Day 2 - Field Trip!

Day 2 at the Patchwork Times retreat.  I opened the room again, heading up at 6:30 to start work on my projects.  Cheryl wasn't too far behind me, and most of the crowd was well into their projects before 9.  Judy took us on a field trip today, out to see her sewing room and to a local quilt shop.  I think we all left her sewing room a little more jealous of the wonderful (and large) space she has out there.  At the quilt shop, most of us picked up a "little something".  I found 2 fabrics on the sale shelf, which looked wonderful together.  I told them they could come home with me, as long as they found a couple of friends :)  Fabric is so much less expensive here!  I almost wish I'd bought more.

I made lots of progress on Orca Bay, but at this point I moved it back to a leader/ender project.  All those little bitty bits really take a toll on my stamina.  I have decided that I'm going to make this quilt 5x7 blocks. So far, it's 4x4, so I need another 19 star blocks (which are made) and about 30 purple strings (which are not).  That may be part of tomorrow's plan.

Next up, Sherri's Monday Mystery.  Seven steps are now complete.  I am liking this quilt very much, so far.  But I won't get to do any more work on it at this retreat, since the next clue won't be out until Monday.

So that is now 3 for 3.  Three projects worked on at the retreat, and not a single one completed.  I think I'm on a roll :)

Orca Bay Link-up

I originally posted this on Jan 2.  Sad to say, there have been no changes at all in the progress on Orca Bay since then.  So, this is all I can show for Bonnie's last Orca Bay link up.  The good news is, I am taking this quilt with me to the Patchwork Times retreat next week.  So I hope to have some significant progress to show soon.

Design Wall Monday - Jan 2, 2012

My design "bed" contains some of the parts from the Orca Bay mystery.  Bonnie revealed the final part yesterday, and I have a few of each piece done.  This is a (very small) sample of what the quilt is going to look like - when I eventually finish all the piecing that is required.

I discovered that my 2" half-square triangles are a bit too big, which throws off the wing triangles.  So I'm having to cut down all 354 of those in order to put this quilt together.  Slow and steady, I guess.  I'll keep plugging away at this one as time permits.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls today.  And Bonnie has a link-up for all the Orca Bay progress.

Orca Bay Eve

Happy New Year's Eve!  And, apparently it's also the Eve of Orca Bay.  Step7 of Orca Bay came out yesterday.  And the final step is coming out TOMORROW! just in time for New Year's.  So, I thought I should get a bit of work done today, to ensure that I'm not totally behind when the assembly instructions arrive in the morning.

This is what I did today.  First a few wing triangles from step 5 (finally).  I only did about 10 of these, but I have lots more pieces cut and they have been going together pretty quickly.  However, I am still working on the 1/2 square triangles that form the basis of these (54 more to go).  I had to buy some more blacks to finish these pieces, but I'm back in motion now.

From there, I attached the wings to 2 of my purple string triangles.  Just two - but it's a start and I can officially say I started on step 7 now :)


I can't wait to see the final step tomorrow - although I suspect it will be a couple of months before I actually finish all the remaining pieces for this quilt. But I'm not complaining ('cause Bonnie says we can't :)

Orca Bay progress - Dec 26

Happy Boxing Day!  Today is a day for staying home, in my opinion.  I try to avoid malls on boxing day, so I'm planning a quiet day at home.  That does not, however, mean I'm going to get much sewing done.  I snuck off for a few minutes this morning to do a couple of blocks from step 6 of Orca Bay.

So this is what's on my design wall (floor) today.  I'm not likely to get much more done, but at least I have one of each for this step, before step #7 comes out.  I still need to finish step 3, and start step 5 - and I suspect step 5 is going to feed into the clue this Friday, so I may have to find a few more minutes to disappear.

Check out more Orca Bay progress on Bonnie's blog today.  And hop over to Patchwork Times for more design walls.

Design Wall Monday - Dec 19

There isn't much on my design wall this week. In fact, the wall is empty.  On my ironing board, I have a few more blocks for step 3 of Orca Bay.  This makes 140 done, 210 left to go.  Step 5 builds on step 3, so I guess this should have been the one I finished earlier. I'll keep plugging away, and hopefully a bit later this week I'll get some of step 5 done, before Friday's clue.  Bonnie says we get to start assembling units on Friday, and I can't wait!

Check out Judy's blog to see what others have on their design walls.  And the Monday linkup for Orca Bay has lots more progress there.

Stash report - Dec 11

I haven't been up to much this week, but I did get a bit of work done on the Orca Bay mystery.  So I'm going to report my yardage for steps 2 through 4 today.

