To Do Tuesday: End of the Month Plans

As July draws to a close, my design wall is full and yet there's still a few more things to try to get done as this month ends!  So with that I'll join in with the others over at Carol's Quilt Schmilt for some "To Do Tuesday" planning for the rest of the week!

Alaska and Other Kaleidoscope Block Designs - Month 1

I'm posting an update on yet another project undertaken this month!  Despite a lot of focus on "Christmas in July" cross stitching and then participating in a Blog Hop, I also managed to squeeze in a little time to finally get this long desired project underway!  

My original plan was to focus on starting work on the Red, White & Blue version of Edyta Sitar's "Alaska" design during "Red, White & June".  However since I didn't get that done,  I've decided that now I will do this project as another of my self-styled "Block of the Months".  I will note this hasn't gone all that great in the past but you know the old saying:  "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"!  

I'm pleased to say the blocks (on the upper right) for the first month are all done!  I am using Marti Michell's Kaleido-rulers to cut the pieces for the blocks.  As I've pulled out all the information I had gathered for this project, I am also now taking a look at other Kaleidoscope designs.  

In her book "Kaleidoscope ABCs", Marti explores many different designs for Kaleidoscope blocks.  

Since the blocks I made this month are the simple ones with just plain triangles, I picked another design using the same type of block to try making.  Those are the small scrappy Kaleidoscope blocks under the "Alaska" blocks.  I'm doing them as inspired by this design in Marti's book:

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I am ALWAYS looking for blocks or designs that will use up scraps!  I had decided to make these 5 inch finished as the strips needed for cutting the triangles is 3 inches and I already have a lot of scraps of that size in my Scrap Users box.

Initially, I thought I could then have the option of teaming the blocks with my other overflowing box of scraps:  Charm Squares (5" cut) which would give me more design options.   Unfortunately I had to check myself when I remembered that a five inch finished block means unfinished it's 5-1/2" so actually won't work with the Charm Squares after all.  

No matter, I'd still love the quilt of just the scrappy blocks.  Since I also have a big box of scraps sitting in my space that I need to process,  now I know to also try cutting some 5-1/2" squares that I can try teaming with these blocks.  So this will be another ongoing scrap project.       

A Long Overdue Flimsie Is Now Also Done

While piecing the "Alaska" blocks (as well as the project I made for the Blog Hop),  I was also able to finally put together the top for my "Gathering A Garden" quilt project that has been laid out on my design wall since May --- that's it on the left in the picture at the start of the post.  I used piecing the rows of blocks together for that top as a "leader/ender" for the Kaleidoscope blocks and the Blog Hop project piecing.  I am glad to finally move forward on this project.  I had worked up this design all the way back in 2010 and now can finally get around to completing it.

Plans for the rest of the week:

1.  Recently I spoke to my MIL and found out that the QOV kit to make for donation that I took when I joined the guild back in February is due back to the guild in August!  Uh oh!  

This is another project I had thought I'd work on during "Red, White & June" but didn't so now it's crunch time!  Fortunately it looks to be pretty easy so I'm hoping I can get it made up over the next two or three days so I can get it in the mail ASAP! 

2.  Before we went camping over the July 4th weekend,  I made up another of the Fat Quarter Gypsy - Sew Organized Design "Stacking Pop-up" buckets to use in our tent as a small garbage bag holder.  It's the second one of these types of bucket that I have made, the first one was for my Juki machine's travel kit.  

I have another set of fabrics to make one for my Featherweight's travel kit.  They are pretty easy to make so I think I'll try to get that done this week too. 

3.  Lastly, I need to cut out the next set of "Alaska" blocks as I really want to try to stay on track with this project.

That's it for me!  Once again trying to see if a short list means I can actually get what I plan done!  If you want to see what is populating other crafters "To Do" lists this week, head on over to Carol's Quilt Schmilt for the "To Do Tuesday" linkup and check out all of the fun things that will be going on in crafting spaces this week! 

In Honor of National Sewing Machine Day

 As always a lot going on in the studio this week.  I was pleased to find out that today is National Sewing Machine Day.  

