Make A List and Design Wall Monday

Not quite as short a project list as last week:

1.  Finishing Up the Hexie Snowflake blocks

After the big finishes last week, I didn't do any quilting this weekend as we prepared for the "Big Storm That Wasn't".  We decided to get our warehouse club shopping done on Saturday in the event we had to hunker down after the storm.  Sunday was a lazy day of clearing out the DVR while waiting for the predicted snow to come.  

My watch party friend had recommended the Yellowstone prequel "1883" and I recorded the first two episodes when CMT ran them last week.  It didn't disappoint and now DH is also hooked!  We tried watching the third episode on the Paramount streaming service but when we stopped to rewind to pick up something we missed (or I missed --- DH saw some quilts in a background shot) for some reason the service would only restart the episode not resume it.  It was late by then so we switched to watching some of our regularly scheduled live shows.

Sorry, I digressed...all that to say that I did some stitching on the last hexie block during last week but I should have been stitching on it and finishing it up during all of the TV watching.  Since I didn't, I really want to finish the last block up and start working on the layout for all the blocks this week.

2.  Rainbow Scrap Challenge

As per last week's MALM,   during the week I did pick the fabrics for the two projects from last year that I want to sew up now (pictured above) and did finish the cutting and piecing for another two that may or may not continue on for 2022.  However, I also have two more projects that will definitely transition to being projects for this year's RSC and I had expected to work on those this past Saturday but the shopping got in the way of that.  

I also still want to see if there are any new ones I want to add to the RSC queue.  So we'll see what gets done on those either during this week or if I can carve out time Saturday to get back to them.

3.  APQ UFO on the Design Wall

As I said last week, this is the week I want to resume work on the "Box Trot" project which is #12 on the list of UFOs I made for this year's American Patchwork and Quilting UFO Challenge.  I had made up the top when we last visited my MIL in October.  I had slightly changed the positioning of the fussy cut rectangles and now am not sure I like the extra sashed strips to the right of the  bottom rectangle.  During the holidays, I was able to get more of the fabrics from that old line and have some ideas for taking that piece off and adding borders to fil out the top.  So that's a big thing I want to try and work on this week.

4.  Techno Quilters Training Catch-up

Last summer, I signed up with Kari Shell for her Techno Quilters training to really learn how to use Electric Quilt 8 software.  I had tried out her free "Summer Games" series that honored last year's Olympics and that really gave me a good taste of what EQ8 could do.  The next six month series is set to renew and I have only done one module of the first one!  I now have two projects I want to try my hand at designing in EQ8 so along with catching up on the lessons, I want to work on those as part of my "training".

5.  More Work with the Planner

Well, I did crack open the planner this week and made a few notes in it, but still need to add more stuff.  Also I had a printout stuffed in the planner about a "By Annie" cover I could make for it!  I'm torn:  I picked the cover because I want to see it but admit a quilted cover will protect the book over all and I do like that it provides a zipper pocket for pens and such.  Plus, I'd love to try my hand at making another "By Annie" project.  Well, we'll see what happens on that front! 

So much to do, so little time!  What's on your "To Do" list this week?

Getting 2022 Underway with Make A List Monday

Whew!  New Year's Day didn't go quite as expected.  We spent way more time cooking and talking than planned so I did much less quilting than planned.  The day after was a lazy but fun day spent watching movies and clearing out the DVR of shows we had recorded but hadn't watched yet.  So last week was all about continuing the quilt stitching I had started.  By mid-week I had finished one quilt and immediately started in on another and completed the quilting on it on Friday.  Which effectively starts off today's list:

1.  Cut the binding for "Serendipity" (aka "The Feather Sampler"), choose and cut the binding for "Hometown USA" and bind both.

2.  Saturday I was ready for a change of pace after free-motion quilting all week.  The good news was that in the morning I saw a post by one of my favorite quilty influencers, Cathy over at Sane, Crazy and Crumby Quilting.  She has started in on doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2022 and has already made a bunch of different blocks with this month's color which is "Red".  It didn't take much to convince me to pull out my RSC project bag and see where I left off with the 2021 projects I had started last year!

According to my tracking sheet for last year, as far as cutting and piecing for RSC projects, it looks like I stopped at April.  However, I found baggies in the project bag where I did start compiling the Red scraps for May and Purple scraps for June but just never got around to cutting or sewing them.  

