28 January

Today's block is more HST... what a surprise!!  :-)   I also started making HST for another quilt I plan on doing, but not for some time.   After posting about the quilt I saw at the Houston International Quilt Festival yesterday, I decided that I would save all my orphan HST units and make a quilt using them, of any size.  This project is going to be one of those that is in the back of my mind as something to cut fabric for, or make an extra HST unit or two as I'm making them for other things, but I won't even think about putting it together until I have a whole lot more HST units. I know if I use different size HST units, I will have to get creative in how to make them all fit together, instead of just trimming them all to the smallest common size. But that will be part of the fun of creating that quilt.

As I was working on today's 365 Challenge block, I read the instructions, and it said to make HST units and trim to 1.5".. okay, fine not a problem, except that I pulled out some of my Triangulations papers for HST that FINISH at 1.5".  So after I realized that my brain stopped working, and I made the wrong size HST unit, I decided to save those, instead of trimming them all down, and just make more at the correct size.  I did the exact same thing a few days ago, and I trimmed those. I hadn't thought about keeping them for something else that day, and since I want to use up my scraps, I decided today, that I would just make new HST's and save the "wrong" size for another project.  So, here is today's block.

28 Jan

Yesterday, I got my 4 Patch border sewn onto my Stars for a New Day quilt.  I have to add two more floater borders to the outside, then it will be ready for the 3rd month's border. That one is going to be pinwheels, so more HST units for that quilt.    I am really liking the way this quilt is turning out.   It is going to be so much more colorful than what I usually make, and definitely more colorful than my 365 Challenge blocks are.  (I knew I had a lot of dark fabrics, and a lot of greens, blues and purples, but I never realized how much, until I started going through my scraps).  Right now, this one measures 30.5" and there are a lot more stars to make for this quilt, and most of them are using HST units.  I still have my saw tooth stars to make for the final border on this for the second month.  According to the instructions we make 8 a month, but since I'm doing this 10 years later, I will be making more than that as time allows.  As long as I get all 72 of them done when it's time to add them to the quilt, it's all good.  I don't plan on waiting for March to work on what was released in March when this was a BOM, so I will be getting this quilt done faster than one year.

4 Patch border Stars for a New Day

Well, that's all for now... time to get back to my machine and make some more HSTs

Until next time... Happy Crafting!!!

4 Strip block for 365 Challenge

Another day, another 365 Challenge block.  This one, is another simple one, just 4 strips, but they start out at only 1.25" by 3.5"  Again, with something this small, you really need to be careful when cutting and sewing to make sure it ends up the correct size. Each of those strips are .75" when finished, so you are working with small pieces of fabric.

6-January

I think what attracted me to this challenge besides making one quilt block a day, was the size of the blocks.  I recently got intrigued with miniature quilts, and have been making some 2" star blocks.  Then I decided to see what I can do in the centers, besides just a plain block.  The first one I did was a pinwheel, which meant that each half square triangle was only .5"  I have plans for trying other things in the center, but I have other projects that are beckoning me before I can play with the 2" stars.  Here are pictures of the 2" star blocks I have made so far.

I have a lot of ideas on where I can use these small blocks, but for now, I just want to get a few made and see where that takes me, before I plan any sort of lay out.

I'm not done playing with stars, I'm working on a large quilt that has stars galore, and contemplating another star quilt.  I am trying to hold back on starting any more new projects until I get some of my old ones finished up this year... but I can still plan.  :-)  Perhaps having quilts in mind that I want to make will help motivate me to getting my old projects finished so I can start something new.

Well it's time to get some serious sewing done... happy crafting!!