We quilters all appreciate how much the sewing machine contributes to our quilty crafting.  In my last post I had talked about wanting to switch over to my Juki machine but as of right now my Singer 401 is still in my sewing cabinet and the project it had been hard at work on was this one:

I had hoped to have finished these but I hit a snag.  I've put the project in time out for a while and then will try to take another stab at it.

In the meantime, a new project has been started:  

These are blocks for "Apple Crisp", a design that originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and is now available free on their website.  

When I started quilting, "background fabrics" for me were almost always light to dark tans because I worked with a lot of shaded fabrics and Civil War reproductions.  However in recent years as I've embraced more fabrics in the brighter modern palette, I have expanded my use of backgrounds to include more whites and white-based "low volume" prints.  

In the process, the darker tans had been languishing but when I saw this lovely project on the APQ website a few years back, I loved its Fall vibe and thought it a perfect way to cull some of the darker tans from my background stash.  Although I had pulled together the group of tans for it a good while ago, the big push to start it now has to do with an upcoming event. 

 Angela Walters is getting ready to do another of her "Free Motion Quilting Challenge Alongs " this time with the theme of "How Do I Quilt It?".  She will be covering stitching designs on Chevron, Log Cabin, Curved and Snowball blocks.  I have a top ready for the Log Cabin session and realized that this was the perfect time to get "Crisp" started since half of the blocks for it are Snowball blocks.

According to the Challenge schedule, Angela will start showing designs for stitching Snowball blocks on July 16th.  If I can stick to a schedule of stitching "Daily Blocks",  I could have the top ready for quilting by then.  I really look forward to seeing what ideas she has that I might be able to use to quilt this one up quick!

However, having made a schedule for daily stitching I did have one issue:  we are going on vacation next week.  In order to stick to the schedule, that means I'll need to take my stitching with me.  Fortunately that's not a problem as I've already put my trusty Featherweight with the travel stuff:

When I took my Juki on my last two travel trips,  I realized something:  the "Catch-All Cutie" I had made a few years ago and love to bring as part of my "sewing machine travel kit" was colored perfectly to go with the Tutto bag I had purchased for toting my Juki machine.  

Rather than having to move that tote between the two travel bags, I thought about making another one that I can leave in my Featherweight tote bag.  I saw some cute "old-timey" fabric on Etsy and knew I still had a little of the "Singer" fabric leftover from making the Featherweight tote bag:

All of this would be perfect for a new "Cutie"!  Recently I also saw that Gaye at Sentimental Stiches had a pair of scissors that I thought went perfectly with my Featherweight so purchased those too (in the lower left) to go in the new "Cutie" bag.  When we get back, I plan to order one of the Lori Holt Red Olfa Splash rotary cutters to add to it as well.  

So as of right now I've cut all the parts out (although still debating between the handle choices on the lower left) and hope I  can get it made up before we leave on Sunday.      

Because it's that time of the year, the Red, White and Blue quilts have gone up for the "Patriotic Season" (May to September) so I also hope to get back to work on these in the coming weeks:

Two years ago, I got as far as quilting the front and back panels for a cover for a pillow for my living room chair so hopefully this year I can assemble and finally finish it.  I also pieced a Lone Star wall hanging that year but could not decide how to quilt it.  

Looking at a picture of it recently,  I suddenly realized exactly how I want to do that.  When we get back, I'm going to try layering it using a glue basting method from You Tube that my MIL has tried and says works great.  If it works for me too, I can get that quilted and hung up --- hopefully by month's end! 

One of the things that had attracted me to quilting was finding out that all of the construction of a quilt  can be done completely by machine.  Having grown up in the days of Home Ec training in school, I was excited to find a new use for a sewing machine.  Over twenty years on, it is still a thrill to put the "pedal to the metal" and get a quilt out of it, LOL!!  I hope you are having an enjoyable time working with your machine today and if not, pull it out and take it for a celebratory spin!   

To Do Tuesday: Trip Recap and Plans For the Rest of the Week

It's been a while but I am back again for another:

Hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt

My DH and I are back from the trip for the family funeral that I mentioned in my last post.  We wound up staying an extra day so only got back yesterday.  While you hate for a death to be the reason for extended family to get together,  it was a happy opportunity to re-connect with three generations of family and friends we hadn't seen in a long while.  Another plus is that plans were put in motion for a family reunion for next year.  

