Spring arrives and World Quilting Day fun

Spring arrived on the 20th. My flowers are blooming like crazy!

One of my crocus flowers blooming

I do believe that Saturday, March 21st, was World Quilting Day. 

Three, two, one, QUILT!!! And so I did. 

March = 3 and then 2 + 1 for 21 - get it? 

On the cutting table is my evidence!

That little bit of yellow fabric above the blue block was from a fellow quilter. I gave her some music fabric that I had and she sent me back that pretty yellow fabric in exchange. She didn't have to do that! Quilters are so generous.

Binding is on my 2014 guild BOM quilt

My March block for "My Favorite Things" over on the Quilt Doodle Doodles Blog

Progress on my Lancaster quilt BOM

Another Spring Crocus

This came across my FaceBook page last week. I think it is pretty appropriate:

Quilting and playing with fabric is therapy for me. I used to feel guilty about having more fabric than I could ever hope to use up. Fabric is expensive though, and 99% of mine was purchased when it was on sale at deep discounts. In a few years I won't be able to afford to spend $11 or more per yard, for fabric! This is my way of saving for my retirement. I keep what I love and can use. I make quality charity quilts and pillowcases with fabric that I just don't want anymore. Nothing wrong with that!

I recently took advantage of a huge sale and bought a bunch of fabric. It arrived here in a box that looked like this:

It was soaking wet on that corner too. I didn't think that the fabric was injured though. I mean, it is just water, right? I proceeded to take the fabrics to the laundry room to pre-wash them all.

PURDY!!!

After all the fabric was washed and dried I started folding it up in order to put it into my storage area. As I worked on folding I noticed this yellow fabric:

Those dark marks are not supposed to be on there!

I don't know if you can tell but it went through all four layers of fabric!

The online store will make good on the fabric. I think I get to keep it, although it won't be used for what I had hoped to use it for. If I do get to keep it, I might try getting those ink marks out of the fabric. If I can't I will make a dog bed out of it...or something like that.

St. Patrick's Day was last week. I found this cute shamrock picture and want to use it for an appliqué block someday. Trouble is, I can't find out who the artist is that made it! I want to give credit where credit is due, if I can. When I get ready to start actually making this, I will try one more time to find the artist so that there are no issues down the road. OR perhaps I will use this design as inspiration to design my own clover.

At the most recent guild meeting I mentioned I had gotten a lot of pre-pieced fabric blocks or patches. I have not figured out what the maker was trying to do with the fabrics. I've been playing around with them on the design wall.

The upper left has a bunch of four patches and half square triangle blocks. I have about 20 of each and they measure about 2.5" square. I can make up all kinds of block ideas using those patches. The bigger challenge is with the patches just below that block. See the triangles matched with a pieced triangle?

Here is a better shot of those blocks. See them at the bottom right? The light pink in those blocks, matches the light pink in the bigger block I am working with in the upper left there. No matter how I try though, I cannot make the bigger triangle patches work with the smaller ones because the math doesn't add up! I am sure they were all supposed to be together because of the common pink fabric in all of them. What was she trying to make? Had she made a mistake in making some of the blocks the wrong size? This is quite a puzzle for me to work out. I am enjoying the challenge.

I hope Spring arrived at your house. It is busting out all over the place here. If it would dry up enough, we could mow already this year! In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying a bit of sewing this weekend. Till next time, Happy Sewing!