This and That

It's hard to believe we are in the last week of January already.  If this is an example of how fast this year is going to move, then I think I should start baking for Christmas.  I don't know why time seems to be moving so quickly but it feels like I'm not getting anything done. I also feel like I'm going in a dozen different directions. 

Even though I've been bad about posting, I have managed to do a bit of sewing.  I spent a couple weeks this month appliqueing a block as a pattern tester for a designer.  It's a lovely block but I can't share it until she publishes the pattern which probably won't be until this summer.  So you'll have to trust me..it turned out pretty nicely and it did take a lot of hours.  That explains some of January.

I'm still trying to get the remaining quilt pieces cut out by my grandmother turned into finished projects.  I'm  mostly down to these

I made five more Brilliant Star blocks in the last 3 weeks

I think I remember one of my aunts having a dress from this fabric

A relative shared some scraps with Grandma and I in the mid 70's when we were making crazy quilts.  This fabric was left over from P.J.'s she made for her sons.

Another of my aunt's dress scraps

 The day our great-granddaughter Aly, was born, I needed a good take along project to keep me busy while we waited, so I grabbed the little hexagons in Grandma's pieces and started working on these Flower Garden blocks using English paper piecing. It does get addictive and I've made a few more in the evenings since. 

I think I have enough of her pieces to make about 27 blocks.  They are small, so maybe I can make a table topper or runner out of them.  The fabrics are older than the ones I'm using for the Brilliant Star blocks.  These look more like vintage 30's or 40's fabrics.  I don't have any memories of any of them in clothing.  Perhaps Grandma got them as scraps from her mother?   The center muslin pieces are somewhat discolored with age.  At first I thought I'd cut out some new muslin, but then decided to go ahead and use the aged fabric.  It's vintage fabric..and I want it to retain that look.  Besides it's for me and not the quilt police.

Oh, BTW, the quilts are laying on my new kitchen floor.  That took most of a week  out of my month.  New floors in our kitchen, hallway and front entry to go along with the two new bathroom and utility room  floors in Nov/Dec. You would not believe the number of quilt magazines I had to remove from the kitchen in order to move bookcases, etc. out and empty the room.  My dining room table is still full of most of them.  Then there were the over 300 cookbooks that live in my kitchen.  So two days of moving stuff out and two or more of moving SOME of the stuff back.  In the middle were three days of our former grandson-in-law putting the floor down.  I love it!

hallway

front bathroom ..the same flooring went in utility room and front entry

While we were in the middle of redoing the kitchen floor a friend called and asked if I'd like some of the fabric she and her mother no longer needed.  What quilter ever says no?  So approximately a dozen BIG shopping bags full of fabric were deposited in my living room.  I'm still working my way through it.  It's wonderful quilt shop quality fabric, but it's all been washed and now needs pressed and refolded in order to make it fit in my stash somehow.  So much for reducing the size of that! 

Last week our chicken and noodle dinners at church started up again, so one day was spent baking four pies for that.  Three made it to the church. One custard pie ended up upside down on my new floor.  Don't ask!  All I will say is that custard pie cleans up a whole lot easier on wood floor than it would have on the carpeting that was there three weeks ago.

And despite my vow each January not to get involved in new BOM's, you all know how easily I cave on that one.  I've posted the four blocks I've made this month for Barbara B's Civil War BOM.

With this being the 150th anniversary of the Civil War I'm seeing projects relating to this popping up all over the web and I know I'll not be able to resist.  I'm already downloading patterns and hoping to start two more.  What can I say....I'm weak!

So why do I feel like I haven't accomplished anything this month?