A Finish and a Start

How is your Saturday morning going so far? Maybe it's too soon to tell. I won all my word games this morning, and so I can only assume it's going to be a good day. We haven't been to the grocery store yet this week. Last night, Mike and I schemed out a way to avoid going over the weekend. As it turns out, we have enough frozen leftovers and enough staples to get us through until Monday. And all I can say is this: A week that ends without a single trip to the grocery store is a good week. There. I've said it, and I stand by it.

On the sewing front, I stitched enough of my current project to move my hoop to the next position. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did run out of that one color of green for the leaves. I could either go shopping, or I could use another of the many greens already in my stash. I wisely chose the latter. Mike and I decided that April's block was making a transition from winter to spring, and so the two greens totally make sense.

Sadie couldn't believe I made that decision without first consulting her.

Okay, and so let's just talk about that challenge quilt I teased you with yesterday. I needed to quilt it and sew on the binding. It's fusible applique and hand embroidery. For the quilting, I simply stitched around the edges of all the applique. From there, it was ready for binding.

And then, less than 24 hours after I started it, it was finished. The prompt for this challenge was "One." This is my quilt: "Ones Upon a Time." (Did you see what I did there?) Excuse me...um...could you just step over...

Thank you. There we go. Let me re-introduce it: "Ones Upon a Time." It's so delicious, I had to say it twice.

Here's how it looks from the back. 

I like that fabric for what it says: Focus on the Good. Create a Beautiful Life. Find Joy in Simple Things. Gather Happy Memories. It seems a good choice for the beginning of a new year. I only have scraps of it left. The one other time I used that fabric was for the backing on the Solstice to Solstice quilt finished some years back. 

Okay, so with that finished, it seemed like a good time to get going on a new project. While we were traveling this past fall, one of our stops was at the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska. While there, I was handed this booklet with pictures and explanations of various traditional quilt blocks. I decided then and there to use the booklet for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Here's a little explanation of the park and the reason it featured a "Quilt Discovery Experience."

The first page featured this block known as "Lincoln's Platform."

Here is the accompanying explanation.

So that seemed like a good place to start. I won't make all the quilt blocks featured in the book, but each month's block will be different. January's chosen color is blue, and I selected these two from my blue bin of fat quarters.

Checking the block instructions on Quilter's Cache, I found it by checking the alphabetical listings right here. It was a pretty easy block, and I had it finished in under an hour. 

It makes a 14-inch block, and that seemed large to me. I considered trying to do the math to make it smaller, but then I decided I'd make the blocks for this quilt in whatever sizes I could find them. And then I can use strips and sashings to make them fit into a single quilt. In fact, the Solstice to Solstice quilt, pictured above, was done in just that same way. Okay, January's blue block is finished. I'll head on over to this morning's party to link up.

That seemed like a good place to end my sewing day. We had two quilts to hang, however, and so we hung the Poppy Mosaic on an empty wall in our guest room. I sewed the hanging sleeve on this one while we were at Cape Disappointment this past week.

And then, I had one more quilt I wanted to hang. This is the quilt I made of my brother some years back. I call it "Snips and Snails." It's been hanging on my quilt rack, but I wanted to hang it on one of the walls of our bedroom where I could see it every day. I've rehomed many of my quilts so that they don't spend the rest of their natural lives hanging on my quilt rack unseen and unappreciated. This one is too special to give away, and so it needed to come out into the light where it could be enjoyed. You can read the story of this quilt at this old blog post.

We hung it on an open wall in our bedroom dormer, and now I can see it each time I come into the room. This year marks 20 years since my brother's death. While the pain of loss decreases over time, I don't think I'll ever stop wishing we'd had more time together. As I've said many times, I always knew I'd lose my parents. I thought I'd have my brother for longer.

Okay, so on today's agenda, I really am going to get started on the quilting for "Waste Not Whatnots." I know I've said it several times over the past month, but today it's really, really, really, really going to happen.

Absolutely nothing is going to stand in my way...except possibly my cat. My cat has a habit of in my way.

Just now it started raining. It is ever thus. Working on my quilt is sounding better and better. 

Happy Saturday, everybody!