UFOs trying to be WIPs

I've been watching my friend Chantal diligently working on her Challenge 365 quilt blocks and envying her progress.
It finally dawned on me that I'd be making progress, too, if I got off my derriere and actually worked on my blocks...
Wading back through photos and blog posts, I decided that the last block I had made was for May 30.  One more block finished May -

and then I started June in motion.

I'm making this quilt in blues, reds, and browns only - a definite departure from my usual color scheme of chaotic rainbows.   I'm trying to decide if this exercise in control is character-developing or crazy-making.  (I keep having to spat my own hand when I reach for the oranges and purples.)

And another semi-long-lost project called for some attention, too.  On Ringo Lake (last year's Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt) was last seen back in February, duking it out with Burgoyne Surrounded.

Burgoyne kicked Ringo's butt and Ringo ended up rolled up in a ball and abandoned set aside.  Burgoyne is now a flimsy (sort of - it still lacks a border) (but I have a plan!) and now Ringo is clamoring for a turn.  Fair's fair, after all.
So I've pulled out the bin of component parts that I stitched up last winter and now I'm figuring how many blocks I want to put together.
With the next mystery getting close to starting, I'd feel a lot better if I got this quilt at least to flimsy stage. 
Even if it's just a lap quilt.  Finished is finished, right?

Linking with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap, because scrappy is my life!  Come join the fun!

Burgoyning again

Now that Are We There Yet isn't sucking up all my available time, a few other projects have been perking up to the surface.

This knitting project bag is actually something I finished a couple of weeks ago, but I had to wait to show it until I had given it to the friend for whom it was intended.

(I really really really didn't want to spoil the surprise!)  (And yes, it's another of the Retreat bags, like I was making here.)

I'm still puttering along with the 365 Challenge blocks.

I only lack one more of these 6" blocks to be caught up to the end of May.  I think these larger blocks are done at the end of June, then it's back to the 3" blocks that seem to go together a bit faster.  (Well, they do for me anyway)

And since Are We There Yet is up off the design floor (I've pinned the two halves together, but haven't committed to stitching the seam yet.  The sensible part of my brain is still trying to convince me to just stick with the parallel vertical lines of quilting that was my original plan, while the less sensible part (aka The Part that Gets Me in Trouble) is holding out for that ever-so-cool idea to quilt it in a continuous square spiral. ), I grabbed my newest Burgoyne block (#15)

and some 1.5" strips and squares

and laid everything out for a good look.

I still haven't decided whether I'll go with this narrow sashing, or with the 3" sashing with nine-patches for cornerstones.  I'll mock up the wider version, too, at some point soon, but considering the fact that these blocks finish at 15" without the sashing, that's a lot of quilt laying there, even in this compressed version.  I may have to go out in the yard to find room to lay out the big one...

I'm also got some other sewing projects going on - costume pieces, etc - that aren't yet at an interesting phase.  More on that later!

(And for those of you wondering about my adventures post, one of our elderly alpacas had to be put to sleep, and we were donating the body to the local veterinary college to benefit the students, the sweet corn was for the pigs, and my dad's vehicle of choice happens to be a truck with a dump bed.  So it was all perfectly logical, for some definitions of logical.)

Linking up with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  (I'm also hoping to get back on track with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, especially since this month is ORANGE!!!)

Not there yet, but trying to catch up!

Busy busy busy!  I kept thinking I'd get a post thrown up (not in the vomiting sense) (well, considering how many pictures this post has, maybe it kind of is...), but didn't get it done.

I've actually been madly knitting and sewing here in the background, but some of those projects are for gifts and I don't want to spoil any surprises.  But I did manage to get some blogable stuff done.

I'd fallen behind on the Temecula Marvelous Monday Minis, but am now all caught up again.
This Anvil block from the beginning of the month was fussy, but doable.

 But when I saw the next week's mini log cabins using a 1" center square and 3/4" strips, I noped right into another plan.

Sewing together the ends of two 1" strips, I then trimmed the red square to 3/4" from the seam (to be that 1" center) and cut the light 1/2" away from the seam.  That was a whole lot easier than sewing a 3/4"x1" strip to a 1" square, I'll tell ya.

