Design Wall Monday 6/27/11

New items on my design wall.

First, a curvy block whose link was posted on one of my group lists.  I don't do many curves so I thought I would give this one a try.  The gentle curves were easy to make.  I also found it in the EQ block library under classic designs, orange peel.  This turned out 12" square, and I used scraps from the never ending bin.  I did have to use 4 7" squares to cut out the floral pieces you see.  Don't know what I'll do with it yet - that's why it is on my design wall.

Next is my June UFO.  I know it is late in the month, yet I am making progress on it so I am happy about that.  I've added another row to it.  You can see the 2 back sashing in the photo.  Yes, it is another quilt as you go.

Old Habits Die Never

Grrrrrr.  I'm trying to do as Bonnie Hunter and have Leaders and Enders.  I'm finding I can't break my old habit of picking up the scissors and cutting that thread as soon as I've finished sewing. How do you do it?  I seem to remember to do a leader, but the enders part eludes me.  Here are the ones I made today, and there would be twice as many if I would only remember to do an ender!

How does she do it.  I want to save thread, too.  I measured and there is from 3 to 4 inches of it (twice) that's wasted.  That's 12 x 8 or 96 inches of thread into the trash.  I'm determined to get the hang of this.  Any suggestions?

For all who serve

In honor of all who serve, I made a block contribution to our Soldier's Angel project this Memorial Day weekend.  The guild is gathering 12" blocks to make into quilts.  Here's the unit I'll be turning in next meeting.  I had a challenge putting it together.  The pattern I had was for an 8" block and I had to convert it to a 12".  The problem was the stripe piece has 5 pieces and I had to figure out what each piece would be that would line up with the star.  If I'd made the star first it would have been a piece of cake, cuz all I'd had to do was measure that smallish stripe in the flying geese unit and I'd have known what the others had to be.  I now have enough strips to make some crazy unit to give a third block.