.75 yards - black and white half-square triangles for Orca Bay
.75 yards - orange string blocks for Orca Bay
1.5 yards - purple string blocks for Orca Bay

That's a total of 3 yards out for Orca Bay this week.  Nothing came in, so I am officially into the black again!  And over 100 yards used for the year.   This is probably where I will end up, since I have to turn my sewing room into the guest room tomorrow, for the next few weeks. I will keep Orca Bay handy, and hopefully do at least a couple of blocks for each step, just to keep current.  But other than that, there won't be much sewing going on until January.

Stash Totals for this year:
Overall, 104.5 yards in, 106.0 yards out
Net for the year:  1.5 yards out

Check out Judy's blog for more stash reports.

Purple Strings!

Step 4 of Orca Bay came out yesterday.  This time, Bonnie is letting us play with our primary colour.  In my case, that means purple.  And course this is a Bonnie mystery, so that means more string blocks!  128 triangles, to be exact.

This pile of purple is now strings.  Soon (I hope) to become blocks.  I looked at Bonnie's directions, and all the cutting and trimming, and thought about alternatives.  Instead of 5-1/8" squares, which then get cut on the diagonal, why not a long 3-1/2" strip of strings, cut into triangles?  I don't know if that will save me any time, but it means I can simply cut all my bits to the same length to start.  I suspect there may be a reason my plan isn't ideal, but I'm going to forge ahead anyway :) 

Perhaps in the end I'll have a number of shorter pieces, and I'll switch to making a few squares to use them up. And I did notice as I hung my blocks that a lot of them have teeny tiny pieces in the corners.  Hopefully that won't cause me a lot of grief later.

In any event, here are my first 10 purple string triangles.  Only 118 more to go :)

Design Wall Monday - Dec 5

My design wall this week is an Orca Bay wall.  Step 2 and 3 are on the wall - parts of them, anyway.  I have the final 31 orange string blocks from step 2. And the first 12 (of 350) 2" half-square triangles.

In addition, the Blogger's BOM is still up on my wall.  And the latest Monday Mystery from Sherri.

I didn't make as much progress on Orca Bay as I had hoped over the weekend.  I had great plans, but this cold has knocked me flat, and I only managed about 2 hours of sewing in total all weekend.  That was enough to convert this pile of strings into 41 blocks to finish step 2.  And I pushed myself through a few half-square triangles, just so I would have some progress on step 3 to show today. 

So I guess it's back to black and white land for me this week.  Need to finish 40 more blocks for step 1, and 338 for step 3. Hopefully before step 4 comes out on Friday.

Check out Bonnie's blog for more links to Orca Bay progress.
And don't forget to have a look at the other design walls over at Judy's blog.

Proof!

Before tomorrow's step is posted, I had to show that I did in fact manage to start on Step 2 of the Orca Bay mystery.  3 little 3.5" string blocks are done.  I might get a few more tonight, but I won't be anywhere near Bonnie's 72 blocks.  Plus my black and white QSTs - still only 180 of those (out of 224) done.  So I need to get them finished up too.

I think this weekend will be a Bonnie Mystery weekend.  That might get me caught up, depending how challenging she makes step 3 tomorrow :)

A New Project

I think I'm going to take the plunge into Orca Bay! This is Bonnie's new mystery. Check it out over on her blog - just follow Shamu here :)

I wasn't going to play along - I have company coming for Christmas, and it looks like this mystery will run right through her visit. And I don't "do" strings (Bonnie loves strings, I understand). And my scrap bins are pretty lame right now, especially in the red zone (Bonnie is using blue and red for her quilt).

But, today I was finishing up the quilting on another one of my recent projects, and pondering my next move. And I thought - Why Not?  The mystery started last Friday and I've been drawn back to the page several times over the past 2 days.  So I did a little bit of digging.  Bonnie says the quilt was inspired by a sunset over Orca Bay - and to me sunsets are orange & purple.  Two colours which I do have a reasonable amount of in my scrap bins.  Blacks & neutrals are a bit more difficult, but Bonnie's pretty loose with the definition of neutral so I should be able to scrounge enough.  And for black - I think I'll pass on the scrap idea and use a couple yards of solid black I have on hand and would love to see gone from my stash closet.  Hopefully that won't throw the whole quilt out of whack, if the rest is scrappy and the black is just black.

So here we have it.  Black,  neutral, orange and purple.  I think I'll use purple as the primary, which may mean I need to find some more.  Bonnie says 3 yards, and I doubt there's 3 yards of anything in that bin.  So maybe I'll go back through my scraps and wander into the blue range with the purples.

First step - 224 2" quarter square triangles in black and neutral.  Oh boy.  I guess I need to get started :)