However, with all the visiting with family, it meant less time than expected to spend quilting with my MIL.  We did get to a few things:  I made up the backing for the "Heartland" 3 Yard Quilt top I had started on our visit to her last Fall.  I had purchased the backing fabric for it during the shop hop we did then and finished the top once I got back home.  

Now having brought it back down with me, I managed to get it loaded on her longarm frame in the hopes of quilting it on this trip.    

The day I did that, I also had the opportunity to show something to the daughter of another of my MIL's sisters.  The last time we were together was eight years ago and I had gifted her mother a quilt while she was in the hospital that I had originally made for myself for Spring decorating.  When her mother passed, the quilt was passed on to the daughter.  Now I have finally used the pretty floral fabric I had leftover from that quilt project to make this new one for myself.  

Once everyone left, I finished picking out an edge to edge design to quilt it with.  The design I wanted to use was kind of dense so I formatted it to be stitched more spread out on the top.  However, that created issues due to the limited experience I have working with the machine and rudimentary knowledge on how to get the design to stitch out.  I spent the rest of the night trying figure out how to get it to work but couldn't.  Knowing we'd be out most of the next day, I ultimately had to pull it back off the frame and initially decided to just bring it back home and quilt it on my DSM instead.  

Because we decided to stay an extra day, we did manage to also load a smaller wall hanging my MIL had pieced.  Once again there was a lot of back and forth and layout changes made to how we thought we could get the design she picked to stitch out.  We ultimately were able to get that one done.  Fortunately that also meant we got to demo the machine in action for her friend, another quilter, who was also staying with her.  It was not perfectly stitched but my MIL was happy with the results.  

The good news is that some of what I learned working on that and from our previous session back in February have given me some insight into how I might take another shot at getting the "Heartland" quilt successfully longarmed.  So I will bring it back again on our next trip down in the Fall.   Like they say, every project is practice for the next one!

Unfortunately, no work done on these two!

I didn't find all the kinds of custom stitch patterns I wanted for the other quilt I brought down (in the Apples bag) that I wanted to longarm so that too didn't get worked on.  Since we were in and out most days, I never got around to doing any piecing on the project I brought for that (in the project bag).  So those two will have to wait as now that I am back home, the machine currently in my table needs a long over do cleaning and oiling session:

And since my 401 is the only zigzag machine in the house, before I take it out of the table I want to work on two projects that need that feature.   

Ever since the pandemic, I've wanted to make a "Jelly Roll Rug" for my kitchen.  I got the pattern and the bulky batting rolls back then and finally caught the jelly rolls I wanted on sale in 2022.  Since I am also trying to Spring clean the quilt space in particular and the house in general, getting this project done will help with both!  

Zigzag Project #2 will be to finally work on Pat Sloan's "Breakfast Club" applique Quilt Along that she hosted from January to March.  

I've had the fabric sitting on my sewing table since then but other projects took priority.  Since this is also planned for the kitchen, getting it done will add to the Spring spruce-up to be done in there.   So I figure those will be the priority quilt projects for this week and possibly the next.  The hope is after that I'll swap my Juki in to the sewing table and try to get in a free-motion quilting groove and work on my "To Be Quilted" backlog until the start of Summer.

On the cross stitch front, the project I took for stitching on the way down has moved forward some:

Pattern by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread

When I left, only the "IT", the "D" and part of the "G" had been done and that last letter had to be re-done because I had started the placement of it wrong.  I had thought this would be an easy stitch since it's so open.  However, I am still getting my sea legs on stitching on Evenweave so didn't get as much done while away as hoped.  I also made some last minute thread changes last night, grabbing two colors from other projects (one finished, one in progress) that had what I was looking for.   So now I'll continue with it this week until I get the stitching done.  Hopefully then I'll get the project bag it is going to be part of done next week.   

That should all be more than enough to keep me busy as I expect we'll also need to sign up for shifts in our community garden now that it's open for the season.  Still hoping May will be a little less frantic than the last few months have been.  It helps too that we are all enjoying more sunshine and warm weather now that Spring has fully sprung!   And when you come back inside, take some time to also check out what everyone else has going on for this week over at Quilt Schmilt!

