All Sewing All the Time

It was an NBS day yesterday. (Nothing But Sewing.) I'll admit to having done a couple of house-worky things first, but that was only so I could say I was being a good sport. After that...serious catch-up sewing. I'm behind on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I'm behind starting a new "Books and Roses" BOM from Jenny of Elefantz. Aside from choosing a background fabric, I haven't even started on the latter. This year, Jenny is making "bookmarks," but I'm just making mine into little quilt blocks, similar to the Posies BOM from last year. Posies is ready for quilting now:

I'm planning to do it similarly to this one, and to combine it with the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Okay, but I'm getting ahead of myself because I'll need to make up the first three blocks before I can stitch them. Yesterday I finished off the "Give More" piece, and now I find myself with nothing prepared to take its place. I like how this turned out. I'm not sure yet what it will become:

With that finished, it was time to head into the sewing room. [Insert "good sport house-worky things" here.] As you might guess, Smitty, the best helper cat in the universe was there by my side...helpful, as always.

I had the second red block for the Jericho's Walls quilt laid out. I just needed to sew it together.

And then I went to work sewing the third red block. There's that thimble fabric again.

And that meant January's reds were finished.

There were seven more inchies to turn into felt quilt blocks, and so I worked on that next.

There are 6 more to do, and here are the 21 I've done so far:

Just for grins, I decided to cut apart the two larger motifs. 

I've had in mind to do them the same way, but I didn't know if I had enough felt squares to get the job done. I do, as it turns out. I have enough felt squares to turn this into a 40-block quilt. It means sewing some felt squares together.

I haven't yet decided how to accomplish the "sewing together" part yet, but I'm thinking about it. As I've mentioned, I'm considering using a wide ribbon for a sashing. In today's comings and goings, I'm going to see if I can find something. If not, I'll go with regular fabric. 

As I was dropping off to sleep last night, I thought about a way to improve the look of the larger motifs. It would mean using my pinking blade to cut a fabric to put between the embroidery and the felt squares. I'd probably choose one of the blacks and whites I showed you in yesterday's post. I'd probably use that black and white at the top, second from the right...or maybe the black and white bird fabric at the bottom. I'm not sure yet.

Okay, but it was time to move along. I wanted to catch up on February's aqua blocks for the Jericho's Walls quilt. Here they are:

Smitty liked how these colors matched his furs, and so he wanted to take a paw selfie here.

And some people just turn into camera hams when someone points a camera at them. 

Okay, so here are the blocks I have so far. January and February...check!

And now I've chosen fabrics for March's yellows and golds:

I doubt if I'll have time for sewing today. I'm leaving early to meet-up with Sue for breakfast. I can't even remember when we last saw one another, but I think it might have been last fall sometime. After that I'm getting a haircut, which is a good thing because my too-long hair has just about driven me insane. After that, I'll head off to a nearby JoAnn's (shudder) to see if I can score some ribbon for the inchies. If not, I'll try Michael's. And, if not, I'll go with Plan B mentioned above. After that, a stop off at the post office and a quick stop at the grocery store. We neglected to pick up an avocado on Monday's trip. If there's time for any sewing, I'll get those blocks made up to catch up on Books & Roses. It seems like a lot to fit into one day, but I'll get 'er done.