Well that's good news since if I have projects I plan to continue this year or want to start some new ones, that puts me ahead for this month since I need Red anyway!  On Saturday, I started cutting and piecing for two of the 2021 projects but still have more to do.  I'll wait for Saturday to work on those again.

However, I also have have two projects that don't call for much.  In this case, it looks like I had already added the Purple for June last year but not the Red for May.  With these two, I'd just as soon pull the additional five months of color for them that needed to be pulled last year and just finish those up. 

So this week, I'll work on pulling the colors needed for my GO! Scrappy Log Cabin and the Technicolor Rainbow runner from the Modern By the Yard free-zine.  In each case, these only need one piece of fabric for each month's color although to make the die cuts for the Log Cabin, I need a large piece of one fabric not scraps.  I'll work on adding the fabrics to these over the next few days and then start piecing them together.   

3.  With all the quilt stitching last week, work on the  "Hexie Snowflakes" project was interrupted.  I did prep a few hexies for the last block early last week, then the focus on the quilting pushed that aside.  I did a little more yesterday and today and now I have all the pieces for the block prepped and ready for sewing the hexies together.

This is good for working on while watching the evening news shows and watching TV with DH when when he comes in from work in the mornings.

4.  Lastly I really want to take some time to crack open my new planner and start formally planning for the year!  

I already have  few lists complied including a list for participating in American Patchwork and Quilting's UFO Challenge this year.  I've never had much luck staying with these in the past but I feel good about getting to the things on my list one by one this year.  Even better, they pulled #12 for this month and that just happened to be the quilt top I want to add to and that's been sitting on my design wall for the last two months!  It will be good to take it down and start working on it  --- that is, next week!  

However, I hope that this being the first UFO called up is a good omen!  So I have more than enough to keep me busy this week.  What's on your "To Do" list for this week?

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 7: Happy New Year and Welcome to 2022!

I'm hopping in early on this one!  DH and I rang in the New Year and right after, started watching "Another Thin Man"  playing on Turner Classic Movies at that moment.  TCM ran the whole "Thin Man" series yesterday and this is one we hadn't seen before.

It's a good thing we also set it to record because not too long after it started, I fell asleep!  When I woke up again,  DH was now also asleep and the TV was watching both of us, LOL!  Of course, now that I was up, I couldn't go back to sleep so here I am!

So what's on the quilting agenda for today?  Just more of the same from the past six days of quilting.  First off was to pick the fabrics for the next and (for me) last "Snowflake" block.

The mottled print in the center is another fabric from the NC Shop Hop in October.

I'll die cut the pieces today and can work on prepping them for a Slow Stitching Sunday session tomorrow.  

On the quilting front, I have twelve more panels in my "Serendipity" project to quilt.  I estimate it takes about an hour for each so maybe in the course of today I can get half of them done? 

Plus one more not seen here.

I doubt I'll get to more than that because the real priority today will be New Year's Day cooking.

There's cola-basted ham, cranberry sauce and Hoppin' John with Kale on the menu and a new to me Ginger cookie recipe to try out.  DH is a pretty good cook so we'll both be in the kitchen today which should help free me to quilt from time to time.

I hope your year has already gotten off to a good start!  Let's hope 2022 passes by a lot slower and grows brighter in the days ahead!!  

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 6

We're almost there.....

So this is the last check-in for 2021.  The good news is that one more "Snowflake" is done!

Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I can get the last block done and have a winter wall hanging well before January ends!  

On the quilting front, I started on the green "Wine Glass" sections today and got three done.

I played with two more feather types today, one from Angela Walter's Fabulous Feathers Challenge and one from a book by Sue Nickles.  So at this point I have about a third of the quilt done and look forward to getting to the finish line on this one soon too.

Also, let me say this:  An important gadget that has helped keep the stitching going without interruption:  my Sidewinder Bobbin Winder!

So, I'll be spending the rest of the evening waiting for the ball to drop.  Hoping you are either celebrating with friends and family or relaxing and waiting for another New Year to start.  In either case, I look forward to seeing you on the other side!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 5: Another Snowflake and More Quilting.....

 Another busy day!  This morning there was work on the "Snowflake" from yesterday while DH and I watched a little TV.  

The center is stitched together and I should get the last outer ring done while watching tonight's Accuquilt Live in a little while.  They are once again looking at quilts currently displayed at the Boston Museum of the Arts.

On the quilting front, I got a few more panels stitched using the feather designs from Angela Walter's Free-motion Feathers Challenge (Week #2).  

