Scrappy Houses...

...are together! Allowing for the 14 hour time difference between the US and Pyeongchang, by now, the Olympic flame has been officially extinguished. Here, we will be able to view the closing ceremonies later this evening...and I can say that I met my goal of getting this little quilt together...

with a few exceptions...Cannot decide on a border...not sure of what kind of fabric and/or whether to add some appropriate applique. Whatever the decision, it will not include more paper piecing...my fun meter has been pegged for a while using that technique!

Additionally, a few seams on the back have been flipped while sewing & need to be “unflipped” and all the papers need to come off - a messy job and best done outside on the deck, on a warm day in Spring, with a tasty drink in hand...With a couple of feet of snow on that deck though...it is going to be awhile!
Then a good pressing - hard to do with all the papers still in place. And finally some kind of quilting...
But for now, I can clean up the sewing room. A bag of scraps has been organized and ready for donation to our guild and the bins that everything sat in since 2012 are empty.

On to the next project...

Whew!

Pat

Postage Stamp Dolly Quilt

In addition to everything else going on in the sewing room during the Olympics, joining in on Wendy’s -
The Constant Quilter challenge to do a small quilt each month...I know, right from the start, there will be times, when that goal will not be met.

However, it got me to thinking about what could be pulled from the back of the quilting cave...there are a couple of small, dolly size, quilt tops that just need some additional work, sandwiching, simple quilting and binding.

Here is February’s challenge...

I cannot remember how long ago this was started...has to be at least 9-10 years. It was one of the rare times when I actually hand-pieced blocks. My eyes cannot deal with quilting on black fabric that has a pattern, so just some basic straight line machine quilting is what happened. I call it Done!

I even found the original little templates and directions - the blocks finish to 4”.

Moving on ahead...scrappy houses are done and working on my little forest of trees...

Happy stitching!

Pat

Olympic preparations...

In less then a week, the Winter Olympics will begin...how I enjoy watching the ice skating and ski jumping; the endurance of the biathlon skiers...the craziness of the luge and bobsled participants; the speed of the downhill racer. It makes for some rare decent TV watching (thank goodness for the quality on PBS which is year round). In previous years, the goal for me is to start a new quilting project at the Opening Ceremonies and have it finished by the Closing Ceremonies. Not this year...my 18 in 2018 list features too many older UFO’s - as mentioned before, I have been tackling those dozens of 3 1/2” scrappy houses and have decided they will be done when the Olympic Flame is extinguished.

I also need to decide on the final setting -
Adding little trees and how many...

And which size center house block to use - the 9” or 6”

That project will be my “daytime” sewing as time permits...

In the evening, the warmth of the fire calls to me and then handwork comes out...making progress on my Brimfield Blocks...there are 6 rings completed with one just starting to be appliqued to the background.
And more decisions there - hoping to alternate the birds which are being fussy cut - 4 facing right and 4 facing left with maybe a larger floral element on the other 4 backgrounds.

So the next few weeks will be an Olympic sewing marathon for me - no gold medals expected but hoping to cross the finish line in an upright position...