April Recap: Still Busy and Now Blue (and White)

Warning:  As usual since this is a month long recap, it's pretty long so strap in!

The busyness of the last two months has continued a pace.  Our community garden's Season Opening/Earth Day Celebration on the 20th went well.  

 "Mother Earth" (Our Garden President) and some happy Butterflies celebrate the day!

Being in charge of organizing the garden's set up for the day was stressful right up to the end!  While glad to have done it and with ideas for improving it next year,  I would also be more than glad to hand the reins to someone else next year!

As noted in my post for March I had started a blue and white Bargello quilt for decorating for the Spring season.  That quilt is now basted and while I have tried sketching out designs for quilting it, I haven't settled on one yet:

One other thing we were also waiting on this month was word of the health condition of my MIL's ill sister.  Unfortunately, the day after the garden event we were told she lost her battle with lung cancer so now we are organizing things for a trip back down to North Carolina for her funeral.  

My DH and I will be staying at my MIL's house and although it will not be a long trip (this Thursday until Sunday),  I am also packing for our usual mini quilt retreat.  I had gone down to comfort my MIL when her husband passed away in 2020 and had found that what time we could spend together quilting helped blunt the pain of the grief she was feeling so I want to be ready to do that again.

While I had put together the Bargello quilt, I had ideas for two more blue and white quilts.  One was based on a Fat Quarter bundle I had seen on Etsy while shopping for fabrics for another quilt (and more on that later).

Fat Quarter and Half Yard Bundles available from Neemerone on Etsy

As I have noted in the last two years, my new "go to" easy quilt design is the "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" that I learned about from a You Tube video.  I have finished two so far:

The Last Dash and Lavender Love

When I saw that the FQ bundle above contained nine fabrics, two of which were Grunge, I knew I had to have it and knew just what design I'd make it up in!  However, I replaced the Grunge pieces it came with and added those to the stash I am trying to build of those fabrics.  

The light blue Grunge in the bundle was replaced with a tone-on-tone fabric that was used in the Bargello quilt.  When I realized that it would work here too, I was fortunately able to find more of it.  The white Grunge was replaced with a light batik from my stash.  So that top is now done too!

The fabric bundle was anchored by four indigo prints from Debbie Maddy's "Yukata" line for MODA.  Debbie's Shibori dyed fabrics are reproduced by MODA for her fabric lines.  Ironically,  I have a label panel of MODA designers and one of the labels happened to be by Debbie Maddy!  So of course, I had to use it for this quilt.  

To do so,  I purchased some yardage of a print from one of her other lines ("Kawa") and used that to make the backing for this quilt.    

This has now been put with the things I plan to take down with me.  I am hoping I might be able to quilt it on my MIL's longarm while there.  

It should be noted that this is actually an alternate project to take along.  Originally my plan was to take my Juki sewing machine down with me and resume the quilting of yet another FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt I had started as a gift for one of the Steering Committee members of my garden.  

What's funny is that I hadn't unpacked this machine since I took it with me on our last trip down to my MIL's back in February!  However, as plans for family members to attend the funeral got underway, the plans changed to having us ferry some relatives down with us in our car.  That means we would not have as much cargo space as originally planned.  So I decided that I would nix taking the Juki in favor of taking my Singer Featherweight and the new FQ Disappearing Nine Patch project both of which will take up less space than what I originally had planned to bring.

I am also taking another top that I had made after our trip to my MIL's last Fall for the All Carolinas Shop Hop.  I had expected to long arm it on the trip in February but didn't get to it.  So it and the batting for it are also packed.  

I had also planned to bring a scrappy piecing project:  Bonnie Hunter's "Shoo-Fly Shoo".  However, now that plan has changed too.  Ironically, all the recent blue and white quilt project setups had actually started with finding a blue and white fabric picked up when I had visited my MIL in 2020.

