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

This week there are bits and pieces from three quilts in my count — the Orca Bay string blocks, some of the Orca Bay HST squares (all cut, but only 80 pieced), the HST squares I got pieced for Ocean Waves and 42 log cabin blocks. Who knows, I might just hit 50 yards net by the end of the year — if I can stay out of the quilt shops!

Fabric Added Last Week: 3.25 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 130.686 yards

Fabric Used Last Week: 4.393 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 169.155 yards

Net Used for 38.469 yards

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

350 HST pairs ready to be stitched into 350 HST squares for Orca Bay.  Now to make sure they don’t get mixed in with the 450 HST pairs sitting on my sewing table for Ocean Waves.

Part 3 of Orca Bay was released this morning.  The instructions can be reached by clicking on the whale.

So why the title of this post?

I still have a gazillion 1 1/2″ (finished) HST Squares to make for Ocean Waves and I only have half a gazillion cut. (The strips are for the Log Cabin quilt).

Actually,  since the end of October I’ve made 930 light/dark HST Squares for OW, have another 450 ready to sew and still need to cut another 100 more. So 350 for Orca Bay is just a drop in the bucket.

The good news is I don’t think I’ll need to cut any neutral strips for Orca Bay — I’ll just appropriate the ones already cut for Ocean Waves.

As I mentioned earlier today, Judy’s UFO Challenge kept me motivated and got a whole lot of projects done.  Someone asked me if I had started thinking about next year’s challenge.  I have.  Instead of trying to get 12 – 20 projects done, I’m going to focus on three long-term projects which I need to get in gear on.

• Getting the rest of the blocks made for my Christmas BOM started in 2003 – quilt top and quilting not required
• Finishing my Double Wedding Ring — I only have 15 rings to quilt!
• Making progress on my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler – need 77 more blocks.

I’ve added a new tab for the 2012 Challenge.  Of course I also hope to have some actual finishes along the way as well.