I Like/Love #40

Welcome to my 40th post of I Like/Love. I link up with many other grateful peeps at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1. I like my new logo!

 It took me long enough, but I finally spent a few hours on Looka, formerly Logojoy, and got 'er done.

DrEAMi #39

Welcome to another squirrel-chasing celebration. The above squirrel was made by Carol at Quilt Schmilt. Perfect! Chasing a squirrel that IS a squirrel. In these strange unsettling, and now crushingly heartbreaking times, with the horrific massacre in Nova Scotia, it's even more okay to just Drop Everything And Make it (something, anything) especially if it gives you joy. I don't know about you, but chasing squirrels, having a DrEAMi moment gives me nothing but joy and pleasure.

I stayed pretty much on task this month, surprisingly, but that's because I'd been so scattered in March. I did spend Friday following my nose and I have a sort of squirrel to show you...

Centred QAL - Construction: Block A

Yay! We get to start sewing this week. I don't know about you, but I rarely cut an entire quilt out; I just have to see what the block is going to look like, so I invariably start piecing and then cut as I go. So in a QAL, it's hard to have to wait isn't it? This week we are making Block A.

There are four of these modern quarter log cabin blocks.

Smooches 2

I dunno, these heart blocks are definitely addicting, and, like Smarties, you can't have/make just one. I knew I was going to make my next Smooches quilt in rainbow colours, with all cream backgrounds, and that it would go to a healthcare worker. I started making it when I was the guest blogger at Sarah's blog, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, as one of the tutorials she offers as potential comfort quilts for her Hands2Help comfort quilt drive.

Well, I made a few blocks when I was writing the tutorial for Smooches. They were easy to do, chain-piecing-wise when I was piecing Storm at Sea.

Smooches Tutorial

I made the original Smooches quilt as my entry for Project Quilting 11.3 Put a Heart On It. All along, I planned for this quilt to go to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre. For four years now, I have donated one or two quilts as part of my H2H commitment, specified for kids who, sadly, need to go there.

The quilt consists of twelve heart blocks that finish at 12", and four rectangles of background fabric. Sashing separates the blocks and rows, and there are just two borders, top and bottom. This is a great quilt to make use of scraps! It goes together in a snap, and with directions for nesting your seams, you will have lovely crisp points.

Q1FAL Results and Q2FAL Projections

This year the format is different for the Finish Along; it's all on Instagram. For the first quarter, I linked up the following projects at #2020falq1list:

Well, I didn't do so well. At all. Out of eight projects, I finished (clockwise from top left) three. And, I didn't even know about the rules for @finishalong on my finishes, so ha, no prizes for me.

Storm at Sea Finish

Finally, half a month late, my One Die Wonder Challenge for Island Batik is done!

Rather fitting to show a Storm at Sea quilt as we have been in a wet, gloppy snowstorm all day here, and it was snowing when I walked down to the lake edge for the photo shoot. So yes, there are a few white blurs on the photo, and now you know what they are! Yesterday was April, today is February. Springtime in Canada, eh?

Centred QAL: Cutting Instructions

Welcome to Step 2 of this year's QAL where we get to cut into our strips, or our yardage, if we haven't cut into it yet.

If you are here for the first time, you can find all the information you need on the Main Page. If you missed last week's yardage requirements, the link to that post is on the main page. As for prizes, there are ten sponsors for this year's quilt along: fabric, ezine, and patterns galore!

To do Tuesday and I Like/Love Thursday #39

Busy quilting up a storm (lol, didn't see this until I typed 'storm') on Storm at Sea quilt yesterday so I didn't get my Tuesday post written. How did I do last week? I had just three items and I'm happy to report all are complete!
1. Complete the Storm at Sea flimsy✅

Guest Blogger Appearance!

I am tickled, honoured, and pleased to announce that I am the guest blogger for today's slot on Confessons of a Fabric Addict. One of the obligations we have this year as ambassadors for Island Batik is to make two guest posts on big blogs, and I thought of Sarah, who has guests write posts on her blog on Sundays with a tutorial for a potential comfort quilt for Hands2 Help.

This was my entry for Project Quilting 11.3 challenge, Put a Heart On It. I planned all along to donate it to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre, destined, as I have done for four years now, sadly, wish it weren't so, for a kid. They just love getting my quilts, and the kids love them, and get to keep them.

