Three layers deep

Well, not all days are this productive - especially lately.  But after a few mis-starts, I managed to get a few things accomplished.

My Frolic (Bonnie Hunter's 2019 Winter Mystery) was so close to the finish line that I could hear its little footsteps.  I zipped through the last HSTs for the borders and stitched them into nice long strings.

There was an oops, of course, because there's always an oops.

I managed to sew the border strips together wrong way round.  Luckily I'd only done one set before seeing my error.

There.  That's better.

Then it was time for the Math Meltdown.  I'd been willfully denying that there was going to be a problem with those borders.  I'd made my quilt smaller than Bonnie's, so her border lengths were going to be different from mine.  The part that I was really trying not to think about was that I knew from my measuring for that yellow stop border that my quilt now measured an odd number.  Those HSTs finish with an even number.  

I started doing all kinds of mental gymnastics thinking about adding another HST to each border, then adding a second (extremely narrow) stop border to fill the gap.  Multiply this, add that, subtract the other.

Meanwhile, the sensible part of my brain (I do have one - it's usually hiding waaaaaaaay in the back) was trying to get my attention.  

"Go away, I'm thinking," I told Sensible, and returned to trying to remember if I'd allowed for ALL the seam allowances.  Sensible wasn't having any of that, thank you very much, and proceeded to start squawking really loudly.

"What?!?" I said grumpily.

"Not bigger.  Smaller.  Measure and think."

The stop border measured 57".  My HST border measured 56.5".

Oh.

Duh.

Nevermind.

The borders practically sewed themselves on.

I pinned it to the design wall right over top of Unity, which I finished a couple of weeks ago and hadn't put away yet.  (I'm using it to remind myself that I really have gotten something accomplished in this Time of Weird.)

So since I was on such a roll of success, I grabbed Sand Castles and finished the last two seams on that one.

I added it to the design wall, too.

So that's two tops done today, which I'm pretty sure is a Personal Best.

And I've got tops three layers deep on the design wall.

And it looks to me like I can start a few new projects with an absolutely clear conscience...

Unity is united!

And it's huge!  I had to hang it sideways because I couldn't reach high enough to put it up rightways-up.

(And you can see how my 'design wall' is really just a big chunk of flannel clamped to a metal shelving unit.  Fancy!)

The only way I can fit the whole top into one photo is to sneak up on it from the side.

With that squirrel monster project wrapped up, I'll be able to get back to my sandcastles.

I had gotten this far in the webbing process when Unity grabbed my attention.  (There was some mask-sewing going on, too.) (And procrastinating.  Don't forget the procrastinating!)

I've done webbing on small quilts and quilt blocks, so I thought I'd give it a try for this quilt.  Final verdict?  I'm not too keen on it.  I can see the logic of the process, but my sewing machine workspace is small and trying to heft around a whole quilts-worth of quilt blocks over and over again in order to sew the top together is more work than I want to tackle.  I'm gonna stick to sewing a row at a time, even if it means hopping up and down a bunch of times to grab the next batch of blocks.  (It's not good to sit for too long anyway, right?)

In other news, I sewed another doodad - this one is either green for May or pink for June.  Or both.  Why not both?

Then, since my pink postage stamp block for the month is already made, I figured I'd better go back and catch up the months I missed with the late start.

(Of course I picked orange to start with.  Is anyone surprised?)

And here are the three postage stamp blocks  I've made so far:

I think it's going to be fun!

Now, back to the Sand Castles.  And Totally Demented has been waving at me every time I walk by.  Might have to do something about that, too...

Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come share in the scrappy rainbow fun!

Pink is for Postage

I'm uncertain why I'm suddenly making postage stamp blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

But here I am...

(I'm pretty sure it's Sally's fault.  Or maybe Molly's...)

And in other news, the stars are starting to pile up for those last Unity borders.

Almost there!

Linking with SoScrappy at ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  (At least I hope I am - I have no confidence in Blogger these days)

I've finally done something interesting

Between a general inertia and a lack of anything interesting to talk about, it's been hard to get myself to write a post...

I finally got the next-to-last border finished for Bonnie Hunter's Unity.  It went from a good sized throw quilt to a holy-crap-this-is-a-big-one in the blink of an eye.

(To be perfectly truthful, there were several blinks involved, but you know what I mean.)

One more to go, but thankfully the last border is only a header and a footer instead of another full turn around.

I've got a start with some star centers done,

and a plateful of starry bits ready to go.

Sincerely not liking the New Blogger.  Is there any way to upload more than one picture at a time?  Because that's getting frustrating fast.  My process has always been to put up all the pictures I plan to use, then assemble my text around them.  They've taken what was an easy one-step process and made it a PITA.

Also getting frustrated with formatting lines between photos.  After centering photos, blogger wants to center the text too, and doesn't want to take no for an answer.  I can click on that left-align symbol all I like (with or without highlighting the text)  and blogger just ignores me.  It took me an hour just to get this very short post done.

#Does Blogger hate bloggers?

Where does the time go?

It's been a while so I figured I'd better check in, just to say 'still here!'
I haven't gotten as much sewing done as I'd like, but at least I got Clue 3 done for Bonnie Hunter's Unity SAL.

(It's squarer in real life than it looks in this photo.  Honest.)

I've cut a few pieces for Clue 4 and hope to get the next border stitched up this weekend.  I'm only a week behind as of now, but there's another clue coming on Monday.

Just need to focus better on that focus thing...

Ready for round three

I sewed like the wind today and got the latest round of Bonnie Hunter's Unity mystery quilt done so I'll be ready for Clue 3 tomorrow.  Can't wait to see what's next!

I'm happy with the red/blue/brown cholor scheme I've got going on for this quilt.

And even with all that blue all over my cutting mat, I only got one block done for the RSC this week.

This is another of the blocks that I thought I was done making, but clearly I'm wrong about this one, too.

Unless I've accidentally started another quilt?


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and with Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!  Come see all the scrappy fun while you stay safe and healthy!

Another day, another doodad

Our new color for the RSC is blue - the lights and the brights.

I had some leftover blue triangles sitting right on my cutting mat, thanks to Bonnie Hunter's new SAH mystery.  I grabbed some orange triangles to set them off (because nothing sets off blue quite so well as orange) (actually nothing sets off any color quite so well as orange) and there's the first April Doodad.

Speaking of Bonnie's Unity, here's the center of the medallion on my design wall, complete with 1.5" neutral border.

You'll notice the design wall has a Conspicuous Lack of Sand Castles.

That's because they're currently partially webbed and heaped all over my chair and ironing board.

Seven columns down and one to go!  Then I can start sewing the rows together.  Getting closer!


Linking with SoScrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come admire the rainbows!

Well of course I'm doing the new Bonnie Hunter mystery

I hesitated for about two minutes before jumping into this one.  It's a medallion quilt and I love medallion quilts.  And I couldn't possibly miss a chance to start another quilt, could I?

Yesterday's progress -

bits made and laid out for a photo op.

Then today I got them assembled.

After I got it together, I noticed two different places where identical reds were too close together, but I decided it didn't bug me enough to make me rip it out and re-position them.  So be it.  If I know my Bonnie Hunter quilts, this thing will be big enough and busy enough that it can't possibly matter.

Today's task was also to start the webbing of the Sand Castles.

Three columns down, five to go.

And speaking of Sand Castles, I had one of those "well, duh" moments while trying to decide what should go in the empty Sand Castle bin.

How about the second Sand Castle - the one in reds with black and white?  The one I've already started making?

I don't even have to change the label.