Closet full of Quilt Tops

 Quite a while ago, I bought a 25 pack of skirt hangers to hang quilt tops on, and I've never had all of those hangers full, until now. I've actually got 27 quilt tops hanging in the closet now, plus the superhero wedding quilt that's still draped over the cutting table, and I've got a couple quilts basted as well. You'd think after assembling three quilt tops last week, and another five this week, I'd be catching up as far as assembling quilt tops goes. Well, in all actuality, I've still got several more quilts worth of quilt blocks waiting to be assembled, and I've got several more quilts in some stage of sewing, and even a couple quilts cut out that aren't sewn at all. 

I wish I could say I've been doing lots of quilting as well, but I haven't done any FMQ in over a week. I knew sewing time would be iffy for a while, and if I only have have small bits of time, piecing is easier than quilting. 

Over a year ago, I was overrun with 2.5" inch squares, and I took all the squares I had four or five of the same fabric and matched them up for nine patches. I've been using those as leaders/enders for a year, and let me tell you, I am sick of sewing nine patches! This week I decided to make those my main project, just to get them done.

This is the result of a year or so of sewing nine patches as my leader/ender project. I started out counting and clipping them together in sets of ten, but I soon gave up on that. I'm estimating about 500 nine patches, which will make a lot of scrap quilts. I put those all aside for now, I'm pretty sick of looking at them, and I'm using some quilts I have cut out as my leader/ender projects right now. I am considering setting options, and some of my next leaders will likely be alternate blocks for some of these. 

I made several of these blocks this week, because I'm debating using them in the baby Marvel quilt I need to make. I made them in different colorways, and on several I tried to stick with colors representing different superheroes, like a red and yellow one for Ironman, and red and blue for Captain America. I made more blocks than I need, and I need to lay them out with the Marvel fabric to see if that's the direction I want to go. If I decide against it, which I might, I'll just make a whole quilt of these star blocks. I've got several ideas running through my head for the baby quilt, and I haven't made any firm decisions yet. 

Last week I had two of my granddaughters for three days, and we got busy crafting!

I cut out their names and the design they wanted from freezer paper, ironed the freezer paper onto the shirts, and then let then use fabric paint to stamp around the paper. When the paint was almost dry, I used a toothpick to get under the freezer paper and peeled it off. The next day, I fringed the bottom of their shirts and we strung pony beads onto them. These two were my test subjects, and all went well with the craft, so next week when I have four different grandkids, we're going to try it all again! Next week I'll have three boys and only girl, so I think we'll skip the beading unless Miss S wants them. In case you are wondering, neither girl had enough patience to finish the beading, so I finished both of their shirts. These two are 3 and 7, so I figured that would be the case. Next week I'll have two 10 year olds, and a 2 and 4 year old. Fall break makes for a busy Nana with no sewing going on!

I do have a couple sewing days available before they get here, and my hope is to get the wedding quilt basted, and get back to FMQ the quilt I'm about 1/3 done quilting. I'm also hoping to get a bit of cutting done, but we'll see. That may be too ambitious for the time I'll have.

Tomorrow DH and I are going on a day trip. Yesterday we took a day to go see DD#2 and family up in Phoenix. These two weeks off he's had have not turned out the way we thought they would, and we debated going away for a couple nights, but decided we had enough to do, so a couple day trips was a wiser way to go. Next week he's back at work, but I'll be in Nana mode, so I'm not expecting much sewing progress to be made. I do, however, expect another tea party to happen. I have tea parties with all the grandkids, boys like tea and cookies too!