Updates

I've been a little busy beaver here as I'm getting ready to go on a sewing retreat this weekend. I wanted to get a couple of projects done before I left, like the glacier star lone star blocks sewn to the flying geese units. I love how this looks. We don't meet again until Feb 25th and that's going to seem like an eternity.

I also worked on the star kit. All of the blocks are done and here's what it looked like when I placed them on the design wall.

I'm hoping to get these blocks all sewn together tomorrow, but it's ok if I don't. I'm taking this with me so I can find some fabric for borders and backing. Hopefully the next time you see this it will be a completed top!

I was multi-tasking while I was piecing the star blocks. My friend Kare and I are going to be teaching a beginner quilting class at a local LQS and I'm making a new sample. Here's what it looked like while I was piecing both the star blocks and this quilt.

This is a very simple and basic quilt. It is a nine patch (two different nine patch blocks) with alternate HST blocks. Can you see the picture in the background? Our thoughts here were that we wanted to keep it simple so students could learn basic techniques and repeat them to help practice and perfect them. We'll spend time on rotary cutting, strip piecing, pressing, making HST, trimming them and connecting blocks to keep points in tack. We're not adding a border, as that will be a class on it's own at a later date; as will the quilting and binding.

Actually, I finished the top this evening but I couldn't get a good picture. I'll do that tomorrow and post it then.

It was really fun here this past weekend. Jerry and David were visiting, and Nikki and her family were here for a wedding. It was kind of crazy, but fun. Jack made some Parker House rolls that were delicious. Here they are raising.

Don't they look inviting? I love the smell of bread baking!

They didn't even make it off the baking sheet before we started eating them. Jack and David made bread a couple of more times during the weekend and I was in heaven.

My friend Kare came over to visit and spend time knitting with Jerry and David.

Jack was on the radio while they were knitting and I was at my machine sewing.

I love the fact that we could all be in the same room, doing our own thing, yet talk to each other. It was a really fun night. I think I laughed the most when Jerry showed Kare that he uses a zip lock bag with a corner snipped off to hold his yarn so it comes out evenly, yet stays together. Kare leaned over and took a pickle jar out of her bag to show how she stores her yarn. A glass pickle jar!

I'm sure the sugar rush we all had from the ice cream we'd consumed had nothing to do with our uncontrollable laughter at this point.