week's winner, and I had to laugh - the result is ironic for several reasons. The first is that the person whose name has been drawn frequently claims that she isn't stash building. She also says she doesn't like to work on more than one project at a time, so it may well be a while before she can do anything with these (always supposing they get to her in the vaguaries of her country's postal system anyway). But the most ironic thing is that I had this conversation with her about the fact that leaving the first comment wouldn't necessarily increase her chances of winning - but heck, maybe it did! Oh, who is it? It's Ruth, of course! Congratulations Ruth, I'll get them on their way later this week.

Also, just to say Ana tagged me to tell seven things about myself, but as I've done it recently, I'll just put a link to it here.

Complimentary squares...

So, despite several hours spent helping with homework projects, I did get some work done - I got one of the Hawaiian quilt tops pinned together ready for quilting, and had a little practice quilting try to work out if I can incorporate things like a palm tree or a sailboat as well as waves (I think I can). Will probably try to quilt a little of it some time this week, if things go to plan.

Also worked today on two small (6") panels for the Dyehard/Surfacing quilt projects for 2008. The left one is the March one for dyehard - the instructions being to use squares or rectangles and complementary colours. I chose purple and yellow for my compliments and did a simple chequerboard of squares. And a black ring, to incorporate my black fabric and my circle theme.

The piece on the right is for the project for the suface embellishment half of the group - the instructions aren't given by month there, only in a list of techniques/materials that are supposed to be used over the year, so I have just grabbed the first technique on the list (angelina) and ran with it. I decided to carry on with the purple and yellow theme, and just did loads of overlapping circles with the two colours of angelina - started with a mistyfuse base on a black background.

So here are all three pieces so far - I have actually deconstructed the central piece - I decided that I didn't want to do the piece quilt as you go, so I have removed the satin stitching for the time being (it was holding the batting and backing on) though I may add it back later. We'll see.

Journal Quilt Project - Week 16

As I mentioned in my new goals list, I did manage to (just) finish my journal quilt for the week in time. I had intended to work on it on Friday, but of course, I lost Friday (although for once, I know precisely where the lost day went, which is a little comfort, lol). Oh well, these things happen!

Anyway, I decided to tackle it first thing this morning before taking Sarh to tennis and then Alex to a birthday party after lunch (my kids have far more social life than I do!). Many weeks I have a good idea what I want to do the JQ about, but this week, there wasn't anything that stood out, so I just went with my desire to use some of the Japanese fabrics I've started accumulating. I've been itching to do something with them, though no specific ideas just what, so I just made a few nine patches and sewed them together randomly. It was a nice, relaxing piece, with nothing more taxing to it than working out how I wanted to place the nine-patches.



And I got these two items in the post - the glue gun is because of the March challenge in the Textile Challenges group - not sure what I'm supposed to do with it, but it's a glue gun challenge and I didn't have one. I decided that if I could find one for under a fiver, I'd play along, and thanks to eBay, no problem. Now I just have to work out what I'm supposed to do!

The card is for the Purple Haze theme, from Priscilla.

Oddly enough, I was actually in a fabric store today and didn't buy anything - there's a new shop in Kingston, which I happened to be walking past, but although it has a nice selection of bits and pieces and lots of interesting fabric (but not quilting cotton) there wasn't anything I really needed - or even wanted. And the fact that I was trying to hold a cup of Starbucks coffee without dripping it in the shop probably helped keep me from trying to pick anything up...

Goals this week

So, how'd I do this week with the first week of my published goals? Pretty well, as those of you who follow along regularly may have noticed from my sidebar. Only one thing didn't get accomplished (I did my journal quilt this morning before typing this email, so it just squeaked in) and given that I had an unexpected loss of a free day (went on school trip Friday), I'm not that bothered.

• Make at least one block for the March birthdays in the birthday block swap (deadline - 31/3)
• set of 5 postcards for theme "Purple Haze" for Arts in the Mail (deadline - 5/3)
• work on "double inchies" for Fibre Art Bits (2x2 squares - 4 sets of 5 - any theme) (deadline - 25/3
• Journal Quilt for the week (deadline 8/3)
• make at least one pencil roll for one of Alex's many upcoming parties (deadline 8/3)
• finish blocks for Hawaiian Double Four Patch (3 to go!) and assemble blocks into top; assemble other two sets of Hawaiian blocks into quilt tops
• sew black/brown/red courthouse steps blocks into quilt top
• make one panel (6" square) for my dyehard/surfacing 2008 quilt project

I also did do a couple of things that weren't on the list:

• finished quilting batik baby quilt
• made sample bag for April bag challenge/made bag for Barbara's private bag swap (I'm a firm proponent of the "two birds with one stone" school)
• designed and made 9 blocks for Spring Four Seasons Quilt.

