And now for some purple stars

I still don't know what this block is called.  

But I like it.  (There's that sneaky foot of mine again...)
My intention had been to make even numbers of the two kinds of blocks - stars with dark points and stars with light point - but obviously I failed.  Now I have to decide if I care enough to round them out by making two more light-point-stars blocks.
While I'm thinking about it, here's a look at all the stars I've got done so far.

These are 6" blocks, so I'm going to need quite a lot of them to make a quilt bigger than a dishtowel.  I think I'll just carry on and not worry about it, since this is probably a multi-year RSC project.

One of the things I'm doing this year, since I've got such a ridiculous number of Rainbows going on, is to make the most of my fabric cutting time.
For instance, for the block on the left (known variously as Jacks and Sixes, Anvil, Hovering Hawk, The Daily Planet...  No, wait, that's something else.  Nevermind.) I need to cut 6 half-square triangles, which is actually kind of awkward.  I can either cut the triangles one at a time from a single layer of fabric strip (nope), or I can double the strip, cut my three pairs of triangles, and end up with a point on the end of the strip.  Seriously, I really might as well cut four pairs of triangles and have a set left over.
And looky there - Buckeye Beauty needs two HSTs.  I think we have a winner.

I love pretending I'm organized.

And here's this week's piglet, made with that luscious plaid? argyle? print.

His ears, feet, nose, and tail are much darker and purpler than this photo shows, but my camera doesn't like purple as much as I do and frequently refuses to show it. 
The non-showing-up-well print I used is a scrap from my grandmother, leftover from a purple quilt she made for one of my cousins many decades years ago.  I'm pleased that it's going to end up in a quilt that I'm making for my dad.   Circles and circles.



Linking with ScrapHappy Saturday at So Scrappy.  I love seeing all that scrappy goodness!

Basting always goes smoother when you have help.

Or maybe not.

After the last quilt I basted, I swore I'd never crawl around on the floor again.  Especially after I recovered from a serious brain fart and realized we had a gorgeous dining room table that was plenty big for quilt basting.
I got the backing smoothed out and clipped to the edge of the table, and started laying out the batting.
This caught the attention of our cat, Lynx.
It became like a dance.
Pat the batting.  Remove the cat.

Pat the batting.  Remove the cat.

Here he's trying to help smooth out the batting by rolling on it.

Pat the batting.  Remove the cat.

Despite all the help, I got the batting reasonably smooth and started laying out the top.

His claws actually worked rather well for nailing the layers together.  Whether I wanted them nailed or not.

Pat the top.  Remove the cat.

I don't know which of us was more patient through this process - him or me.  He did keep trying to point out to me how hard it was for him to reach the quilt from the floor.  "How can I help you when I'm way down here?"
But when I reached the needle and thread stage, I finally had to give up and put him outside.  Because "String!!!"  He absolutely could not stop chasing the thread as I tried to baste the layers together.
He spent the next half hour right outside the door, complaining.  Apparently he was willing to forgive my Extreme Rudeness if I would just come open the door so he could get back in.  And play with String!!

Finally!

(And I have to mention that when I got all done and opened the door to let the cat in, he rocketed through the door and immediately jumped up on the quilt.  Just to show that he could.)

Next stop, machine quilting.  Wish me luck!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

We hope.
I was gratified to find that what I'd thought was an SD card slot on the front of the tower in the picture of the computer when I ordered it, did indeed turn out to be exactly that.  That was a feature that I had missed from my computer-before-last.  (I've had my issues with card readers in the last couple of years...)  (Apparently I am a serial killer of card readers.)  (Not purposely.)  (Of course.)

Now let's see if I can upload pictures...

Woohoo!  That worked!  It's a picture of Garden Party with borders.  And sunbeams.

And here's a close-up without sunbeams.

If luck is with me, I'll be basting this orange wonder tomorrow.
Experimentation with machine quilting will commence as soon as I feel sufficiently courageous. 
Somebody cover me...

No cursing or screaming or tears. That went well.