Today I used the "Basic" and "Wonky Feathers" in two purple panels, the "Ferny Feather" in a brown panel and the "Feather Meander" in two white panels as well as continuing the practice of stitching the "Custom Feathers" along both sides of the vertical seam allowances of the panels I've stitched.  They are hard to photograph at night due to the matching thread so I look forward to getting a better shot during the day when this is all done.

Gotta run, the show's starting!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 4: Quilting Has Commenced!

Before going to bed last night, I laid out the next "Snowflakes" block:

I had to make a few extra of the textured medium blue hexies since I had changed the color placement in the patterned layout a bit.  Wanting to get started on the quilting, I decided to save the "sit and stitch" on it for this evening's Accuquilt Live event and I'll work on it then. They will be viewing quilts from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts both tonight and tomorrow night.  

I'll update this post with the actual video links once they air since the videos live on You Tube and Facebook for good.  Actually if you like quilt museum visits, you can also check out the ones they made at the International Quilt Study Center back in July and September.

Today's focus project was quilting the "Serendipity" quilt.  It took me a while to review all of Angela Walter's Feather FMQ Challenge videos again and make some decisions about what to quilt where.  One thing I had decided last week was that I wanted to use Angela's "Custom Feather" (seen in this video) to quilt along all the vertical seams that run the length of the quilt.  

It is the one motif that doesn't work from a pre-stitched center stem and she used it to quilt along block seams.  The twist for me is that I'd need to watch how the feathers transition from one rectangle to another since I'll need to change the thread color then.  I also decided to take her advice and mark the outer line that the feathers needed to meet to help keep the stitching even (I'm using 1-1/2" away from the seam as my guideline).

I started in the middle of the quilt with the blue rectangle and once the feathers were stitched on that side, I decided to continue with the same thread and stitch the feathers in the center of that rectangle. I really debated for a while about what to use here as on close inspection of the print I used, it actually has a sort of feathery/frondy motif in it already.  I decided to use those as a guide to stitch along.  Initially, I sketched out on preview paper Angela's "Basic Feather", then thought her "Curly Feather" would look better.  However, I have a few other books on stitching Feathers that I decided to consult and found another option that I liked even more.

Patsy Thompson's book "Feather Adventures" always intrigued me with her technique of layering colors when stitching feathers to make them pop.  I won't be going that far this time but I did find a feather motif that when sketched out on preview paper, really picked up the underlying motifs on the print so I went with that.

Oops!  While I marked the right side of the rectangle for the seam feathers, I forgot to mark the left side before stitching the feathers in the center!  Not a big deal, fortunately I realized it before I had stitched the rest of the rectangle.  I just fill stitched by the seam around those bottom two and resumed the feathers along the seam further up the rectangle.  

It's a little hard to get a good shot of it at this hour but it all stitched out pretty good!  Needless to say, I know I was pretty tense because I was starting off so, I'll break from this for tonight.  I am pleased with the good start and hopefully tomorrow, I can continue and get a good deal further now that I've warmed up!   

Now back to the hexies for the rest of the evening!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 3: Continuing with Hexies and Setting Up for Quilting

Not a lot done for the "Snowflake" project this morning beyond finishing the prep of the dark blue hexies that I didn't get to last night and starting the center of the third block.

Re-purposed food containers make the best organizers!

The main focus for the day was to be on setting up the "Serendipity" project for quilting.  I had decided last week that I'd probably change threads over each of the different colored sections to help highlight the different motifs to be used in each.  Of course that meant picking and auditioning threads.   

These are the final choices.  It worked out that I can use the same thread on the peach and cream print as well as the wine bottle print.  Unfortunately, the closest I had to the purple print was a brown that sort of blends.  I'll settle for that as I have two spools of it so don't have to worry about running out during what I expect to be a lot of intense stitching.    

I interrupted the quilt work to watch today's Accuquilt Live during which I had lunch.   I also had received word today that Kari Shell was giving a free special Techno Quilters workshop on creating Snowflake designs in EQ8 and of course I had to see that!  I had signed up for the classes back in August but have only completed one module so far.  I have to get back in the flow with those in the (soon to be) New Year as I have a commission project that I want to design using the program. 

That accomplished, this evening I did the stabilizing stitch-in-the-ditch on the quilt using smoke monofilament thread on the top.  For this project with just flat expanses to be quilted, I removed all the pins now before I move on to doing all the decorative quilt stitching.  

Tomorrow, I'll preview the motifs and hopefully can try to get a significant portion of it done! 

