Party Animals

Driving home from the grocery store I glanced down at my car's console and saw a single peanut butter cracker in its package.  I burst out laughing,  suddenly sussing a mystery I hadn't known existed. 

I'm making no sense?  Let's roll back a couple of weeks...

I always keep some peanut butter crackers and a granola bar in the car in case I get hungry.  When I found an empty cracker wrapper under my feet two weeks ago, I figured I ate them on a prior drive and just forgot.  It was a little odd since I'm usually good about throwing away the wrapper and restocking.  I got home and replaced the crackers.

I Like Thursday: Silence, Snow and a Stream

 

January has been quiet around here.  The highlight of the week:  this barred owl hanging out in the back yard.  He chilled out there for at least a half hour.  It was a cold day, so he was puffy. 

 

 

It snowed on Tuesday - light fluffy stuff.  So pretty.  

Project Quilting 12.2: Fussy Spots

I've watched a few seasons of Project Quilting float by my Facebook feed and decided to try it out this season.  I missed the first challenge, but anyone can jump in at any time, so I tackled the fussy cut challenge this week.

I Like Thursday: Kind of Quiet

Kind of quiet is a good thing.  Health continues to slowly improve.  Work is rolling along. In fact, I get excited in the morning to sit down and start working.  It's been years since I felt like that - it's wonderful to have that back.

I like playing with fabric.  The drawback of cleanup projects is they can spawn more projects.  Fun and interesting, but distracting if I'm trying to accomplish something else.  I continue to play with kites.  These are itty-bitty pieces that would result in a 2" finished square.  What was I thinking cutting something so small?

Off the Rails

I am running off the rails with my projects.  Eek!  It's all Project Quilting's fault.  I'd seen prior seasons float by on my feeds and decided to jump into this one.  The challenge is fussy cutting.  I had an idea, grabbed fabric to fussy cut and anticipated a quick project.  I started playing with fabrics and layout, which was cool.  However, once I got a layout nailed down, I started to reconsider what fabrics I was fussy cutting.  At this point I've flip-flopped to a completely different set of fabric and back to most of the colors I started with.

Nuts.

Deadline is Sunday at noon.  I'm not used to this kind of creative process under a deadline.  I need the fabric cut by tonight or tomorrow to have any chance of getting this done on time.  Wish me luck!

Cobbling

I gravitate towards projects requiring me to use what's on hand to create or fix something.  I cobble.  Or as Rob often tells me, I putter.  What can I say?  It's my thing.  Which is probably why I find creating scrappy quilts most satisfying. 

I am well into January's OMG of cleanup, which gave me permission to do nothing but cobble for the month:  batting is frankensteined, selvedge blocks are done, I even wrapped fabric around more clothesline.  Once I finish piecing together the last of my wavy blocks, I can cut up my remaining scrap.  

I also stitched together another 10 string kite pieces to arrange as wonky square blocks.  I thought they'd make an interesting baby quilt.

I'm always amazed at how different the same blocks can look depending on the layout.  Thees blocks make red-gold squares with blue diamonds, blue squares with red-gold diamonds, or a set of aligned wonky squares of red and blue with pinwheels in-between.

I Like Thursday: Recouping

Still alive and kicking out there?  How about a few little things that made me smile this week?

This snowball fight on Twitter made me smile.  How nice to see people playing out in the streets.  Did I read right that it was 50 years since Madrid had this much snow?

I'm playing with strings and circles and my new ruler.  Ooh.  Fun!

Pandemic Plaits

There was bright sun on Sunday and I found a good spot to photograph Pandemic Plaits.  I took lots and lots (and lots) of photos.  You've been warned.

I am very pleased with the quilting.  This quilt has so much texture in the sunlight.

I Like Thursday: Memories

A quiet start to the new year. 

My sister is currently playing Myst with her son.  Oh, my sister and I had enjoyed playing Myst so much when it came out (back in '94?).  I've tried several times over the years to install it on my linux system with no luck.  But Rob (who is awesome) got it up and working last week.  I have spent way too many hours playing it.  It's been wonderfully nostalgic. 

January OMG: Cleanup

I didn't sign up for a December OMG, because I didn't want any pressure around the holidays.  I did finish quilting the braid quilt though by the end of the year.  Yay me!

I'm overdue for a cleanup:  dealing with scraps of fabric and batting, plus I need to plan my next throw-size quilt.  Oh, and get good photographs of the twin-sized finish from December.

So my goal is to clean up this table and make some neat piles:

1. Frankenstein the batting at the top right into one piece
   
2. Add more completed selvedge blocks to the pile in the middle of the table.
3. Make some curvy string blocks from the pile of string at the lower right.
4. Cut up leftovers at the lower left.
5. Pick a pattern and calculate yardage for my next throw quilt.
   

Seems do-able.  I started working on some selvedge blocks last night.

 

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Elm Street Quilts - January One Monthly Goal