This past weekend I pulled out all of my blocks for Aiming for Accuracy Quilt-Along and started making flying geese. The quilt as designed finishes at 58″ x 82″ and I want my quilt to be a bit wider. The length is fine, so I thought I’d add a string of geese to either side before the outer border. I made a baker’s dozen of geese and now I’m second guessing myself. I think I’d be better off making the geese from two florals and putting in a sashing strip.  Bottom line, I  need to see the outer border before I make more geese.

So, with geese not being an option, I cleared off the treadle and worked some more on Scrappy Trips.

I have half the blocks finished and the rest are in various states of completion. Before I start sewing the strips into blocks I want to get all of the strip sets ready to go  so I can decide which color will go corner to corner.  I’ve decided on a layout and it’s dependent on that center color.

Check out what others have on their design wall over at Patchwork Times.

Lesson 11 of Aiming for Accuracy Quilt-Along.

Alphabet BOM – I is for Independence Square.

Click to join apocketfullofmysteries.

This past week I worked a bit on some string blocks, but nothing that I can count.  On the other hand, there was some fabric round robin happening in my stash.

A couple of weeks ago I left a comment on a Kansas Troubles Quilters blog post and I won a bunch of Kansas Trouble scraps! Thank you Lynne!

This will add variety to the quilt the quilt I’m making using KTQ fabrics.

Outward bound, I cut a stack of 5″ charm squares from my pink fabrics to give to Syd for a new quilt.  Since these have been put over into her stash box, I’m counting them out.

While I was cutting, I cut 2 1/2″, 2″, 1 1/2″ strips and made a few strings.  As a result I can now close my pink/purple box easily.  Perhaps I need to do this to my green and blue boxes.  The green to get it to close easily and the blue to replenish my strips.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 5 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 127.087 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report:  2.55 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 75.212 yards

Net Used for the year -51.875 yards

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Sewing, or doing anything in the house is interesting. While we are waiting on our new central A/C, we have a couple of window units blowing.  In the rooms we have cool, it’s like staying in a motel room with a noisy a/c. As a result, I have to crank up the volume on my book.  I’m listening to Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  Yes, I’ve listened to it previously and read it last fall. I’m going though all of the books again in preparation for the release of In My Own Hearts Blood In in March.

Anyway, with the noisy a/c and loud book, I didn’t want to work on anything which required thinking. Well that is not the only reason.  My sewing area was disturbed putting in the window unit. The only reason I have a unit in here is because I work from home and the sewing room is also my office — otherwise I wouldn’t try to piece and would just work on the DWR in the bedroom which is cooled off.

As a result I pulled out my string blocks to work on something mindless.  I finished 6 blocks bringing my total to 24. I haven’t decided how big I’m going to make this quilt.

It seems like last week was one of those weeks with very little piecing.  But I did get the center of the spool challenge quilt done and I added 4 more blocks to the Quilting Gallery’s Aiming for Accuracy Quilt-Along. But after mid-week, there was no sewing.  It was simply too hot when the A/C went out.  We have a temporary solution in place, but it looks like there’s a new A/C in our future sooner than later. Good thing I like scrappy quilts, as I don’t see any new fabric in my future.

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

The Leader/Ender challenge started August 2013 was spools.  I until I started writing this post, I thought it started in July and I was late starting.  As you can see from this post I started the challenge on August 20, 2013.  365 days after I made the first three spools I completed the center of the quilt.

I’m not sure how much of the distortion is the quilting/trimming and how much is the photography.  As a result, I didn’t proceed with the borders.  I need shove a few things around in the room to be able to lay the top out completely and see what if anything needs to be done to add the borders.

To see what others did with their challenge spools check out the links over Quiltville.

The spool blocks are nearly a quilt.  The missing blocks are on my sewing machine waiting for sashing to be attached.  As as frequently happens, it’s not until you see a picture that a turned block is noticed.  I seem to have the top left setting triangle assembled wrong, so a bit of ripping will be done before the borders are attached.

Swing by Patchwork Times to see what others are working on.

Last week I started assembling the spool blocks, but since it hasn’t reached the flimsy stage, I still can’t count the fabric. And since I found the sashing fabric in my stash, I didn’t buy any fabric either.  Bottom line, my stash report has not changed since last week.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 122.087 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report:  0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 72.662 yards

Net Used for the year -49.425 yards

See how others are doing with their stash over at Patchwork Times.

Is the orange going to overpower the blocks? There will be dark green cornerstones.

I’m now sewing my 3″ spools into 9-patches.  My original intent was to use a solid orange/cheddar for the sashing with purple cornerstones. But since I’d like to finish this top sooner than later (can I get it done by the 19th?) what ever I use has to come from my stash.

Several years ago I bought 3 yards of this fabric because I liked it, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it.  It was some of the last “speculative” fabric I bought. The fabric is Fancy Cat Leaves by Makower UK.

The print is small enough it won’t look weird when I cut my 1″ (finished) sashings.  So although it’s not a solid, the orange is strong enough the print won’t compete to badly with the mishmash of prints in the spools.  That just leaves the cornerstones.

I  have a length of purple, but because it is a hand spray the cornerstones will vary widely in color since only a 1″ square will show.  But I found a dark green tone-on-tone which works nicely with the leaves. Since it’s a piece I have used for other projects I may have one or two spools make with it, If I do, I’ll just have to make sure those spools are not in a corner of the 9-patch.