Even when I'm not chasing rainbows, I can still manage to keep busy

One of the fun projects I've been working on this year is the 365 Challenge - a sampler quilt made from 365 blocks, one for each day of the year.
Today's block, Flock of Geese, required lots of tiny little HSTs in two sizes.
I was using my usual cutting ruler to trim them, which was an arduous process at best.  Trying to line up the corner of that big ruler along the diagonal seamline, not once but twice for each HST, was a royal pain in the butt.

I reached for my trusty handy-dandy small ruler, thinking it would make things easier.

Nope.  The hashmarks were hard to line up (these squares are 1.25") and there's no diagonal line on this ruler either.  I love the little thing, but not for this task.
Then I happened to remember a tiny little ruler that I had bought years ago and hadn't used in probably a decade.  Since it was in my ruler drawer, I had to close my eyes and feel around for it, so I didn't accidentally grab my kaleidoscope ruler and take off making kaleidoscope blocks again.  Seriously, that ruler is just plain dangerous.
And voila!  Tiny little ruler, easy to read markings, AND a 45 degree angle marked in the corner.  I could have kissed it!

The rest of those bitsy triangles went very smoothly.

And here's block 31 for my 365 sampler - Flock of Geese.

And here's the last five blocks.

Take a close look at those two blocks in the center of the photo.

These are actually the same block, using different colors in the setting.  This is one of the things that I find endlessly fascinating about quilting - the same pattern can change fundamentally just by switching around colors and values.  Even simple blocks have enormous possibilities.

So as long as I'm flashing blocks - here are the first 30 blocks.  This is everything but today's block.

I'm really enjoying working with a limited palette of red, blue, and brown.  It's been handy having my blues out for RSC's January color, and the reds are still out from Allietare.  I just bought a few browns (charms and fat quarters and eighths) because I was a little skimpy in that area, and I think that's going to be handy for February since Angela's blog background just shifted to a suspiciously brown color...  Red-blue-brown is a color combination that has always attracted me, so this is just a perfect venue for it.

And I got more Twinkly goodness assembled today.  Another column of blocks (the middle) are sewn together, and the vertical sashing strips on either side are put together, too.  The next step is to join those bits together to form a middle section, then I'll sew the right hand side blocks together like I've done for the left.  I think it'll be easier to wrangle three sections than to keep sewing columns one by one onto a main part.  (I briefly considered 'webbing' the quilt, but then realized I'd be a bundle of nerves trying not to get something out of order or backwards.  My slow and steady one-piece-at-a-time approach is working just fine, and I'm quite happy with it.)

I even got a couple more Allietare blocks done, but I'm not going to bother taking a photo since they look pretty similar.   Once Big Twinkle comes up off the design floor, I'll lay out Allietare and take a group photo.

I did, however, take a photo of this little interloper.

Frankly, he insisted.  Blue and purple and orange and green monkeys can be so pushy...


I'll be linking with Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is More Fun than Housework on Sunday morning.  Come see all the scrappy fun!