Around the World from the Couch

Began 2015, Finished 2016

Leaders and Enders Project

Cathy at A Quilting Chick has a monthly linky party for leaders and enders, which is going to be added incentive for me to use up those boxes of scrap fabrics I have everywhere. I have found that it is easier for me to make simple, mindless blocks for leaders and enders. When I try to make pieced blocks or follow a quilt pattern, I spend more time on the leaders and enders than I do on the quilt I'm trying to make, and then start making mistakes on both of them. So nothing outstanding here, just simple string blocks. Brown is February's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge but I've been sewing bags lately and that doesn't work well with leaders and enders because of the thread and foot used. Hopefully, I'll get back to my Crossroads quilt soon so I can finish more brown blocks. I need six of them for the end project I'm thinking about.

The block in the top right is paper pieced. I wanted to find a simple leader and ender that would work when doing paper piecing and using a regular foot and think this is work for that. I just need to remember to save some of each color to finish them. My goal with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is to use up those boxes of scraps.

Linking to:
Leader/Ender Linky Party at A Quilting Chick.

Living for the Moment and Design Wall Monday

The other day, I had to run to town for something or other. As I was driving the same dull road I drive every time I go to town, I noticed a car next to mine. It wasn't the car I noticed as much as the passenger in the car, a black dog with hair so long it covered his eyes. The window was down and the dog's paws were on the door and his face into the wind, long hair flying, and an expression of pure joy on his face. It was probably the same road that the dog had been on many times before also, but for him, the thrill of the ride hadn't diminished over time.

It made me smile to watch the dog enjoying his ride, and reminded me that it doesn't take much effort to enjoy the simple things. I get so busy getting my work done that I forget to stop and enjoy what I have right now. Who knew you could learn something from a dog?

Ok, enough deep thinking for one day. On with the design wall, or floor in this case.



I'm still plugging away at the Summer Crossroads quilt, but since it doesn't look much different than it did last time, I'm not going to show it. I've made a few string blocks, mostly in brown since that is the color of the month chosen by soscrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Last month was blue, and it put me on such a roll that I not only made my blue blocks, but I cut up all the remaining blue in my box for either future string blocks, EPP, or half square triangles. I'm happy to say that I no longer have a blue scrap box taking up room on a shelf!

I hope I can say the same thing about the brown scraps next month, but my momentum definitely slowed over a hill this month, so we'll see. When I put these brown blocks down to photograph, I noticed that I cut one wrong, so I really only have two finished.

I also wanted to show progress on my English Paper Pieced stars. I had one block completed before Saturday, but this is what I completed during the three hour Storm Spotter class Saturday afternoon. Doesn't seem like much when they are laid out does it? During the morning class, I worked on hexagons.

In my excitement over eliminating a scrap box, I almost forgot my stash report. Or maybe I almost forgot because there's not much there. Except for one strip of white muslin, I haven't used any fabric from my stash this week. Everything else has been from fabric already cut.

That's it for me. I hope you check out the links below and see what wonderful creations other quilters have come up with this week.

Blessings,
Marti

Linking to:
Monday Making 16 at Love Laugh Quilt
Design Board Monday at Bits and Bobs
Main Crush Monday 18 at Cooking Up Quilts
Moving it Forward 8 at Em's Scrapbag
Oh Scrap! 20 at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

February Quilting and Blog Goals

I've decided I like these monthly goals; I like starting fresh very month. For February, I've decided to name not one, but two projects.

First is the Around the World quilt. I really need to find a better name for it though, because it is going to be my snuggle-on-the-couch quilt




The second is this fabric panel I've been staring at for a couple of weeks now.


The reason for two projects is because the Around the World is so close to being finished that it really isn't much of a challenge. And since I have no idea what I want to do with the panel, it's definitely a challenge.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the direction my blog has taken. I spent some time last month looking for posts about antique quilts and in the process read quite a few of my posts. Of course, when I started blogging it was just for myself as a kind of get-back-in-shape accountability record, and evolved into any and everything. I guess the subject matter changed as I myself changed, but I'm not crazy about those changes. How to get back to that earlier style, I have no idea.

Lately, my blog has been all about quilting, and I guess that figures because that's all I've been doing lately. Or at least it was until last week when a freaky thing happened to me. For some time, I had been noticing a blurry spot drifting across one eye and then a blurred line and a crescent-shaped flashing light off to the side. Turns out, I had a tear on a retina. A fairly simple laser procedure and the main blurred line and flashes were gone, but I was left with a floating blur over half my eye and a quarter sized black spot.

Reading the computer screen has been difficult lately, so I just haven't spent as much time online as I used to, and didn't really enjoy the time I was online. It was a lot worse right after the laser treatment, but is beginning to get back to the level of difficulty it was before. This may be as good as it gets from now on, but I plan on asking at my next appointment.

Needless to say, I've been pretty down, worrying about my vision a lot this past week, wondering if there will be more tears, or if this repair will hold. I've also been thinking that I need to change my priorities, and deciding that I need to clear the clutter and get my paperwork in order. So that brings me back to blogging. In the last month, it's been hard to write much because it is so hard to see the screen. This is probably more than I've written in a long time.

I hate to be one of those bloggers who just posts a picture with a line or two under it, but that may be what I have to do for awhile. I'm not sure what direction I'll go, but I am going to try to blog about things other than just quilting.

p.s. If you are between 50 and 60, do yourself a favor and get your retinas checked. Apparently, retina tears aren't uncommon as we age, the retina thins and the vitreous becomes more liquid. It's called the vitreous humor, by the way. Funny. Not.


Linking to:
One Monthly Goal at Red Letter Quilts

Design Wall Monday and Stash Report

I'm making progress on the Summer Crossroads. My goal has been to complete at least one block per day during the week, and finish a row by the end of the weekend. So far I have four rows completed and four rows of blocks ready to finish. Then just four more rows to complete the main section of the quilt. Right now I feel that I will actually finish this one this quarter as planned. I probably shouldn't say that out loud though and risk jinxing it.

I thought I'd join soscrappy's Twinkle Star Column Along. It seemed like a good way to use up my scraps: make pretty blocks while using up one color at a time instead of using a bit of one color here and one color there. But I found that I just don't have enough big scraps to do that star. I might be able to find enough large pieces to do one Twinkle Star block each month, but most of my scraps are narrow, so I'm going to make single color string blocks. Boring, I know, but maybe I can do something interesting with them at the end. Here's my blue Twinkle Star block for January. (I shouldn't have tried to take a photo at night as the flash bleached it out. I did a auto correct which seems to have only brightened the corner colors.)

Also on my design board is this piece of panel cloth. I've probably had it twenty years and of course have none of the fabrics I bought with it at that time. So I've had it on the board, studying it from time to time in hopes that inspiration will strike. So far, it hasn't.

As far as my stash goes, I'm working on it, but still showing more in than out for the year. Drat that after-Christmas sale!

Linking to:
Scraphappy Saturday 53 at soscrappy
Monday Making 3 at Love Laugh Quilt
Main Crush Monday 1 at Cooking up Quilts
Moving it Forward Monday 6 at Em's Scrapbag