I think the red is going to be my best choice.  There simply isn’t enough contrast between the the purple and black.

Today, I should have three quilts to show you — the ones I’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks.  But, I haven’t sat down to hide the thread tails, so they’ve not been washed.

So, today I bring you the quilt my young friend is working on, my spool blocks and my Tetris blocks.

This is the last Tetris block:

I have an 8th spool block finished, but it’s still under the needle.  At this rate, I should have enough blocks for a twin size quilt in a year.

Hop over to Judy’s  for other design walls and Melissa’s to see the Tetris blocks.

Yesterday, I took my young quilting friend to the annual Quilt-R’s Market.  This was the first time I had been, so I didn’t know what I would find.  The pictures above show what I brought home.

The band uniforms caught my eye on the football field.  I didn’t even open it up, just handed over my money   The other side is the same. 1 yard.  The music fabric is a FQ.  There’s two yards of the pigs.  I bought that for my friend J who back in  May was looking for some “cute” pig fabric.  This is by Joe Boxer, copyrighted 1993.  The final pieces were grabbed out of the free pile.  They are just scraps.

Since I don’t have to count the fabric we bought for my young quilting buddy, I’m actually used more this week than I bought.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 3.25 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  92.802 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 4.82 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 68.903 yards

Net Used for the year -23.899 yards

Hop over to Patchwork Times to see if anyone is making progress with their stash busting efforts.

This week I took two days off from work.  No special reason, just had the time and this was a good time at work to be off.  Naturally, the days filled up.  As of a week ago, there was nothing on my plate — except maybe rent some time on the long arm — if I could get something ready (i.e. backing and quilting design — I have tops coming out of my ears.  See the list HERE.)

Tuesday, between taking my car in to get the A/C repaired and a trip to the oral surgeon, I worked on the backing for Carolina Christmas.

Wednesday I finished the backing and attached it and the quilt top to the zippers.    Quilted Memories had an open machine, so I was able to quilt the top.  Last night I got it trimmed and now it’s ready for binding.

Before Bonnie left for Bali, she announced the new Leader/Ender challenge.  Three inch spools.  I didn’t participate in last year’s bowties.  I’m not sure what I was working on at the time — maybe the log cabin blocks?  Anyway, yesterday I pulled out my 1 1/2″ strip boxes and cut the needed pieces for 8 blocks.  So far I’ve finished three working on the backing for Carolina Christmas.

Originally, I planned to use a blue and white 30’s print, but I needed at least another 1/2 yard.  I’m sure I could have stretched it enough to loaded the quilt top to bottom, but I want to load it sideways.

I dug through my orphan block box and found 7 leftover Carolina Christmas blocks.  Then I dug through the stash I found these four fabrics plus one more not shown.    I think it’s going to be a cute backing — once I fix the pink strips.

Today, there’s nothing on the wall.  I put away my JT2 blocks Saturday night and I finished my Tetris-Quilt-A-Long block #5.

Saturday morning I quilted Fun With Bricks and got it trimmed.

Sunday evening I attached the binding to the KTQ 1600.  Now it just needs the threads hidden.  Then I started the binding on Fun With Bricks.  Ran out of bobbin thread — about a mile before I discovered it — so I called it a night.

I’m linked up with Judy for Design Wall Monday and Melissa for the  Tetris block.  Be sure to check out both for some great inspiration.

This past week I wandered into a couple of quilt shops.  The floral was a planned purchase.  At least planned in that I was looking for fabric to use for the border on French Cottage Garden Quilt that I plan to make.  The idea was to find something in a softer color palate.  I think this works well.

The music fabric.  Well, it’s music fabric.  There are several pieces in the line, including a black, grey and red zigzag fabric.  My DH and I walked into the store via the back door and the display is what we both first saw.  I have no idea what I’m going to do with these two pieces — other than put them into the drawers with the rest of the music fabric.

I did use a bit of fabric this week.  Finished two Tetris blocks and 9 JT2 blocks.  But it’s not enough to off set what I purchased.  Oh, well.

Fabric Added Since Last Report: 3.667 yards
Fabric Added to Date:  89.552 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0.748 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 64.083 yards

Net Used for the year -25.469 yards

Hop over to Judy’s to see how others are doing with their stash.

The last three of my precut JT2 blocks all need geese.  When I need 4 matching geese, I use my Quilt-in-a-Day flying geese ruler.  I needed two different sized of geese, but I have three sizes here.  Yep, I made papa, mama and baby geese and I only needed papa and mama geese.  Oh, well.

Here are the blocks I finished tonight.

So, now I have Section A completed:

and these blocks:

Still 24 blocks behind, but I’ll get there eventually.

In theory I could stay up another hour and at least knock out the flying geese for the rest of the blocks I pre-cut the other day, but I think I’ll quit while I’m a head.  No reverse sewing and I caught my empty bobbin after about 6″.  I’ve been known to sew much further on an empty bobbin.

Yesterday I had great plans to power piece my stack of pre-cut JT2 blocks.  Surely I could make significant progress on the stack of blocks in a couple of hours.

Ha!  After about 30 minutes of piecing HSTs and strips together I realized everything I had stitched had to be ripped out due to tension issues.  Fortunately those tension issues allow the ripping to be done rather quickly.

At the end of the day I only completed three blocks:

But all the HST are done.

I wonder how much progress I’ll make this evening?