What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

You must bear with me as I document an update on my walking challenge. I've put in some intense days of walking this past week - well not really intense, but I did add in an extra walk with the girls and I've been logging some miles on the treadmill at the gym. It's not a big deal, but at the end of the day when you've done over 10 miles of walking, you're tired. As a result, I slept in this morning. Really slept in and that was mostly because the darn plow woke me ...

What a fun day! Well, most days are fun, but yesterday was an exception and something very good came out at the end.

It was a community project quilt sewing day in Studio B. There were six of us in total and the plan was to work on string quilts. For some reason, I've acquired a huge amount of 2" fabric strips. I'm not even sure what I was going to do with them. Most of them were crammed into this wire basket. I think I bought a bunch of ugly fat quarters and was going to make ...

After a long delay, I have finally finished Clue #4 for my Frolic mystery quilt! While the final reveal came out today, I am not as behind as I thought I might be.

To finish up Clue #4, I made all of the necessary sets of HSTs in navy, dark teal, and aqua.

I split up my aquas so that I used half of the different prints to make the aqua/navy HSTs and the other half of the prints to make the aqua/dark teal HSTs.

I sorted through a scrap basket, and it is empty. I can't believe it. It has been a bottomless pit for several months.

I found another scrap bag, during a new year push to clean the sewing area. It was a wonderful assortment of brights. I decided to start right away with an improv block that I liked on the internet. It was green and the rainbow color for January is green. I was hoping to use the scraps until they were gone, but it might take longer than I thought.

I found this interesting object in a thrift store for 69-cents.  Too darling to leave behind.

So it came home with me.  To become a pincushion.

First try went…badly.  What was I thinking?!  Wrong shape.  Wrong size.

Second try, however, turned into this!

YAY!

I am pretty sure I could make a pincushion every week for a year and not get tired of it.  Which is funny, because I really don’t use pincushions much.  I have a metal magnetic tray.

A big thank you to  the hosts of to do Tuesday for the prize I received. It is wonderful and very thoughtful ( they added scraps) yippee. They host a linky party every Tuesday that is fun.

Slowly but surely I am making tiny bits of progress on my Frolic mystery quilt. I was able to dig deep in my stash to find two fat quarters to finish the cutting for Clue #4!

Hmmm -- I had a great day yesterday, but here's a mystery to ponder. We are doing our virtual challenge and as a result, I can see the number of miles logged by each day by our little group of four. I just eeked out 10,000 steps in the day. Shelly took a walk so I get where she got her miles, but Laura???  What did Laura do to get her miles yesterday??  I'm impressed Laura - keep it up. It just means that I'm going to have to up my game!

It's a new week and ...

The color for the rainbow scrap challenge for January is bright green. Last year, the month of green, I didn't really do a look through the basket. I knew I needed to pull everything out, and sort through, to discover what hidden treasures I might have in the basket. My original plan was to cut everything into useable sizes. But, after it was neat and tidy, I didn't want to cut it.

I didn't make many gifts this year - I was a little short on time unfortunately, but I did manage to get small things done.

First was a secret Santa gift for the office exchange. The person I was matched with really likes pink, candles and tea. So I decided to buy her a scented candle, a tea cup and I made a pink one-hour basket to put them in!

While I am going to talk about three clues today, I'm actually only done with one out of the three!

Quilting, creating, travel and fun with friends! A two night sew-in with friends in March, three retreats in April and one in November. No firm travel plans yet, but I’m working on it!

First up is prepping to make a quilt for a baby girl due this spring.  The requested colors are red, gray and black. Here are the reds I’ve chosen:

And here are the grays and blacks:

My plan is to make a scrappy sawtooth star, with four patches between each star block. The fabrics are all prewashed and pressed. I’d like to get them ...

Years ago Sparkle Jane took a notion and decided to cut 1-1/4″ squares.  1-1/4″?!?  That is REALLY small.  But, they sat in this box and after a while started to hum at me.  Do projects ever do that to you?  Just sort of seem to hum in the back of your mind, “I could be beautiful.  Give me a chance.”

So, I started to piece, a little aimlessly at first.  Just as a leader-ender project.  Before I knew it, I was making 25-patches.  Then, there were 25 of them.

By then there was too much invested to stop ...

I haven't done a stash report since July. I had back surgery in July and most of my routines fell apart.
I enjoyed watching the statistics through the year, so, I hope to make this a regular part of my blogging again.
I typically count the fabric that comes in the week of the stash report, but this is an exception. I bought this fabric as a jumbled scrap bag last year at a quilt show. I knew it was hefty, but as I unpacked the bag and folded it, I discovered 10 yards of very yummy fabric.

I am certainly late today, as my youngest had his wisdom teeth removed. He is 24 and has aspergers, and doesn't like to be uncomfortable, oh my. He is certain he is dying. I will not give him a bell to call me LOL.
I am moving along on sand castle blocks. I would like to have a top by the end of January.

Looking ahead to 2020; I have chosen a guiding word to focus on: VISION. Well, with this new year, what other word could I possibly choose for twenty/twenty than this one? I am borrowing a page from Quiltdivajulie's book today and choosing a guiding word to lead my path through these next twelve months.  So, in an effort to be guided by the word VISION, I need to look at, and see, what is