So, even I will be impressed how much I got done this week. Next week's goals list will be a bit shorter, as I have more planned for the week, so I know I won't have so much time to sew - last week I did very little during the school days besides sew - just a yoga class, WW meeting, and unpacking groceries to interrupt. Oh, and I cleaned the oven. And chased plumbers. And got a new radio fitted in the car. And of course went on the school trip. As I have a haircut this week and a quilt group meeting on Thursday morning, in addition to the usual yoga class and WW meeting (and needing to go back to the car place as I don't think the radio antenne is connected properly, although the CD works), I won't expect to get so much done (and the plumber is supposed to come on Wednesday, though he probably won't need much of my time...)

So, the new goals are:

• make at least one block for the March birthdays in the birthday block swap (deadline - 31/3)
• Journal Quilt for the week (deadline 15/3)
• make at least one pencil roll for one of Alex's many upcoming parties (deadline 15/3) and this time remember to take step-by-step photos so I can publish a tutorial
• make at least one panel (6" square) for my dyehard/surfacing 2008 quilt project
• pin together for quilting at least one of the Hawaiian shirt quilt tops
• make a set of "starts with O" postcards (deadline 15/3)
• make one dear Jane block (or rather, a pair) for my private swap with Cathi

May seem like a lot, but most of those things will only take an hour or so, so it's not too bad. I was going to leave the "O" postcards off the list, then realised they have to be posted by next Saturday, so I guess they really need to go on!

Spring Fling Butterfly

I of course didn't get any work done today - not surprising, with the school trip - but look what was waiting for me with the day's post when I got home (along with the return of the kids' US passports and birth certificates from the UK passport office, which is a relief - I always worry when that stuff is out of my possession - now it's just a matter of waiting for the new passports to arrive). This is not more nerve-wracking than the documents, but certainly more interesting - this is the Spring Fling Round Robin centre which I get to work on for the next round of the round robin. This butterfly centre was made by Marisa in Italy and is really lovely invisible machine applique, with a piece of the orange fabric enclosed to include in the next round - I have no idea what I will do with it yet, but I don't need to mail it to my next person until the 13th of April, so I have some time to think of what to do with it, or let it tell me what it wants!

All kinds of everything

Well, it's a good thing I had the entire day today (mostly) to sew as I won't be getting anything done tomorrow - I had a call this afternoon from the school asking if I could go on the trip with the year 3&4's tomorrow (Olivia is going). As my only official plans were sewing and running the school uniform shop for half an hour in the afternoon (one of the school secretaries has said she'll cover that) I felt I could hardly say no. No one can say I'm not a good mum - sacrificing an entire day with no plans but me time to travel across London on a coach full of 7, 8 & 9 year olds to visit the RAF museum... I'm sure it will be fun, right? Of course it will!

So, it's a good thing I got lots done today. First thing I did was finish up a pencil roll for the party Alex is going to on Saturday - I had one about half done from before, so that was quick. I promise a tutorial on the pencil roll fairly soon - maybe next week - several people have asked, and it's not hard, but I just need to remember to take photos as I go along. I still have 3 more to do before this series of parties is finally finished.

Then I made a block for the birthday block swap on about.com - this block is for Debbie, who wanted stars in black and taupe on a cream background. It came out nicely, I think. And then, I rewarded myself by working on something not on my goal list - the blocks for the little spring Four Seasons Sampler I was planning yesterday. I knew I wouldn't be able to leave it alone. This is why I've been keeping goal lists lately - I tend to get distracted. I usually meet all my deadlines, but sometimes things get left behind until the last minute, especially if it's something which doesn't excite me quite as much as something new. So, by keeping lists of goals and deadlines, I'll hopefully be able to keep track a little better and not worry I'm leaving something out.

Anyway, I made up the blocks for the sampler and am very happy with them - they look nice and spring-like to me. Not sure how I will arrange them (though not like in the photo as I've just noticed the shoo-fly and the churn dash next to each other and that doesn't really work). I'm going to let them sit awhile and tell me how they want to be sashed. Maybe next week I will work on them - I've got more on my schedule next week, so my goals for the week will be fewer than this week.



