A New Project

When I woke up this morning, there was a light dusting of snow on the ground.  It was all gone by mid-morning.  Whenever I look out to an unexpected snow fall, it always reminds me of the first time I awakened to such a sight when I was a little girl.  I was six years old and we were living in Groveton, Virginia.  My dad was stationed at the Pentagon.  My mom awakened me and took me to the window.  I can still recall how enchanting it was to get out of my warm bed and look outside at freshly fallen snow.  It still holds the same magic these many years later.

Here's one thing about it:  it makes for strange quilt fellows.  Gracie appreciates Smitty's hot little body when the weather turns cold, and she's willing to share a quilt with him.  No grrrrrring.

It was a good day for trying out a new recipe for my Dutch oven.  I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.  For now, I'll show you what I did in the sewing room today.  

I cut out my January NewFO.  It's a new quilt for my son Matthew who will be starting an internship with Intel this month.  He still has a little way to go on his engineering degree, but he's been hired on at Intel for a terrific opportunity as a paid intern.  He's very hopeful there will be a job for him when it's all over.  This quilt was originally planned to celebrate his graduation, but this internship is special enough that it deserves a quilt too.  I'm calling the quilt "Intel Underneath".

Today, I cut out all the pieces.  I'll still need to cut sashings and borders, but all the pieces for the blocks are cut out.  

This is the pattern I'm using.  The quilt will look something like this when I'm finished.

This is the Taking Turns block by Monica Soloria-Snow.  The blocks finish at 18 inches square, and I'll be putting a 2-inch black sashing between them.  Obviously, my fabrics are completely different.  Here's how the blocks will look when they're sewn together.

I'm going to arrange them 4 blocks by 4 blocks, and I want the four smaller green squares to meet in the middle.  Of course, I may change my mind once I have them laid out.  They're simple to sew together since they lend themselves well to chain piecing.  I'm hoping I'll have time to sew them together tomorrow, although I may be underestimating how much time it will take.

And this must be Matthew's lucky month because I'm probably going to start another quilt for him this month.  With his new little rental house, it seemed like a good time to make this wallhanging for him.  I bought the pattern ages ago, and I'm only just now getting around to making it.  Tonight, I was auditioning fabrics for it.

I'll use the polka dots in the border.  The solid colors will be for the guitars, and the batik in the lower right corner will be for the background (shown in blue on the pattern).  I still need a brown for the brown guitar shown in the lower left of the pattern picture.  I don't have anything that looks right, so I may need to pick up a fat quarter for that.

This next image is the fabric I purchased for the back.  I was going to use it in the border too, but I think it will be too busy.  The polka dots will be a better choice.  Looking at it, I realized I chose a section of the fabric that has no guitars.  There are also guitars and peace signs on it.  Very 60's rock 'n roll, baby.

Fabrics.com had a good sale last month, and so I was able to get a good deal on these fabrics.  I purchased a one yard cut of each of the ones you see below too.  The one in the center is white on white polka dots, which works well for snow.  The others are just for fun.

So that's my sewing for today.  I tried a great new recipe tonight for some short ribs braised in red wine.  Tomorrow I'll blog about them.  For now, I'll just say Yum!