Update - now running the new computer.  The setup went so smoothly that I'm expecting the tower to suddenly levitate across the room or something.  All I did was power down the old one, then pull out everything that plugged into it one at a time, and look for a likely place to plug it into the new one.  Looks like I guessed right.
So mini tower full of one TB of harddrive and a ridiculous amount of memory.  With Windows 10 on board.  So far so good with that...
On the other hand, all I'm doing is running Firefox, and I managed to install Dropbox.  Windows 10 seems to be crammed full of all kinds of crap that I'm never going to touch.  Or even see.  Irrelevance by the bucketful.
Let's see if I'm still not screaming by tomorrow...

I'm only checking for the UPS guy once every 10 minutes or so...

Quick post while I'm waiting for the new computer.
Twinkle has all the pieced borders attached, and I laid it out to measure for the outer borders.  I like to measure each edge and through the center, hoping that the three measurements will end up within shouting distance, for both height and width.   I was quite gratified to find that there was only a 1/4" variation between them, which is close enough for anybody's galloping horse.

Next I'll be holding my breath while I cut the final borders and get them stitched on.
Which means I had to run for the top I'm going to machine quilt first as a practice piece for the Big One.
Anyone remember this?

Yay, Garden Party!

A nice orange border,

and a flashy flowery orange back.

Nothing like some nice fall colors as we lurch into spring!

And I finished the center medallion for the 365 Challenge quilt - here it is at midpoint,

and all put together.

That's an 18" block, which just seems tent-like when you consider my usual scale.  It sure felt huge as I was sewing that last set of pieces around the outside.

(By the way, I've checked three times for the UPS guy while typing this and loading pictures.  Not yet...)

I didn't get any other piecing done, what with wrestling giant blocks and endlessly long borders, but I'm still plugging along through this book looking for the actual name for some of the blocks I'm making for the RSC. 

It's an interesting book, but weirdly organized.  The blocks are divided into categories like 'square', 'diamond', and 'circle', with each category filled with every block that could be said to have a square, diamond, or circle anywhere in it.

To me, categories like 'four-patch' or '60degree triangle' would be more useful and easier to search, but this is the book I have, so I continue thumbing through a dozen or two pages whenever I have an idle moment.
The problem, of course, is the problem I have thumbing through any collection of quilt blocks.

Wouldn't all three of those make great scrap quilts?  I certainly need more ideas, right?

Well, as PaulaB pointed out, at least my sewing machine is working.

And I'm heartily glad about that.  I'm still holding my breath that my computer will hold together until the new one gets here (I've got one on the way!), but in the meantime, I can happily keep on sewing.

I've got all the pieced borders for Big Twinkle assembled, and three of them are sewn on.  You can see how the corners are going to resolve here.

Once I get that last border on, I'll be able to add the 6" plain borders, and then I can start panicking about the quilting!  8)

I started the center medallion for the 365 Challenge.  Here's the center of the center medallion - 

There are some star points and four-patches to add around the outside, and then I can start the March blocks.   (Only two weeks behind!  Yay!)
It's a relief to be working with a larger size block, frankly.  Here you can see the February 27th block next to that medallion  part.

Quite a size difference, eh?  But fear not, I'll be back to 3" blocks in no time.
Wouldn't want to get too comfortable with blocks I can actually see or anything...



Linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  There's lots of happy scrappy goodness to be found!

I'm feeling better, but my computer isn't...

My hard drive is dying, which is the root of all my computer woes.  I'm dithering whether to replace the hard drive (and update Windows from XP which I've been happily running all these years) (and given my history with installing hard drives (ack! hardware!) this might not be the best option) (definitely not the easiest option) or if I should just bite the bullet and buy a new computer.
Argh.

So here's a couple of quick photos, in case Old Faithful here craps out on me.
The last of the February 365 Challenge blocks, before starting the center medallion that wraps up the month.

A couple of Chantal's Pinwheels in purple.

And an applique quilt I saw and coveted at a quilt show I went to with my sister-in-law yesterday.  (I want to make it with a dark background, though, I think...)

 I've got tons of pics from the show, but I want to get this posted.  If I'm still operational later, I'll throw together a brief tour of the show - there were some beauties!
For now, I'll just be over here in the corner, swearing quietly at hard drives.
Argh.


Linking with SoScrappy's ScrapHappy Saturday.  Rather quickly, I might add...