And finally, here's some lovely post - two blocks from Rho as part of a group of blocks that were made for me as a comfort quilt back when my dad died. The blocks haven't been put together yet, partly because there was a shortage of blocks and partly because Sophie, whose lovely idea it was in the first place had been unable to work on it for health reasons. Anyway, Sophie is sending me the blocks she had (they're in the post now, actually, unless they got held up by the tons of snow it's been dumping on Michigan lately) and a few others are sending a few more blocks along to me - these are the first of those. Aren't the colours great? (Well, you know how I feel about brown!)

And on the right, a total surprise in the post from Penny in Australia - a whole bag of goodies. And lovely goodies they are. There's a card made from fabric paper with some cute chooks on it, a "danglie" which is now hanging in my sewing room with some of my other treasures (I decided not to put it onto a keyring or my bag for fear it would break), also a little painting/drawing - looks sort of like a watercolour but not quite - not sure what it was done with but it's lovely. And a bit of lace and an inchie. I think it was Susan who said I get the nicest things in the post - today it's definitely true!

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky...

Purple haze all in my brain

Lately things just dont seem the same

Actin' funny, but I dont know why

'scuse me while I kiss the sky...

OK, the theme for the cards was to create a card using only the colour purple, but you just know I've had that song stuck in my head since I signed up, so there's no way I was going to make a Purple Haze postcard without Jimi on it. He's technically not purple as I printed him out before I remembered I was going to change him to purple, but as I have covered him with a purple sheer, he looks purple. Close enough. Otherwise, everything is purple (except the vilene in the centre of the card) - purple hand-dyed fabric front and back, purple sheer, ribbon, mesh, bits of purple paper & bits of a melted Cadbury dairy milk wrapper, purple thread, a bit of purple foamy stuff which originally came from a child's magazine, I think (it was the frame after you popped out some foam shapes or something) and a purple button. Purple angelina. What else? Oh, purple pen!

I also finished up my bag today, and it came out rather nicely if I do say so myself, but you can't see it until April - sorry.

I've also been playing with designs for my little quilt for the Spring Four Seasons Swap - my partner likes traditional quilts, so I thought I'd do a little mini sampler, with spring-like fabrics in the blocks. Not sure whether I will do a single background or just different florals and solids or what, but I'm thinking of something along these lines - each of these would be a 6" block, so I want to stick with quite simple blocks, otherwise construction is simply too fiddly. I'll have to go dig around in my stash and see what I can come up with - luckily, because the blocks are small, I won't need a large amount of any one fabric, so I should think I have enough to work from stash, even though spring florals aren't really my main interest, fabric-wise. More on this project next week or so.

Work done but not to show

Well, as I spent my working time today testing the April bag pattern for the BQL Bag Challenge, I can't really show what I've been working on. It's nearly done, though, and is yet another fun bag - you'll see it in due course! I have put up a little teaser - the photo on the right shows some of the quilting on two parts of the bag. I don't think that could be seen to give anything away...

And on the left, a postcard for the doorways swap on FAI - this one from Liz. Not a great photo, but the card has a dark grey background, which always photographs badly.

Hawaiian giveaway

OK, ok, so I can't be relied on to remember what day of the week it is! We all knew that anyway... This week's giveaway is back to fabric, as promised. This is a big zipper bag of scraps from making the Hawaiian shirt blocks. None of them is tiny - at least 1" strips or maybe 1.5" - some are as big as 4" squares maybe a little larger. I still have lots of larger pieces of the fabric, so don't worry, you aren't depriving me! As usual, if you would like this stuff, please leave a comment on this post before Sunday, when I will draw a winner.

Double inchies

A group that I belong to (Fibre Art Bits) which swaps small bits, recently organised a swap for 2" squares - which we are calling double inchies. Don't know if that's the technical term or not, but there you go.

Today I made 4 sets of 5 for swapping. They aren't identical within each set (for instance, different words - I wanted to do both "dream" and "peace" but didn't have either a D or a P in the purple beads...), but they are fairly close. All of them have fabric backgrounds and satin stitched edges, as well as fabric on the back. Otherwise, the bits vary - ribbon, stick-on bits from the scrapbooking section (I have no interest in actually scrapbooking, but I love the stuff!) , brads and copper wire on the green; flowers from a birthday card, textured paper and little buttons on the orange; ribbon, copper mesh, sequins and letter beads on the purple; lace, buttons and eyelets on the black ones (the fabric there is discharged, the others are hand-dyes).