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 2: More Hexies and Some Layering

A full day to say the least!  Despite some interruptions, I've almost got what I wanted to accomplish today completed.  

For the "Snowflake" project, this morning I picked out the fabrics for the next block and die cut them.  I started prepping them while watching the two You Tube shows that I spoke about yesterday  that aired this afternoon.  

I'm going to finish up the rest of the dark blue and gray ones while watching the late night news shows. 

Something I had hoped to start on last week was quilting on two projects, one of which needed to be layered.  I had a call to return that I expected to take a while so after finishing the shows and then having lunch, I decided to work on layering the quilt.

The quilt top that needed layering is called "Serendipity" and was made back in December 2020.  

The only batting I had closest to the size of this top was some Hobbs Tuscany Silk in a Twin.  

This will be the first time I've used this batting formulation.  I have another one in Queen size and I think I got both years ago during one of Connecting Threads big batting sales.  I'd love to also try a cotton/wool batt which they also carry under the Tuscany brand name.  It's a small lap quilt with no blocks to pin around so the easy layering is all done!

Backing is a Kim Diehl wide back print called "Spiced Pomegranate".

Here it is with "Hometown USA" which is the other quilt I want to get done.  What has energized me to get started on quilting both of these is Angela Walter's recently completed free motion quilting challenge that focused on "Feathers" .  She ran the last tutorial last week and there will be an additional wrap-up video to follow on the 30th.  I am looking forward to trying out all the various motifs she demoed and can see some possibilities for some fun filler stitching practice too.  

Edited 12/29/21 To Add:  Turns out Angela actually did one more tutorial today on quilting Feathers in borders.  Check it out here!

I'd love it if I could get them completely done by New Year's but I'm not holding my breath on that one!  Ok, now I can relax (?) with the news and the remaining hexie prep and then head to bed!  Tomorrow's another day!

BTW:  For those of you that like the "Accuquilt Live" events that air on You Tube (and also on Facebook), there's going to be another one tomorrow called "Squared Away" which will be demoing their "Cubes".  The special guest on the show will be Eleanor Burns!  More hexie sewing time for me, ha, ha!

The Seven Days of New Years 2021 - Day 1: Hexis and a Slow Sunday Stitching Day

Well, Santa Is Ready to Relax, How About You?

It's time again for my own special holiday crafting celebration:  a Quilt-A-Thon from the day after Christmas leading up to New Years!    It was another quiet and subdued Christmas which seems to be the hallmark for our family of how holidays are celebrated during this pandemic.  

At the start of last week, I had the usual ambitious plans to try to get my "Hexie Snowflake" project wrapped up and done.  At the time, I had one block done with hopes to make three more:

Of course,  I soon learned I was crazy to think that on the last big week of the holiday, I'd be free to just sit and work on a project, Lol!  Pretty much every thing I had mapped out got upended by unexpected calls or changes in when or how I'd get the things other than quilting done.  Not to mention that after spending most of the holiday season not shopping in person last year, it was a shock to the system to see how busy the stores were back to being this year!   

There was very little stitching accomplished over the last two days so I spent today catching up and have managed to finish up the snowflake for the second block:

The great thing about this project is it can hang for the whole winter, so I'm still excited to get it finished.  Now I have two more blocks to make for the four block wall hanging I want.  

The good news for some additional stitching time is that tomorrow there are two "live" events to sit and watch!  As a Gadget Fanatic, for the last year, I've really enjoyed viewing the twice weekly (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays)  "Accuquilt Live" events that air on You Tube (and also on Facebook).   There are usually special purchase deals promoted and the chance to win gifts or reward points if you register in advance to view the events.  During the holiday gifting season they really upped their game and have run three or four events each week!  On Christmas Day, I saw that they had scheduled another new event for Monday called "Countdown to the New Year".  

Barbara Black of "My Joyful Journey" announced on her last blog post that she will be doing a live broadcast on The Quilt Show's You Tube channel to discuss choosing fabrics for the 2022 TQS Block of the Month:  Irene Blanck's "Garden Party Down Under".  I'd love to finally get to do one of the TQS BOMs.  These are just the kind of shows to provide a little more "sit and stitch" time!   

Are you doing anything special in preparation for the New Year or are you blissfully relaxing and waiting for the clock to turn the dial on 2022?   Sounds like a sweet way to spend the week either way!

