Playing with Blocks

After spending all of last week quilting the We are the World quilt, it was a bit of a relief to spend the day piecing. Since I can't continue on with my quilting until Big Bertha comes home, I decided to knock off some of the blocks on my to-do list this month.

The Janome performed about as well as expected, which is to say, not very well. Oh, she behaved herself well enough. By that I mean she pulled thread through the needle, but man, what a difference a machine makes when it comes to sewing a nice straight seam and piecing accurately. On that, the Janome is just terrible. But I'm not going to get off whining on the Janome again...at least not until she really pisses me off.

So here's what I ended up with. I started with the block of the month for my guild. For May, we're doing this block called Railroad Crossing. We were supposed to use a red or tone-on-tone red along with a white with a small black print. This ends up a 12-inch block.

Next I made a block for the Astronomical Quilt Block Challenge presented by quilter Astronaut Karen Nyberg. You can get all the details of this challenge by clicking on the link I just gave you. In a nutshell, we are asked to make one block 9-1/2 inches (unfinished). It can be of any color, but it should be a star block of some kind. Also, we were asked to sign our blocks and give our location. These will all be sewn into a quilt by Karen Nyberg. If you would like to be included, you'll need to mail your block no later than August 1st. Here's my block. I chose a Martha Washington Star, and as an American, I thought it needed to be red, white, and blue.

Then I made a block for this month's Block Lotto. This month we're making 7 1/2-inch blocks called "Diagonal Bars". Pretty simple. We were asked to use a true blue and a cream. Here's my block.

And I was getting kind of tired of sewing about then, but I pulled my fabrics for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm a month behind, and so I'm needing to make blocks of green and purple. Recall that I'm making a quilt called "Dream Machines" (Click on that link for the free pattern by Barbara Weiland Talbert.)

Here's what the quilt looks like:

And here are the fabrics I selected for the next two blocks. I've been doing the spools of thread in a complementary color.

Erik invited me to breakfast for Mother's Day tomorrow, and so I'm not sure if I'll do much sewing, but when I do return to the sewing room, this will be my next project.

I'm trying a new recipe tonight, and it takes a bit of time, so it's probably time to get going on that. I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow for Mother's Day no matter how you plan to celebrate it.