Not much to show from this weekend

Made a little progress on the next Sue Ross block of the month this weekend. Still have to applique it to the orange background fabric (not shown). Despite the complex look of the block, it was fairly easy to piece. The templates made cutting the pieces easy.

I realized I didn't have a picture of the finished Girlfriend's Galore top so I persuaded my husband to hold it up outside where I had a better chance of getting the whole thing in the picture. It was really windy, and this ended up being the best picture I could manage.

C'mon to my house

This weekend I made a few house blocks for Bumble Beans (see sidebar). It was fun digging through the scrap bin looking for pieces large enough for the different parts, that sort of went together colorwise and that had an animal on them. The animal wasn't a requirement, but I thought that made the blocks more fun.

I learned something in the process: I have more cow-themed fabrics in the scrap bin than other animals. (Not all the cows made it into the houses.) I'm not entirely sure what this says about me, but I didn't know it until yesterday.

Now I need to get them in the mail.

A foggy day in London town

sure beats all this snow in Chicago. Yesterday it was 65 F and sunny. Today it's snowing with 1 to 3 inches predicted. And besides the better weather (53 F in London compared to 35 in Chicago), London is where you can see the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibit "Quilts: 1700 - 2010" which opened today.

Bishops Court quilt, Unknown, 1690-1700,

Museum no. T.201-1984, copyright Victoria & Albert Museum

Wish I could go. Instead, I have to live vicariously through the Internet. I borrowed the picture above from the V&A website, and you can see more photos on these blogs: A Quilter's Journal and The Cotton Patch, which I found through Barbara Brackman's blog. I've been following the exhibit's progress via the blog of its curator, Sue Prichard.


Besides the fabulous antique quilts and the potentially-controversial modern quilts on display, the museum shop is offering 18 reproduction fabrics through a collaboration with Liberty Art Fabrics.

Speaking of Liberty, I'd planned a trip to Target today to see what their Liberty products were like, but I'm wondering if there'll be anything left in the store as I'm noticing lots of "out of stock" notes on the website. Do I brave the stormy weather to look at empty shelves or do I settle into the sewing room to celebrate National Quilting Day, which is today!

The National Quilting Association is offering a free project pattern to help you celebrate. I certainly have enough tops to quilt and UFOs to work on to keep me busy. Or I could start something new. No shortage of ways to celebrate!

A bright block for a dull weekend

This is about all I have to show for the weekend: Block 6 of the Sue Ross BOM. I really like it. Toying with the idea of making a whole quilt with this block. It wouldn't take many as the block finishes at 14 inches.

I made a back for my version of Girlfriends Galore, but opted not to take a picture of an 82 1/2" x 98" rectangle of solid green fabric. A beautiful green to be sure, but hardly worth a thousand words.

I'm not wearing any (long) underwear

Woo hoo! It's 41 degrees (5 Celsius) right now. If only it were sunny. But that was yesterday, and I hadn't finished this top so I couldn't snap a picture then. Please forgive the not right colors. Those orange stars are really red, and the yellow is much brighter.

I had planned to have this top done a couple months ago, but had to wait until the quilt shop got in a new shipment of the solid blue as I didn't have nearly enough. Just couldn't get inspired to do another setting for these stars after I'd drafted this one. I think it was worth the wait.

Last weekend I made backs for a couple quilts. Not exactly post-worthy sewing.