Last night and this morning I worked on a bit on my Orca Bay purple string blocks from Clue #4.   I’ve got a stack of HST triangles leftover from my Old Tobacco Road quilt that I’m using as the last string.  Instead of squaring up the blocks then sliver trimming them with my Companion Angle Ruler, I cut the blocks in half, corner to corner and remove the paper and give the blocks a good pressing.  Next I straighten the bottom edge and then finally trim the sides of the triangle. It’s what works for me.

Another project I’ve made a bit of progress on is the Ocean Wave quilt. The first 25 blocks and associated half/quarter blocks are sewn together.

Both of these projects are going to get set aside for a couple of days as I work on a couple of more pressing projects.

Don’t forget to enter the drawing for four patterns I’m giving away as part of the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop.  Enter HERE.

Instead of working clue # 4 for Orca Bay, I spent time on my log cabin quilt.  I know doesn’t fit on my design wall — the wall is only 60 x 80.  Since I designed the layout I know it’s supposed to be  84 x 98 when it’s finished.  But — WOW! — this is a big quilt.  I don’t think I realized just how big.  Lately most of my quilts are in the vicinity of 60 x 74 so the extra 24 inches is somewhat overwhelming.  I’m so glad I didn’t try to do this in rows.

As I was sewing the blocks and rows together, my leader/ender project was the HST Squares for Ocean Waves — I’m up to 1030 – only 554 more to go.  No picture today – but I do have the blocks in the top right quadrant of the quilt sewn into rows.

I say I didn’t work on Clue #4.  More accurately I didn’t sew on Clue # 4.  I’ve got the foundation papers cut and I pulled more purple strips, squares, rectangles and triangles  from my pre-cut boxes  and pressed a few strings.

But, all the other parts are done.  I’ve got them pinned in groups of 10 and tossed into my mom’s knitting bucket.

To how others are doing on their Orca Bay quilts, check out the links over on Bonnie’s blog.  Judy’s blog  has links to design walls.  Finally, if you are looking for my giveaway — here’s the link.

This past week I worked on my Orca Bay, Ocean Waves and Log Cabin quilts.  At the Friday night sew-in I took my log cabin blocks for mindless sewing and Saturday I continued working on them, finishing up the rest of the logs – so I get to count them!  I’ve got the top left quarter of the quilt on the design wall ready to sew together.

Fabric Added Last Week: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 130.686 yards

Fabric Used Last Week: 9.528 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 178.683 yards

Net Used for 47.997 yards

The links over at Patchwork Times will show how others are doing.

If you are looking for my give away click here.

Quilting Gallery is coordinating a blog hop where the blog participants are hosting a give-away.  If you’ve never been to the Quilting Gallery site you should check it out.  They host weekly themed quilt contests (I entered this week’s contest) and maintain lists of quilting blogs, quilt shops and quilt guilds among other things.

If this is your first visit to my blog, welcome.  If you’ve been here before, thanks for stopping by again.

My blog is mostly about my quilting, but occasionally other “stuff” drifts in.  The biggest reason I blog is to have a record of my quilting.  To that end I’ve setup tabs that show the progress of my quilts from the cutting the fabric (quilts in progress), to becoming a top (tops to be quilted), and finally the finished quilt (finishes).  The idea is to motivate me to finish some of the quilts I’ve already started.

Now to the give-away.

These four patterns are from my stash.  I’ve made the Geese in My Garden (I called mine No Blue Geese in My Tropical Garden), but the other three patterns are new — well at least not used.   To enter, please leave a comment on this post telling me which of the four patterns you want to make first and a way to contact you. I’ll use a random number generator to pick a comment after 10 PM Central on December 17th.

Please note, WordPress sets your first (and sometime later) comments to moderate. As near as I can tell, I can’t change this. I’ll approve comments a couple of times a day, so if you don’t see your comment immediately, check back the next day.

Meanwhile, check out the other blogs on this hop by clicking the party balloons.

Update:  I just realized that it may appear that I’m only sending one pattern.  The winner of the random draw will get all 4 patterns.  – Pam

The theme this week is Christmas Table Runners.  I’ve entered “Gift Wrapped” in the Quilting Gallery contest.   I’d love to have your vote.

Yes, I have finished Orca Bay  Clue # 3 – 350 Black and White Half Square Triangle Squares which will finish at 1 1/2″.  And sure enough at one point I picked up a stack of Ocean Wave HSTs and didn’t discover it until I went to press them and they were BLUE.

Will Clue #4 be where Red is introduced into the quilt — or in my case Purple?

Instructions for this quilt can be found HERE.

Like the Log Cabin, Ocean Waves is too big for my design wall.  So, I’m going to sew it together in sections.  I guess I need to work on those half blocks now.

Quilting Gallery is coordinating a blog hop and I thought I’d join.  I’ll post more about this on Friday.

I’ve finished a quarter of the log cabin quilt.  I can’t move forward until I finish more blocks.  Since I want to finish up the Orca Bay HST squares before the next clue comes out, I’ve packed up the log cabin blocks to take to Quilters’ Night Out on Friday.  In the meantime I’ll work on the HSTs for both Orca Bay and Ocean Waves, perhaps make a few Ocean Wave blocks and think about what I’m going to do with this FQ:

I  need a small quilt  – about 18 x 28 for a Build-A-Bear frog by Christmas.  And I  have no ideas!  It can’t be too intricate as I also have a purse I need to make in the same time frame.

Yet another week bouncing between three projects – Ocean Waves, Log Cabin and Orca Bay.

There are a few more Ocean Wave blocks that came off the design wall to make room for the log cabin.  No new blocks have been made, but I have made another 40 HST squares bringing my total to 950.

I have 1/4 of the log cabin blocks finished for the top of the quilt.  The missing row is on my sewing machine waiting to be stitched.  Once I get these rows sewn together, I’ll stitch up another set of blocks so I can sew them together.

Finally I have Orca Bay — the bottom picture is  everything I’ve done so far.  20 HST are ready to be pressed, and the rest are stacked to be stitched.

This week it will be more of the same — I doubt I’ll have anything new on my design wall until after the first of the year — just progress on these projects.

To see progress on others’ Orca Bay, follow the links over on Bonnie’s blog and to see if anyone is working on something other than Orca Bay, check out the links on Judy’s blog