More Challenges ahead!

I'm continuing to try to catch up with those 365 Challenge blocks.  What's been working really well so far is to kit up blocks ahead of time, then sit down to sew and just buzz right through three to five blocks.

The challenge is set up to be a learning experience, so a technique will be used in a simple block, then expanded on in increasingly more complex blocks.
And while I enjoy a joke mitered corner as much as the next person, I was happy to see an end coming to that particular technique.

Here's March 16th, for instance:

Take a moment and count those miters.  Sixteen, folks.  Sixteen mitered corners in one 6" block.  (Could have been worse.  Could have been a 3" block like the majority of the blocks we've been making for this challenge.  But still...)

This block for the 17th was a little better, another 6" block with only 8 mitered corners.

(And hey, there's a first - saying  "Oh, this block wasn't so bad - only 8 mitered corners in it!")

So when the blocks for the 18th through 20th had no mitered corners at all, I blew a huge sigh of relief.  Back to 3" blocks?  No problem!

The block for the 20th (the one at the bottom of the picture) was actually a choice of two blocks, one for the southern hemisphere and one for the northern.   We of the Northern persuasion got Rosebud, rather than Autumn Flurries for the folks on the other side of the equator.  (Rosebud was a fun little block to make.  I'm thinking I'm going to make more of them some day.  Given my tendencies, I'll probably end up making a lot more of them some day...)

Something I touched on briefly the other day was how I was using my Easy Angle ruler (don't leave home without it!) to cut triangles, rather than doing flippy corners, and other cutting shortcuts that were a little less wasteful of fabric.   Another thing is I'm doing is taking advantage of my precut strips wherever I can.  A lot of blocks in this quilt use 1" strips and squares, as well as 1.25" ones; neither is a size I keep on hand.  But the sizes I do cut and keep on hand (1.5", 2", and 2.5") work out just fine.  When I need 1" or 1.25" pieces, I just reach for a 2.5" strip.  If I split that 2.5" down the middle, I get two 1.25" strips;  if I slice off 1" from the width of the strip, the remainder is 1.5" wide and can go right into the 1.5" pile.  So far it's worked pretty well, and I've been pulling from the little bin of strips that I packed up to bring along.  (I only grabbed a few FQs and F8s, because it started to look like I'd pack my whole stash of reds, blues, and browns if I didn't rein in a bit.  Well, rein in a lot, actually.)

Now if only I'd been a bit more successful when I was packing this little fellow.

Check out his butt.  There's supposed to be a strip of background just under his tail, but either I didn't cut one (which seems unlikely since at this point I could cut out one of these little cuties in my sleep) or I left the piece on the cutting table at home (much more likely.)  At least it doesn't seem to be here, so this little guy is getting set aside to be completed at a later date.

He was a good little leader/ender while he lasted.


I'll be linking to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come see all the pretties!