What We've Been Doing........

It's been a weird week....lot's of litle things going on "outside the norm" but I thought I'd share some of my frustrations and accomplishments this week.

I've been working on the "Sew Red for Women" blocks.....this month's pattern was not as easily accomplished as last month.  The "interim" block directions didn't give "cut to" sizes, so I was constantly having to take things apart, remeasure, resew, unsew, and generally, I was pretty frustrated.  Here's the picture of what the block is supposed to look like when done:

I pulled some fabrics, mostly reds, not pinks, and started cutting per the directions.  Here's what my base looked like:

This doesn't look so bad, but I had to keep taking apart the small rectangles and cutting them to size before I added the white stripping......it would have been much easier if, before I added the red rectangles, the directions included a note that said:  cut to........

I sewed all the red/white half-square triangles together, but when I put them up against the white border, they were WAY too long.....going back to the directions, I then discovered that after I made my HSTs, I was supposed to cut them to 2 1/2-inch size.  It is sort of frustrating to finally find some cut-to-size directions after I'd spent so much time figuring it out on my own......I took apart the HST rows and they are waiting for my next "enthustiastic outburst" to complete this block.....a little frustrating....

But we did have some "winners" this week.  Guy did some great quilting on some lovely tops we got this week:

Here's the first one....Jeanne's Americana Sampler from McCall's last year:

Here's a detail of some of the quilting:

It's always such a pleasure to work on Jeanne's quilts; seams pressed, corners meet, colors are pleasing, and just all around great workmanship.

We also worked on Ruby's quilt....a very interesting applique....probably a modified "HoneyBee pattern."

He did a wonderful job on the individual motifs......

This was a very simple quilt, but we had a challenge maintaining the simplicity and highlighting the lovely little appliques...

Oh, and I finally got my "Shades of Grey" color study finished....kept pondering borders, thinking, thinking, then decided I was thinking WAY too much for a "get it done" exercise.....but while I was thinking, I found ONE darker gray stuck in with my Cherrywood fabrics.....it's down on the long-arm awaiting Guy's magic touch right now, but here's a sample of what it will look like:

OK, enough for now; more to share later, but I have to finish delivering some quilts to ladies and getting permission to show their lovely piecing work.  And, yes, I WILL finish my March Sew Red for Women block....just set it aside out of a bit of frustration.....does that ever happen to you?

Have a great week....the weather is beautiful here in Virginia......and, according to the National Weather Service, it's going to be pretty warm this spring.....

Kathy