Tuesday - Working day

I got some sewing done. Finally. I finished up this month's bee blocks (Simply Solids and Bee(ful) of Paper. Here they are in all their finished and ready to be mailed off glory:

star for paper piecing bee

window pane block for Simply Solids

I didn't have trouble with the paper pieced block this month, but I did struggle with the solids block. I didn't think about making my pieces large enough the first day I worked on it, so I did some rethinking and this is what the result is. I actually have a ton of pieces that are cut off, slabs as it were, of this block hanging out in my scrap box. Basically, 90% of this block is new work. I sure hope Queenie likes it. I also hope that no one else in my group wants this kind of block because it wasn't fun for me at all.

I'm ready to finish up my garden fence quilt. I'm going to be piecing the back and making the sandwich tonight and it should be ready for quilting and a big finish on Friday - that's the plan, anyway.

I got to go and make the dinner. It's meatloaf, smashed potatoes and broccoli tonight. YUM!

Take care of yourself and make some stuff.

Green

Nothing is working.

I sewed and sewed today and I didn't do it right. I wanted to make some houndstooth blocks and I just didn't do them right so I ended up with these:

I was so proud... do you see the mistake?

Then, I got clever and cut the strip sets the right way just a smaller size ... there's still something wrong.

all the wasted fabric wahhhh! :( 

okay... I can make some of these blocks or something else with these little squares.

So I realize what I did now - I needed five strips in my set instead of only four. I will try again and make it happen.

Then, my daughter had her first sleep over tonight and I just miss her. She couldn't wait to get rid of me, either. And she didn't call. She's three-and-a-half and ready to leave home.

I did get to Kinko's to print out my paper piecing bee pattern for September and one that I'm considering for my month to try out. I also printed out my Roly Poly pattern, but I'm unsure how to use it. I bought the fabric and I'm ready to make it, but it was expensive to print out and I don't want to mess it up. I suppose I should make some tissue paper pattern pieces, but I don't know if I have enough tissue - I'm a mess and nothing is working right. I should've picked up a six pack at the store this afternoon.

I guess I'll go make something! Linking up to Freshly Pieced.

WIPs (under the wire) Wednesday

I can just get in my WIPs today under the wire -

It's 11:33 PM here in Albuquerque and I'm watching YouTube videos on putting in zippers and sewing bags. I found a great bag here and hope that I can follow the tutorial and have it be my first bag.

I'm not actively working on sewing anything, although I have tons of things in my head that I want to make. I'd really like to make a little quilted/zippered pouch for my MILs Samsung Galaxy 2 Tablet. I did make her a knitted button pouch for it

it will look much better once it's blocked.

I'm also learning a new way to knit socks. I recently came into five skeins of really nice sock yarn. It was given to me by a friend who is going to be a traveling nurse for the next two years. She sold her house and gave away/sold most of her things, since she won't have a home for a while. She gave me lots of acrylic yarn that she had around, but when she opened the box with the wool sock yarn and other hand-dyed, Peruvian yarn offerings the caveat was that I could have the yarn if I made her one pair of socks. I told her that I would make her a pair of socks from each sock yarn. I knitted a pair that didn't quite match up, but they were okay - then my goat of a puppy decided to snack on them in the night. I'm now working on a pair of orange/cream stripey toe-up socks. I have never made toe-up socks, but I like that I don't have to worry about running out of yarn for the important bits.

I'm not always a fan of the self-striping yarn, but this is cute.

 I really want to get over to Michael's to pick up some super-long, #2 circulars so that I can work my toe-up socks two at a time with a magic loop. Now, if you are not a knitter that just sounds like a lot of gobbledy-gook, but two at a time, toe up socks using the magic loop are awesome because you don't have to suffer from second sock syndrome (which I am inflicted). I get so excited as I'm making the first sock. Then I finish and it's like... what? I have to make another one?!? UGH! I don't wanna. I wanna do something else!!!  I figure if I make them at the same time, I will save myself a relapse of my sickness.

Tomorrow I'm going to take photos of my quilt pattern and post to Moda for the bakeshop. I really hope my pattern gets chosen. It's a major goal of mine to be published this year. I still have some months left, but the sooner the better.

I'm also working on a paper-pieced block for my bee(ful) of paper. For some reason, it was really hard and I've had to take it apart to resew the pieces together. I was going to make two blocks from the fabric Queenie sent, but I just couldn't do it. I almost didn't make one - this month has been a chore for some reason. I'm going to write a post about when paper-piecing goes horribly wrong.

the pieces

so sew frustrating when it doesn't work out right.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Finally got some work done.

Happy Friday!

I'm so glad the week is over. I finally got a chance to get some sewing done. I completed two bee blocks yesterday and a block for a mug rug (herringbone - yay!). I also started knitting some golf club socks for my dad for Father's Day - I hope he likes them. I figured it was better than a tie and it will keep me busy. Here is what my day looked like yesterday:

baby quilt layout - still need to sew these together and finish the top.

woven block for simply solids bee - I really like how this one turned out. The colors are wonderful!

Foundation piecing Lone Star Burst block for Beeful of Paper.

A spy.

Finished Lone Star block for Beeful of Paper

Herringbone block - not sure I really am loving this block - but it can be turned into something good.

Sock for driver - it only has one stripe. I can't wait to make the big fluffy pom-poms for the tops of these.

 

 

 

Golf club socks were a truly inspired idea. He probably won't like them, but maybe he can be persuaded to use them if some nice cigars are included in the box.

Have a great day and get some work done yourself!