5 Days of Stitching...

Yep!  That's right!  I've been off work for the last five days and it has been a wonderful time of stitching, cooking, and reading.  If this is what retirement is like, sign me up! 

I started out by whipping up the 7th row of the Bee in My Bonnet Row Along - leaves flying in the breeze - next to the last row on the right in the picture below of all seven rows together.  They are not sewn together yet - just laid out together.  The next clue comes out a week from Wednesday.  I can't believe I am still staying caught up with this one.  I adore these 30s fabrics and can't wait to see the finished product...this quilt is for me!!!

Next, I stitched up the December Stash Bee blocks for Jackie.  I'm so glad she posted her block early.  Now I am caught up on Stash Bee until January!  These blocks are called Arkansas Crossroads and went together very quickly.  I bet they will make a pretty scrappy little quilt.  She asked for no repeats on the fabrics.  I see that some of those pinks look identical, but I promise you 'They are not!'

After catching up on these two 'commitments', I decided to have some fun and got out the Quick Curve Ruler I had ordered from Sew Kind of Wonderful a few weeks ago.  Jenny Pedigo and her sister, Helen Robinson, are hosting a quilt along with the Quick Curve Ruler.  They are taking traditional quilt blocks and putting a curve to them.  They started a few weeks ago, so I had some catching up to do.

Jenny started with the Churn Dash block first.  Isn't that neat?  I am doing these blocks with 'dotty' fabrics with a solid background.  And surprisingly enough, it wasn't that hard to do.  The curve is not tight, so it goes together pretty easily.  Jenny has some videos on her blog to show you exactly how to do the cutting and sewing.

Next, Helen did the Sawtooth Star block.  It was a little harder than the first one, but it went together pretty quickly.  Minimal ripping and resewing...

After that, Jenny did the Rail Fence.  Now this one was hard!  I ripped it out a dozen or more times and never seemed to get it quite right.  I remembered from Jenny's videos that she said she uses a lot of steam.  I do not use steam - I have a dry iron - so I got the Ellen's Best Press out and pressed it into submission.  It works for me!

I hope I get better at these over time.  The next block will come out on December 8th.  Can't wait...I wonder what it will be...

Of course, Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery started on Friday morning.  I haven't decided how big a quilt I want to make so I only made half of the units required for Step 1.  The next clue will come out next Friday.  I hope I can keep up with this one.  So far I am liking it....my other colors are orange, pink, and green....

I had planned to work on the borders on my Civil War quilt.  I had figured out what I wanted to do for the borders back in September.  Yesterday, I couldn't really remember what I had planned.  But luckily enough, I had written it down and was actually able to find it.  Serendipitous?  I do believe so!  I made a sample with some scrap fabrics and think I know what I am doing.  It will be a dogtooth border - I saw it on a blog but I can't find the site right now....but I knew the dogtooth border would be absolutely perfect for this quilt.   I had hoped to get this done for Christmas but that isn't looking likely right now...Oh well....Now to cut the fabrics I plan to use and start putting them together. 

In addition to all of the stitching, I did cook the ham and turkey dinner with many of the trimmings.  There are only three of us so we have leftovers...yum!  Plus cherry pie, blackberry pie, oatmeal cookies...sugar, sugar, and more sugar!!!!

Take care and have a great week!

Bri