Soliciting input....

I could use your help with my QAL and I've created another little poll at the end of this post. Of course I had to start playing with my blocks and now I can't decide how I should finalize the layout. I even recruited my little helper to assist me with the layouts!

Actually, the problem started when I fell in love with 5 layout colors rather than the 4 the pattern calls for. The original pattern is for 4 'blocks' of color such as this "Layout 1":

Layout 1

You can see the odd block on the right. I will have 4 extra blocks of that color if I go with this one. But I plan to use those on the back so no biggie if this is your favorite. It would probably be a better wall hanging at this size.  Another idea:

Layout 2

 Then I thought, why not just lay them all out in rows? Here's what that looks like:

Layout 3

Or how about if I stagger those? (sorry this is out of focus, it looked okay in the camera).

Layout 4

Which layout do you prefer?
	Layout 1
	Layout 2
	Layout 3
	Layout 4
pollcode.com free polls

thanks for helping out! Feel free to leave comments too.

February Goal Met!

I'm totally squeaking this one in and I can't even believe I did it! But this quilt is fully quilted!

That was the goal I set for this months LYOF. I did get to take the longarm certification class and I'm all ready to go. Unfortunately, the main hours for rental are weekday.  She can do Saturday hours but has to approve the overtime by the boss. I forgot, this stores main business is the retired set. Most of their classes are weekdays, they are even closed on Sunday! So essentially, I just wasted $50. I work weekdays. If I take time off to use the longarm that ups the cost by that lost earnings as well!

So I sucked it up, pin basted this one and machine quilted like a mad woman over the weekend!! It actually went really fast. If you can see in these terrible photos, I just did straight line quilting along the ditch but not meeting in the center. I promise I'll take better photos when it's basted. Now to remove all the pins!

So I'm linking up to the Lovely Year of Finishes at Sew Bitter Sweet Designs. :)

Fun Mail and a QAL check in

These adorable Japanese fabrics came to me from Pinkcastle fabric. I joined their Kawaii fabric club and I'm so glad I did. These are so fun and not like anything I can find in my LQS. I have no idea what to do with these so for now I'm petting them! If you have suggestions I'd love to hear them

 

It was a really busy work week for me, but I managed to keep up with the Mod Olives QAL. I don't know which are the 4 I did this week, but here are all of mine so far. I probably said it last week, but these blocks are addictive and go together so quickly! I've had to pull myself away from the sewing table because I always want to do just one more!

We Bee With It blocks for February

I finished my bee blocks for February. This month of We Bee With It, we made blocks for Sara. At first I thought it was one set of 4, but then realized that the set of 4 was actually one block! LOL. So here are my two blocks I'll be shipping away this week!

Mod Olives QAL week 2

I finished my 4 blocks for this weeks QAL a bit early! Good thing too because I'm expecting a houseful of guests this weekend for my little guys 2nd birthday.  I'm sick with yet another lovely cold and just couldn't bare the thought of trudging through the latest snow storm. So I was able to get some rest today and a little bit of sewing!

Here are all 8 blocks together. I haven't decided how I'm going to organize the 'olives' so I haven't stitched any together. I have 5 colors rather than the recommended 4 so I'm going to just see what happens!

Feeling and being disconnected...

I'm going to keep my whining to a minimum. We were without power for 3 days last week. Thankfully we had some wonderful family members who took us in so we could stay warm. We are still without cable/internet. That's 6 days.  So I've actually brought my laptop to work so I can get this post up during my lunch break and hopefully get a little more connected! :)

I'm participating in the Sew Kind of Wonderful Mod Olives QAL. I picked up this little ruler in Florida. I had been considering buying it for a while so when I actually saw it in person I figured it was time. Since this is the first time using the ruler, I decided to do all my color 'olives' at first. One because I'm impatient, but also because I didn't want whatever color I start with, say blue, to be the roughest for points matching and such.

What's funny is all the "solids" I'm using were also picked up randomly during the same trip! They had a bunch of Kaffe Shot Cottons and I just picked a few that appealed to me.  the "background" is I believe a Chambray? I forget what it was, but I just loved the look of it. It's hard to capture in photos, the bottom left olive is actually purple! All the prints were already in my stash.

So you can see my points aren't fantastic, but it does seem to get lost a bit in the busy-ness of the quilt.

And tell me I'm not the only one with multiple projects floating at the same time. Here's my economy blockalong.

And I've got a Chopsticks going too.

It's hard to decide what to work on first!!

A goal for February

This is a very special quilt top. The goal is to give it to my grandmother who turns 93 this month. I wanted to have it quilted last month and it didn't happen. I'm setting it for my goal for a Lovely Year Of Finishes in February.

I may regret setting this as my goal since it hinges on other things. I'm signed up for the long arm certification class at my LQS and I want to do this on the longarm once I'm certified. I was signed up last month and the class was canceled. My grandmother's birthday is the 19th. I'm hoping I can get it done before then, but I have no idea what the rental schedule even looks like! So the goal is by the end of the month. It will probably be late for her b-day anyway since I'll have to bind it too. wish me luck!!