Saturday Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It was an easy-going day yesterday. Sometimes the hours seem to fly by, and the day gets away from me. On other days, time seems to move more slowly, and it seems as if I can accomplish more than expected. Yesterday was such a day. Possibly it was because I was working on applique blocks with lots of little pieces. After working on them for what seemed like the whole day, there were still hours left. I was trying to reach a good stopping point, and it seemed as if the cutting and fusing was endless. Fortunately, I had a good helper cat.

It's important to look both ways before sewing.

Our goal was to finish off the last two blocks for the Whimsical Garden quilt. You can see them at each corner, outlined in pink below.

Both blocks had pieces that extended into the block's sashing, and so I added the sashings first. We were able to get the first one together. 

I've been making these two at a time, and so I wanted to finish the second one before doing any top-stitching. We hadn't even started on the second block, and Sadie was wondering if the fusing would never end.

Finally, we had the last one finished.

That makes 20 of 20 blocks. I'll still need to top-stitch both of them. There aren't very many colors, and so it shouldn't take the whole of my quilting day. When those are finished, all 20 blocks will be moved to the next stage...sewing them into a flimsy. And that will open up a slot on my WIPs dance card. I'll fill that opening by making two blocks per month for the pieced blocks on the Girls' Getaway quilt. As a reminder, here's the picture from the pattern cover.

Unless I've miscounted, there are 15 pieced blocks. (Some require embroidery before they can be pieced together.) I'm barely getting started on the embroidered blocks, but I want to have the pieced blocks finished when I reach the end of the embroidered blocks. If I make the pieced blocks two at a time, they should all be finished by the time the embroidered blocks are finished. I'll work on those next.

Also, I'll be making two more blocks for the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far:

Actually, there are two more than are shown here. Apparently, I didn't take a picture when I completed the previous two. 

So, there's plenty on the sewing agenda...as always...and today begins Season 15 of Project Quilting, where we are challenged to make a quilt from inception to binding in one week's time. Often we're traveling at this time of the year, and so I'm happy when we're at home so that I can participate. Already this morning, I've been checking the website compulsively, waiting for the posting of the first prompt.

Okay, it's Sunday morning, so we'll start with our Sunday morning pancakes, and then I'll get on with my slow-stitching. To my northeastern friends, I read about your epic snowfall in this morning's paper. Stay warm and dry, my friends. Sounds like good weather for staying inside and sewing. Fingers crossed the electricity stays on. We may get our own snowfall by the end of next week. I'm just hoping it won't get in the way of our carpet installation. For all I've been dreading it, I'm now ready for it. It would be a bummer if we got delayed by bad weather.