I had gotten this fabric as part of a scrap bag I purchased on our first trip to the Keepsake Quilting/Pineapple Fabrics Outlet which had opened that year.  I had come across the scrap bag in March while cleaning up my quilt space and was surprised to find that this "scrap" piece was actually a little over a yard!  After I had put out the few Blue and White Quilts I had for Spring, I got the idea to see if I could find a design that could utilize this fabric to make up another one.  That is when I found the Bargello design but then realized that I already had other fabrics in house to make it.  However, I still wanted to find a design that could use the "scrap" fabric.

In mid-April, Pat Sloan previewed "Celebrate with Quilts", the new book by Lissa Alexander and Susan Ache in one of her daily videos in anticipation of a Quilt Along.  I thumbed through the book along with her since I had picked it up when the Fat Quarter Shop ran a book sale at the end of last year.  That's when I saw this quilt using the "Baby Bunting" block from the book:

Since one of the Blue and white quilts I have on display is this mini I made back in 2017:

I immediately thought the blue and white "scrap" print would be great made up in the "Bunting" quilt and I'd love having another quilt with a basket design!  A bunch of blue fabric purchases later and yet another blue and white "kit" had been established.

With the adjustment to our travel plans, I figured that if I take the FQ Disappearing Nine Patch quilt, I'd just as soon take the piecing for the "Bunting" quilt along instead of the scrappy project.  So I've prepped the block sets for it.

The book gives instructions for making this block in four sizes and my plans are to make it in the nine inch finished version for the lap quilt size I want to make.  The good news there is that all the pieces for the block could be die cut since I have the 9" Cube set from Accuquilt:

This is the first time I've used it!

Of course I am also taking cross stitch with me for the drive down and back.  I admit with the garden work,  I had been too distracted (and pooped) to concentrate on the "Harriet Tubman" piece I had been working on.  Then I saw a You Tube video where 123Stitch.com announced they were doing a Spring Stitch Along!  Although I have shopped with them, I had not been aware before then that they A) had a You Tube channel or B) hosted Stitch Alongs.  So with the usual nod to "squirrels" and FOMO,  I had to make plans to join in!

What I liked about the design they are using is that it is a Lizzie Kate pattern and that is a designer I have not stitched before.  I also liked that they were going to use a decorative button to complete part of it.  Of course, I then decided to take it to the next level:  my plans were to do less stitching of the motifs in it and use even more decorative buttons to create it.  So I found these on Etsy:

A chance to try a new way of embellishing a CS project.

However, while I will take this with me it is not what I'll be stitching on the way down.  At the time I had set up this project, I thought I had an empty project bag to put it in but couldn't find it.  During the AC Shop Hop in the Fall, I had picked up pieces of an older line of Pat Sloan's fabric.  I had decided that I'd use it to do another popular Cross Stitch thing:  make a project bag out of it!  

Not content to just work with the fabric, I noted there had been a pattern I had seen a while back that I had liked and realized it was the perfect thing to incorporate into the project bag.  Luckily enough when I went to look for it, it was on sale so yet another cross stitch project was born!  

This is also another chance for me to practice stitching on an Evenweave fabric.  I had started doing so for last year's Stitch June and I am hoping that this even easier stitch will get me in gear to resume that project.   Actually it looks like I will be attacking this frog design another way -- I see I already need to do some "rippit, rippit", LOL!!  I am hoping that I can finish it during the trip and can start the 123Stitch SAL project during the ride back.  We'll see!  

April has once again been a whirlwind, let's see if May will calm down a bit for a change of pace!

To Do Tuesday: Focus on the BOM Blocks

It's time again to join the group over at Carol's Quilt Schmilt, the hot spot for "To Do Tuesday" reporting!

The goal for my quilting this past week was to get back to working on blocks for a UFO challenge project, a mystery quilt and a raffle quilt.  I only managed to get some work done on two of those. 

UFO Challenge:  Scrappy Figs 

I had started making the "Christmas Figs" sampler quilt using a scrappy mix of Fig Tree fabrics back in 2020 as a personal BOM project.  Pandemic projects disrupted that along with the projects that followed in the subsequent years.  I am hoping to finally bring this one to a finish this year and had eight more blocks to piece before I could make it into a top.  This week I got to a little under half of them done with three more blocks finished.

