MORE BLOCKS DONE

My relaxation time is making these blocks.

Patch as Patch Can....WEEK 6......
what does that mean? These patches are put in so precisely to make the pattern, there seems to be no 'patch as can' about this block. Can you see I boobed on the dark fabric, I used the wrong side sometimes...Oh well!!

My Lucky Stars...WEEK 7
Oh yeah! With 69 pieces to this 8" - yes I stuck to that size crazy person -I cannot see anything 'lucky' in it, only how it went together - surprisingly easy!!

Morning Star 2 - WEEK 8
I really enjoyed making this little block, well 12" block, I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Fancy Stripes - WEEK 9
hmm more like cheaters Log Cabin really, this was sooo quick to make, it fairly flew through the sewing machine.

Bears Tracks... WEEK 10
A lovely block cos it is to do with Bears. I collect soft teddies or ornament's of bears so was very happy this was in the pack to make. Are they coming or going?

Chimneys & Cornerstones... WEEK 11
Not a lot to say of this cos it was another speedy one to make, love the secondary pattern you get when you link it with Courthouse Steps though. Nice one!

The Queen's X... WEEK 13
hee hee she was probably cross someone put those little triangles in her square!!!

Slowly but surely, I am catching up. Having fun whilst doing so too. :-)
Is this OK to put several in one posting or should they all be separate??

Running in Place

I feel like such a slacker! I can't believe how easy it is to fall behind with these blocks. I've got waaayy too many projects going on but I don't seem to be actually finishing anything.





Here are weeks 9(Fancy Stripes), 11(Chimneys & Cornerstones), 12(Leap Frog), and 13(The Queen's X) all done using that scrap bin full of brights. I decided to make most of the blocks from now on from these fabrics and then add borders to make them all fit together for an eventual quilt for my granddaughter. I wasn't crazy about any of these blocks but they did go together fairly easily.


The 12" block from week#10 was Bear Tracks, a pattern I thought would look good done in those hard-to-work-with homespun fabrics. I've been making pillows from these and they look great on an old church pew I have. I find that the homespun fabric is getting a little easier to manage but I spray starch the heck out of it whenever I use it!

For a brief moment I was all caught up on FBP and then Spring Fever hit me and I fell behind again! Yard and house clean-up took center stage. At least the windows are clean so it's not so dark in the sewing room now! With a wild flurry of sewing today, I hope to finally get really and truly caught up so by next Friday I can do the block at a leisurely pace. Happy Mom's Day to all the moms in the party.

Em's blocks 10 and 11

I finally found a few spare minutes to sew. So I got started on the blocks. I was behind from last week so I did the bear paws first. The background is really a light blue but is is reading white here. I thought this was a fun block. I have always liked the bear paw. One of my first quilts was a bear paw quilt. I like it in the bright colors. Then I got started on Chimney's and Cornerstones. This one reminds me of Easter. It was quick and easy. Such a great bonus.

Bare-ly on Time!

I have been doing Bear Paws for weeks, it seems like! So many, in fact, that I almost forgot to do this one. I didn't like the way the Aunt Grace fabrics looked set the other way, so I went traditional. Would have been nice to make a bunch of these and set them the other way so the secondary pattern would have shown off. I do like the way this one turned out. The yellow and purple are two of my favorites from this group, too bad they're almost gone - I'd like to use them again.

Rebecca's Bear Tracks

What a great little block!  This would make a great block with the lights and darks reversed too.  

Giraffe Tracks

I'm liking this one more than I expected. I was going to set it with all the points going out, but it looked better this way. I used a paler-than-usual pink for the background and am happy with it.

making tracks...

Here's my version of Bear Tracks -- I had trouble getting the color right in the photo -- the green is actually a little greener. I've made this block before for swaps, but never had one for myself!

Heather - Week 10

Bear's Paw is one of my favorite traditional blocks so I was excited to see this come up. My original idea was to do mirror images of the black/white and red. Two where the red was the background and two with the black/white as the background. But when you put them together you lose the design so I added in the solid black. I already had the red corners cut and so I used them because I was too lazy to cut out more fabric and decided to call them a quirky design element.

