Friendship Star

This month's block for do.Good Stitches Wish Circle is the Friendship Star.  When choosing colors, Steph asked that we match it to the backing fabric for the star and then scrappy off-white or low-volume prints for the background.  I like this color scheme a lot, but probably would have never of thought to did it on my own.

Backing fabric

Bird Leftovers

Remember the lovely bird who decided to make her home in my front porch light?  Well, after the eggs were hatched and the nest was abandoned we were left with quite a mess.  There were sticks and bird droppings in every crevice of that lamp.  I'm pretty sure we would have started a house fire just by turning on the light. 

A simple cleaning job turned into an actual project.  The whole porch light had to come down.  We looked like white trash for a while, because we had to put a bag over it to keep the wires from getting wet.

When all was said and done we had to go out and purchase a new front light.  Joel did a nice job of putting the new one up, so now we can be respectable neighbors again.

Disappearing 9-patch

The 9-patch is typically one of the very first blocks you learn as a quilter.  I think back to my first experiment with the 9-patch and cringe a little.  I think my very first time doing it was making a baby blanket for Little Man. 

As you become more advanced you try to spruce it up a bit and make things a bit more fancy, but there's something so fundamental and useful about the 9-patch that you never really leave it.  The July blocks for the Building Blocks Quilt Along gave a fun little twist to this classic block. (Yes, I'm a month behind on the quilt along.  It's been a bust Summer)

You make the block like normal, but instead of stopping there you cut them in 4ths and rearrange them to make this block.  It's a fun change up to a classic.