Centred QAL - Fabric Requirements and Colouring Sheet

I am so pleased to hear how many are going to quilt along or seriously contemplating quilting along with me. Although it truly feels like hard work to make yourself do some 'normal' things in life, it really does help with the mental aspect of all of this, doesn't it? Whether I'm making myself write the posts, do the homework behind the scenes, or do my Island Batik work, or practice yoga, or teach yoga online, it is good for me as I, like most of us, struggle a bit (or a lot, may depend on the day or the hour) with finding some sort of balance. It's not the people part I am missing, which my family will find as a bit of a surprise because they thought Brady and I would have the most trouble, but we've both been coping well in that regard. It is the normalcy, the things I take for granted that I miss, like grocery shopping, just popping in to Shoppers to nab something, touching nothing outside of my home and yard, touching my face or itching my nose or my ear without freaking about it, and so on.  However, that's really, when I sit back and reread that, not much of a hardship. At. All. Think of those who are homeless. Those in refugee camps where an outbreak would be deadly. Those in extended care, or seniors' residences. Those who live in apartments and in order to go to a grocery store, or even to go just to pick up their online order like I did, have to go into an elevator or down flights of stairs, rather than drive in their 'bubble' of a vehicle and have it loaded into the truck bed... There... I'm good now.

Okay! I know there are a lot of peeps in QBL waiting for this post, so without further ado, here we go!

Storm at Sea March Challenge for Island Batik

Well, I have a flimsy. Finally! This is also going to be my OMG post. Yes, it is too late for the linky, but no matter, as I am declaring it the big goal for April regardless.
This morning it was literally hanging by a thread, well several, on my design wall. I usually put quilt tops together using the Book it! Method which you can find through that link. It keeps everything wonderfully in order, and order is essential in this complex pattern. Good grief; I did not realize that that is the first tutorial I wrote on this blog! January 6, 2014.

The swirly shot...

To Do Tuesday

I am linking up with Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us for this Make-a-List party. I thought about writing up this post yesterday but IRL stuff got in the way; let's just say that grocery shopping is at a whole other otherworldly dimension these days. It was the first time I've left the house since March 18; groceries prior to that were either dropped off on our doorstep from the little farm market across the road, or ordered online and a week later, picked up in the parking lot outside the store, no contact with anyone. And then. You get the groceries home and MacGyver unloads them, latex gloves on, into the garage, takes stuff that can be out of the packaging, brings it in in a bucket to me, where I either sanitize with Lysol wipes or for produce, put into a sink full of water and wash. Quite the process.

Which I know, all of you know and do as well. This will be the new normal for some time. On that online order we were shorted 20 items, quite a shock, like no lemon juice? Is it like toilet paper? Which I still do not get... So after I sent off four masks to Dayna on the other side of the river, (and let me tell you, sending that padded envelope was quite the process as well - all this 'new normal' of restrictions, and signage and STOP! and plexiglass and masks and lines to stay back behind is really unnerving and kind of undid me a bit I'll admit), anyhow, after I finished at the post office I cruised by the grocery store to see how busy it was, and it wasn't. I'd fooled myself into thinking meh, I probably won't go in; I'll just see how I feel. Well, in I went, mask on, latex gloves on.

Centred QAL Schedule and Sponsors

Welcome to the official kick-off of my fourth (wow) annual quilt along! I am so pleased you are here.

Please grab my button and post it on your blog or social media to spread the word. Here is the HTML code which you can paste onto your sidebar or into a blog post:

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Drag your mouse over the text in its entirety, including both the <   >, copy it, and paste it into your sidebar preferably, so your readers will always see it. Simply clicking it will bring them directly to this post for all the information. Thank you!

Now about that information...

Centred: Fourth Annual QAL Announcement

Welcome to my fourth annual quilt along at mmm quilts. You are on the Main Page for this quilt along, and I am so pleased you are here.

This has given me a bit of a shiver writing that title. Who knew back in February when I was playing around with quarter log cabin blocks and came up with this design, that we would be centred in our homes, both for work and for play, within another month? I named it Centred because I'd planned on using it to perch my sit bones on it when I teach yoga; when I am either teaching or doing yoga is where/when I feel centred. And also, the central block that appears to float above the other four is centred.