Back to Quilts

I'm finished the Christmas sewing I still planned on doing. I had other things I wanted to make, but my arm is throwing fits, not healing at all like I had hoped, so I have to be careful on how much I try to do. In fact, I am icing my arm as I type this. I've got the ice pack strapped on so I can use both hands.

Since I've finished the Christmas stuff I am making, I'm back to quilts now. I finished up the last units for DD#3's wedding quilt this week, and I've just started assembling the top.

It's a barn raising layout, so making big blocks doesn't really work. The units are only 3", so assembling the top is a big job. It will be 31 units by 31 units plus a border. I am laying out one fourth of the quilt at a time, then I'll assemble that before laying out any more.

I only got half of this fourth assembled today, and my arm is done, done, done! I stacked the remaining rows neatly, and I'll work on them this weekend as I can.

After I finished the Christmas sewing, I looked at the date on the calendar, and made a goal of assembling this wedding quilt, along with one of my niece's (her quilt is simpler and smaller) before January 1st. I may have to settle for just assembling this quilt top. I keep thinking I'm making smaller quilting goals, but my arm keeps telling me not small enough.

I, of course, also have a leader/ender project going. I had a container of bonus HST's that were demanding to be put to use. These HST's will finish at 1.25", so pretty small. My container was overflowing, and these are from multiple projects over the past few years. Once a container is full, it's time to do something with it, so I came up with an idea, which since morphed into something else, but today I drafted it in EQ7.

Right now I am only working on sewing all these bonus HST's into the little nine patches. Once I'm done that, I'll cut what I need to make the blocks, then eventually cut the sashing to assemble the quilt. I don't know how big the quilt will end up being, I'm just sewing up as many nine patch blocks as I can with the HST's I want to use. Once I have those done, I can figure out how many blocks I can make. I'm debating doing the sashing and cornerstones scrappy, but it was faster in EQ to just do it as a constant. I'll have to audition a few options once the blocks are made.

Here are some of my real-life bonus HST's turned into nine patches. This project doesn't have a deadline or anything, it's just an easy thing to grab to use as leaders/enders right now.

Now that my arm is well-iced, I am good to make DH more granola, and while it's in the oven, I'll be paying bills. Fun stuff!