I had fun working with these - they seemed very big after working on inchies, so the tendency was to over-crowd them; I had to restrain myself from using too many things.

Tomorrow, I'll be working on testing the April bag for the bag challenge on BQL so I won't be able to show that just yet - but maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have some interesting things in the post!

Upside down reading giveaway...

OK, ok, you don't have to read the book upside down. Although given that the winner is "down under" at the moment anyway, maybe a little upside-down reading is in order - thanks to a random number generator, our lucky winner is 6! Otherwise known as Karol-Ann. KA, I'll add it to the growing pile of stuff I'll be posting off to you once you get back on British soil. It will make a nice birthday present...

Back to something a bit more directly fabric related tomorrow.

Final Hawaiian and some island batiks

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums in the UK! For one of my mother's day presents, I got to spend some time sewing while Daddy supervised homework. Now that's a nice gift, isn't it.

Anyway, I decided to tackle a couple of the items on my list of goals - the last Hawaiian shirt quilt top is now put together - this one is smaller and square - meant as a lap quilt for my brother and his wife. Now it's just a matter of quilting them. Notice the use of the word "just" - ha.

I also put together the blocks made from the fabrics I bought for myself in San Diego. This quilt is also square and intended as a lap quilt, but it will be for me, as I love the fabrics.



Then I went and did something not on my list of goals (which is ok - they're only goals, not laws laid down by the Quilt Police) and finished quilting this little batik baby quilt. Honestly, I had forgotten about it - then I was thinking about sandwiching up the Hawaiian quilts and remembered I hadn't quite finished this one off. So I tackled the last 7 or 8 inches of quilting on it and it's now completed. Maybe one of my goals for next week will be to put binding on it!

Hawaiian Tops

Ta da - two of the four tops from the Hawaiian shirt fabrics. One of the others is already put together (the one I am keeping for myself) so it just remains to put the one with the log cabin blocks together - tomorrow, I think. I will now email my stepmom and see which of these she wants for herself, and which for my (step) grandmother so I can put the backings on and maybe start quilting. They are single bed sized quilts, more or less, so shouldn't be too hard to quilt. Not sure what I'm going to do yet for a pattern, though - maybe something with waves in it?

Goals!

Firstly, yes it's true, I didn't blog yesterday - don't panic, I'm ok, there was just nothing to say or show... I spent the day at school helping with a wheelathon and although there was a little post at home, there was nothing quilt related, so I didn't bother to blog. It happens (not very often, I know...)

I've decided that I quite liked the idea of keeping a list of goals for the week - for one thing, it does help if I have specific things that have actual deadlines. And also, it keeps me from floundering around, trying to work out what I want to work on. I've been keeping a little list on a scrap of paper for a few weeks, and as it seems to be helping, I thought I'd make it official and try to do it on my blog. So, I'm going to do it on Saturdays - probably in the morning - mainly because I decided today to do it and it's Saturday. And also because I have other things (giveaway draw, giveaway) I do on Sundays and Mondays in addition to regular blog postings. So, here's this week's list of things I'd like to accomplish. I may not get to them all, I may do some other things as well or instead, but it's a guide, that's all.

1. Make at least one block for the March birthdays in the birthday block swap (deadline - 31/3)
2. set of 5 postcards for theme "Purple Haze" for Arts in the Mail (deadline - 5/3)
3. work on "double inchies" for Fibre Art Bits (2x2 squares - 4 sets of 5 - any theme) (deadline - 25/3)
4. Journal Quilt for the week (deadline 8/3)
5. make at least one pencil roll for one of Alex's many upcoming parties (deadline 8/3)
6. finish blocks for Hawaiian Double Four Patch (3 to go!) and assemble blocks into top; assemble other two sets of Hawaiian blocks into quilt tops
7. sew black/brown/red courthouse steps blocks into quilt top
8. make one panel (6" square) for my dyehard/surfacing 2008 quilt project

That's enough. I actually, as it happens, have done part of one of these things already, but I did write the list this morning before I did any sewing - I just didn't blog it until now!