Linking up with:

Kathy and all the lovely stitching going on over at Kathy's Quilts 

Make A List Monday

It's the last week before Christmas!  Having participated in whooping it up for a finish at "Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?!?" with Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict on Friday, this morning I want to follow her example again by setting up a "Make A List Monday" To Do list for this week.

This is one of the rare times that my list is short for a change, Lol!  Here's what's on board for this week:

1.  "Hexie Snowflake" Project 

I started on this one while basting and quilting the "Civil War Strippie" quilt.

This is the next to the last of the Blue & White Christmas decorating projects.  It was (as usual) supposed to have been started long ago but a viable crafting window didn't open up until two weeks ago.  What you see above is only the first block.  As of right now, the snowflake is finished but the papers have to be removed and it has to still be appliqued to the background.  With how long it took me to get that far, I've already switched methods for how I prep the hexies and the project has now been downsized.  Rather than the nine blocks as the pattern shows, I'll only be doing a four block wall hanging.  The blocks are big enough that a quilt of that size will perfectly fill the space I want to display it in.  

I was inspired to try this for two reasons:  First is that it is yet another project on the Edyta Sitar/Laundry Basket Quilts obsessions list (pattern available from Paperpieces)!  Second, ever since I taught an English Paper Piecing class last year, I've wanted to do a more complex project using the technique.  While this isn't as complex as what I really want to do, it is a definite step up from the simple projects I made up as demos for the class.  

Even though it's been slower going than expected, I am really enjoying the chance to try EPP again and am shooting for getting this completed by week's end.  Fortunately, both this and the last of the planned Blue & White projects can also be considered "Winter" quilts so it's fine if this doesn't get done as quickly as hoped and the other definitely won't get started until after Christmas. 

2.  Quilting with Feathers

Back in November, Angela Walters (noted quilt industry long armer of "Quilting Is My Therapy" fame) began another of her "Free-Motion Quilting Challenges", this time on the topic of quilting Feather Motifs.  It's called "Fabulous Feathers" and she has hosted a series of tutorial videos and follow-up live chat discussions on You Tube.  In the videos, she demonstrates how to stitch various feather motifs and how to apply them to a variety of spaces within or around quilt blocks and tops.  

When she announced this, it was a case of perfect timing for me!  Back in the summer I had made this top:

I had envisioned doing feathers in the diagonal dark and light log cabin areas.  However, I wasn't totally sure how to proceed.  At the time I was making the quilt, Angela had another Challenge Series going on called "Flora and Foliage".  I tried using the feather motif from that challenge (the "Paisley Feather") but found it to be a denser stitch pattern  than I wanted to execute (a.k.a. it would take me forever to stitch out where I wanted to use it).  I also tried to do a less dense feather on my own but it wasn't looking the way I hoped.  At that point I put the project aside to "simmer" for a while until I could figure out a better plan.

As always the Quilt Muses look out for me and when Angela announced the new series, I knew this would be my path to completing this project.  Busy with other projects, I watched the first few weeks of videos and immediately saw ideas for applying her motifs to my quilt in a way that suited my taste and time.  Additionally, I had made another quilt top from the leftovers from my "Modern Bohemia" project when I was away at my MIL's back in December of 2020 that I figured would make a great "practice piece" with space to road test all the motifs!

Prior to now, I had no formal plans for the quilting on this project.  I decided that using each of the different colored panels to try out Angela's various motifs and fill techniques would be a fun way to get this one completed as well.   

So looking forward to maybe adding another couple of notches to the WIPS-B-GONE list before the year ends!

Design Wall Monday: This, That and the Other.....

The blog's been fairly quiet because things have been a bit busy lately and not all of it has been related to my own projects.  So to catch up on recent events:

Bonnie Hunter's "Frolic" mystery is now history!  Well at least in terms of it being available for free from her blog.  Since Valentine's Day, she has offered the newly released digital pattern of "Frolic" for purchase at half price until the end of February!  As for me, I had hoped to finish the top for "Old Tobacco Road", the Quiltville mystery that I had been working on while everyone else was Frolic-ing. I did manage to finally get all the center rows stitched together:

Once the center was all pieced together, the debate became whether to just add a border for a quick couch-quilt-finish (which was how I originally envisioned using the finished quilt) or to continue on and add the Flying Geese borders Bonnie used in the pattern (and was one of the things I really liked about the design).  I have everything for both....

...it is just a matter of trimming up the center and laying things out on the design wall to finalize that decision.  However, I couldn't do that for two reasons:  first was that it was (finally) time to teach the English Paper Piecing workshop I had been hired to do:

The projects I chose for the EPP workshop.

