More than a Month!

It's been more than a month since I posted. In that time I have been in the sewing room a lot, but not quilting. I got the girls swimsuits done, and they turned out quite nice. Also I made myself 3 pairs of capris, a "square " shirt, and a t-shirt. And 2 pairs of shorts for RoseE (she still needs more) I still have piles of fabric and patterns and a need to get more clothes made. One day last week I decided I hade to do something "quilty" so I quilted and bound a charity quilt I have had sitting waiting for about 3 years or more.
It turned out nice, and I used fabric I had bought and rejected for bathroom curtains as a back....stash reduction is a good thing. If I just had time to practice more, I think I could get pretty good at quilting on my Viking Sapphire.

Although I haven't done much quilting I have received blocks from the "birthday" block swap, as May was assigned as my month. I requested 12" NYB blocks made of batiks. So far, from 6 of the 11 swappers, I have received 8 blocks. I'm not sure what I'll be doing with these. in retrospect, I should have specified a measurement for the placement of the final arcs so there would have been more consistency between blocks. As it is the final arc on one is actually the edge of the block, and a few is at 1/4 inch and will be the edge when the blocks are sewn together. On one block it is over 2 inches in from the block edge. I think about an inch in from the finished edge of the block would have been best on this size block. As with all the swaps I've done, I've learned for the future....but even with the "problems" they are a lovely bunch of blocks, aren't they?

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Yesterday I realized the end of the month is sneaking up on me and I hadn't yet done Kate's block for the "Birthday" swap. It is the last month of the year long swap, and time to wind it up. Kate requested blocks with a dimensional aspect. So last evening after I finished my t-shirt, I pulled out some fabrics and started ...and I finished. I paper pieced a ring of prairie point type triangles and then set the ring into a square of fabric. The center circle was machine appliqued and then I stitched around the outside of the ring to match. I thought about stitching the points of the triangles down on the seamlines with a bead, and even tried it on a couple, but decided to leave them loose. Kate might want to try stitching them. The look is different depending on where the point is placed when stitched. Anyway, I thought the block will travel across the pond better in a flatter state.
I took a cue from Kates's blog and took a picture of the block from a side angle to better show the dimensionality.
Once I got going on this it went together pretty fast. Less than 4 hours start to finish...including the designing period. It was lots of fun to try something so different. And now I need to get back to sewing clothes again. Maybe some day I'll take some pictures and have a style show here...