Favorite stars, galloping horses, and nasty little bowties. Oh, and a monkey. Because there's generally a monkey.

I'm still whacking away at the 365 Challenge blocks.  The end of April is near!  Here's April 16 (fresh from his triumph over the monkeys) through April 22, which is the last of the 3" blocks for the first dark border.  (I should have 96 of these little devils, if I haven't skipped any.  Though I've accidentally made a couple of them twice, so it may all average out...)

Speaking of little devils, this little block gave me fits.  The designer calls it 'Electric Fan', and I was ready to throw myself into one by the time I finished it.
I ripped it out 3 times to sew that center,

and it never got any better.  So I called 'galloping horse' (If you can't see it from the back of a galloping horse, it doesn't exist) and moved on.
Five minutes later I was twitching so hard at the thought of that ill-formed block that I couldn't focus on the one I was trying to work on.
So since the seam ripper wasn't enough (and I stabbed a couple more times just to make sure), I remade the whole block.

There.  That's better.

Here are the bowties referred to in the post title.

That's four bowties in one 3" block.  Which is ridiculous.  Seriously.

This little sweetie made me all kinds of smiley, though.

I love Ohio stars, and making a 3" one wasn't much harder than making all those 4.5" ones I made for last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

And whoopee!  On to the 6" blocks!
These sawtooth stars are another favorite of mine, and making four 3" stars for this block was a hoot.  (The cow butt is an added giggle.)

Though I did figure out that the over-sized Four-Geese-at-Once given in the directions weren't necessary (and were weird measurements to boot) - I made each of these sets with a 2.5" square and four 1.5" squares.  I'm getting fonder of this method of making flying geese, especially when working this small.

A Card Trick took a bit of concentration.  (Note to self: Do not be tempted into ever making this block again.)

And while I was focused on all those triangles, this little guy sneaked in somehow.

Looking at that range of fabrics tells me he's more than a little confused...

Gwennie Inspired Medallions

Today's the day for the first link up for the Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL, so I'll post my photos again.

Me being the Queen of Dither and all, there's an applique:

and a pieced version:

I don't know if this increases or decreases my chances of actually finishing a quilt in this quilt-along...


Linking to Humble Quilts for the party.  Come see all the fabulous baskets!

Scrappy 365

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm hoping to catch up a bit on my 365 Challenge blocks.  I've reached April 16th

but I was working off the blocks in Dropbox on my Kindle, and the next available one was May 4th, so I went with that. 

It was a real shock to go from dark 3" blocks to light 6" blocks.  There may have been some whiplash.
I've now gathered the pdfs of the second half of April's blocks, so I'll be able to carry on from there.  I have high hopes!

And I'd thought that by sneaking off south that I would have gotten away from a certain bunch of troublemakers, but look who showed up:

Yep.

Of course, they immediately challenged April 16th to a wrestling match.

I think he's winning, though...



Linking to Cynthia's Quilting is More Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the fun!

Aqua Away!

So Angela has declared aqua to be the color for June.  It's not a color I have a lot of, but I'll see what I can do.
Though the fact that I'm visiting my daughter and her family again and my stash is five hours north of me is going to complicate things.  That's the second time this year that this has happened to me.  From now on, I'm just going to travel with the whole stash.
Or maybe I just need a rainbow traveling stash...

I did manage to throw together a piglet in aqua -

and I'd had one more in green cut out and ready to sew, so he got assembled, too.  That will finish off the May greens.

I'll have to dig through the fabrics I brought along to see if I've got anything else to play with.  Mostly I'd packed up my reds, blues, and browns for my 365 Challenge blocks.  I'm still dreaming that I'll get caught up with that.
And I threw in some brights to not (definitely not) cut out some more parts for Glitter blocks.  Not.  Because I'm not starting that quilt.  Though just randomly cutting some bits of fabric isn't really starting a quilt, right?
I'm going to need another bin to keep those Not-Glitter bits in, though.

But, hey, there's some aqua in another project I threw in my busy bag - this laceweight yarn I spun years ago from some merino/tencel roving I got at a Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.

I wound it into balls last night and then cast on for a Feather Duster.  What looks like bronze in that photo is really a purple, and the yarn has a real ostrich feather coloration, so I think it will make a beautiful feathery shawl.



Linking with So Scrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see all the aqua goodness!

Slim pickings for green

For as busy as I've been, I sure don't have a lot to show for it.

A couple of Chantal's Pinwheels

and a plain kaleidoscope block are the only things I have for my greens this week.

Oh, and those silly wee boats I posted the other day.  I had hoped to get to my Whatchacallit Stars this week, but it didn't happen.

Some of my time was spent fanning out these fabrics that I picked out as my prize for Scraptastic Tuesday's May drawing.  I picked out this collection of fat quarters from Mad About Patchwork.

I spy a fair bit of orange in there, so apparently I wasn't quite done with last month's color.  Though I freely admit that my younger daughter's admiration for orange has really rubbed off on me.

And I pulled some fabrics that I'm going to use for a Sew Together bag for me me me!

I'd made my oldest daughter one in Australian prints and it was really really hard to let it go when the time came.  So I've grabbed a few more fat quarters and will make it up to and for myself.

And I've also spent some time on a still-secret project which I'll soon be sharing pics of, so stay tuned!


Linking with So Scrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see all the rainbow fun!

Well, *somebody* went to sea...

The cow and the pussycat went to sea...

Wait, that's not right.

The monkey and the pussycat...

 No, that's not it either.

 The pigeon and the...

Oh, that won't end well.

Here we go.
The OWL and the pussycat went to sea,

in a beautiful pea-green boat.

Phew!  Why was that so hard?





I'll be linking with Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come join the fun!

Monkeyshines

There I was, minding my own business, peacefully (and piecefully) sewing away, when suddenly something started poking me in the elbow.
"Psst!  Psst!" said a little voice behind me.

"Psst!  Go look in the mailbox!  The mailbox!"
There was a chorus of  "Mailbox!  Mailbox!" from several more little voices.

"Psst!"
"Psst!  In the mailbox!"
"Mails!  Look in psstboxes!"

So fine.   I went out and checked the mailbox.
There was an envelope that was both squishy and noisy.  And jumpy.
I opened it gingerly, and look what popped out:

Apparently one of Sue's monkeys had stuffed himself into an envelope and mailed himself to my house.
Needless to say, my gang of hooligans was excited to meet the new cousin.

Why, this little guy started dancing around so hard that he threw out his back.

Or ruptured his collarbone, maybe.  I'm not as informed on monkey anatomy as I should be.
In any case, I rushed him into surgery and now he's as good as new.

There was quite a lot of loudness and hilarity, then they all ran outside.  Last I saw them, they were up in the apple tree, building a fort.

The neighborhood squirrels are starting to look a little nervous...

Linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.   Come see more scrappy fun!  (Though not necessarily with more monkeys)