I proceeded with that same strategy, sewing my block-in-progress to progressively wider strips,

and trimming them to size afterward.

And just because I can't leave well enough alone, I made a second block using the traditional half-light/half-dark sequence.

And ended up with two rather nice log cabins, which gives me an extra block if I need one.

Then a quick shoo-fly for this week's block, and I'm all caught up.  Yay!

I even managed to get some blocks done for the 365 Challenge that I started (and floundered) last year.

That takes me almost to the end of May, so I'm only a summer behind now!  This could still happen!

And there was considerable work done on Are We There Yet, even though I made some epic fails that slowed things down a bit.
Like this block that I knew perfectly well what size grid was needed, but grabbed the bin of the wrong size strips anyway.  Directions?  Who needs directions?

Once I made the block the correct size, things went a lot smoother.

Of course, they weren't going quite as smoothly as I thought they were, since I discovered I'd left another mistake in my wake.

 There's a strip of checkerboard that's 1x14 (the blue arrows show the top and bottom of it) that I sewed in upside down, so some of the checkers are incorrectly boarded.
I went back through my photos and discovered that I'd laid out that section right, but had flipped it somewhere in the process of sewing things together.

My seam ripper is my best friend...

There.   That's better.

And now -

It's together, except for one last long vertical seam that joins the left side to the right side.  My original plan was to quilt it in sections and sew that seam afterward, then add the borders and quilt them.   But I just saw a tutorial the other day on quilting in a square spiral, and now I'm thinking that maybe that's what I want, instead of the straight vertical lines that I'd intended.
You all knew that I'd have to have one final dither about this quilt, right?

And I have a few leftovers from all the effort.

There's that too-small pluses block,  and there's an extra log cabin which I'd purposely made in case there was trouble in making the blocks show up against whatever sashing color I ended up with.  Then there's that leftover pineapple, which is a sad sad tale.  I'd been working on the pineapple blocks as I went along, since they're so labor intensive and fiddly that I know I would have burnt out on them if I'd done them all at once.  But they'd gotten a bit scattered, what with being a leader/ender among all the other Long Time Gone blocks.  When I had them almost done, I counted them.  Then I counted them again because I was one short.  Then I counted them again because I couldn't possibly be one short because that would mean I'd have to make another one.  From scratch.  And I was one short every time I counted.
Some of you may have heard the sound I made at that point - it was a cross between a scream and a sob.
But I pulled myself together and made a whole 'nother pineapple block, grumbling all the way, and added it to the stack.
And then counted them again.
And had one extra.
And then I made a whole different kind of noise - a sort of high-pitched keening that set all the local dogs to howling and made all the babies cry...


Linking with Quilting is more fun than Housework for this week's Oh Scrap!  Come join the 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!

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?)

Finally home again

My visit ended up being a bit longer than originally planned, but finally I'm home and reunited with my stash.  Oh, and with my folks, of course.  And the cat.
Now that I'm back on my own computer, I'm going to try to tie up a few loose ends for June as July bears down upon us.

First, the last of June's piggies, which I would have posted on Saturday for ScrapHappy Saturday...

 And I think these are all the rest of the May 365 Challenge blocks I've made, including some I'd forgotten to show.

I think I'm caught up through the 15th of May, which sounded pretty good to me until I remembered that it's nearly the end of June...
Though it wasn't all sewing while I was in Maryland.  There was another trip to the botanical garden (I could go every week, I think, and enjoy each visit just as much as the last!)  I did a lot of stopping to smell the roses,

while my grandson took a more active approach to the day.

There's a terrific maze next to the Japanese Garden, which most people walk.  Our young Mr C preferred it at high speed.

Back at the ranch, there was an interesting foray into the realm of rhubarb cocktails -

though I stuck with beer.  Pink is real nice and all, but not what I want in a beverage.

There were several monkeys, but this is the only one who stood still long enough to get a picture.

And I completely missed the boat on Log Cabin Loonies.  I did manage to get a few thrown together.  Though you'll notice that one of them is one log short of a cabin.

That may be my new favorite euphemism...