Bear Tracks in the Mud

It seems as if spring has arrived here in Toronto. We have melting temperatures and heavy rains. If any bears have woken up by now, they will be making tracks in the mud! That is sort of how I feel about my block this week. I used fabrics from my stash. This is great and exactly what I wanted to do with these weekly blocks - to use up my scraps and practice my piecing skills. I just am not loving the colour combination that I used. Too many colours to make the block seem muddy in my opinion. I don't have many scraps that measure 4 1/2 inches in my scrap bin. Most of my scraps are around 2 1/2 inches wide, therefore I was forced to use four colours. But I don't feel as if these colours (and fabrics) go together very well in one block.

I have not sewn the four sections together yet. I can't decide what to do. I could do them the way the pattern suggested as in the above layout. Or I could put it together like this.....

I just can't decide. But I am leaning towards the bottom layout. I think I like it best for the types of fabrics and colours that I used. In addition to this, I am only going to have one block to put into a sampler quilt, so the secondary pattern, that would result from the original layout of a complete quilt, will be lost. Oh, well. I still have lots of other things to keep me occupied while I figure it out. What do you think?

Civil War Claws

I had to giggle with myself as I looked at the finished block because even though this was relatively easy to me (now)...I don't think I could have had the same success a mere 10 weeks ago. I am a completely different quilter now and there are just not enough ways I can begin to thank each and every one of you...especially you, QP. Long live Friday Block Party.

Like another FBP member, I made way to many HSTs...so I seem to know have an HST stash building in progress. These will join my extra purple HSTs...wow, it's amazing how many sub stashes I have going on. The HSTs, the bits and pieces, the strips...more amazement.

I thought I would play around with some civil war fabric I got at the thrift store for less than the cost of a Starbucks Coffee...I have never had the pleasure of sewing with these kinds of prints before. They ironed very nicely and tended to stay right where I put them, so all in all...we got a long very nice and I will have them back out to play again soon.

Have a great week everyone.

Marlene

Bear Tracks in the Tulips

When I got the 4 sections done I played with the arrangements. This is the original according to the pattern.

This is what I decided to go with for my final version. It just seemed to work better with the fabrics that I selected.

I had issues when sewing the HSTs to the bigger squares. A couple of times they went on backwards so out came the seam ripper. As Donna said in her post, just because it looks easy, I still need to think about it and pay attention to what I'm doing.

It's neat to see this block done up in non-traditional fabrics.

fishy bear paws

I had trouble this week. Stupid troubles, but troubles. The learning in this week's challenge for me was to not assume because it's an "easy" looking block I could do it without thinking...

I decided to speed piece the HST strips. Got most of the way through and realized I hadn't made them all the same. Took out seams and re-did them making them the same. Sewed the HST strips onto the squares, only to find, when all four were done, that the HST strips did indeed need to be different from one another! another visit with my seam ripper...

I'm glad I undid and redid the necessary seams though, as I'm really happy with this block. Everything lined up and played very well together. playing with my "brights" brought a smile to my face (the block is in fact much brighter than this pic suggests). Realizing this classic block has possibilities beyond the "hunting and fishing lodge" fabrics was rewarding too. All in all a good week :-)

Brenda's bear paws week 10

I chose to make this one with the same marbled background I've been making most of my other blocks. I put that fabric into a block exchange my guild is doing, so I'm getting nine 12.5 inch blocks in a few months, and these will go into that quilt. I've used soft hand dyes and marbles for this one, and it's OK, but not great, especially with that huge expanse of colour in the big squares. The bonus is this: I misread the directions, and I have twice as many HST as I need, so next time we need 2.5 inch HST, I've got them. But my accuracy is better, although this is about 1/8 inch bigger than it needs to be.

week 10

Wow, 70 days into the new year (or there abouts since its week 10!) I really didn't know if I had it in me to do a block each week, but I've been having a blast. Thanks for playing along and helping keep me motivated.

This week's block is "Bear Tracks", a 12"block with four identical quadrants... so lots of opportunities to practise the same thing over again and get it "right before I'm done! :-)

I've always seen this block in flannels, or homespuns or other "cozy" fabrics, giving the feel of a northern hunting and fishing lodge somehow to me. I may have to see how I feel about this pattern in some very different fabric -- say novelty brights...