White House

Forgot that I also made block 16 for the Civil War Quilt today also.  It's called White House.

Row 1 is Done!

One week and row one of Dutch Treat #3 is done!

 Yesterday and today I finished three more blocks.

Border Crossing

Brooch

Blue Bells

This afternoon I sewed the first 14 blocks together to make row one.  This time I'm going to sew my rows vertically to get better control over the long vertical sashing and keeping it straight.  I'm using the dark brown fabric I initially bought thinking it might be the foreground fabric.  This one is going to be so much fun!

 I also made a big pot of bean and ham soup this afternoon along with a couple loaves of NY rye bread and some nutty spice cookies.

Yum..time to go eat!

Greco-Roman Tiles

Cheryl made me really work hard today making this week's block from the 1880's Sampler Quilt.  I took sections apart more times than care to admit.  Finally got it to come out to 5 1/2" (5" finished).  It's far, far from perfect, but once again, without paper piecing she made it doable and I'm okay with the way mine looks.

There are 65 pieces in this 5" block if I counted correctly.  The name makes me think of the summers I spent driving my youngest son to Greco-Roman freestyle wrestling meets in Iowa. I miss those days.

In case you are wondering, those final green borders will finish to 1/4" when sewn into the quilt!  My lines are wonky to say the least, but I'm guessing in the whole quilt nobody is going to worry about it alot.  I just decided I'd frogged enough.  Obviously I sometimes sew like a drunken sailor! 

Rainy, cold day today. What happened to spring?

Color Play

I'm loving the way unexpected colors show up in the Dutch Treat blocks.  It's hard to know just exactly what is going to peak out of the cut away places.  This really feels "outside the box" for me.  Much more colorful than my usual choices. 

Four more blocks in the last 2 days

Apple Core





Bean Bags

Baby's Breath

Aztec

Yesterday I dug out the sections of my Dear Jane quilt and sewed them together. Previous pictures I've shown had the sections just laying next to each other.  So I've made a BIT of progress. LOL. 



New Blocks

Playing catch-up with my pieced blocks.  Normally I make these blocks as soon as they are available, Friday and Saturday.  As you know we were pretty busy last weekend.  But how appropriate is it that I made the Civil War Block today...it's called Fort Sumpter and it is exactly 150 years ago TODAY that the first shot in this battle was fired! 



 The central 9-patch is supposed to symbolize the Fort and the .light blue triangles on the outside the water that surrounds it.  Read more of this story on Barbara's blog

And here's my 1880's Sampler block for last week.   It's called Grain Mill

Last but not least, I finished two Dutch Treat blocks last night. 

Almonds

 

Awaken

There is quite a bit of waste making the Dutch Treat blocks since the blocks are initially cut 6" and then trimmed to 4 1/2" after the applique is done.  You need the extra 1 1/2" to have something to hold onto.  Of course you know me..I don't throw anything out. So I have plastic bins filled with these scraps from both of the Dutch Treat quilts I've made to date.  I intend to do some sort of string piecing with them. 

Today I decided that maybe if I make myself sit down and piece these as I make each block and trim it, then when I'm done making my Dutch Treat I'll be close to having another quilt of some kind made. 

So here are the scraps so far.

I have several ideas of what I might do with these.  How about you?