Week 1, Day 1 - Monday

Wow, I'm wondering whether I could post every day of these school holidays?  I'll see how it goes.

Before I "allowed" myself to play with any new projects, I decided I should get the applique bits cut and ironed down on my Month 8 Tillies Lane blocks.

I love using my scraps for this quilt... every little bit counts.  This piece was just about big enough for the three leaf shapes I wanted to cut.

It was sort of sitting on top of this pile of as yet unsorted scraps that I have been slowly working my way through sorting.  Emphasis on the slow!

And here are the teeny tiny bits cut...

And joined onto the rest of the picture.

I also created the 3 1/2" block - the bee.  Yeah, I had to read what the name of it was too.  Check out the newspaper print for the body... maybe it is a Spelling Bee!

And before I was allowed to even open the new package, I decided I needed to sort out my goals for the RSC blocks - Blue this month.

Laying out my existing blocks, I worked out where the blue blocks would sit best, and what black fabrics I needed to use, and wrote it down!  Then packed the blocks away again.

Then I found enough scraps big enough, cut and laid out the first block.  These units are cut 5 1/2".

While I was being so good doing responsible jobs, I laid out and pinned the quilt sandwich for the tiny bassinet quilt.

OK, I was ready to open the new package, and found a colour copy of the quilt to print out.

Opening and laying out the layer cake was fun... these fabrics remind me of those old floral sheets... a bit retro, which I kinda like.

They really represent a course in how to design a successful fabric range... a large all over print, with a slightly smaller all over print...

Supported by some small tone on tone geometric prints in feature colours...

And some slightly more zingy prints in a slightly larger scale.

And don't they all nicely go together?  I really, really like this block.  Do you look at blocks and instantly work out how much matching is involved?  I do.  This block is basically four 4 patches joined by sashing, sort of turning into a large 9 patch.  The only matching is the centre of the 4 patches... and then at the joins of the 9 patch.  I decided to swap out the little centre square for a black dot print.

And it goes together so neat and tidy on the back.  I opened the triangle seams, and pressed each two patch unit away from the half square triangle unit, then pressed the four patch centre seam open.  This gives good visibility for the successive piecing stages.  Then the seams are all pressed towards the sashing.

I'm already well onto block two...

Right, wonder what I'll get up to tomorrow?