Half Square Affair

Good morning, my friends. It's another frosty and chilly morning today. It looks like we're going to be enjoying these cold and sunny days for most of the week. Smitty took one look outside yesterday and then sat beside me waiting for me to open the door. He looks so expectant, doesn't he?

Well, that cold air hit him in the face, and he folded up like an accordion, and decided to stay inside. Sadie has the right idea for cold days.

I had some things to do in the morning: slow-stitching, a walk on the treadmill, some housekeeping. After lunch, I made my way into the sewing room and finished off the third and fourth blocks for the Scrappy Plus quilt.

I'll need four more of these before I'm ready to sew all the blocks into a quilt top. Here's what I have so far. It's going to be a fairly large quilt, and so it'll just be blocks and binding with no borders.

With those finished, I started on the next project. The Lightframe quilt has six half square triangles in each row. The squares were already cut. I just needed to sew them together and cut them in half.

Then, they were trimmed to 4-1/2 inches.

And that's where I left them. They're awaiting my return. This is a scrap quilt, and so I'll be adding some strips log cabin style. 

When the row is complete, I'll sew it to the rows I already have. You can see that the pattern emerges depending on the placement of the half square triangles.

I was getting tired of sewing by then, but I traced December's block for the Joy in the Ordinary quilt. I'll stitch this when I finish with the covered bridge I'm working on now. 

These go pretty quick. Many of them have been stitched in a single sitting. This is the last block I'll need to sew this into a finished quilt top. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

It should be a pretty easy-going day today. There are a couple of housekeeping chores to do, but that should take me less than half an hour. Grocery shopping happens tomorrow, and so I'll soak up this easy day while I can. There should be plenty of time for sewing. If I'm able to finish off the Lightframe blocks, I'll get to work making December's cat for the Cats in Pajamas quilt. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

I have a dark fabric picked out for December cat's pajamas. Just looking at the cats I have here, I'm thinking I'll make the last cat a white one. All the pieces I'll need to finish off this quilt top are cut. When all the blocks are made, it should go together pretty quickly.

December is a fun month for us blogging quilters, I think. A lot of us have quilts in the works that were begun as monthly "sew-alongs" way back in January. It's kind of fun bringing those monthlies to a close. I'll be starting a new quilt for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in January. It'll be another cat quilt in the form of this Kittens in Teacups quilt.

My life's philosophy is this: One can never have too many cats. And so it follows that one can never have too many cat quilts. I rest my case.

And now I'm leaving to start my day. Stay warm out there. Winter isn't here yet, but it's here...if you get my [snow] drift.