Pulling it together

My sister-in-law, my cousin, and I got together a couple of days ago to (finally) assemble the blocks for our town fundraiser quilt.

The three of us had fun arranging and rearranging these blocks on the design wall.  Trying to balance colors, value, and pattern made for an interesting puzzle.  It was especially fun considering that in order to reach the blocks on the top row, one of us would have to climb up on a table.  Unsurprisingly, the top row was the first one we agreed was perfect the way it was...

The blocks were made by many different contributors, at many different levels of experience, so it was a bit of a surprise that they were close enough to target size that they went together easily.  

Sashing was on, and the borders were cut and ready to attach when I had to head out.

It's now on its way to the quilter and will be ready to be raffled.  Hurray!

Meanwhile, this afternoon I cheered over this:

All the Allietare blocks are now together, and I've already got some strips cut and ready for the inner border, and some fabric set aside for the outer border.  Another hurray!  Close enough to done!

And these little monkeys kept hooting at me that I hadn't taken their picture yet.  I tried to tell them that I was pretty sure that I had, but they said nope nope nope, take one now now now.

So I did.  Can't argue with monkeys.
Well, you can, but they just ignore you.  And swing from the ceiling fan while they do it...


Linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come see what everyone's doing with scraps!

For some reason, that block bothered me...

That star block I showed in my last post irked me every time I looked at it.  Something was wrong.

Too much yellow in the background.  And that plaid block in the center (much as I love plaid) (and orange) was too loud and too dark.

Not right.  Not right at all.

So I put my thinking cap on (it's green, btw, with tassels) and decided to tone the whole thing down a bit.
Rummaging in my various piles of fall colors, I came up with this lovely batik that had all the colors from the center, and was dark enough to do the job.

There, that's better.
I didn't take anything apart - I just made flippy corners.  Nothing wrong with fast and lazy.

And feel free to point out that my idea of "toning it down" involved adding a vivid batik.  Yep.  That's me.

Just another scrappy day

Before I forget again, here's the second star block I made for our town's fundraiser quilt.  After all the Ohio stars I made last year, I think I could make this block in my sleep.  (We're not limited to making stars for the quilt - I just really really like stars...)

 I'm continuing in my efforts to catch up with the 365 Challenge, with another 5 blocks done today.

One thing that's helping me at this point is that I'm starting to accumulate a backlog of pieces leftover from other blocks.  Half square triangles, for instance, are getting easy to come by.  And several of today's set of blocks called for 1.25" squares, which happily can be cut from a 2.5" square. 
So now I'm caught up through March 10 - only 16 days behind!  I would have plowed forward with another block, but the next one in the sequence is a real bear.  I decided I'd tackle it with a clear head.

Next in line was a little boat I had cut and prepped yesterday.
I checked it carefully for stowaways...

Looks like we're all clear!  Not a single monkey on board.


But little did I know that the contagion could spread to piglets.

This poor little guy has the worst case of monkeys I've ever seen...

Linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come see what all us scrap enthusiasts are up to this week!

Second meeting of our Town Quilt Project

This afternoon, I was bound for the grange hall again, for the second meeting of our raffle quilt group.  (I finally thought to ask what we're raising money for, because that's probably important, but hey - we're making a quilt.  Who needs more than that?  Anyway, it's for the Kids' Summer Program, which is an excellent cause.)
Decisions were made for due dates, and there were stacks of fabric all over the table - some brought for sharing and some brought to be okayed for quilts.  (For several of them, this is their first experience with quiltmaking.  We who've been quilting a while welcome them to the Dark Side fold.
We're making 12" blocks using fall colors, with the pattern being quilter's choice.  I've already got one done (a star, of course) -

and my sister-in-law had two done, which I didn't think to get a picture of despite the fact I had my camera right in my pocket.  Duh.
The quilt is officially in motion, and somehow my sister-in-law, my cousin, and I ended up being the ones who'll do the sashing and assembly.  I'm not sure how that happened.  At one point, I simply found myself nodding my head in agreement, and that was that.
Hey, it's going to be fun, right?

So, meeting over, I headed for my studio to get a little sewing in.
I had to make this pig.  Just had to.

Is it just me, or does he look like he's wearing an earring?

And while I had that fabric out, I cut HSTs for my Jacks block

and for a Buckeye Beauty.

And what's one good Buckeye without another?

I occurs to me that if I was as organized as I pretend to be, I would have mentioned yesterday that whenever I've got that Easy Angle ruler in my hand, I cut some extra triangles to throw on the monkey pile.

Because with the weather getting warmer, the monkeys are starting to swarm again...

Linking to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come join the fun!