Burgoops!

Another Burgoyne block done!  I hurried to get a picture of it before the nice afternoon light faded.

Oops.  Hey, everybody, do me a favor and close your eyes and count to three!

One, two, three...

There.  That's better.

I thought I was going to quit at twelve blocks for my Burgoyne Surrounded quilt, but I've noticed that I'm still cutting components. 
Apparently, Burgoyne is going to be really surrounded...

Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the fabulous projects!

I've got a Bee in my Bonn... er, umm... Blocks

I'm so in love with this old yellow bee print that I seem to have used it in every block I made this week.
Like this Chantal's Pinwheel, for instance.

And this racing hen is just chock full of bees.

(That might explain why she's in such a hurry.)
(That's Sally T's pattern, btw.  Go here for the tutorial.  You know you want to make some racing cluckers, too.)

And Burgoyne #10 is done, also full of bees.

And cats, too, if you look closely.  It's just been a critters kind of week!


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see all the yellow fun!

Itty Bitties and more Itty Bitties

It seems most of my sewing lately has involved itty bitty pieces.  Like the second block in the Temecula Monday Mini QAL, for instance.

That whole block measures 4" unfinished.  The little block in the center?  That's a tiny 1.5" finish.   Itty bitty HSTs.  Itty.  And bitty.

And more itty bitty HSTs turn up in the 6" blocks I'm doing for the 365 Challenge.  Those little half inch triangles involve a lot of breath-holding.  And occasional swearing.

Those two put me at only a month behind in that Challenge.  Well, a year and a month, but who's counting?

For a bit of relief, I managed to sew another Burgoyne Surrounded block together.  (That's #10!)  These finish at 15", so practically feel like circus tents after all those bitty blocks.

I haven't pressed any of the above blocks, yet.  Need to get out the iron and ironing board and do a major flattening session, as you can see.

And look who turned up while I was shuffling through my scraps -

Just when I thought I'd thrown them off the trail, here come those monkeys again...



Linking up with ScrapTastic Tuesday.  Come see what everyone is up to with all their bright happy scraps!

Not starting another project. Absolutely not. Sort of.

I saw a fun looking quilt along posted on Temecula Quilts the other day, but managed to resist jumping in.  No way, got too many projects going already.  Nope nope nope.

Danger averted, yeah?

Then on Kathy's blog, I saw that she was starting the quilt along and talking up how much fun it was gonna be.  I covered my eyes and started chanting "La La La Can't see you!"

And then.  THEN I saw on Sandy's blog that she had seen Kathy's blog post about the Temecula post and was joining up and AGAIN pointing out how much fun it will be.

This was getting deep.
And it wasn't like I wasn't already cutting 1" and 1.25" strips for another totally unrelated project that I'm also not starting...

So I figured what's the harm?  Monday Mini week one -

Though it doesn't totally explain why I made three of them.

Then again, if you consider the fact that I'm mostly not making a Burgoyne Surrounded quilt but am piling up more and more bits ready to be stitched into blocks-

and have sorted those bits into kits for blocks 10-12 (because I was totally going to stop with nine blocks for this completely imaginary quilt),

then I guess it makes total sense that I would make three times as many blocks as I needed to for this new quilt along that I'm absolutely not starting.
It's only a mini after all.  How could this possibly go wrong?


Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap! - because I seem to be burying myself in scraps!

With a chick chick here...

When it came time to make a chicken block this week (I'm getting behind on my cluckers!), I reached for my stack of scrappy strips in this month's RSC color - yellow.

Then, as I thought more about yellow and chickens, it occurred to me that yellow chickens could easily be chicks.  So, lacking a pattern for a chick, I decided to wing it.  (Sorry...)

I cut pieces from 2.5" strips and from 1.5" strips, and just slapped them together.

A little squaring up, and I had a couple of cute chicks.

Though that little fellow at the top of the photo bothered me a bit.  His head had a bit of a lumpy-grumpy look.
So I grabbed Lumpy and did an emergency forehead transplant.

There.  That's better.

But when I set him down next to his little buddy Buzzy..

it looks like Buzzy will need surgery, too.

A while back, a very dear friend and I were joking about names for this chicken quilt.  I laughingly suggested something that would necessitate adding some chicks in with the hens.  Naturally, she double-dog-dared me.  So, now that I've added the chicks,  I just might have to name this quilt "Mother Cluckers".  (A double-dog-dare is a double-dog-dare, after all!)


Linking with Angela at SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come watch us play with our best yellows!

Burgoyne, bulldozers, and a healthy dose of oops...

I didn't put together a stitch of yellow this week.  Total scratch in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Though I did do a little non-sewing yellow work.

My daughter and son-in-law have birthdays 13 days apart, so this year they threw a joint birthday party.

And because 42 is the lucky number, they naturally picked a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme.  And I was rash enough to suggest that a cake shaped like a bulldozer would be perfect. 
I know, right?

Turns out that bulldozer cakes aren't really readily available commercially, so I undertook to make one myself.

And it was pretty tasty, too.

There wasn't any Vogon poetry, unfortunately, but we did squeeze in a little Vogon singing.  Or at least what we imagined Vogons would sound like if they set their poetry to music.  (It was equal parts hilarious and raucous.  The best way to sing!)


I did manage to get a bit of sewing, in amongst the baking and the frosting.  I've been trying to make some of the Challenge 365 blocks that I got behind on last year.   I dropped the ball in mid May, working on the 6"(finished) light blocks.  (I had managed to sail right along with the little 3" dark blocks.  Apparently the transition to these ginormous 6" blocks was a step too far...)

This is one of the ones that bogged me down in the first place -  I started it twice last year and ended up cursing each time.   Third time's the charm, right?

And this one also had me growling last year, but it worked this time around.

There are a couple that I'm pretty sure I had made after skipping those two, so I pushed ahead to this one.

I was really happy with it until I started getting one of those nagging little feelings that something was wrong.

Check out that ruler.  This is supposed to be a 6.5" (unfinished) block.  It's only an inch too big.
*sigh*
I had changed the techniques used in the pattern, using easy angle and companion rulers instead of what was called for, in an attempt to waste less fabric.  Unfortunately my measurements went astray somewhere along the way. 

I took another crack at it, and was a little more successful this time.

Though I really like this block, and wouldn't mind making a whole quilt of that larger size.  If only I'd written down the measurements, instead of winging it out of my head...
Oh, well, it'll make a welcome addition to the orphan box. 

And Burgoyne Number 9 is now done.

I thought I'd be able to stop there, but I've already started cutting bits for Number 10.  Stay tuned for more Burgoyning action!


Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap, and with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  (a yellow bulldozer is yellow enough for the RSC, right?)