My community garden President is also the treasurer of her Building Association and after seeing one of my projects we had been in talks for about two years about having me do a quilt class for one of their craft events.  Last Summer we were finally were able to narrow down on the "what" (had to be a hand work class and centered on the theme of "recycling") so I suggested an English Paper Piecing class.  Mind you, the only EPP I had ever done was this rosette after watching an episode of "Simply Quilts" back in the early 2000s!

So needless to say I had to do a lot of research about current methods and notions to bring myself up to speed.  Then I looked around the web and in books for some simple projects that I thought students would be interested in completing either in or after class.  The projects I settled on for students to choose from were the "Scrapbusting Hexie Hot Pad" by Cintia of My Poppet Makes (uses only 6 Hexies), the "Hexie Pincushion" by Jessica of Life Under Quilts (uses only 8 Hexies) and the "advanced" project and my absolute favorite, a hexie mini quilt version of the "Potholder Organizer" by Marti of Sewlicious Home Decor (for the student who really gets into making hexies!).  I love my sample of that one so much that it is now my permanent hexie project carrier!

My workshop was one of four offered over two community "sewing days".  Since I knew I wouldn't have time to make a whole quilt for the class, I lucked up on finding this beauty on eBay and used it as a backdrop/display in the class and to discuss the popularity of the "Grandmother's Flower Garden" style quilts.

It's all done (hand pieced and quilted!) except for the binding which I want, at some point, to add on.  I'm hoping I already have a fabric in my 30's reproduction stash that will go with it.  Hmmm, gives me an excuse to move up my plans for working on a series of quilts using that stash!  Also once again points to the importance of labels --- I'd love to know who did all this work and why it wasn't completely finished.  But then do you label your quilt before it's bound?  I know I don't!

I had originally agreed to do the workshop (my very first!) last November and I made up the organizer and hot pad samples for it back in the Fall.  However, scheduling snafus regarding the class space forced a change in format from just offering my class to hosting a multi-day, multi-class arrangement.  That actually proved to be fortunate for me because it gave me a chance to find and add an "intermediate" level project to my class plans which was the pincushion.  I got that one ready in December for the re-scheduled workshop which at first was tentatively planned for January but then was ultimately finalized for the first weekend in February.  In the end, it went well and I look forward to either doing this workshop again (along with ideas I have for improving how I teach it) or being able to solidify some ideas I have for other classes I could offer.

In between all of that, their organization got a request to do a workshop with one of our community's Girl Scout troops.  After discussions with one of the troop's leaders, we settled on doing a quilt where the girls would decorate fabric blocks.  Originally the plan was to have the girls just use fabric paint and markers to draw out their designs.  However, it was eventually expanded to adding the opportunity for them to get even more creative using felt appliques, decorative trims and to do a little hand stitching as well.  

Three of us facilitated one session in December and another one in January where the girls worked on their blocks in small groups.  I brought my Accuquilt Go! die cutter and dies so the girls could choose shapes and colors to add to add to their blocks using felt that was provided.  One of the troop leaders had asked if we could also have blocks that would quote this year's "G.I.R.L. Leadership Agenda" so I printed those out on fabric (prepared for printing) adding letter die cuts to take them up a notch.  When we were done we had these:

My garden president and I had shopped for Girl Scout themed fabric and the plan was that we had hoped to have some time either before or during the workshop "Sew Day" sessions to put up the blocks (I brought some gridded flannel for a design wall) and work on the layout.  However, there were lot of attendees and each facilitator also served as assistants for the other workshops so I wound up just bringing the blocks back home to work out the final layout by myself.  And that's what's (still) on the design wall today:

I had to combine elements from a few partial blocks and added things to others to fill them out and now these are all ready to be sewn together.  There are places I expect to have to hand stitch the seams in place to work around some of the embellishments.  Once I have the center done, I'll cut the outer borders (GS Cookie fabric!!) and then have to put together a backing.  When we shopped, we had mistakenly also purchased 4-H themed fabric -- in our defense it was sitting right along with the Girl Scout fabric and the colors coordinated!  In fact, the sashing squares here are fussy cut from one of the 4-H prints since hearts were the most requested die cut by the girls.

Edited To Add:  You can see the finished quilt here.

Last but not least:  I've picked out the fabrics for this week's BOM blocks so have to also get those made up over the next few days as well.

Ok, all caught up and it looks like it will be another busy week!