Happy Day!

Did you know that today is National Quilting Day? I was reminded earlier this week, but forgot about it this morning. A quilty greeting reminding us to celebrate just arrived from one of my Tangled Threads friends - I was glad to get that memory jog.

So . . . . here's wishing all of you a very happy National Quilting Day. I hope you all have a little time to spend quilting today - or doing something else that you want to do.

I spent much of yesterday and this morning finishing the March addition to Holiday Inn. I just love this little quilt! In case you hadn't noticed - I fussy cut all the "stopper" borders to give it a more "together" feeling. It doesn't really jump out at you, but I think it would be quite noticeable if I hadn't. If you click on the picture you can see the details much better.

One of you left a comment asking whether I used Thangles for the sawtooth border. I've tried Triangles on a Roll and wasn't impressed, and so I've never tried Thangles. I find that clever "shortcuts" usually work no better for me that just cutting triangles and sewing them together. What works best for me is to make many "parts" larger and then trim them down. I do this with half and quarter square triangle squares (hour glass blocks), square in a square blocks, and flying geese. The trimming down does take extra time, and can get tedious when there are hundreds of pieces to trim, but I love the way everything goes together so easily and perfectly after it's trimmed. I also use the "bias square" method of making triangle squares, using my Creative Grid rulers for the trimming instead of a "bias square" ruler. I have a tutorial on making triangle squares this way - check the list of tutorials near the top of my left sidebar.

Piecing Again

Sunday I pieced a dozen log cabin blocks for a friendship block exchange at the retreat next week. It felt so nice to be piecing again! I love appliqué, but I also love piecing. I've done very little piecing for a long time, and I missed it!



I didn't want to work on any of my appliqué as I'm saving it for the beach and the retreat, so I finally got around to dealing with my strings. I've been stuffing strings in baskets for years and years. I'd no idea how many of them there were! They were in a tangled, wrinkled mess - I had no idea there were so many of them. I had to start by pressing them - at least enough to get started. Then I found an old phone book ala Bonnie - I knew I had at least one around here - and cut out big squares. By the time I got to sewing I found time to make only two blocks. I wanted to see how they would turn out, because these are all really ugly fabrics. At least ugly to my 21st century mind. They are almost all from my 80's calicos - fabrics I gave away to charity about 5 years ago. It's neat that I'll have bits of those fabrics in a quilt this way - and they don't look ugly at all in the string blocks. I'm already thinking how I'll set them together. Maybe with black? Or how about cheddar? As Bonnie says, cheddar goes with everything!