I'M STILL HERE

Bet you all thought I had forgotten about these blocks. No way! I have been a bit busy on other things. I am now in catch up mode again. I pulled a load of fabric from the cupboard at cut it into strips which I thought were the most popular sizes used for these blocks and have been gaily chopping away. Here are the results so far....

Here are my strips...

and off I go...

Queen Charlotte's Crown - Week 31

Hearth and Home - Week 30

Mrs Morgan's Choice - Week 29

1930's Square - Week 24

1941 Nine Patch - Week 23

Z Cross - Week 26

Leap Frog - Week 12

Rally Round - Week 34

Envelope Motif - Week 28

Windmill 2 - Week 27

Rotunda - Week 3

Triangle Chain - Week 25

You may notice slight differences in my blocks and the printed ones on Quilter's Cache, I just decided I would do them a quicker way from some of the instructions given!!! Oops! Sometimes I went wrong too! Oh well, can't be helped, I am getting there though...off I go to make more of the backlog blocks.

Reformed Slacker

I spent a marathon day yesterday in my sewing room. It helped that the weather was crappy and Hubby was making dinner. Many, many hours later, fortified by chocolate, cashews, coffee and a glass of Merlot, I am happy to say I am a slacker no more. Here are the results, although I won't say they are for your viewing pleasure! Some are nice. Many are downright ugly. But the bottom line is that I am fully caught up with Friday Block Party! Here they are, eight weeks of the good, the bad & the ugly.



Week 24: Interesting block.


Week 23: Extremely easy and not very interesting.

Week 22: I love stars and this one is a favorite. I was pleasantly surprised that my points all matched!

Week 21: Ugly block. Stupid construction technique. I didn't put the little square onto the rectangle but just cut the strip to size. This one as a stand alone is awful. It is destined to be an orphan. As a whole quilt it is much better. I still don't like it.

Week 19: I love this block. My piecing on this one went smooth as silk so I guess I am improving. Someday I will make a quilt with Union Square blocks.

Week 2o: This one was interesting and different.

Week 17: I like this block. Very easy to piece. It would make a good alternate block in a top to create a different look.

Week 18: I have never liked this block. I think it must be the whole Nazi thing I associate it with. This was my last block of the day and I think the glass of wine was taking effect. It is pretty sloppy.

So there you have it. I'm all caught up. One thing I can say for certain is that I am getting pretty darn good at working with the homespun fabrics. I use a lot of spray starch on it and it really helps. I plan to put all those blocks into a quilt one of these days.

Caught Up Again - Here's the blocks from week's 23 & 24

I was able to get caught up this weekend and here's the block from last week. I did add a 3rd colour to this one as well but I played with subtle colour changes. At first glance you almost don't notice the difference but then your mind thinks hey there is something else going on here.

Here's is this week's block also with a 3rd colour. I was also experimenting with using a non-white background but I'm not sure if I really like this pale yellow or not.

I used some really old stash fabric for this one! I think I won it as a raffle prize at a local quilt show. It's not to my taste, but turned out OK for this block. Piecing this block was quick work, and I love it when the decisions on which way to iron are easily made. I think this may go into a preemie quilt.

Kathie from Allentown, PA

Heather - Week 23

I jazzed up the 1941 Nine Patch by putting half square triangles in the corners. I also made it 12 inches to fit in with some other blocks in this color scheme.

My Nine-Inch Blocks

These are the nine-inch blocks I have made so far. This week's block is in the bottom right corner. I started by featuring a print fabric in the other 9-inch blocks, so I decided to continue with that theme. The 1941 Nine Patch is a sort of boring block, but I think it looks okay with the other blocks.

more stars...

I seem to be on a two-week cycle with the block party -- always skipping a week and catching up the next... oh well. So here is last week's star and this week's. I had a little trouble dealing with lumpy seams on the first one, but finally beat it into submission, using the pinwheel pressing technique.
I thought this block would be too boring if the whole star was one color, so I jazzed it up a bit -- maybe it needs a new name?

Caught up! :-)

I must be finding my centre of balance again, as I got into the quilting studio and actually did something more than move fabric around and think!

I did this week's block, 1941 nine patch, which I found quite boring, and then went back and got week 21's block, Hayes' corner done too. I've decided to simply skip week 22's block (starflower) since I really did it when I made a variation of Dakota Gold weeks ago. So now I'm all caught up :-)

I've also made some decisions about this block challenge for myself -- I'm going to sandwich each of these blocks and quilt them in the next while -- completely independently of each other. And then try to assemble these prequilted blocks into quilt tops... I've read the instructions for "quilt as you go" type quilts, and think this'll provide a great low stress chance to try that technique too. If it doesn't work well, they're only sample blocks, made for another purpose, not lots of time and effort invested into a specific planned quilt. :-)

week 23

week 23 -- more than half way through the year!!

The mid-way mark for the year is a modified nine-patch called 1941 nine patch. Not being a particularily historically oriented gal, I have no idea why one would name a quilt block that, but guess I don't need to know in order to do it! :-)

My personal life has calmed down significantly, and I pledge to get to this week's block. Thanks for all the personal emails of support. Who knows, maybe I'll even "catch up" on blocks I've skipped -- but no promises on that front! now I'm off to fondle my fabric a little more... best stress relief ever.