It was another good week busting fabric.  The Scrap Bags group on Quilt With Us has a quarterly challenge.  This quarter it is  Boxy Stars, Playing with Jacks or any Bonnie Hunter pattern.  How fun.  I love Bonnie’s patterns, and have my scraps pre-cut and sorted by color in their boxes (I did not press them, just rolled the strips up).    Anyway, it was easy to see what colors of squares and strips I had enough of and picked Playing with Jacks, which I finished the top of last night.

As I worked on Jacks, I kept sewing HST Squares for Ocean Waves.  I’ve sewn all I have cut – 1550, I need another 38 pairs, not to mention a slew to use for wings.  I’m going to pull my 2″ brick box and cut from there — it will give me greater variety than cutting from 2″ strips. Also made this week were more blocks for Ocean Waves. I think I have enough competed to assemble the second section.

Since I can’t sew without leader/enders, I’m stitching the pinwheels for the border.  I wish I had though of this earlier,  I just have 48 pinwheels left – of course that 3 leader/enders per pinwheel, so maybe it will get me further along until I figure out what I’m going to use as my next leader/ender project.

Here’s this weeks results:

Fabric Added Last Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 4.25 yards

Fabric Used Last Week: 3.013 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 10.504 yards

Net Used for 6.254 yards

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times to see how others are doing with their fabric usage goals.

I’m calling Playing With Jacks a top.  It measures 42″ x 55″  just right for a 9-year-old I think.  But admittedly, my backing fabric has played some part in this.

Yes, that’s Bugs Bunny.  I have just one length of this fabric, and since it’s an older fabric (from my mom’s stash) it’s actually a full 44″ wide.  Now to quilt it.  I’m thinking something basic — cross-hatching, but I’ve got to decide on the thread color.  I really don’t want red going through bugs, so I think I’ll see if I have a gray and if not, I’ll go with white on the bobbin.  I’ll probably go with red on the top, but I guess that will depend on what I find in my box of thread.

I might be able to get something finished if I would just pick one project and focus on it. While waiting on the roast to be done, I sewed another partial row together for Ocean Waves, made a few of the alternate blocks and cut the rest of the turquoise I need for the center of the quilt.

After dinner I managed to get the 6″ blocks sewn into 6 – 12″ blocks before getting distracted.

Then I watched a couple of episodes of NCIS and did a bit of hand quilting.  After listening to the first 4 news stories all about someone missing or dead, I decided I had enough of that as well.

So, I’m back at the sewing machine.  My goal is to finish the other 6 blocks and maybe get the sashing attached before I had to log in at work.

The 6″ blocks are made.  Now to let it simmer until I’m certain they are in the correct place.

In July 2008 I ‘started’ these two quilts – Monterrey Medallions by Terry Atkinson and Milky Way by Glad Creations.  Actually, I started sewing light and dark 2″ squares together as leader/enders with the intention of making these two quilts using the “same” fabrics so they would be “twins”.  Two or three years ago I finished 260 4-patches (the # I needed for the two quilts in my modified size).  They’ve been sitting, waiting for me to pull the rest of the fabric ever since.

I didn’t get very far, as I was having trouble with my color palette – or lack there of.  In my mind, I knew what I wanted, but my stash wasn’t working for me.

So, today, I’ve decided to let these two projects go.  I still want to make them – perhaps even as “twins” — but I need to think the color palette through.   The 4-patches won’t go unused.  I already have plans to use them in a Scrappy Irish Chain – not that I’ve added it to my Quilts in Progress tab.  I need to get the background and border fabric.  Once I cut into it background fabric, I’ll add it to the tab.

Paraphrasing the Wizard – pay no attention to the new blocks on the wall, that’s not a new quilt you see.

This week I made a bit of progress on the Ocean Waves – primarily in the form of stitching the HST squares.  I’ve now have 1400 of the 1584 that I need.  And yes, I did make a few blocks.

The frog is still waiting for inspiration.  DH cut out construction paper legs.  He says this looks like a top view looking down on the frog.  I thought the frog was facing the viewer.  I guess I’m going to have to get out my own construction paper and figure this out before too long.

As for those other blocks on the wall….Those are the first blocks of Playing with Jacks from Quiltville.com.  A few weeks ago I sorted my 2 1/2″ Bricks & Blocks box by color, as well as my strip box so I could get the boxes closed.  It made it very easy to start this new quilt.  I have blue squares for all but 10 blocks and I’ve got the HST squares cut for all but  12 of the blocks.  I guess I’m about 1/3 of the way through stitching the HSTs.  Working with the 2 1/2″ strips seems huge after working with the 2″ for Ocean Waves.

I’m off work today, so I hope to get most of the blocks finished before going to Guild tonight.

Don’t forget to check out the links over at Patchwork Times.

Lots of piecing this week, but just a bit that I can count toward my stash report.  The log cabin quilt that I finished yesterday had all been counted last year.  But I got to count all those HST Squares that I pieced as leader/enders for the Ocean Waves top.  They added up.  Between those, the few alternate blocks I piece for the Ocean Waves quilt and the frog quilt, I used a bit over a yard of fabric.

Fabric Added Last Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 4.25 yards

Fabric Used Last Week: 1.311 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 7.491 yards

Net Used for 3.241 yards

Follow the links over at Patchwork Times to see how others are doing with their fabric usage goals.

I finished sewing the log cabin blocks together this morning.

Now to go press these HST Squares for Ocean Waves.  I stitched 60 while I finished up the Log Cabin quilt.

I think I’ll embroider a face on the frog and perhaps instead of catching a fly, he’ll catch a peppermint.

This past week I’ve worked on 4 different quilts.  The Double Wedding Ring — my progress is shown in the drawing on the right side bar — if it’s colored in I’ve quilted that section.  My Christmas BOM — I made the Cookie Jar block and attached the sections next to it. Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler — made two blocks — Album 2 and Crown and Cross.  I see now the yellow blends into the pink, but I’m not doing it over.  Finally I pieced a bit of Ocean Waves.

The cool thing is at the end of the first week I  have my January UFO challenge done.

On a different note, I looked down Saturday afternoon and realized I had two pairs of snips on my desk.   I’ve been missing one pair for quite sometime.  Saturday morning I pulled the DWR out of the laundry basket to mark the quilting on the current row.  I noticed the snips in the bottom of the basket and brought them into the sewing room/office.  Apparently I lost them in the quilt.  Now if I can just find the second cover….

Don’t forget to check out the links over at Patchwork Times for some great quilting inspiration.