One-a-day x 10 weeks = 70 blocks = all done!

Now that I have all 70 of these block finished it's time for the tedious work ... the sashing.

We've been so busy lately this may be a project for another day or week ... or month.

Here are all 70 hanging out together. What a nice looking bunch.

Check out the one-a-day nine-patch quilt-along group.

A little trip to the fabric store and a new friend

I made a decision. Well, kinda. 

My next quilt will include these fabrics (I even started cutting them - yippee!). It'll be very colorful. I'm still deciding if I want the blocks to be composed of nine squares or 16 squares. It will roughly resemble this quilt (with blocks of nine squares) or this quilt (with blocks of 16 squares). I think will use either the Alexander Henry pears and apples or the numbers for most of the backing (I adore both fabrics too much to decide right now - maybe both?). The blocks will each be one color collection - either blue/purple, yellow/orange, aqua/green, or red/pink. Each of the little squares will be cut to 2.25 inches square and the final block will be bordered in white.

As you can see, my yellow/orange collection was very lacking so I made a quick trip to the Bismarck, ND, Quilt Haus to stock up. Thankfully, I did find a few to beef up my collection :)

While at the Quilt Haus, I met Vicki, of WillowBerry Lane. I felt like it was a celebrity sighting - a real live fabric and pattern designer! She's (one of the lucky ones) going to the Quilt Market in a few weeks and needed some help finishing a few sample quilts. I was so honored to be asked! I'm making the Baskets in Bloom wall hanging.

Thursday round up

First things first ...

New recipe! I'm getting more adventurous in the kitchen - I threw a bunch of stuff together and created a great little recipe. check it out. I call it Man Quiche.

I whipped up a batch of my Raspberry Kuchen Bars last night and took them to work today. I think I made a lot of new friends. Seriously, they are that good. They tasted especially good because this time of year we're not eating much fruit so the raspberries tasted magical. (I used frozen raspberries from my bonus mom's garden).

I finished quilting the ragged squares quilt about an hour ago. It took some wrestling to get it quilted in the square design ... and I broke two sewing machine needles ... but though it all, I think it turned out nicely. 

Now to sew on the binding. That'll be a good weekend project. Here is the quilt pattern. This would be a great beginner quilt - It's fast, fun and easy. As always, I'm looking forward to getting it washed and krinkly. 

As I was finishing up I noticed how neat and tidy my fabric shelves looked. Time to show them off. Here they are in all their folded glory.

I've beefed up my green stack lately ... time for a green quilt maybe? Or to use the black/white/red pile on the bottom right? Decisions, decisions.

This little stack of blue is super cute.

More snow and new fabric.

Yesterday Joann's fabric store marked down their (already reduced) clearance fabric by 50 percent. Which means that the fabric I was looking at that was normally $8-9 per yard was now only $1.50 per yard. For someone who is a fabric junkie, this is a big deal. Not saying I am or anything. That's beside the point. 

So I happened to be in the store ... and figured I'd browse the racks. Wow did I find a lot nice fabric. I piled my cart high and headed to the cutting table. I think I got the best cutter in the store. I bought no less than 1/2 yard of most of the fabric and 1 yard of the ones I really liked. The fabric cutter lady (my hero) noticed that many of the bolts of fabric were almost gone, so if there was less that one yard remaining after my cut, she gave it to me for an additional 50 percent off (that would be 75 cents per yard!!!). Yes, that deserved three exclamation points.

So here is my pile of new fabric - all for under 35 bucks (including one new spool of thread). Awesome. Also in the photo are a few of my Christmas gifts - a new 24x36 inch rotary cutting board, Quilts of Gee's Bend book, and Retro Stitching embroidery pattern book. Time to get sewing!

I should also mention that I do prefer quilt shop fabric over Joann's Fabric and Craft store fabric, but I just couldn't pass up this deal. The fabric is not quilt shop quality but I was impressed with it's softness and color. I think it will hold up quite nicely.

I've been trying to not write too much about the weather, but I just have to. We got another 5 inches of snow last night. We woke up to the soft hum of snow blowers this morning. We don't own one and our neighbors know that, so they offered to clear our driveway and sidewalks for us. how fortunate we are to have such kind neighbors. 

Since snow blowers are made for large, straight, flat areas, Corey shoveled off our porch and walk way to the porch. Much more manageable than the drive way!

With the new snowfall, we're thinking today would be a great day for sledding.