The un-fun part of making HSTs

I spent some time yesterday squaring up my half-square triangles for the warm/cool quilt along quilt that is my current leader/ender project. Man do I hate doing that. But there is such satisfaction when it's over! I laid out the squares I have done so far and I'm somewhat unhappy with my decision to use vintage sheets for this. I think it's a bit too blendy. I'm hoping the watercolory, Monet look will be okay. But I think you can still see the patern formed by the warm and cool color contrasts. It's definitely not going to be as big as I was hoping so I'm already thinking about border options for this one.

I also finished up this pillow a couple nights ago. I have a window seat in my sewing room with lots of naked pillows on it that I'm trying to cover. I've had these pillow forms for a very long time. I have no earthly idea why I purchased so many pillow forms over the years and never did anything with them! The center square in this one is a block I saw in a magazine and made at least 12 years ago. Glad to have it out of the "what am I going to do with this" pile!

A week or so ago, I went completely ga-ga over a picture of Joel Dewberry's new Heirloom prints in the Ruby colorway. I bought a half-yard bundle and have been working on this.

It's a variation of a free pattern JD has on his website but I'm taking a much easier approach to the design. The background is Kona bone, so a nice muted white that goes nicely with the rich, vivid colors of the prints. My plan is to quilt the white columns that develop between the colored lanterns and something inside the lanterns too but I'm not sure what. This picture really doesn't do those fabrics justice. They are so rich and yummy. This one is going together fast and I'm excited to have something finished very soon!

An experiment

Well...here goes! I hope this will be a fun way to journal my quilty pursuits and maybe even guilt me into finishing more projects than in the past. We'll see how that pans out! If nothing else, this will at least encourage a photographic history of my completed projects. I've made baby quilts or other quilted gifts for people and completely forgotten to photograph them before I've let them go...no more!

I'm not sure what is more perculiar about this new adventure...writing posts that no one is reading or sharing my goals/attempts/progress/failures with complete strangers.

I'm excited to get started!! So here's what I've been up to lately...
1. I'm slowly but surely working on the Bottled Rainbows Quilt-Along hostessed by Rachel at Stitched In Color. Here are the blocks I've completed so far. 6 down...

And last night I got a few more ready for the "ticker tape" process. 10 to go!

2. I also purchased some vintage sheet charm packs from Jen at In Color Order and joined the Warm/Cool Quilt-Along. I'm working on this slowly and surely as a Leader/Ender project.

3. Last but certainly not least, I finally got sucked into the ginormous Farmer's Wife Quilt-Along. This Flickr Group is 774 strong as of this post. 774 people joined up to a virtual sewing bee from all over the world...cool! The day I got my book in the mail, I made the first two blocks. And within a few days I was caught up to week 5. I've stalled a little bit but hope to get caught up to everyone else soon (currently on week 9).

I have many more works in progress -- I'll share more tomorrow.

If you're reading this, thanks for joining me on this journey!! I look forward to getting to know some of you over the coming months! Cheers!