Each of these involved fairly intensive piecing so I was thankful that I was able to put my Accuquilt Go! cutter into service to help cut parts for the blocks.  The "Bow Ties" block on the right isn't true to the pattern.  The patterned block consisted of 4" finished Bow Tie blocks in a 4x4 set for a 16" finished block.  

Joanna Figueroa designed her version of the blocks to be made with the "sew and flip" technique to form the center triangles of the Bow Tie.  I am not a fan of "sew and flip" and avoid it whenever possible.  Usually, I would rather cut an angled edge off of a square using either an "Easy Angle Ruler" or a "Folded Corner Ruler" and then stitch an appropriately sized HST triangle to it using a regular 1/4" seam.  This is exactly what I did to make the points of the "Star" block and for the tree trunk center.  For the Bow Ties, I didn't even need to do that!  

I have Bow Tie die sets for 6", 4-1/2" and 3" finished blocks purchased on clearance some years ago.  The closest I could get to a 16" block was to use a mix of 3" and 6" blocks which left me with three less blocks to make than patterned and a 15" finished center.  To bring it up to size, I then added a 1/2" finished coping border in the background fabric around it.  There are other blocks in the original quilt design that also make use of those kinds of borders (such as the "Tree" block also made this week) so it won't look odd among the sampler set.  

Since this block in particular is effectively 13 blocks in one, being able to die cut all the parts and then just sew seams -- as opposed to marking sewing lines and trimming off bonus triangles after -- was a time saver!    

Leader/Ender Mystery and Other Project Blocks

With all the sewing I had to do for the BOM blocks, I was able to use the "Log Cabin" blocks I need to make for Quilty Girl Alycia's new Quilts of Valor Mystery called "Stars Like Spaghetti" as leader/ender piecing.  

The Log Cabins are for the first clue of the mystery and I still have four more to make.  Clue #2 has already dropped and Clue #3 drops tomorrow.  

With so many seams to sew, it still took throwing in a few more blocks to get everything through the machine.  So I was also able to make another "Striped Squares" block for a really old UFO project I have wanted to make since the very early days of my quilting.  The scrap blocks with the diagonal strip in the middle are made from a free McCall's Quilting pattern called "Scrappity-Do-Dah".  So four projects for the work on one!    

Related:  Charity News!  When I went over to Alycia's blog, she mentioned in a recent post that details for the 2024 Block Drive for the Quilts of Valor Foundation have been posted.  They are looking to receive "Ohio Star" blocks and you can pick up the pattern for them here.  Additionally this coming Saturday, February 3 is a "National QOV Sew Day".  If you have a local group or shop that hosts these events, you may be able to go there to submit or even make blocks for the cause. 

No Love For the Raffle Quilt

The plan for this had been to stitch down the applique flower motifs that I had added to three of the basket blocks when I last worked on this a year ago:  

However with all the work on the other blocks, I didn't even get to that.  What I did do however, was to take a good look at the top and consider whether to add more.  The more I looked at the layout I found that I wanted to keep it as symmetrical as possible and adding more just complicated that.  So the good news -- given that I haven't made any progress on this so far -- is that I am okay with settling for what I have.  Ironically, I also have another applique project that will be a "New Start" but didn't get to that either.  So I guess February will have to be the month for applique!

And Let's Not Forget Cross Stitch!

Oh and last but not least, I did make progress with almost daily stitching on my latest cross stitch project:

Last week....

As of Today!

I'm hoping to finish stitching this one up by the 31st or at least by the end of the week!  

As always I will be heading back over to Quilt Schmilt to check out what everyone else is working on.  Hope it's been a good week for everyone!

To Do Tuesday: From Cross Stitch Back To Quilting

Checking in for another "To Do Tuesday" with the crafters who gather over at Quilt Schmilt!

Diverted by Cross Stitch Finishes

So I mentioned on last week's list that I had finished stitching a Valentine's cross stitch project and purchased the finishing supplies.  Well now that project and another cross stitch piece for Thanksgiving are "fully finished" as the cross stitchers say!

