WIP's on Wednesday... I love alliteration....

Well I've had a couple of very productive sewing days and have two WIP's for this Wednesday. First, I have a good start on a new quilt using my latest fabric purchases .... two layer cakes of the new Lori Holt Bee Basics and Bee Backgrounds. Now I wanted to make a quilt that would use just these layer cakes and I wanted it to be an easy block....duh... and I wanted a positive/negative vibe and this is what I ended up doing...

An easy Puss in the Corner block... I used the tutorial you can find here... basically you layer two squares and trim them to 9.5"... then cut a 2.5" strip from each of the 4 sides... shuffle the darks and lights and presto!!!  2 Puss in the Corner blocks!!!

These fabrics have a lot of fun motifs... old fashioned fans, and little bicycles and chicken wire just to  name a few... here are a couple of blocks I like a lot...

I LOVE that old fashioned penmanship... do they even teach penmanship anymore?

And this sweet cross stitched heart motif comes in several colorways but the yellow is my favorite!

And while I kept as many blocks as possible monochromatic it didn't work out for all the fabrics so I paired the little scissors with the embroidery text print... love both of these!

Now I'm going to do 9 rows of 9 blocks... I want to start and stop with blocks that have the "solid"corners... it makes my OCD happy to have a symmetrical  quilt... so I need 81 blocks... which I had hoped I could get from the 2 layers cakes each having 42 fabrics... but it won't work out that way. Both the Bee Basics and the Bee Backgrounds contain these same two squares from the panel in the collection...

Now these are cute but they won't work for this project ... too busy... so I will be forced to make one single block from some of my other Lori Holt fabrics... oh no!!! I have several "basics" I can use but not any lights so a trip back to HomeGrown HomeSewn will be in order... I do love going to that shop!  Such a happy place...

The layout I have now isn't the final one but it doesn't look too bad... I'm even using the brown and gray fabrics which aren't my favs ... really pushing the envelope for me...LOL!!

And while I was starting a new quilt I decided to free a UFO from its plastic bin and chose this Churn Dash quilt I started over a year ago... Now I was shocked ...really shocked... to find that when I sealed this away I had cut out all the sashing and cornerstones and setting triangles and I had labeled ALL the parts and even drawn a diagram of what block went where.... What in the  HE-Double Hockey Sticks got into me???? I'm never that organized... I always think that I'll remember whatever it is I was doing... and anymore I never really do.

Anyway I spent about 4 hours  and got the center together....

All the little 2.5" squares are from an assortment of Sandy Gervais Fall collections... she does great Fall collections... and the sashing, cornerstones and border are her fabrics too. That lovely yellow is my favorite butterscotch Grunge.  To make the big churn dash blocks I used the Charm Pack Churn Dash pattern that you can see here.   My blocks came out a bit smaller than the pattern said even using a scant 1/4" seam allowance... mine measured 17 3/4"... all those seams eat up a lot of fabric.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks...

I tried not to repeat a fabric in a block so they are all very scrappy. Now things were going together very nicely and I had cut the side triangles all oversized so I could trim them down when I had the top all together...and it wasn't until then that I noticed that somehow I had cut ALL those outside setting triangles with the bias running on the outer edges....arrghhhh....what was I thinking???  I should take them off and re-cut them....but I'm not gonna do it!!! Insert stompy foot... it lays pretty flat. I stay- stitched in about 1/8" all around the outside... and while there is a discrepancy in the measurements of the top and the bottom of the quilt, it does measure the same size through the center. I'm going to put the borders on and ease in the extra fabric and it should be flat enough.

It is going to hang on the back of the couch or be on my bed so if it isn't perfectly flat it will be okay. I just want  it done and I'd like it finished by the beginning of Fall which is September 22... heck I'll be putting my Fall decorations out by the beginning of September... I LOVE FALL!!! I've already picked up a couple of new decorations... a polka dot pumpkin and a cute wooden skeleton... and I'm sure there will be more goodies too.  Fall is my favorite time of year and my favorite decorating season.

So I'm running late for several of the Monday Design Wall linkups, but better late than never, right?
I'm linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, and Em's Scrapbag.

happy stitching-
carol fun