At first glance it doesn’t look like anything on my design wall has changed.  But there are more stars on the wall.  I’ve been keeping up with them.  Now that the scraps and magazines are gone through, it’s on to cleaning up the sewing room. I’ve taken 2 steps already.

Yesterday afternoon I  helped a friend baste her king size quilt. We decided the backing really needed pressing, so I had to clear the ironing board off. Some of the stuff ended up on the cutting table, the scraps I had been digging through ended up in a scrap bin, but the large stuff got put away appropriately. The 2nd thing I did was put away the piles of fabric I had pulled out for the Grand Illusion Mystery. I haven’t given up on doing the mystery, I simply need to clear the decks to get a few other things done first.

Linking up to Patchwork Times.  Be sure to go over and see what others are working on.

This week I’ve rearranged the batik blocks to get the stars up on the wall. I have two more stars made which are not pictured, so I’m still on track.

Surprisingly, the Star-A-Day quilt has been taking a big chunk of my time. But hopefully I’m good to go as I’ve prepped the stars for the rest of the month.

The last week of September,  I pulled fabric for the October stars.

I stacked it all in my star box and couldn’t lift the box with one hand. So, I decided to further refine each kit. Last night I finished kiting up the October stars.

The pieces are traced and cut out, including the setting square.  I’ll explain those tiny squares in a minute.

They are then stacked up on the setting square.

I fold the setting square over to contain the pieces.

And stuff it into a business envelope which I’ve created 3 pockets by stitching through.

I did this for all of the sets which I’ve not stitched and filled 7 envelopes  for 21 prepped stars.

I’ve put two envelopes, a few pins, a couple of needles, thread, scissors, a pen and a glue stick into a pencil bag. It takes up much less space on my side table than the star box. The rest of the envelopes are in the star box in the sewing room.

So, why do I need those 3 tiny squares, a glue stick and pen? I’m keeping a journal of my quilt progress.

Now that the stars are under control (at least until the end of the month) maybe I can work on a second project — but will it be the batik quilt or one of the Craigslist projects? I’ll tell about those tomorrow.

See what others are working on by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

My Star-A-Day project is on the wall today.  I’ve been pushing myself to get ‘caught up’ on the stars and last night I finished the 28th star and I was able to assemble the section.  Spending so much time on this quilt to get it going has meant I’ve not worked on anything else. Now that I’ve I’m only working on a single star a day and it has ‘clicked’ and a star is not taking me 2 hours to make, I should have time to work on my other projects. But first I’ll select the fabrics for the next two weeks of stars.

Check out what others have on their design walls by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

16 of the 3″ (finished) stars.  I’m considering the fabric I have them laying on as my setting fabric. I only bought a FQ over the weekend since I wasn’t certain about it, but I think it plays nicely with the star backgrounds I’ve used so far.

Over the weekend I traced off enough stars for the rest of the month. Now if I can come to some sort of balance between piecing a star and working at the machine.  Maybe if I had a book to listen to…

See what others are working on by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

And then there were six.  These are the first of 365 3″ finished LeMoyne stars I need for the Star-a-Day quilt by Karen Styles.

The idea is to stitch one star a day and at the end of the year you’ll have enough stars to make an 81″ x 81″ quilt.  The designer recommends that the quilt be assembled in sections as you go along so you don’t end up with a pile of stars at the end of the year.  I need a few more stars before I try to assemble my first section.

As for piecing them one a day, I can see an advantage to that – I did three last night and I can feel it in my wrist.  Given that I need to also be working on the DWR binding, I need to pace myself.

As for the DWR, I need to get it back to the sewing machine.  There’s a section which I need to re-stitch. It won’t take long, but it does require swapping the pressure foot on the machine and changing thread. I guess I’ll do that after work today.  That is after I stitch a few more of these blocks.  There are six laying on my sewing table ready for me to stitch the 2nd strip to them and a whole stack that need both strips.

See what other’s are working on by following the links over at Patchwork Times.