Even my squirrels are procrastinating these days

Though even my tangents are starting to develop tangents, I think.

I did get a few more Jacks blocks sewn for the RSC.  Since I'm cutting out red squares and triangles for Sand Castles 2 anyway, it's easy to just cut a few extra and make another Jacks.

I really need to get the Jacks bin down and count my blocks, though.  Seems like I decided long ago that I had enough blocks, but here I am still making them...

While I was scrumbling around in my fabric looking for RSC candidates, I came across the bacon fabric I got for the back of my dad's quilt.

 It just hooted and waved at me until I agreed to make a cake stand with it.  Who can argue with bacon?

My other sewing time pretty much went to sewing more 4-patches for Sand Castles 2,

and I've started string piecing the corner triangles for the blocks, figuring it will be less onerous a task if I get a head start on it.  (My method is here.)

In my typical mingy fashion, when I have strips that are too short, I just sew them together to make a longer string.

And then this squirrel came out of nowhere and I ended up watching a metric butt-ton of rulerwork quilting videos.  I have a bunch of quilts that I want to get quilted where working with a ruler would be perfect. (Especially as wobbly as my free-motion non-skills are...)  Had to give it a try!

I was smart enough to keep it small scale.  I cut two 10" squares of scrap fabric and backed them with squares of batting.

My first experiment was on this fabric where the quilting wouldn't show.  (Am I not wise in the ways of quilting?)  I didn't mark anything, just practiced sewing along the edge of the ruler.

For side two, I actually made some marks to keep me in line.  (That's what those little flashes of orange are - a washable marker)

You can see the quilting better from the back sides where I'm marking darts.

And ta-da!  For my practice piece, I actually made something useful!  A microwave bowl cozy, which is something that I'd been coveting all along!

And since it was a practice piece, I won't even mind if I spill gravy all over it!

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  I'm late to the parties as usual, but come see the fun!

Goofing off lately

 After that last huge push to finish the Totally Demented top, I needed some down time.  Mostly I've been cutting squares for postage stamps and for 4-patches (I'm going to need a bunch for Sand Castles 2), but I did manage to stitch up a couple of red cake stands for the RSC.

I've also been putting in some quality time fussy-cutting pieces for my La Passacaglia.  (Still unstarted - I'm just assembling lots of bits and getting ready to start stitching)

I'm planning to hand-stitch La Pas, but there's been a complication.

My stepmom brought home these two young hooligans the other day and they insist that my lap is the only possible place for napping.

Might make stitching a trifle awkward...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see the fun!

(Our beloved old cat Lynx went out for his usual evening ramble about 6 weeks ago and never came back.  We held our breath for the first week, hoping he'd come sauntering through the door, but as time passed we lost heart.  Since life without a cat is too horrible to contemplate, we've now got these two little kitties diligently training us in the fine art of Kitten Care.)  (And I've got the claw marks to prove it)

My quilt has overpowered my design wall

 I've now got all four quadrants of Totally Demented put together and up on the design wall.

With ...umm ...parts of it draped artistically over the design floor.  And also flapping casually in the breeze off to the right.

This puppy is big.

As I finished each quadrant, I hung it up on the wall and tried to ignore the theme from Jaws that was now playing in the back of my head.  And getting louder.

Each quarter of the quilt is 48x48", and it's going to finish up at 96x96".

The thought of trying to wrestle that bulk through the harp of my sewing machine made me realize that I really would be totally demented by the finish.

Also bald.  From ripping my hair out as I cursed into the sky.

I calmed down considerably when it dawned on me that I can just quilt each quad separately and sew them all together afterward.

Aha!  I have a plan!

What could possibly go wrong?

(Shhh!  Don't tell me!)

Phew! One extra!

I diligently sewed all those blocks together and ended up with one left over!  (Usually if I'm off, it goes the other way for me.)

I turned 256 of those blocks into 64 of these -

and then grouped those blocks by fours  -

and then kept going

and going

until I ran out of design wall when I'd hung up 9 out of the 16 big blocks.

Now I'm sewing those together by fours.

Luckily I only need four of these megablocks.  Almost there!

My RSC blocks came in handy for leader/enders during all that HST madness.

Two cake stands in red -

and a postage stamp block.

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all our scrappy goodness!