"My Heart Is Yours" and "Give Thanks"

So while the good news is that these two are now done (and way early for their respective holidays for a change), the bad news is that meant I didn't work on anything else.  Well, during the day that is.  In the evenings I've continued with my next cross stitch project: the "Year of the Dragon" piece.

Now that the project slate is a little clearer, maybe it will allow me to focus on some quilt projects!

Now Back To Quilting

So first off, I will be finally getting back to the blocks and finishing one of the tops for the two raffle quilts I need to get done by April.

I still have to stitch down the edges of the applique motifs for the blocks already prepared.  I had debated about adding flowers to more of the baskets but looking at the layout, I may try to make a few motifs to go in the half rectangles on some of the row ends instead.  

Since I have to stitch down the motifs for this one, I'll also finish stitching down the motifs for the applique blocks for the second dark quilt as well.  However, putting together that second top will have to wait until this one is done. 

From the UFO list, I was also supposed to work on my Fig Tree BOM project using various lines of their fabrics.  Funny thing though: when I pulled out the fabrics I had purchased on the Shop Hop back in October and looked through them to catalog what lines they were from, I realized I had made a mistake!

Unfortunately, these are not all Fig Tree!

The fabrics on the left are definitely Fig Tree and all but one is from the "Strawberries and Rhubarb" line.  The ones on the right are from another designer entirely:  "30's Playtime" by Chloe's Closet which I believe is a "basics" 30's reproduction line from MODA.  They had all been sitting in the same area in the shop so I guess this means I don't know the Fig Tree "look" as well as I thought, LOL!  Fortunately, I do have a stash of 30's reproductions that these will fit in nicely with anyway.

I did take one of the new Fig Tree prints and put it with two others already in stash to use in the next block.

I already had the deep burgundy print picked out for the trunk of the tree block and I've been using the "Fig Tree Cream" solid on the left as a background in all the blocks, interspersing it with other light prints depending on the block design.  Joanna Figureoa did this with the book's cover quilt which seemed to make the blocks "float" in the layout.  I'm hoping to achieve the same effect with mine.

That's Not to Say New Stuff Doesn't Come In....   

Another reason I got so off track this past week is that the "squirrels" have been coming in hot and heavy!  I have two new things I hope to begin working on, the first of which can be stitched as a leader/ender as I put the raffle quilt top together:

1.  Alycia of the Quilty Girl Alycia blog and who hosts "Finished Or Not Friday" has a new mystery quilt being released.  It starts off with Log Cabin blocks which have been an obsession of mine for the last couple of years.  Alycia's designs these to encourage people to make Quilts of Valor tops which is something I still want to do in my community so I just had to join in.

The strips for the first blocks are already prepped.  Well, the lights came out of the box where I put scraps for making LC blocks so they were already cut to size.  I had to mine the red strips from the stash of fabrics I have leftover from making red and white quilts for the holidays in 2022.  

2.  Pat Sloan's Breakfast Club is one of her current mystery sew alongs.  I've always wanted to make a quilty wall hanging for the kitchen.  When she started it, I liked the first block and saw I had a place to display this one with one caveat:  I'll be making mine a mini!  This will be an applique sampler and since I had really liked the fabric line she was using and found a good deal on it, I scooped it up.

I will also have to pull bits from my stash for some of the food motifs.  This is a "block a week" sew along so I hope I can both space out the work and keep up.  At least for right now, this is another one where I can stitch down the motifs along with the raffle quilt blocks.  

But Wait There's More!

Added to all of that there is also a lot of fun stuff I'm following.  While I was tempted to join in, I think I'll just watch these from the side lines.  Are you checking any of these out?    

Project Quilting - Season 15:  Challenge 1 has already been completed and the winners chosen.  Challenge #2 was just announced yesterday.  Will you be joining in?

Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR):  I've followed this one for a few years now and hope to do it one day.  I even have an orphan block I could have used but it's applique so I wasn't confident about being able to interpret pieced rounds with it.  I know I should have just dove in but with so many other things on my plate I think it's better to just watch and learn again this time.  The first Round has been announced on this one so go check it out if you think you might want to participate!

It sounds like a lot but with some focus it should be doable.  Or is that "famous last words"?!?  In any event, I'll head back over to Quilt Schmilt and see what everyone else is up to this week!